DLWAV CH133

Only at this moment did the crowd finally react.

Those standing close by subconsciously looked at Fu Deben’s corpse, reached up to touch their own faces, and realized their hands were covered in blood. It finally dawned on them that when Ao Ruize told them to step away earlier, it was genuinely because he was afraid they would get in his way, because had they taken even half a step forward, they would have followed in Fu Deben’s footsteps the moment Ao Ruize retracted his sword.

They had completely misunderstood Ao Ruize!

Wait, that wasn’t the main point at all.

The main point was that Ao Ruize had just killed Fu Deben.

“Ah!”

Someone finally processed what had happened and shrieked on the spot.

Ao Ruize subconsciously covered his ears, because the little milk dumpling system in his mind had also started screaming.

“Xiao Ruize, are you crazy?”

The people of the Fu estate snapped to their senses. Fu Deben’s eldest son, Fu Kaiji, immediately cried out: “Father, Father!”

Looking at Fu Deben lying on the ground dead with his eyes wide open, Fu Kaiji’s eyes instantly turned red. He snatched a sword from the waist of a nearby scholar. “Kill him, kill him for me—”

But before his voice could fade, several voices rang out one after another: “Stop—”

The shout caused the Fu estate guards and retainers to instinctively pause their movements of drawing their swords to charge at Ao Ruize.

Fu Kaiji and the others couldn’t hear a word of it, continuing to roar: “Kill, kill this animal for me—”

Seeing that the Fu family was about to charge at Ao Ruize again, the people who had spoken actually rushed out: “Stop, I said stop, did you hear me?”

Only then did the Fu family realize that the people rushing forward were all high-ranking military officers of the imperial court.

“General Chen, General Long, you want to protect him?” Fu Kaiji said through gritted teeth. “He killed my father, he killed my father, do you know that?”

The military officers finally realized what they had just done. They shouldn’t have waded into these muddy waters.

But it was too late to say anything now.

However, they certainly wouldn’t admit that they stepped forward because they knew Ao Ruize was the son of the deposed Prince Wu.

They immediately composed their expressions, drew the swords from their waists, and pressed them against Ao Ruize’s neck: “Don’t move.”

Only then did they turn back to the Fu family: “Eldest Young Master, Second Young Master… we are doing this for your sake. General Fu was the dignified General Dingyuan, ennobled as Count Dingyuan by the Emperor’s own decree. Now that he has been murdered by Wu Ruize, the Emperor will certainly not let him off lightly—”

“So you can absolutely hand him over to the Emperor to be dealt with.”

“But if you kill him right now, that is a private lynching. According to the law, a noble using private execution is subjected to at least dismissal from office and revocation of titles. I imagine you young masters wouldn’t want the noble title General Fu worked so hard to earn to be taken back by the court just like that, would you?”

The Fu family had to admit that their words made perfect sense.

The veins on Fu Kaiji’s forehead twitched violently. Finally, he resentfully sheathed his sword, dropped straight to his knees before Fu Deben’s corpse, and kowtowed heavily: “Father—”

The military officers instantly let out a sigh of relief.

They then turned to look at Ao Ruize, the complex emotions in their eyes nearly impossible to conceal: “Men, escort Wu Ruize to the Ministry of Justice prison.”

Seeing that his goal had been achieved, Ao Ruize didn’t speak any unnecessary nonsense and unhurriedly followed them away.

The milk dumpling, however, was frantic: “Xiao Ruize, you are courting death, do you know that?”

His predecessor, Wu Ruize, was the son of the deposed Prince Wu.

Sixty years ago, the five-year-old last emperor of the Zhao dynasty died suddenly. The already precarious Zhao dynasty instantly collapsed, and the major provincial governors declared themselves kings one after another.

Among them was the old Prince Wu.

However, the old Prince Wu was over forty and only had one daughter. So, he had no choice but to take in a live-in son-in-law for his daughter. That man was Ji Xiangming.

