As the words faded, a brief silence descended upon the bedchamber.
Both Luo Zhao and Shangguan Yunying understood that the eunuch faction was a pool of water just as murky and deep as the imperial court.
Just as Gu Chengyin stood up and prepared to cup his hands in farewell, Luo Zhao suddenly called out to stop him.
"Wait."
Gu Chengyin paused his steps and looked at Luo Zhao.
He watched as Luo Zhao reached out and felt around among the scattered documents and makeup boxes on the dressing table.
She picked up an ancient-looking token about the size of a palm.
The token was made of neither gold nor jade, but a dark, profound black. On its back was a lifelike relief of a spreading profound bird, surrounding a simple and ancient character 'Zhao'.
Its edges were inlaid with fine gold threads, flowing with a restrained yet noble light under the morning sun.
Seeing this token, Shangguan Yunying involuntarily widened her eyes.
The Crown Heir Token!
The one who holds this token has their will regarded as the will of the Crown Heir themselves, possessing tremendous authority to make on-the-spot decisions and immense deterrence.
As if she did not see Shangguan Yunying's surprise, Luo Zhao calmly handed the Crown Heir Token to Gu Chengyin.
"This is the Crown Heir Token. Take it; it is as if I am there in person."
"The internal relationships within the eunuch faction are complex and intertwined, and Lyu Fang is even more unfathomable."
"If there is a sudden situation, you can use this token to act as you see fit. At the same time, this is also a specially made Luoshan Token; you can use it to directly contact me and Yunying."
Gu Chengyin accepted the token and carefully tucked it into his robes.
"Thank you for your trust, Your Highness."
Gu Chengyin bowed profoundly. "I will definitely not fail Your Highness's commission."
Luo Zhao nodded and said no more.
Gu Chengyin turned around and walked out of the bedchamber with steady steps.
Watching Gu Chengyin's figure disappear at the end of the corridor, the calmness on Luo Zhao's face quickly faded, replaced by a heavy solemnity.
She turned around and looked at Shangguan Yunying, a sharp glint reappearing in her phoenix eyes.
"Yunying."
"Your subordinate is here!"
"Although Marquis Gu has taken up this matter, we cannot slack off in the slightest."
Luo Zhao's gaze swept over the spread-out documents. "Immediately summon all the female officials, including those who are on leave or handling secondary matters."
"Gather them all under the guise of 'verifying the old accounts of the Internal Affairs Department and organizing the archives'."
She spoke quickly, her thoughts clear. "Remember, secrecy is the top priority. All participating female officials must make a blood oath not to leak a single word."
"The verification process must be conducted in a closed environment with strict access control. All waste paper and scraps must be burned."
Shangguan Yunying's expression turned stern, and she quickly noted it down. "Yes, Your Highness! I will do it immediately!"
Luo Zhao nodded slightly, but then her brows furrowed again. "There is one more thing... the daily guarding and patrolling of the Crown Heir Palace..."
She paused, clearly realizing the dilemma of personnel allocation. "There are many eyes and ears in the palace. If the defensive strength of the Crown Heir Palace is noticeably weakened, I am afraid it will arouse unnecessary suspicion and prying."
Shangguan Yunying also looked troubled, unable to think of a perfect solution for the moment.
Luo Zhao pondered for a moment, a flash of determination in her eyes.
She slowly raised her head, looked at Shangguan Yunying, and issued a new order.
"Yunying, the matter of summoning the female officials to verify the accounts will proceed as planned, but there is no need to assign all the female officials to it."
"First, gather the female officials who currently have no urgent matters on hand. You will personally lead them and begin the preliminary work."
"As for the daily guarding of the Crown Heir Palace..." Luo Zhao's voice paused, then she spoke clearly, "Maintain the status quo for now. At the same time, take my hand-written order."
She walked to the desk, quickly wrote a brief edict, stamped it with her personal seal, and handed it to Shangguan Yunying.
"Make a trip to the Golden Feather Guard camp outside the city."
Shangguan Yunying took the edict, a glimmer of understanding flashing in her eyes.
"Give it to Xue Tian." Luo Zhao looked at Shangguan Yunying and said word by word, "Tell him to come see me."
Shangguan Yunying bowed and replied, "Yes! I will go handle it right away!"
......
Gu Chengyin came out of the Crown Heir Palace and got into a horse carriage, his destination pointing straight to the Inner Court of the Imperial Palace.
The carriage drove smoothly along the palace roads.
It eventually stopped outside a certain palace gate.
