Luo Zhao's cold and clear voice drifted out from the discussion hall.
Cui Shifan adjusted his attire, took a deep breath, and stepped into the hall. He stepped forward and bowed according to etiquette:
"Your Highness."
Luo Zhao raised her hand slightly, gesturing to a nearby seat. "Sit."
"Thank you, Your Highness."
Having received permission, Cui Shifan sat down cautiously, resting only half of his bottom on the chair to maintain a respectful and attentive posture.
Before he even settled, Luo Zhao took the initiative to ask:
"Pavilion Elder Cui, you have been serving as the Secondary Minister of the Grand Secretariat for over ten years now, haven't you?"
Cui Shifan immediately stood up, bowed toward Luo Zhao again, and sighed with emotion:
"To reply to Your Highness, thanks to His Majesty's boundless grace and trust in this old minister's meager talents, I have been honored to hold the position of Secondary Minister."
"This old minister has not dared to slack off in the slightest, working tirelessly day and night with the utmost caution, terrified of failing the imperial grace."
"Calculating carefully, to this day... it has been exactly eleven years and three months."
By stating the precise time, he was both displaying his loyalty and diligence, and hinting at his veteran seniority.
Luo Zhao remained noncommittal, merely raising her hand again to gesture. "Pavilion Elder Cui need not be so polite. Please sit."
Cui Shifan then sat back down, though his heart grew even more vigilant.
Luo Zhao abruptly changed the subject, asking a question that made Cui Shifan's heart skip a beat:
"Are Junior Preceptor Gu and your esteemed daughter... on good terms?"
Cui Shifan frowned slightly.
This question... why did it sound so strange?
Given Her Highness's status, why would she suddenly care about the private relationship between a minister and his daughter?
No!
Cui Shifan instantly grew alert.
What Her Highness cared about could absolutely not be a trivial matter like romantic feelings!
Her underlying meaning was asking about the relationship between the Crown Prince's Palace, represented by Gu Chengyin, and the Cui Clan, represented by Cui Zilu!
And whether this relationship was good, and exactly how good it was, entirely depended on his next answer.
This directly tied to Her Highness's subsequent attitude toward him.
What formidable rhetoric! So casually spoken, yet it struck right at the core!
Gu Chengyin, you... have you actually trained Her Highness to such a level?
Cui Shifan pondered for a long moment, his mind rapidly weighing his phrasing.
Ultimately, he chose an expression that seemed tactful but contained profound implications:
"Your Highness is perceptive. My young daughter is mischievous and restless. Her actions are often rash and abrupt, giving this old minister quite a headache."
"Junior Preceptor Gu is broad-minded and magnanimous. He has been quite tolerant and understanding of my daughter's many rash actions, never holding them against her. For this, I am deeply grateful."
He did not directly answer whether they were on good terms, but instead focused on Cui Zilu being rash and Gu Chengyin being accommodating.
This both acknowledged their interaction and cleverly placed the Cui Clan in a position that required accommodation.
After listening, Luo Zhao merely shot a faint glance at Cui Shifan.
Her phoenix eyes were as placid as an ancient well, as if she had not understood the hidden meaning in his words at all.
But Cui Shifan knew that with Gu Chengyin's coaching, there was no way Luo Zhao hadn't grasped it.
Luo Zhao did not offer any evaluation. Instead, she tilted her head slightly toward the door and called out:
"Yunying."
Shangguan Yunying, who had been waiting outside the door, pushed open the ajar hall doors the moment the words fell and walked in briskly.
Holding a neatly bound stack of documents in her hands, she walked straight to Luo Zhao's side without looking sideways and presented them with both hands.
Luo Zhao took the documents, weighed them in her hand, and looked at Cui Shifan as she said:
"Pavilion Elder Cui, although Gu Chengyin is temporarily trapped in the Bureau of Clean Officials, the things that must be done will not stop because of it."
She waved the documents in her hand. "These items were personally handed to me by Gu Chengyin."
"Among them is the key to changing my royal father's attitude."
Cui Shifan's gaze was involuntarily drawn to the stack of documents, his breathing stalling for a moment.
Luo Zhao continued, "The original plan was that after Gu Chengyin came out of the Grand Secretariat, he would enter the palace with me to seek an audience with my royal father and present this."
She paused and let out a short, cold laugh. "But now, I can only go by myself."
"Therefore, Pavilion Elder Cui."
"There is only one chance."
As her words fell, Luo Zhao flicked her wrist, tossing the documents onto the table in front of her.
Smack.
The documents lay quietly, just inches away from Cui Shifan.
There was no writing on the cover, but it exuded an invisible temptation and a heavy pressure.
Cui Shifan's pupils contracted, his heartbeat quickening involuntarily.
He stared intently at the stack of documents, his hands subconsciously clenching inside his sleeves.