Ji Xiangming was a junior general under his command. Though average in martial arts and intellect, he had a clean background and didn’t mind that the daughter had previously had several fiancés.

Unexpectedly, not long after Ji Xiangming married into the family, a widow came knocking with her son. It turned out the old Prince Wu had a past with her, and her son was his flesh and blood.

The old Prince Wu recognized his son on the spot and named him Wu Tong, because Wu Tong looked exactly like a carbon copy of him, it was hard for anyone to even harbor doubts.

But the old Prince Wu’s internal joy didn’t last long before he remembered his recent promise to pass his foundation on to Ji Xiangming and his wife.

An ordinary person would have probably gone back on their word right then and there. But the old Prince Wu was inherently honest and loyal, and the widow wasn’t a bad person either. The only out-of-bounds thing they had ever done was having that affair in the past.

Wu Tong inherited their personalities, but supersized.

So, overcoming all opposition, they insisted on establishing Ji Xiangming and his wife as the heirs.

Ten years later, the old Prince Wu died of illness. Ji Xiangming became the ruler of the Wu territory, and Wu Tong became a top general under his command.

True to his name, although Wu Tong was ignorant of military strategy, he was a master of martial arts. Every time he went into battle, he led from the front, and no divine weapon or hidden projectile could ever hurt him.

Under his leadership, the Wu army slowly overpowered the other rebel forces, becoming the largest ruling faction in the Central Plains.

Right at that time, Ji Xiangming’s younger brother and his family were betrayed by a traitor and fell into enemy hands. Though his brother didn’t have much talent, he had still contributed some merits to the Wu army.

The enemy used Ji Xiangming’s brother and family as hostages, pushing all the way into the heartland of the Wu territory.

For the sake of the Wu army’s foundation and the lives of millions of citizens in the Wu territory, Ji Xiangming tearfully ordered his brother’s entire family to be shot to death at the front lines. Combined with Wu Tong, who was leading troops outside, launching a timely surprise attack on the enemy’s main camp, the Wu territory was saved from the crisis.

It was also at this time that rumors reached Wu Tong’s ears, saying that the Ji family originally had two sons, so it wasn’t a big deal for Ji Xiangming to marry into the Wu family. But now, having been forced to shoot his own brother for the sake of the Wu territory, wasn’t the Ji family bloodline completely severed?

Hearing these rumors, Wu Tong naturally felt incredibly guilty.

He took the initiative to approach Ji Xiangming and his wife, stating he was willing to annul Ji Xiangming’s status as a live-in son-in-law. Furthermore, if their only son had multiple descendants in the future, one of them could change their surname back to Ji.

Ji Xiangming was deeply grateful and promised on the spot that he would absolutely leave the entire family foundation solely to his and the Wu daughter’s only son.

Just like that, another ten years passed. When the Wu army unified the realm, Ji Xiangming ascended the throne as Emperor Taizu of Yang. He named the Wu daughter as Empress and established their only son as Crown Prince.

Wu Tong was enfeoffed as Prince Wu. During the rewarding of merits, Ji Xiangming gave him more than half of the southern provinces as his fiefdom.

At this point, things could barely be considered a happy ending for everyone.

But it couldn’t withstand the fact that a few years later, Empress Wu and the Crown Prince died of illness one after another, and Wu Tong’s sons and daughters also died off almost entirely.

Not long after, Ji Xiangming launched a massive draft to fill his harem, and even consecutively brought back three illegitimate sons left in the civilian populace, all of whom were already married with children.

Wu Tong finally sensed that something was slightly wrong.

So when he learned that a woman had come to his door with a boy, claiming the boy was his son, his first reaction was to have the butler send her away immediately.

And that boy was none other than Wu Ruize.

