Seeing Nan Rongchen completely unconcerned, even appearing thoroughly uninterested, the envoy smiled insincerely and clapped his hands a few times. Attendants dressed in Xixia attire then carried forward a porcelain-white luminous pearl the size of a bowl, with a single aperture located at each of its two opposite ends.
“This is a luminescent stone meticulously polished over several months by our dynasty’s premier stonemason. Though a thousand intersecting tunnels crisscross its interior, only two openings lead to the outside. We have long heard that Lin Yue’s Bureau of Pivots is filled with talented individuals. I wonder if someone might thread a string all the way through?”
Having already witnessed this entire routine in his past life, Nan Rongchen truly held no interest in it. He simply bypassed all the preamble and directly tossed the matter to Nangong Chengyu. “The chief of the Bureau of Pivots has his own official duties and is unable to attend. This task is not difficult. Prince Xiang can try his hand at it.”
Nangong Chengyu deliberately put on a troubled expression. “I am grateful for Your Majesty’s high regard, but this subject is not skilled in such matters.”
Although this was a satisfying plot beat he was supposed to trigger according to the original storyline, Nan Rongchen was using him far too smoothly.
Why on earth should he be so obedient to Nan Rongchen?
Seeing Nan Rongchen seemingly stumble, the envoy laughed with mocking insincerity. “Could it be that Lin Yue has no one else of any use?”
Tsk, it seemed the stage presence was inadequate and the protagonist disdained it, so it was time to find someone else for the job.
Nan Rongchen parted his lips in a light sneer. “Shiming divined a hexagram for Gu the day before yesterday, saying that Prince Xiang could resolve Xixia’s triple dilemma today. Fearing that Gu might not believe it, he even cited Prince Xiang’s clever verbal battles at the Four Quarters Bureau as evidence.”
“He further stated that Prince Xiang will be of great use in the future, advising Gu either to execute him or put him to heavy use.”
Following his words, Nangong Chengyu looked toward Shiming, who sat diagonally across from them, and sure enough, he caught that useless cannon fodder just managing to wipe the shock from his face.
Regardless of whether Nan Rongchen’s words were true or false, Shiming needed to be replaced.
That was a matter for later. The most urgent priority right now was that this perfectly normal protagonist spotlight had been stirred into an untenable predicament, forcing Nangong Chengyu to cup his hands and plead guilty. In truth, the method to break the deadlock required no special technical skill, and helping Nan Rongchen out once would do no harm.
Yet before the words left his mouth, Nan Rongchen raised a hand to interrupt him.
“Prince Xiang need not fear. Gu would never make things difficult for you.” Nan Rongchen beckoned to Helian Yi. “Your Highness, come forward.”
Since they were all part of the protagonist’s camp, anyone could handle this task, thereby sparing the system from popping up and claiming he was disrupting the plot.
Helian Yi had not touched a single drop of alcohol and possessed a clear mind, allowing him to sharply perceive Nangong Chengyu’s burning gaze. After a brief moment of hesitation, he walked over and stood before Nan Rongchen.
“You lack manners.” Nan Rongchen tilted his head up to look at him. “Have you forgotten everything Gu taught you so quickly?”
Helian Yi dug his fingertips deep into the soft flesh of his palms, lowered his gaze, and knelt upon one knee beneath the imperial dais. While putting on an absolute show of total submission, he failed to mask his underlying aggressiveness. He was every bit a wolf biding its time in feigned obedience.
At any moment, he might leap forward and tear out a throat.
Helian Yi indeed harbored such intentions. For Nan Rongchen to humiliate him so before the Xixia people meant he would definitely make Nan Rongchen pay the price, subjecting him to a fate worse than death. But why was Nan Rongchen leaning in so close?
A soft whisper laced with the scent of alcohol brushed against his earlobe, sending a surge of blood rushing through his veins. Digging his nails into his palms to force absolute calm, he managed to decipher the meaning of those words: “If you do it well, Gu has a reward for you.”
This agonizing torture ended with that rising inflection at the end of the sentence. Rising from the floor with the lingering warmth still clinging to his ear, he realized Nan Rongchen was merely toying with him as if he were a pet hound.
Before the hatred in his heart could flare up once more, Nan Rongchen pressed down on him, prying his fingers apart to forcefully deposit a fine gold-inlaid jade cup containing half a cup of wine into his palm.
“When the time comes, Gu will reward you with permission to take your old Sulei subordinates and leave the capital, reuniting you with your families.”
In his past life, Nan Rongchen had indeed ultimately allowed Helian Yi to lead those old subordinates back to Sulei to seize power.
