AUBTN -Chapter 167 Handle

The assassin’s voice grew weaker and weaker.

“I wanted to set fire to the guild, but that woman caught me… She’s a martial artist, and she clung on tight.”

“In a moment of panic, I… I attacked her.”

“To create panic, I deliberately left the Blood Rose mark…”

“Bastard!”

Yu Qing could no longer hold back.

She rushed forward, lifting her foot and fiercely kicking the assassin’s leg bone.

“All for this? Just because you wanted to make big news?”

Yu Qing trembled with rage, tears brimming in her eyes.

“What did Wan Niang ever do wrong? She was just an innocent woman!”

“Scum! Beast! Just for your revenge, you can trample on someone else’s life as you please? Wan Niang had family, had friends—she was a living, breathing person too!”

Lu Yan watched Yu Qing lose control, feeling a sudden, inexplicable pain in his heart.

He reached out, gently holding Yu Qing’s trembling shoulders, offering silent support.

Su Hewan stood to the side, her face pale as paper, yet her eyes were cold as eternal ice.

“Simply because she passed by, simply because she was unlucky.”

Su Hewan murmured softly, a cutting, ironic smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

This was a chaotic world.

This was the era they lived in, a time that devoured people.

The lives of ordinary people were worth less than a chess piece in the games of the powerful—at most, they were mere specks of dust.

Su Hewan lifted her head and looked at Shen Jue; the fragility in her eyes was instantly replaced by the cold light of reason.

“Although I wanted to kill him with my own hands to honor Wan Niang, right now… he is a weapon.”

Shen Jue observed how quickly Su Hewan regained her composure, a hint of admiration flashing in his eyes, mingled with a trace of heartache.

【Since Li Yunxi killed the heir of the Ning Yuan Marquis, this is her greatest vulnerability. The Ning Yuan Marquis holds the armies of Xizhou; if he learns the truth, this empire might tremble.】

Shen Jue heard Su Hewan’s inner thoughts and curved his lips into a small smile.

He stepped beside her, naturally taking her icy hand in his.

Then he turned toward the half-alive assassin.

“That old Ning Yuan Marquis of Xizhou… isn’t a benevolent man.”

“If he finds out that his beloved only son died at the hands of the current princess…”

Shen Jue let out a low chuckle, the sound echoing through the dim, eerie dungeon.

“Then this show… will be truly spectacular.”

Lu Yan frowned. “The Ning Yuan Marquis hasn’t acted yet—is it because he’s still in the dark?”

“Perhaps.”

Shen Jue casually adjusted his sleeve.

“That madwoman Li Yunxi thinks that returning to the capital will let her pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.”

“But even the most meticulous plans have flaws.”

The four of them exchanged glances in the air.

They had finally found an opportunity for counterattack!

Since Li Yunxi dared to return to the capital, she clearly wasn’t someone to underestimate.

Before the four could even deliver this weapon, the princess’s counterattack would strike like a sudden storm.

The next morning.

Outside the Huaxiangrong Makeup Shop, there was no longer the usual crowd lining up.

Instead, the ground was littered with rotting vegetable leaves and spoiled eggs.

“Refund my money! Give me back my money!”

“What kind of so-called miracle beauty products—this is pure face-destroying poison!”

“Everyone, look! My face is swollen like a pig’s head, and I only used their rouge!”

A large group of women surrounded the shop, shouting furiously, spittle flying.

When Yu Qing and Su Hewan arrived, this was the chaotic scene that greeted them.

The shopkeeper, an honest man, was sweating profusely, panic written all over his face, with a lump of rotting mud thrown at him.

“Ladies, ladies, please, let’s talk calmly! Let’s talk calmly!”

“Bah! What nonsense is this!”

A burly woman with a face full of jowls stormed forward, holding a half-used box of rouge in her hand.

“Everyone’s heard, right? The boss behind Hua Xiangrong isn’t clean, and the things she uses aren’t clean either!”

“This unscrupulous shop wants to kill all the women in the capital!”

Rumors are the oldest and deadliest weapon.

Su Hewan stood at the back of the crowd, coldly watching the woman leading the commotion.

Although the woman wore coarse cloth, her shoes were finely crafted satin.

A professional troublemaker.

“That’s not all.”

The shop’s second manager sneaked in through the back door. Seeing Su Hewan and Yu Qing, he reported with a quivering voice.

“Boss, something terrible has happened.”

“This morning, when I went to restock, all the herbal merchants and flower farmers had closed their doors and wouldn’t see me.”

“Even if I offered triple the price, they wouldn’t sell us a single herb or a single flower!”

Yu Qing clenched her teeth in anger. “They won’t make money? Are they insane?”

The second manager wiped the cold sweat from his brow.

“It’s not that they don’t want to, it’s that they dare not!”

“This morning, the Imperial Household Department issued a decree. They’re procuring materials for the Hundred Flowers Banquet and have requisitioned all rare flowers and herbs within a hundred miles of the capital!”

“Anyone caught selling them privately is defying the emperor’s order—they will be executed!”

A masterstroke: cutting off the source.

Su Hewan drew a deep breath, feeling a crushing weight in her chest.

Li Yunxi was wielding imperial power.

Under the pretense of palace procurement, she was monopolizing and suppressing them.

Without raw materials, Hua Xiangrong was like a kitchen without rice. It wouldn’t survive three days before going under.

And with the wave of poisoned rouge rumors…

They were being driven to the brink of ruin.

“Good, very good.”

Yu Qing, furious to the point of laughter, rolled up her sleeves and prepared to charge out.

“I’ll go fight her! If I have to, I’ll hang myself at the palace gates—let’s see if she dares!”

“Come back!”

Lu Yan appeared behind her without her noticing, yanking her by the collar like a small chick and pulling her back.

His face was iron-gray as he looked at this woman who was about to lose her mind.

“What good would dying do? Will it make the flowers grow?”

“Then what am I supposed to do? Watch the shop collapse? Watch Wan-niang die for nothing?”

Yu Qing turned, her eyes red, and shouted at Lu Yan.

【You heartless blockhead! You only know how to scold me! Do you know how much blood and sweat went into this shop? Do you know how many sisters’ livelihoods are at stake?】

Hearing these inner words, Lu Yan’s previously cold heart softened in an instant.

He sighed, releasing his grip, his tone slightly gentler.

“I’m not saying you can’t take revenge, but now is not the time to go die.”

Elsewhere, Shen Jue’s eyes burned with killing intent.

“Rumors die with the wise, but to the ignorant, rumors are truth.”

Su Hewan looked at Shen Jue and calmly analyzed.

“She wasn’t idle at court either, was she?”

Shen Jue nodded, a trace of mockery in his eyes.

“In the days since Li Yunxi returned to the capital, she has been living in utmost luxury.”

“She fenced off a large area in the west of the city to build some Star-Picking Pavilion, forcibly demolishing over ten commoners’ homes in the process.”

“And her Long Princess Mansion alone spends over a thousand taels of silver on daily banquets.”

“That’s not all—she keeps ten male companions, indulging in nightly music and wine, utterly debauched.”

“The censors at the Imperial Censorate are about to lose their minds.”

“At this morning’s court session, just the memorials criticizing her piled up on the dragon desk.”

Su Hewan raised an eyebrow. “What did the emperor say?”