Just as Gu Chengyin stepped off the carriage, before he even had time to take in his surroundings, a young eunuch dressed in light cyan eunuch robes, with clever and expressive eyes, walked up to him with a smile, looking as if he had been waiting for a long time.
Wearing a perfectly measured respectful smile, he stopped about three steps away from Gu Chengyin, bowed, and said in a crisp voice:
"This little slave greets the Marquis of Bingjian."
The moment he opened his mouth, he used the exact noble title, showing he was clearly well-informed.
Gu Chengyin asked in confusion, "You are?"
The young eunuch straightened up, his smile unchanging, and said respectfully, "Lord Marquis, this little slave was ordered by Eunuch Lyu Fang to specifically guide you into the palace."
Gu Chengyin raised an eyebrow. Lyu Fang's man?
Moreover, looking at the young eunuch's posture and words, it was obvious he had received instructions long ago and was specially waiting here, rather than having received the news at the last minute.
These old foxes who had been immersed in the arena of power for decades were truly more cunning than the last. Their well-informed nature and keen sense of smell far exceeded ordinary people.
"Sorry to trouble you," Gu Chengyin said calmly, his face showing no emotion.
"Lord Marquis is too polite. Please follow this little slave." The young eunuch turned sideways to lead the way, his posture respectful and his steps brisk.
Gu Chengyin followed the young eunuch and stepped through the palace gate that symbolized the separation between the inner and outer courts.
Behind the gate was not the deep palace courtyard one might imagine, but rather a series of deep, winding corridors and passageways where the security was noticeably several times stricter.
Flanked by high walls, the lighting was dim, and the air was filled with a scent that mixed sandalwood with a faint dusty aura.
Walking through them, Gu Chengyin's perception, which had already reached the peak of the mid-stage of Qi Condensation, quietly extended outward like invisible tentacles.
He could clearly sense that in the shadows of the high walls on both sides, above the flying eaves and brackets overhead, and even behind the seemingly ordinary pillars, there were no less than ten obscure and powerful auras lying in ambush!
These auras were like venomous snakes lurking in the dark, cold, sharp, and full of vigilance.
The master of each aura was at least at the early stage of the Foundation Establishment realm.
This was the Inner Court of the Imperial Palace, the core area of the eunuch faction!
Its strict guarding and multitude of experts far exceeded that of the Outer Court and the Crown Heir Palace.
The young eunuch seemed accustomed to all this. Looking straight ahead without stopping, he guided Gu Chengyin through the maze-like corridors.
They finally arrived in front of a grand hall with carved beams and painted rafters.
Two tall bronze incense burners shaped like exotic beasts stood in front of the hall. Curling blue smoke rose from them, adding a bit of ethereal atmosphere to this solemn place.
The doors of the hall were wide open, and the elegant and exquisite furnishings inside could vaguely be seen.
"Lord Marquis, Eunuch Lyu Fang is waiting inside the hall. Please." The young eunuch stopped at the bottom of the steps in front of the hall, bowed, and made an inviting gesture.
Gu Chengyin nodded and stepped onto the white marble steps that were as smooth as a mirror.
The space inside the hall was vast, yet the lighting was not bright, instead possessing a deliberately crafted sense of depth.
The massive pillars were carved with complex patterns of auspicious clouds and immortal cranes, and the floor was covered with a thick, dark red gold-woven carpet that made no sound when stepped upon.
Behind a large carved red sandalwood desk sat a person.
It was none other than the Grand Eunuch: Lyu Fang.
At this moment, his head was slightly lowered, his expression focused as he brewed tea.
With unhurried movements and practiced skill, boiling water was poured into the purple clay teapot. The fragrance of tea unfurled alongside the curling steam, permeating the hall.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
u Chenyuan transmigrated into a female-oriented novel about a real and fake heiress, becoming the CEO elder brother of both. Unfortunately, the entire Lu family—including himself, the CEO—were mere cannon fodder in the story. Determined to save himself, Lu Chenyuan took action. The spoiled, attention-seeking fake heiress? Thrown into the harsh realities of the working class to learn humility. The love-struck real heiress? Pushed toward academic excellence, so lofty goals would blind her to trivial romances. As for the betrayed, vengeful arranged marriage wife… the plot hadn’t even begun yet. There was still time—if he couldn’t handle her, he could at least avoid her. "CEO Lu, are you avoiding me?" Mo Qingli fixed her gaze on Lu Chenyuan. For the first time, the shrewd and calculating Lu Chenyuan felt a flicker of unease.
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.
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