Not long after, the Southern Rong abruptly invaded. Acting as if they knew the exact deployment of all garrisons in the south, they pushed straight to the walls of Prince Wu’s city. With court reinforcements repeatedly delayed, Wu Tong, defending the isolated city, was ultimately killed by the Southern Rong army when the city fell. Buried alongside him were 100,000 southern soldiers, and all the wealth of the south fell into the hands of the Southern Rong.

—Because of this, the Southern Rong was able to become a massive thorn in Great Yang’s side in one fell swoop, and it wasn’t until over twenty years later, just last month, that the imperial court finally pacified the south.

When the news reached the capital, the entire court and public were shaken.

Ji Xiangming, ‘forced by public outrage’, stripped Wu Tong of his Prince Wu title, but ‘yielding to the wishes of his ministers’, spared Wu Tong’s family.

Only at that time, Wu Tong’s official family, aside from a few concubines, consisted of just one daughter, who later married Prince Rui as a side consort.

Over ten years later, Ji Xiangming died of illness, passing the throne to the eldest illegitimate son he had brought back from the civilian world, who was now the current Emperor Jianzhao.

The milk dumpling said: “Anyone who thinks about it knows that Ji Xiangming’s brother was definitely sold out to the enemy by Ji Xiangming himself. Later, he personally shot his brother and his brother’s family just to win sympathy and shake off his humiliating status as a live-in son-in-law.”

“Empress Wu, the Crown Prince, and all those sons and daughters of Wu Tong were definitely killed by Ji Xiangming too, all so he could pass the throne to his descendants surnamed Ji.”

“That dog emperor’s family already felt the Wu family’s merits overshadowed the master and wanted nothing more than to tear the Wu family out by the roots. By exposing your identity at a time like this, aren’t you just shoving your own neck right under their guillotine?”

“If you still had a few hundred points, we could repeat our old trick and summon the middle-aged men over. But you only have a little over a hundred points right now; it’s completely impossible to pull that off.”

It couldn’t even find the time to regret why, after hearing Ao Ruize’s words earlier, it had been possessed by ghosts and gods to open a completely new mission world just as he instructed.

Its mind was entirely consumed by the thought that they were doomed.

Unless it used its own private stash of points to send the coordinates to the middle-aged men.

But those were the private points it was saving to support its wives in the future!

Ao Ruize, however, remained completely unhurried.

Even at this very moment, as he was shoved into a gloomy, dark prison cell.

“Relax, we’ll be fine.”

Milk dumpling: “Huh?”

On the other side, as the guests dispersed, the news that the deposed Prince Wu had a surviving heir who had just slain Count Dingyuan, Fu Deben, with a single sword strike at the Fu estate’s celebration banquet spread across more than half the capital.

In the inner city of the capital, in the backyard of the Minister of War’s estate.

“What did you say? The son of the deposed Prince Wu, Wu Ruize, killed Fu Deben with one strike at the Fu estate’s celebration banquet?”

A young woman dressed in a noble young lady’s attire abruptly widened her eyes.

“That shouldn’t be—”

The maid beside her immediately asked: “Sixth Miss, why shouldn’t it be?”

The young woman, the Sixth Miss Meng Jiao the maid referred to, nearly blurted out: “That’s not how it’s written in the novel—”

Then she caught herself: “Telling you is useless, go down first—”

The maid, bewildered, had no choice but to step down.

Meng Jiao, however, found it increasingly impossible to sit still.

That’s right, she was a transmigrator from the Great Yang dynasty of the year 2022.

She had no idea why she had transmigrated. She only knew that on her birthday, she made a wish that she wanted to meet Emperor Taizu of Yang, because she was his die-hard fan. As a result, the next morning when she woke up, she had transmigrated into the only daughter of the current Minister of War of the Great Yang dynasty.

At the time, her excitement was virtually indescribable by words.

She thought God had opened His eyes and was preparing to grant her wish.

Then she was informed that Emperor Taizu of Yang had just passed away, and as the dependents of important court officials, they were about to go attend his funeral.

