Xianyang East Market.
The sun was blazing.
The air was filled with a sour stench—the odor of tens of thousands of refugees packed tightly together.
A massive high platform stood in the center of the marketplace.
No ceremonial guards.
No music.
Only dozens of large black iron pots, boiling and steaming.
Kong Fu stood on the platform.
His hemp garment—once carefully cherished—was now covered in mud stains.
But he had no time to care.
He stared fixedly at the dense crowd below—the countless faces filled with suspicion, fear, and even hostility.
“Is that Scholar Kong?”
Someone in the crowd muttered.
“Why is he dressed like a beggar?”
“Shh! Don’t say that!”
A sharp-faced man suddenly squeezed through the crowd and jumped onto a stone.
In a shrill, rooster-like voice, he pointed at the platform and shouted:
“Fellow citizens!”
“Look closely!”
“What is this, distributing food?”
“This is a massacre to silence us!”
The man waved his arm wildly, spitting everywhere.
“The court thinks we scholars are too troublesome, and thinks common people eat too much grain!”
“What’s being cooked in that pot is poison grass!”
“It’s a demon object grown from eating dead human flesh!”
“Anyone who eats it will lose their descendants!”
As soon as these words were spoken, it was like a ladle of water poured into boiling oil.
BOOM!
The crowd exploded.
Fear instantly turned into anger.
“Damn tyrannical Qin!”
“I haven’t even married yet—I don’t want my lineage cut off!”
“Smash it! Smash this harmful stall!”
Whoosh!
A rotten egg flew through the air.
Smack!
It hit Kong Fu squarely on the forehead.
Yellow egg liquid dripped down his aged face.
The stench was unbearable.
“Bastards!”
Kong Fu wiped his face.
His whole body trembled with rage.
He wasn’t angry at being humiliated.
He was furious that these fools were treating a life-saving divine food as poison!
“Ignorant!”
“Stupid!”
Kong Fu kicked over the table in front of him.
He rushed to the iron pot and didn’t even bother using a bowl.
He directly grabbed a lump of steaming hot mashed potato with his rough, calloused hands—
And shoved it into his mouth!
“Mmm!”
Hot.
Soft.
The fragrance of starch mixed with earthy aroma instantly filled his mouth.
He chewed hard, cheeks puffed like a hamster.
The crowd below froze.
Even the sharp-faced spy went stiff.
Wasn’t this supposed to be poisonous?
Why did this old man look like a starving ghost reincarnated?
“Scholar Kong! Leave some for me!”
“Get lost! This pot is mine!”
“You old bastard, you already took too much!”
A more unbelievable scene unfolded.
The old scholars on stage—who usually spoke in refined classical phrases and walked with dignified steps—Were now completely gone mad.
They were fighting over the remaining potato mash at the bottom of the pot.
Kong Fu was even sitting on top of another old scholar, still desperately stuffing half a potato into his mouth.
Their eating posture…
Was more savage than famine refugees who hadn’t eaten in days.
The crowd below fell into deathly silence.
The spy’s mouth hung wide open, nearly dropping to his chest.
If this was poison…
Wasn’t the reaction a little too… delicious?
“Everyone move aside!”
A childish but commanding voice suddenly roared through the iron loudspeaker, shaking everyone’s eardrums.
Ying Ziye had arrived.
He sat under a huge sun umbrella, lazily fanning himself.
Behind him, three hundred imperial guards were bare-chested, grinning.
They carried no weapons.
Instead, they carried massive iron pots.
“Set up the pots!”
“Light the fire!”
Ying Ziye waved his small hand.
BOOM!
Firewood ignited instantly, flames shooting three feet high.
The oil in the pots began to bubble.
Ying Ziye pulled out two stuffed paper packets from his chest.
System rewards.
God-level cumin powder.
Super spicy chili powder.
He dumped the cut potato strips straight into the boiling oil.
SIZZLE—!
That sound was like the most beautiful music in the world.
White steam rose.
The plain potato strips tumbled in the boiling oil, quickly turning golden.
Ying Ziye tore open the packets.
With a flick of his wrist—
Red powder and brown granules fell like rain into the pot.
The next second.
Domineering.
Brutal.
Unreasonable.
A never-before-seen, complex aroma exploded outward like a nuclear blast from the center of the square, spreading in all directions!
