When Shangguan Yuan saw clearly that his white-glazed celadon teacup, treasured for many years and as warm and smooth as jade, had been reduced to shattered pieces on the ground, a mixture of shock, heartache, and instantly rising fury exploded in his chest like boiling oil poured over water!
He sprang up from his rocking chair on instinct. Disregarding any semblance of a Minister's dignity, he lunged toward the pile of shards in two quick strides.
With trembling hands, he picked up the largest fragment, which still bore the vibrant green interlocking lotus pattern. As his fingertips brushed across the broken edge, the muscles in his face twitched.
"My... my white-glazed celadon cup! This was a one-of-a-kind piece from the Luodu South Kiln! It took over a decade of steeping tea to cultivate such a jade-like luster! You... you..."
He snapped his head up, his hair and beard bristling, eyes wide with rage. Glaring fiercely at Gu Chengyin, his voice pitched into a sharp shriek of anger and heartbreak, completely stripped of its usual composure:
"Gu Chengyin! Are you out of your damn mind?!"
Shangguan Yuan was clearly beside himself with rage. Forgetting his refined official speech, he resorted to outright cursing, pointing a trembling finger at Gu Chengyin:
"Don't think that just because Her Highness trusts you and bestowed upon you the title of Marquis, you can act with utter lawlessness! Coming to my Ministry of Revenue to run wild!"
"This is a vital stronghold of the imperial court's Six Ministries! It is not a place for your reckless behavior!!"
His roars echoed through the small courtyard and reached the ears of the watching clerks and officials clearly, drawing a collective gasp. The Minister was truly enraged.
Facing Shangguan Yuan's furious scolding, Gu Chengyin only responded with a scoff full of mockery.
Instead of backing down, he straightened his back, amplifying his deliberately cultivated aura of anger even further.
He then raised the old account book in his hand high into the air. The gesture was so exaggerated that not only could Shangguan Yuan, who was right in front of him, see it clearly,
but even the gossip-hungry onlookers outside the courtyard, craning their necks and peeking from behind the pillars and windows, could clearly make out the cover's design.
Gu Chengyin's voice slammed down like a magistrate's gavel, every word resonant and carrying undisguised interrogation. It rang through the entire courtyard and carried far beyond:
"Shangguan Yuan! Open your eyes and look closely! Do you know what this Marquis is holding in his hand?!"
Shangguan Yuan froze for a moment, instinctively narrowing his old eyes to peer at the account book Gu Chengyin was holding up.
The familiar format and faint lettering allowed him to recognize it.
"This..." Shangguan Yuan frowned, his anger subsiding slightly, and replied uncertainly, "It seems... to be an old account book from the Ministry of Revenue?"
As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt his momentum weaken. He quickly puffed out his chest and restored his tough tone. "It's nothing but an old, outdated ledger! Gu Chengyin, coming to the Ministry of Revenue to throw a tantrum and destroy my treasures over a torn account book—you are showing far too little regard for the laws of the imperial court!"
This admission was exactly what Gu Chengyin had been waiting for.
"So you do know this is your Ministry's account book!"
Gu Chengyin shouted sternly, taking a menacing step forward. "Then explain to this Marquis! Why is this ledger missing pages and full of holes?!"
"The crucial original vouchers, approval attachments, and data details have all vanished, leaving nothing but contradictory summaries?!"
Gu Chengyin rapidly flipped through a few pages, displaying the striking red circles marked with vermilion ink inside.
"Shangguan Yuan! You are the dignified Minister of Revenue, a high-ranking official of the court! You manage the world's money, grain, and taxes, overseeing all expenditures and audits!"
"Is this how you manage things?! Allowing such important account books to be damaged and incomplete?! What kind of Minister are you?!"
This barrage of questions crashed over Shangguan Yuan's head like a violent storm, directly pinning the blame squarely on him as the highest-ranking official.
Shangguan Yuan was momentarily dazed by the fierce interrogation and opened his mouth to defend himself. "This... the ledger has been stored for a long time, so some wear and tear is normal... How can you..."
"Normal?!"
Gu Chengyin didn't give him a chance to finish. His voice rose another octave, filled with grief, indignation, and bitter heartache.
"Today, this Marquis wants to see exactly what kind of intentions you, Shangguan Yuan, and your Ministry of Revenue are harboring!"
He turned around to face the courtyard gates, as if declaring to everyone present:
"Since Her Highness returned from Luodu, she has been deeply concerned about state affairs and compassionate toward the people!"
"Seeing the empty treasury and the hardships of the citizens, she has been burning with anxiety! Disregarding her own exhaustion, she has worked day and night, pouring her heart and blood into her duties."
"She personally led her female officials and dove headfirst into that mountainous pile of ledgers and documents! And for what?!"
Gu Chengyin's voice grew even more impassioned:
"It was to clarify the flow of money and grain, to investigate the root causes of these long-standing abuses! It was to find the right cure to enrich the treasury and lighten the burden on the commoners! It was for the sake of Great Luo's state and society, for thousands of generations to come!!"
His vivid description painted Luo Zhao as a wise, benevolent leader who neglected sleep and meals, exhausting herself for the nation and its people.
The emotion in his words was so sincere and surging that the onlookers couldn't help but be moved. Some even nodded unconsciously, feeling that the Eldest Princess truly had it hard.
However, Gu Chengyin abruptly changed his tune. His tone shifted from tragic and impassioned to thunderous fury. He whipped back around, pinning Shangguan Yuan with a gaze burning with rage:
"Yet you, Shangguan Yuan! Is this how you treat Her Highness's sincere devotion to toiling for the common people?!"
With a rustle, he flipped the ledger open again, pointing at the glaring missing marks highlighted in red, his voice trembling with anger:
"Look! All of you, open your eyes and look! The accounts that Her Highness went through unimaginable hardships to verify actually look like this!"
"Missing pages and full of holes! We can't even piece together a single complete number! How are we supposed to audit this?! How do we cross-reference?! How do we find the problems?!"
"Shangguan Yuan! Tell this Marquis! Was this done deliberately by someone trying to obstruct Her Highness's investigation and cover up some unspeakable deeds?"
"Or is the entire Ministry of Revenue colluding together, deceiving superiors and hiding things from subordinates, failing to fulfill even the most basic duty of safekeeping?!"
"If you do not give this Marquis a proper explanation today, I will absolutely not let this go!!"
Among the crowd of onlookers outside the courtyard, an uproar had already broken out.
Many whispered among themselves, and the gazes directed at Shangguan Yuan were now tinged with suspicion and scrutiny.
If things were truly as Gu Chengyin claimed, and the missing accounts were this severe, the Ministry of Revenue would be in massive trouble!
"Bullshit!!"
Shangguan Yuan also threw caution to the wind. Tossing his official prestige and dignity aside for the moment, he stiffened his neck and cursed right back at Gu Chengyin:
"Gu Chengyin! Stop spouting nonsense and spewing lies right here!"
"The annual ledgers of my Ministry of Revenue go through countless hands—from drafting, verification, and re-checking to final archiving—with strict checks at every level. How can I allow you to slander us like this?!"
He pointed at the ledger in Gu Chengyin's hand and roared, "That book in your hand is nothing but an old account that has been stored away for years!"
g Yu was preparing for retirement when her organization decided to eliminate her. She transmigrated to a zombie apocalypse world. However, a tiny unexpected situation occurred: She somehow transformed into an adorable little girl?!
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 + 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!
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.
