The court session proceeded in a bizarre atmosphere. The officials were already accustomed to being oppressed by the trio led by Gao Qiu, so now that they were replaced by Fang Zhiyi, whose methods were even more ruthless, they naturally accepted it.
"Then I shall present today's affairs to His Majesty shortly..." Liang Nian'en looked toward Fang Zhiyi.
Fang Zhiyi suddenly stood up and coughed gently. The officials, who had been preparing to finish their shifts and go home, all fell silent, their eyes uniformly fixing on this living King of Hell.
"Um... I have an important matter to report."
The courtiers were dumbfounded. What the hell do you have to report? Couldn't you just go tell the emperor directly after court is dismissed?
Fang Zhiyi's gaze swept over these people, and he suddenly began calling out names.
"Is Li Gang present?"
The civil and military officials looked at each other in dismay.
After a moment, a minor official stepped out from the end of the ranks. Although trembling slightly, he still said, "Reporting to Your Excellency, Li Gang was transferred out of Bianjing by Cai Jing... He is currently in Lingnan..."
Fang Zhiyi was taken aback for a moment, but wild joy surged in his heart. Sure enough, this world where fiction and reality overlapped really had this person!
"Is Hu Shunzhi present?"
It was still that minor official, who had stabilized his emotions a bit by now: "Hu Shunzhi should be serving as a county magistrate in the northwest... He offended Tong Guan..."
"Is Chong Shidao present?"
"Chong Shidao claimed illness and returned home for retirement..."
"Wang Bing and She Kecun?"
"Reporting to Your Excellency, Wang Bing and She Kecun are currently serving in the army... I wonder what Your Excellency intends?" The minor official's eyes darted around quickly.
Fang Zhiyi became interested in him. "What is your name?"
"Reporting to Your Excellency! This humble official is named Qin Hui!"
Fang Zhiyi almost tripped. How could he have forgotten about this guy? But if Qin Hui was here, then that person... Wait. Fang Zhiyi looked at the obviously young Qin Hui; Yue Fei was probably still playing in the mud right now.
However, holding onto a sliver of hope, he asked again, "Do you know of Yue Fei?"
Qin Hui looked bewildered.
Fang Zhiyi sighed.
"Drag him down and behead him."
"Ah?" The entire court of civil and military officials was shocked. Even Liang Nian'en, standing above, was dumbfounded. Sir, do you just chop people's heads off like this?
"Your Excellency! What has this humble official done wrong?" Qin Hui's legs gave out instantly. He had previously tried to cling to Cai Jing and the others but never found a way in. Fortunately, a blessing in disguise occurred when Fang Zhiyi directly purged those three parasites. Thus, he had wanted to find an opportunity to approach Fang Zhiyi, but...
Fang Zhiyi scratched his head. "It is a bit against the rules, right? Then let's keep your head for now. I will arrange a task for you. If you do it well, you keep your head. If you fail, I will hang your dog head on the Bianjing city gate tower as a public warning!"
"Your Excellency, Your Excellency, just give the order!"
"Take a trip to the Liangshan Marsh... There is a group of bandits there who have claimed the mountain as kings. I do not care what method you use, but you must deliver a secret order of mine into their hands. Someone will tell you the details shortly."
"Yes, yes!"
Fang Zhiyi glanced at the officials. Very good. Not a single one of them dared to step forward and criticize his arrogance and domineering behavior. This was exactly the scene he wanted.
"Dismissed."
The officials retreated one after another, leaving only Qin Hui kneeling on the ground, shivering. He still could not figure out how he had offended this big shot.
"This is a bit crazy... If I do not take action and wait for Qin Hui to develop, then Cai Jing, Tong Guan, Gao Qiu, and Qin Hui will be competing on the same stage. The Northern Song Dynasty would definitely be doomed."
"This is just the beginning. You cannot even imagine the complexity of the macro world... I cannot either." Little Hei lowered his voice for the latter half of the sentence.
That very day, dozens of fast horses from the Imperial City Department galloped out from the four city gates of Bianjing, carrying the emperor's decree stamped with the imperial seal toward their destinations.
Among them, Qin Hui's face was full of despair, but looking at the several Imperial City Department hounds closely following him, he could only close his eyes in pain. "I have to risk it all!"
Fang Zhiyi stood on the city tower with his hands behind his back, watching the direction where Qin Hui disappeared. A trusted aide beside him said, "Your Excellency, he is but an unranked minor official. Letting him handle such a major matter... isn't it too rash?"
Fang Zhiyi did not look at him, but said leisurely, "You do not understand him. This kind of person has no bottom line. For high position and generous salary, if you told him to kill his own father, he would dare to do it... Sometimes, it is exactly this kind of person who can get things done."
The trusted aide nodded.
"Notify the hidden spies planted in various regions to fully cooperate with this operation, regardless of the cost."
"Yes!"
Shao Jiang had finally achieved his wish and sat in that position. Song Jiang's faction had ultimately lost in this struggle, but he could not simply slaughter them all. He merely forced them down the mountain. Now, he was only one step away from raising an army, and that was to absorb the neutral factions.
However, people like Lu Junyi refused to yield to either the carrot or the stick, which was quite troublesome.
Shao Jiang flipped through the items provided by the system but delayed making a selection. The road ahead was still long. If he exchanged items now... it might not be appropriate. Thinking of this, his eyes turned cold.
No matter what, he was now the lord of Liangshan. If Lu Junyi and the others refused to obey his military orders, the worst-case scenario would just be another bloody internal clash!
Meanwhile, Song Jiang and the others, who had been forced to leave Liangshan, were still feeling indignant when they were suddenly surrounded by strongmen lying in ambush on both sides of the road.
Song Jiang even wanted to announce his name. After all, he had taken quite a bit of advantage of his title as the Timely Rain, and had even managed to become a bandit king... It was just that his dream shattered a bit too quickly. Thinking of that guy Shao Jiang, his face was full of resentment.
"I am Song Jiang of Yuncheng! Song Sanlang!"
"Song Jiang is exactly who we are catching! Brothers! Pin him down!"
Song Jiang was somewhat surprised. There was actually someone specially waiting to capture him so close to Liangshan? Could it be people arranged by Shao Jiang? He was about to call his brothers to resist when he suddenly saw the leader opposite him flash a gold medal in his hand.
That was someone from the imperial court?
"Stop! Everyone stop!" Song Jiang stepped forward with a face full of flattery, "Sirs, big brothers, I have already agreed with the officials on the amnesty matters... Look..."
"Cut the crap! Save your words for the Imperial City Department!" The man showed absolutely no respect, waving his hand for his subordinates to tie up the entire group and take them away.
This conflict came quickly and ended quickly, not even alarming the scouts of Liangshan.
A few days later, a pale-faced man claimed he wanted to join Liangshan. Seeing how pitiful he was, constantly kneeling and begging, the minor bandit in charge of reception softened his heart and let him into Liangshan.
Fang Zhiyi was currently draped in a coat, his finger sliding across names one by one.
"Guan Sheng... pull this person out... let him be restored to his original post."
"Dong Ping... the same goes for this guy."
"Thunderbolt Qin Ming and Huyan Zhuo did not go down the mountain?"
"Reporting to Your Excellency, they were not among those who followed Song Jiang down the mountain."
"Then we will have to see if that bastard Qin Hui can handle his task properly."
"Your Excellency, is the plan to let Guan Sheng and the others lead troops to attack Liangshan?"
"Attack my ass. Have them serve under Chong Shidao's command! Tell them that this time, it is to resist the Jin!"
"Yes!"
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.
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."
orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