It was the roasted fragrance of oil, mixed with the exotic scent of cumin, and the wild, stimulating heat of chili.
For the Qin commoners who were still eating boiled wild vegetables and couldn’t even afford salt—
This was dimensional suppression.
A sensory nuclear weapon!
Gulp.
Gulp.
The sound of swallowing saliva rose and fell like rolling thunder, merging into one continuous roar.
The sharp-faced spy desperately covered his mouth.
Useless.
Saliva still poured through his fingers like a waterfall.
His stomach convulsed, roared, and sent surrender signals straight to his brain.
Too fragrant.
This was just too fragrant!
If this was poison, then just let it poison me to death!
Ying Ziye looked at the countless pairs of green, hungry eyes below.
He smiled.
Like a devil luring children with candy.
He raised the loudspeaker.
“Want to eat?”
Thousands of heads in the crowd nodded in perfect unison.
Like obedient puppets.
“Simple.”
Ying Ziye lifted a handful of golden, crispy fries from the oil pan.
The steaming aroma made everyone feel like their eyeballs were about to pop out.
“No money required.”
“And no life required.”
“Just do one thing.”
He pointed toward the direction of the spy.
“No matter who you are.”
“Shout loudly: ‘The remnants of the Six Kingdoms have sons without buttholes!’”
“This serving of fries will be yours.”
Silence.
Deathly silence.
The spy froze completely, cold sweat instantly soaking his back.
This was a conspiracy!
A naked, soul-crushing psychological attack!
“What? You don’t want to?”
Ying Ziye picked up a fry and put it into his mouth.
Crack.
The crisp sound was amplified through the loudspeaker.
It became the final straw that broke the camel’s back.
“I’ll shout!”
A refugee rushed forward.
He hadn’t eaten for three days. For food, he would curse someone—killing someone wouldn’t even be out of the question!
“The remnants of the Six Kingdoms have sons without buttholes! May their whole family die!”
Ying Ziye waved his hand.
“Reward him!”
A large ladle of golden, oily fries coated with chili and cumin was poured into the man’s broken bowl.
The refugee grabbed one and shoved it into his mouth.
Instantly.
He cried.
Tears of pure happiness.
“So good! Too good! If this is poison, I’ll eat it again in my next life!”
Once there was one, there was a second.
“I’ll do it!”
“The remnants of the Six Kingdoms deserve to die!”
“The sons of those restoration bastards should be fed to dogs at birth!”
Curses rose like a tsunami.
Wave after wave.
The spy was squeezed within the crowd, staggering back and forth.
All around him were curses, chewing sounds, and that damn irresistible aroma.
His stomach rumbled like thunder.
Finally.
His mental defense collapsed.
For a bite of food…
Lord, forgive me!
The spy suddenly raised his hand, his face twisted, and shouted with all his strength:
“Xiang Liang that old bastard has sons without buttholes!!!”
“Give me a portion! Give me a portion!”
Ying Ziye sat on the high platform, swinging his little legs.
Listening to the endless cursing, he nodded in satisfaction.
This… is what they call “winning the people’s hearts.”
Just give them food, and the commoners are the most honest people in the world.
……
In the distance.
Inside the largest tavern, second-floor private room.
All the windows were tightly shut.
But that unstoppable aroma still seeped inside.
Crack.
A delicate white jade wine cup was crushed into powder by a massive hand.
Xiang Zhuang stood by the window crack.
His face was darker than a bottom of a pot.
He watched the crowd below wildly insulting the Xiang clan.
He listened to those unbearable curses.
Especially that line about Xiang Liang’s sons—
that was his own dead operative!
“Ying… Zi… Ye!”
Xiang Zhuang ground his teeth so hard they creaked.
His hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
Knuckles turned white.
Killing intent churned in the room like a physical force.
“If this child is not eliminated…”
“Chu will never be restored!”
He turned and looked at the intelligence report on the table.
A trace of crazed determination flashed in his eyes.
“Winning hearts and minds?”
“Hmph.”
“As long as I kill this demon-spouting brat…”
“These ignorant fools…”
“Will still be the blades in my Xiang clan’s hands!”
Discussion
Comments
0 comments so far.
Sign in to join the conversation and keep your activity tied to this account.
No comments yet. Start the conversation.