She could only suppress the disappointment in her heart, thinking that even though she couldn’t see a living Emperor Taizu, being able to attend his funeral counted as achieving something other fans couldn’t do in a lifetime.

Then she was informed again that the Emperor Taizu of Yang in this world wasn’t Emperor Taizu Zhou Ruize from their world at all, but a guy named Ji Xiangming.

She had ample reason to suspect God was just playing a prank on her.

But she soon discovered that God was, indeed, entirely screwing with her.

Because she was subsequently informed that a good friend of ‘hers’ named Guan Zhen had fallen into the water, and after waking up, had lost her memory.

Guan Zhen + falling into water + amnesia…

She instantly realized she had transmigrated into a vintage romance novel she had once read called Domineering Prince: The Transmigrated Consort Runs Away Pregnant.

The novel detailed how the female lead, Guan Zhen, after transmigrating to the Great Yang dynasty, encountered one high-quality man after another. This included Fu Deben, Fu Deben’s eldest son Fu Kaiji, deposed Prince Wu’s son Wu Ruize, ‘her’ eldest brother Meng Yuan, the ghost-like genius Yao Wenju, the Crown Prince… Ultimately, after experiencing heartbreak after heartbreak, she accepted Prince Rui’s overtures and, after Prince Rui successfully ascended the throne, she sat upon the seat of the Empress.

And the deposed Prince Wu’s son, Wu Ruize, was an out-and-out villain in this novel.

He dreamed day and night of avenging his father and brothers. To this end, he constantly stirred up storms of blood across the Central Plains. Today it was mass-poisoning the capital, tomorrow it was blowing up the Yellow River dikes, the day after it was organizing massive imperial exam fraud… Of course, every single time, it was accidentally ruined by the female lead.

Yet he didn’t resent the female lead in the slightest. All because after his sister, Prince Rui’s side consort Lady Wu, committed suicide, he met the newly recovered female lead who had gone out for a spring stroll while he was consumed by devastating grief.

The female lead, being a modern person, naturally couldn’t stand the ancient practice of oppressing women. So after hearing his story, she helped him viciously curse out the people who forced his sister to her death. Because of this, she became the singular beam of light in his heart.

And the reason Prince Rui was finally able to eliminate him at the end was also because he knew of this weakness. He used the female lead’s life to threaten him, forcing him to step out into the open.

Therefore, upon realizing how incredibly dangerous this world was, Meng Jiao decisively chose to stay far away from the plot and quietly lay low to develop.

She figured that as long as she waited for Wu Ruize to die and for the female lead to secure her seat as Empress, she could go back to living her best, wild life.

Though she also sympathized with Wu Ruize, this tragic villain, there was a saying: if it doesn’t concern you, hang it up high and ignore it. Besides, the fact that he failed in the end was because he was too stupid himself, actually abandoning a blood feud of his entire clan for the sake of a woman. So there really wasn’t much to sympathize with anyway.

As for the Yang-Ji royal family, even though none of them were good people, as the saying goes, winners are crowned kings and losers become bandits. Conspiracies and schemes are just another form of capability, aren’t they? They conquered the empire based on their own abilities, so naturally, there was nothing to complain about.

Just like Liu Bang, he wasn’t exactly a righteous gentleman either, right? But when later generations talk about him, they don’t curse him out. So she didn’t hold any particular ill will toward the Yang-Ji royal family either.

But right now, Prince Rui’s side consort Lady Wu hadn’t even committed suicide over her ruined reputation yet, the female lead’s illness hadn’t even fully healed yet, and the major villain suddenly went and killed Cannon Fodder Male No. 9 out of nowhere.

The plot had suddenly veered so far off course it was as if it had been possessed by a ghost. How could Meng Jiao, who had intended to rely on her knowledge of the plot to sit comfortably as a ‘salted fish’ doing nothing, not absolutely panic?