He could never claim an association with the virtue of a benevolent sage, but he understood that the division and unification of the realm, alongside the endless cycles of war, were simply grand trends of the times. Soldiers of all nations were merely specks of dust swept into the torrent.
When exacting vengeance for Lin Yue’s fallen soldiers, he would never show mercy, yet neither would he push things to the point of total annihilation.
Looking back now, he truly was not cut out to be an enlightened monarch, as he actually felt a faint trace of envy toward those soldiers whose lives and deaths both found a proper destination.
Following his own death in his past life, he probably hadn’t even possessed a proper grave mound.
Hearing this, Helian Yi froze. He attempted to search Nan Rongchen’s eyes for hidden conspiracies, only to accidentally drown in those two deep pools of water. Before he could break free, Nan Rongchen had already turned his gaze toward the two rows of bronze chime bells.
This exact scene happened to fall into Qi Yan’s line of sight. Maintaining some distance, he failed to catch the illicit bargain struck between Nan Rongchen and Helian Yi, leaving him to continue digesting this absurd banquet.
To recklessly leak Lin Yue’s state secrets to Xixia, who could tell what backup plan the tyrant was brewing? People deep in political intrigue possessed truly filthy hearts.
Helian Yi carried his cup back to his seat, setting it down with an unexpected touch of caution, as if terrified the wine might spill.
Following the placement of the cup, he acted upon Nan Rongchen’s instructions and ordered the nearby eunuch to catch ants and gather honey. While the reliability of the method remained unverified, the trick itself was undeniably ingenious.
Taking advantage of this intermission, magnificent banquet music swelled through the hall.
Watching the eunuch smear honey across the apertures under Helian Yi’s direction, then using a primitive magnifying glass and tweezers to tie a fine thread to an ant, Nangong Chengyu felt a wave of irritation. Nan Rongchen, this villainous antagonist, was actually spinning out of control and disrupting his protagonist spotlight.
Having rejected him, he turned around and used someone else, employing his exact method. Did the man really think he could win him over with such meager sincerity?
How on earth did Nan Rongchen figure out this trick?
Naturally, such questions could not be asked outright. “Your Majesty possesses a most ingenious mind.”
Nan Rongchen was gesturing to a nearby eunuch to serve a platter of roasted lamb shanks. “This method was actually obtained by Shiming through a prayer to the Wu god. I am just about to reward him.”
With that, he picked up a tribute mandarin orange from the imperial table. “Take this to the prince as well.”
A moment later, after the eunuch made the brief trip across the hall, Shiming frowned at the meat placed before him. This seemingly casual banquet was undoubtedly a grand feast at Hongmen for him.
Comprehending this crucial detail, he calmly looked toward Nangong Chengyu. Sure enough, that Prince Xiang wore a dark expression, evidently no longer willing to tolerate his presence.
After half an incense stick of time, finally, a single ant guided the end of the thread out through the exit, causing the envoy’s face to fall as well.
Strictly speaking, setting aside the indifferent protocol officials, out of everyone in the entire hall, only Nan Rongchen was in a good mood.
[Rule-breaking comment: Wife is truly dedicated to returning fire across the board, sharing the wealth with everyone.]
[Don’t be discouraged, Nangong Chengyu. Others get gifted dishes, you get beauties.]
[The cat is rewarding them again, I want some too.]
[The absolute biggest wronged soul of the night: Shiming.]
It was rare for scholars from another world to comprehend the situation so clearly. His sole purpose was to muddy these waters. Without chaos, how could he achieve three birds with one stone? With so many members in the protagonist’s group, he couldn’t possibly go around farming hatred points individually.
Since they had all shown up, everyone deserved a share.
The envoy established a second game, which was a chess match requiring the two competing parties to direct the placement of their pieces solely through verbal commands without looking at the board, leaving palace chess officials to place the stones on their behalf.
A chess game was just a chess game, yet it required so many cumbersome rules. It seemed Xixia’s severe drought hadn’t taught them enough of a lesson, leaving court officials with the leisure to fiddle with such trivialities.
Before long, the chess officials had set up the board in the hall. Before Nan Rongchen could speak, Nangong Chengyu stepped forward with an arched salute, stating his wish to atone for his faults through meritorious service.
Nan Rongchen couldn’t be bothered with empty pleasantries, as this was meant to be the spotlight moment for Nangong Chengyu as the protagonist. “Granted.”
Noticing Nan Rongchen’s utter indifference, Nangong Chengyu’s piece-placement instructions paused for a fraction of a second before he ultimately commanded the official to move the piece to the correct location under the envoy’s piercing gaze.
