Fang Zhiyi looked at her aggrieved expression, then turned to the other courtiers: "What do you all think?"
The crowd remained silent. Since the Emperor had already made his stance clear, who would dare to say anything else?
However, one person did step forward.
The Right Chancellor cupped his hands in a salute: "Your Majesty, this old minister believes it is feasible. Rather than grounding the Crown Prince to reflect on his mistakes, it would be better to let him experience the outside world more. Only then can he shoulder great responsibilities in the future."
Fang Zhiyi raised an eyebrow. He wasn't surprised. Although this old man disliked Xu Jiao and the Xu family, he was the Crown Prince's tutor. It was only natural for him to speak up for the Crown Prince now.
"Very well, then we shall proceed according to... Xu Jiao's petition." He took a sharp turn, pushing the credit onto Xu Jiao.
Xu Jiao was instantly overjoyed. She had saved her Crown Prince brother! He would definitely be moved to tears of gratitude and pledge his life to her, right?
Hearing this sentence, the Right Chancellor almost slipped and fell to his death on the spot. Fortunately, someone beside him caught him.
He glared viciously at Xu Jiao.
Not to be outdone, Xu Jiao made a funny face at him.
Fang Zhiyi continued to act as if he saw nothing.
The Crown Prince set off for disaster relief just as the plot dictated. However, an imperial decree departed along with him. The person carrying the decree traveled much faster than the Crown Prince's entourage, ensuring the decree reached Guo Hongru one step ahead of the Crown Prince.
Guo Hongru looked at the eunuch's cryptic expression, then carefully read the secret decree in his hands, his brows furrowed tightly.
What was His Majesty planning?
Whatever it was, he would just follow His Majesty's orders!
When Crown Prince Fang Jingqi arrived, the sight before him shocked him, as he had never left the capital before. Countless ragged refugees were crammed outside the city. Trembling elderly people were shoved aside, children wailed from hunger, and ferocious guards at the city gates aggressively drove away the refugees trying to enter.
"Stop!" Fang Jingqi was so furious his lungs were about to burst.
The ensuing plot played out exactly as before, with the only difference being the presence of Guo Hongru in the city. As Fang Jingqi entered the city, the first to welcome him was Guo Hongru, who hadn't even had time to straighten his clothes. Looking at this man's face full of fawning smiles, Fang Jingqi inexplicably recalled Xu Jiao's complaints and couldn't help but snort. Sister Jiao'er had said it herself: this guy was not a good person.
Guo Hongru had arrived here earlier and had already begun disaster relief efforts. However, having received the imperial decree, he immediately handed over all his authority to Fang Jingqi the moment the Crown Prince arrived.
Seeing Guo Hongru relinquish his power so readily, Fang Jingqi was a bit baffled. But since his mind was solely focused on disaster relief, he didn't pay it too much heed.
First, the embezzlement of the imperial disaster relief grain was uncovered. In a fit of rage, Fang Jingqi ran the local prefect through with his sword and ordered a thorough investigation. This drastic action left officials of all levels in the city terrified, instantly disrupting the previously prepared disaster relief procedures.
As the implicated officials were imprisoned one by one, Guo Hongru finally spoke up.
"Your Highness, if we do not commence disaster relief immediately, I fear the refugees will not be able to hold on..."
Fang Jingqi didn't want to waste breath on him. In his eyes, Guo Hongru was likely just as corrupt; once he returned to the capital, he would definitely impeach him! However, what Guo Hongru said made sense. Almost all the local officials had been arrested by his royal guards, yet the refugees were still being blocked outside the city by the garrison soldiers.
"Disaster relief? How do we provide relief?" he asked furiously.
Guo Hongru rubbed his hands together: "In this humble official's opinion, we might as well make do by boiling porridge with that stale rice mixed with chaff..."
Fang Jingqi slammed his hand on the table: "Are you even human? Is that stuff fit for human consumption?"
Startled by his sudden outburst, Guo Hongru had a faint look of pity in his eyes. He could only lower his head: "This humble official is foolish..."
Fang Jingqi paced back and forth a couple of times before suddenly remembering something.
"Pass down my order! Open the city gates and let the refugees in!"
"Your Highness, you mustn't!" Guo Hongru panicked slightly.
"Bastard! Are you the Crown Prince or am I? Are we just going to let the refugees starve to death outside? Open the gates!"