Did he not want to look at it?
No.
He wanted to look at it far too much!
But he didn't dare.
Reason frantically rang alarm bells in his mind: Do not touch it!
Once he reached out to take it and flip through it, it would mean the Cui Clan had fully boarded her ship, leaving absolutely no way to retreat.
This stack of documents was bait, and also a pledge of allegiance.
Fine beads of sweat seeped from Cui Shifan's forehead.
He kept his eyes glued to the documents on the table, a fierce internal struggle waging within him.
The future of the Cui Clan, his personal official career, His Majesty's attitude, Gu Chengyin's potential, and Luo Zhao's performance... countless thoughts collided in his mind.
Time seemed to freeze in this moment.
Luo Zhao did not rush him. She merely sat at ease in the seat of honor, calmly watching Cui Shifan struggle and hesitate.
At this time, her mind was also thinking rapidly.
If Gu Chengyin were here, facing the indecision of an old fox like Cui Shifan, what would he do?
That bastard man was best at seeing through people's hearts, seizing their weaknesses, and using the simplest and most direct methods to pry open the strongest defenses.
So he would...
Luo Zhao suddenly remembered the words Gu Chengyin had said when dividing the proportion of the pie for the Cui Clan.
"Pavilion Elder Cui."
Cui Shifan subconsciously raised his head and looked at Luo Zhao.
Then, he saw Luo Zhao, sitting upright in the seat of honor, slowly raise her right hand.
That hand had slender fingers, as white as jade.
Luo Zhao held her palm up, the back of her hand facing Cui Shifan, her five fingers slightly spread apart.
A profoundly meaningful expression surfaced on her face.
"When Junior Preceptor Gu left, he told me..."
"He gave this to you all."
"Logically speaking."
Luo Zhao's gaze grew increasingly profound. "This fifth Pavilion Elder seat should belong to me."
"It's just..."
Luo Zhao gently shook her head, speaking with great pity, "Biting off more than one can chew is never good."
She looked at Cui Shifan's face, which was gradually turning stiff and shocked, and said casually:
"Since you don't want it, Pavilion Elder Cui."
"Then I will just have to give it to..."
Smack!
Before Luo Zhao's words could fall, Cui Shifan, who had been sitting stiffly in his chair, reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
With an agility completely unfitting for his age, he lunged forward abruptly.
The next second, he snatched the documents off the table straight into his hands.
Cui Shifan took a deep breath, his voice incomparably resolute as he said:
"Your Highness! How can such crucial evidence, which concerns the imperial court's finances and the integrity of officialdom, be easily given to others?"
"As the Secondary Minister of the Grand Secretariat, this old minister is duty-bound and cannot shirk the responsibility!"
"I am willing to enter the palace with Your Highness and seek an audience with His Majesty together!"
e, Immortal Body, Transmigration, System, Progression Fantasy, Academy Setting, Third-Person Perspective. Alternate Title: Transmigrating into a High Martial World and Reading Live Comments. Bad news: I transmigrated. This is a terrifying high-martial world, and my original, pathetically weak body fell into a coma and never woke up. Good news: I got a Popularity Points system upon arrival. I can see live comments and even create an unkillable alternate identity. Starting out, the alternate identity has all stats at 1. The system tells me that to grow stronger, I must participate in the plot, gain popularity points to allocate stats and grow stronger, and ultimately awaken my original body. And so, carrying my original body on my back, I officially entered Huaqing Academy, where the story's protagonist resides. From that moment on, Chen Guan kicked the original plot to pieces. Live Comments: [Doesn't anyone find this mysterious coffin guy creepy? He can summon indescribable grey misty hands.] [Is this guy a hero or a villain? What kind of onion became a spirit?] [By the way, does anyone know who's in the coffin? Shouldn't the debt for saving his life be repaid by now?] [According to unofficial histories, the person in the coffin was Chen Guan's first love. Their love was once passionate and earth-shattering, but they were separated by life and death due to worldly circumstances. What a star-crossed pair.] ... Years later, the world knew of a demon god born from a coffin, shrouded in grey mist, impossible to gaze upon directly. His foremost divine emissary often wielded a scythe, reaping lives like the god of death. As war approached, facing former friends and a boundless sea of enemies, Chen Guan merely raised his scythe. "Would you like to dance as well?"
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
transmigrates into the role of a villainous rich second-generation kid in an urban fantasy novel, and gets bound to a god-tier choice system. Right at the start, he catches the female lead stealing exam papers! This triggers the villain's choice options! [Choice 1: Pretend you didn't see anything] [Choice 2: Loudly call her out, drawing everyone's attention] [Choice 3: ...] And thus, a twisted villain is born. To avoid getting killed by the protagonist, he has no choice but to take down all the protagonists first. Jiang Che: Nobody understands being twisted better than me!