Since Nan Rongchen was being this arrogant, he would simply play along a little longer. Only when the prelude was properly set could the climax deliver maximum satisfaction.
Sooner or later, he would force this villain Nan Rongchen to willingly look up to him and rely solely upon him.
More than halfway through the match, the Xixia envoy finally arrived at an angry conclusion: this scoundrel Nangong Chengyu was conspiring with Helian Yi to make a fool of him, and the mastermind behind it all was likely Nan Rongchen himself.
To dare act so brazenly as a mere fledgling, did they truly think he was so easily manipulated?
“Since Your Majesty was so forthcoming regarding the Bright Moon Pavilion earlier, we shall dispense with formalities. We heard a piece of news from Prince Xiang a couple of days ago: that private gunpowder workshop adjacent to the Bright Moon Pavilion back then was jointly built by Your Majesty and a traitor from our dynasty.”
“I wonder if this matter is true?”
Nangong Chengyu nearly placed his piece in the wrong spot due to those few words. This Xixia envoy had clearly lost his mind.
At this juncture, the trajectory of this banquet diverged entirely from the original plot, and calling it inconsistent would be an understatement. However, having survived all these years in an ancient society where three nations had been whittled down to two, he hadn’t spent his time idly.
“For the envoy to bring this up now to frame this prince and disrupt my focus, is your side planning to win through dishonorable means?”
His tone was neither servile nor overbearing, completely contradicting his usual cowardly demeanor. Nan Rongchen made no immediate judgment. “Naturally, Gu stands united with Prince Xiang for now. We can discuss this after the chess match concludes.”
“His Majesty and Prince Xiang share deep fraternal bonds, but Prince Xiang may not necessarily feel the same.” Seeing Nangong Chengyu’s composure remain entirely unshaken, the azure-robed envoy fanned the flames further. “How that gunpowder workshop operated, its revenues and expenditures, and exactly how much silver it defrauded from Xixia are all recorded in the ledger Prince Xiang gave us.”
“Someone, present it.”
A similar ledger had existed in his past life, though it was delivered to him by the Xixia envoy only after the banquet concluded. It appeared Nangong Chengyu had deeply offended this Xixia envoy this time around.
Nan Rongchen took the ledger and flipped through a few pages. Every single stroke was meticulously recorded, demonstrating that Xixia possessed competent individuals as well.
It was simply a pity that that private gunpowder workshop was merely a decoy used for testing the waters. The golden cicada had long since shed its shell and slipped away. Even if Nangong Chengyu discovered his true objective, he would never leak it to Xixia.
After all, that was an indispensable link in the path he had paved for the protagonist.
With the conclusion of the chess match, the Xixia player who had boasted of practicing for several years completely lost the arrogant expression he wore at the start of the game, crying out in hysterical agitation and demanding to commit suicide before the Xixia envoy to atone for his failure.
Having struck down yet another cannon fodder, Nangong Chengyu felt a slight lift in his mood, though it was a meager and fragile sentiment, easily shattered by a mere breeze, which dissolved the moment he saw Nan Rongchen still turning the pages of that ledger.
As if Nan Rongchen’s disbelief wasn’t bad enough, the man was actually trusting a foreigner over him?
“Your Majesty, as this subject was responsible for this banquet, interactions with the Xixia envoys were naturally unavoidable, but this subject has never colluded with Xixia.”
Hearing this, Nan Rongchen laid the ledger aside, his gaze growing profound. “Gu knows.”
You know nothing! Nangong Chengyu pressed on. “While this subject previously harbored resentment over Your Majesty’s alienation, upon being entrusted with heavy responsibilities in the main hall that day, this subject swore allegiance to Your Majesty. Today, seeing that Your Majesty still doubted me and even used that dancer to test me, I brought up the Bright Moon Pavilion affair to test Xixia on Your Majesty’s behalf, never expecting it to backfire due to my own clumsy handling. I acted out of foolishness.”
According to the plot, regardless of whether he explained himself or not, Nan Rongchen would harbor suspicions toward him. Normally he wouldn’t care, but given the current deviations in the storyline, he needed to exercise caution.
Nothing more.
In his past life, Nan Rongchen rarely drank alcohol because his imperial tutor, Xiao Yuanqing, disliked it. Unaccustomed to it, a few cups caused the wine to rush to his head, and listening to this lengthy discourse now gave him a splitting headache. “Since that is the case, the various envoys know far too much; there is no need for them to remain.”