Guo Hongru secretly shook his head.
Thus, the Crown Prince left an indelible mark on the history of the Wu Dynasty.
In the twenty-eighth year of Wuyuan, tens of thousands of refugees flooded into Jizhou City. However, due to the lack of guidance, the starving refugees began to loot the grain shops. The chaos gradually escalated, dragging many of the city's residents into the turmoil as well. Jizhou's granaries were stormed by the refugees, and the hoarded grain was carried away.
The situation unfolded so rapidly that there was no time to react. All Guo Hongru could do was sigh heavily.
Fang Jingqi was utterly dumbfounded. He practically rushed out onto the streets, attempting to stop the rioting refugees. Little did he know that the red-eyed, desperate refugees couldn't care less about who he was at this point. If he hadn't been accompanied by his guards, he likely would have been trampled to death.
Looting crowds, screaming women, and crying children were everywhere.
Guo Hongru sighed: "Letting starving, desperate refugees into the city without any officials to direct and coordinate them... Alas..."
Fortunately, the chaos did not cause an overly catastrophic impact. A combat-ready army that "coincidentally" passed by noticed the anomaly in the city and swiftly moved in to control the situation.
At this point, Guo Hongru stepped forward. First, he took it upon himself to release some low-ranking officials. These petty clerks had merely distributed a few pecks of rice, yet they had also been imprisoned by the enraged Crown Prince.
Having received Lord Guo's promise, they immediately sprang into action to save their own lives. Soon, the situation in the city improved, and the refugees began receiving their rations in an orderly manner. However, Fang Jingqi now had a massive headache. He was surrounded by dozens of local grain merchants demanding an explanation. They were all honest businessmen who had previously received a government notice forbidding them from raising prices to exploit the crisis. Who could have expected the Crown Prince to allow the refugees to loot their grain?
Even worse than that, the granaries had been almost entirely emptied.
Just a few days later, someone else arrived with more disaster relief grain, finally bringing the catastrophe to a complete halt.
Back at the imperial court, the atmosphere remained eerie.
The only active thing was Xu Jiao's inner voice. She constantly roasted the various ministers. Some people had also noticed that her complaints almost entirely revolved around their appearances. She praised the handsome ones non-stop, while in her mind, not a single one of the old men was a good person.
Fortunately, the Emperor couldn't hear her.
Xu Jiao also seemed to feel that merely complaining in her head wasn't satisfying enough. However, she remembered her father's parting words—she absolutely must not cause trouble for the family—so she forcefully held herself back.
But Fang Zhiyi was just waiting for her to perform. He had deliberately sent her father away, sent the Crown Prince away, and even granted her an official position. As a result, Xu Jiao's inner thoughts became completely unbridled.
"This Junior Minister of Revenue is quite bold, actually instructing his distant nephew to smuggle salt and tea. I really want to jump out and impeach him... What should I do?"
When she once again explicitly targeted a specific person, those with quick minds began to act.
The court was already divided into numerous factions. Some realized this was an opportunity. Never mind whether this Xu Jiao was a demoness or not; as long as she could provide intelligence, that was enough!
"Your Majesty! This subject has a petition to present!" The Junior Minister of Personnel strode forward, even casting a smug glance at the Junior Minister of Revenue, Cao Wenrui. "This subject impeaches the Junior Minister of Revenue, Cao Wenrui, for indulging his relatives in smuggling salt and iron!"
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
villain is the number one simp for the book's leading female protagonist, Shen Wan'er. As expected, he later becomes a tool for the main character to show off and slap faces, ultimately meeting a tragic end with his family ruined and his life in shambles. Fortunately, he awakens the [Universal Pure Love System], which allows him to earn points by performing acts of pure love. To change his fate, Gu Yan makes a decisive choice to seek warmth and companionship with the book's biggest villain—Cold Qingqiu. ........... My name is Leng Qingqiu. To find the murderer who killed my parents years ago, I deliberately blinded myself so that everyone would lower their guard around me. Just as I was secretly accumulating power and capital according to my initial plan, a man walked into my world. "Lengleng, Qingqing, Qiuqiu, which nickname do you prefer?" I don't like any of them. You'd better leave quickly! "Why aren't you saying anything? How about I call you my baby wife?" Leng Qingqiu thinks to herself, this man is truly annoying! (Stubborn pure love warrior + single female lead + true pure love + 1v1)
