Ren Tianye couldn’t be certain and instinctively looked toward Su Jin.
Su Jin, sharp-eyed and clear-headed, also noticed the anomaly and gave him an almost imperceptible nod.
Only then did Ren Tianye understand.
Oh, very well.
A mere city lord of Source City dared to play tricks right before his eyes?
Since that was the case, he would indulge him.
He immediately spoke in a cold voice: “Hu Shaoyou, as a court official tasked with guarding his domain, failed to serve the imperial court and instead dared to harbor a fugitive wanted by the authorities!”
“And when the imperial decree arrived, he even raised troops in rebellion!”
“For such grave crimes, how can it be settled with mere compensation?”
He paused, then shouted: “Zhang Shi! Reckless!”
“Your subordinate is here!”
“Your general is here!”
“Set up firewood outside the mansion, soak it with oil, and light a great blaze…” Ren Tianye said, glancing at Hu Shaoyou’s corpse, “and throw his body onto it.”
“I will burn him to ashes!”
“So that all rebels under heaven may see what happens to those who defy the court!”
“Yes!”
“Yes, Lord Duke!”
Zhang Shi and Wang Ming immediately went to carry out the order.
The guards moved to drag Hu Shaoyou’s body away.
At that moment, Hu Shaoyou’s parents could no longer stay calm. They fell to their knees with a thud, knocking their heads against the ground like pestles, pleading in every way possible.
“Lord Duke, even if Shaoyou committed great wrongs, he is already dead. Please spare his body and leave him whole, we beg you, Lord Duke!”
“Lord Duke, the dead should be honored above all. Though Shaoyou had countless faults in life, he has paid with his life. Please don’t burn him. Let us take him back for burial. Rest assured, Lord Duke, whatever Shaoyou emptied from Source City’s treasury, our daughter-in-law will repay. Every coin will be repaid, not a single copper lacking!”
Ren Tianye was about to have the guards interrogate the parents as well, when Gu Qing also kowtowed three times and pleaded for Hu Shaoyou.
“Lord Duke, Shaoyou acted stubbornly and opposed the court. He deserved death for his crimes. But he is already dead and has paid with his life. I beg you to spare his remains. I am willing to devote my whole life and repay you tenfold.”
“Please show mercy, Lord Duke!”
As Gu Qing spoke, fear churned in her heart. Vividly, the rumors about Lord Duke Ren Tianye surfaced in her mind.
She knew clearly that her words might not move him.
Desperate, like a person grasping at straws in a dying moment, she cried out again: “Lord Duke, I am not speaking recklessly. I can truly deliver on this promise. Tenfold, I swear it will be tenfold.”
“Near Cloud Capital, there is a crop called sweet potato, with astonishing yields. I introduced it and, after generations of cultivation, have stabilized its production, yielding abundant harvests.”
“This crop is not as refined as rice or flour, but it produces a great quantity and can sustain countless lives.”
“I have mastered its secrets. If you grant me some time, Lord Duke, I will ensure it is sold throughout the land, earning you vast sums of money.”
“I speak nothing but the truth. I beg you to spare my husband’s body.”
Gu Qing clung to this hope like a drowning person, praying that Ren Tianye would value her sincerity and grant her a chance.
To her surprise, Ren Tianye’s eyes suddenly gleamed, though his expression remained calm and steady. He said flatly: “What did you say?”
“Sweet potatoes?”
“What is that?”
“Hmph, I am well-traveled and knowledgeable, yet I have never heard of any crop with such high yields.”
These words made Gu Qing see a sliver of hope. She quickly said: “It’s true, Lord Duke, such a crop exists. It came from Cloud Capital and has already spread in this area.”
“But my family’s yield is the most stable, with the largest and sweetest fruit. It can certainly replace military rations.”
As she spoke, she remembered a sample on the desk. She started to rise halfway but knelt again, pointing to a nearby spot: “Lord Duke, those things over there. You will see for yourself.”
Ren Tianye’s gaze followed her gesture, and his body trembled almost imperceptibly. When the guards brought the item and placed it in his hand, a surge of joy flooded his heart.
Sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes…
By all the gods, it’s real!
It’s truly the sweet potato!
This was a life-saving miracle in times of chaos!
Its yield was several times that of ordinary millet or rice. It required no pickiness about soil or terrain, and could be eaten raw or cooked.
If this sweet potato were widely promoted, it could save countless lives without exaggeration.
But the sweet potato did not originate from the Central Plains. While in the capital, he had sent people to search for it and even asked many Southern Sea merchants, all without success.
Now…
It existed near Cloud Capital!
And this Gu Qing, right before him, had mastered the technique!
Looking at Gu Qing again, Ren Tianye no longer saw just a person.
He saw a treasure!
A treasure he must obtain!
His face remained impassive as he asked: “Is this crop truly as miraculous as you claim?”
“It is, it absolutely is!” Gu Qing, sensing an opening, quickly added: “The sweet potato has been planted extensively in my Gu family’s fields and estates. Both the yield and the fruit are exceptional.”
“Lord Duke, if you but nod, I will devote my whole life, spare no effort, work tirelessly, to nurture the sweet potato for you, sell it across the country, and help your army become even mightier!”
A hint of a smile crept onto Ren Tianye’s face.
Oh, very well.
Such sincerity, he really had to reward her.
Reward her with a living, breathing husband!
Though, he wondered if she would accept it when the time came?
He turned slightly, about to signal Su Jin, but before he could move, Su Jin had already stepped past him. She crouched down, supporting Gu Qing, her face full of pity.
“As a fellow woman, I truly admire you. For your husband, you would sacrifice your entire future, endure toil and hardship, and try to mend the disaster he caused, but alas, this husband of yours…”
“Why didn’t he cherish you?”
“Why did he have to do such things?”
“Why oppose the court?”
“Leaving you to such a fate. He, he… is truly too much…”
Su Jin grew more agitated as she spoke. She stood up, and before anyone could react, “Slap, slap!” gave two sharp blows to Hu Shaoyou’s “corpse” — one on each cheek.
The sound was crisp and clear!
Hu Shaoyou’s deathly gray face faintly showed traces of redness.
But Hu Shaoyou remained lifeless, without the slightest movement.
Hmm?
He could endure this?
Then Su Jin’s cries grew even more bitter and loud. Her jade-like hands rained down blow after blow, slap after slap, smacking away!
Between sobs, she scolded:
“How could you die so easily? Are you not betraying Sister Gu Qing?”
“Does your conscience not ache?”
“How could you go and die, leaving Sister Gu Qing to suffer such a lonely widowhood? Are you even a man?”
…
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
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."
e vast world of cultivation, where he becomes the master of the Heavenly Ruins Sacred Hall, a dying old man with barely a tenth of his former cultivation remaining. He is immediately confronted with a deadly crisis: his subordinates have rebelled, and his protectors are forcing him to abdicate. At the critical moment, the system descends from the heavens: [Ding! The host has been detected facing a life-or-death crisis. The system is now officially activated!] [As a gift, you have received the Supreme Beginner’s Pack and awakened the ultimate cheat: ten thousand years of pure cultivation essence every second!] Yin Tianjue: “Wait… ten thousand years of cultivation every second? That’s six hundred thousand years a minute, and in one day… I can’t even calculate it. Either way, I’m already invincible!” You’re a peerless prodigy rarely seen in ten thousand years? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re an undying ancestor who has guarded a sacred land for countless ages? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re the strongest chosen one, blessed with heaven-defying destiny? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. From this day forth, I have only one thing to say: “I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. Now, how exactly are you supposed to deal with that?”
