Chapter 59: A New Mission Plan
Zichen Palace.
Wei Wanlan returned crying, his eyes swollen like two round walnuts. His eyelids and cheeks were red; when he cried, he looked pitiful.
But this kind of crying was different from Wei Wanlan’s usual crying.
An Ruyi wanted to comfort him.
But Wei Wanlan completely ignored him, lost in his sadness. He wasn’t angry, but he didn’t speak to anyone.
An Ruyi was adept at reading the atmosphere.
Knowing that he couldn’t comfort Wei Wanlan, and the Regent King wasn’t in the Zichen Palace, An Gonggong had no authority to make decisions.
Therefore, he bowed and retreated, slowly closing the bedroom door, leaving Wei Wanlan alone in the room. He then instructed a small eunuch to immediately inform the Prince’s residence.
The dragon bed in the Zichen Palace was quite large.
Little Wei Wanlan lay alone on the bed, looking very lonely. Wrapped in a brocade blanket, his pillow was wet with tears. He felt tired but didn’t fall asleep.
Instead, realizing his predicament as an inescapable puppet,
Wei Wanlan became unusually invigorated:
—He had to complete Task Two quickly!!!
Complete the main quests and leave the big bad guy.
His mind rapidly processed recent events: establishing and perfecting the supervisory censor system, checking the completion of the three-year examination… everything seemed to be going well.
Following the established plan seemed to thoroughly rectify the ranks of Da Wei’s officials.
But if he were to consider what else could be improved?
Wei Wanlan didn’t have much of a global perspective. At this moment, only one person came to mind.
Or rather, he still had one point he didn’t understand: the little official who evaluated the Luoyang governor.
He couldn’t understand the Luoyang governor through him.
Yuan Xizai.
“—I prayed for blessings in front of the Lushan Da Buddha, I don’t know if it will work or not.”
The Buddha…
Blessings…
The Luoyang snow disaster…
He couldn’t think about it anymore; his head was about to explode.
Closing his swollen eyes, Wei Wanlan buried his dragon head in the pillow, taking a long breath against the pillowcase.
In his previous era, he hadn’t played many script-killing games; occasionally playing escape rooms, he always needed to use all the hints to get out.
He wanted to find a hint.
“Regent King, big bad guy.”
【Login successful。】
The Sage Emperor Cultivation System appeared as scheduled; a golden screen popped up in front of him. He carefully sifted through the numerous options; items couldn’t be used in combination, and he didn’t dare to click randomly.
Serious Wei Wanlan tried to guess the function of each item.
He scrolled the page to a certain option, displaying an ear. He tapped the ear icon; the name of the item appeared above his fingertip:
—External Consultation.
Honestly, he could understand this name.
And it was exactly what he needed. Wei Wanlan quickly wiped away his tears, afraid that the expert would hear his crying when he made the call.
Wei Wanlan swallowed, calming his emotions, and clicked use.
A thin light suddenly burst forth from the dragon bed.
The light was exceptionally dazzling in the enclosed curtains; Wei Wanlan closed his eyes and shielded them with his claws.
Then a white shadow appeared in his vision; the shadow gradually condensed into the slender figure of a scholar. This person was wearing plain undergarments. He exuded the fragrance of ink and books, with a high nose bridge and delicate eyebrows and eyes.
He clearly recognized him.
But Wei Wanlan was shocked by the external consultation’s appearance.
—Who would have thought that another person would suddenly appear on my bed in the middle of the night?!
Wei Wanlan had boundaries.
Being timid, he was immediately scared stiff.
He didn’t know how, nor where the strength came from, but he used his hands and feet to push Xiao Mengshi off the bed.
The dragon bed wasn’t high, but it still made a “thump” sound.
Wei Wanlan shrunk further into the bed, while Xiao Mengshi rubbed his head on the floor; his sleeping self and waking self were completely different; he displayed physical sluggishness and couldn’t get up:
“Shimo, what was that sound? Shimo…”
He heard no response from his servant.
Xiao Mengshi yawned long and slowly sat up from the bed, but as he rose, he felt something hard beneath him. He groped blindly on the floor, touching embroidered dragon boots; he realized that the style of these things was far beyond what he could afford.
Xiao Mengshi suddenly opened his eyes!
His waking gaze was sharp and bright. He flipped over from sitting to kneeling:
“This subordinate pays his respects to Your Majesty!”
“No, no, no need for ceremony.”
Wei Wanlan poked his dragon head out from under the curtains, gesturing with a “shh”—
There are people outside, don’t make a sound.
Xiao Mengshi complied, his voice immediately dropping by eight octaves.
Even though everyone thought that the Regent King and the young emperor had reconciled, and that their relationship was good, the fact that the young emperor summoned him secretly to the palace in the middle of the night—although he didn’t know how he did it—showed a glimpse of the true relationship between the young emperor and Su Yan.
Indeed, a rebellious official, untrustworthy. The young emperor, at such a young age, managed to turn the tide, pitiful and admirable.
Xiao Mengshi whispered, “Your Majesty summoned me here late at night, is there something you need help with? Let me guess, it’s about Yuan Xizai, the Luoyang governor???”
“…”
Uh, how did he know?
Xiao Mengshi thought for a moment, his thinking demeanor was much more like a wise man, his eyes sparkling:
“This afternoon, Your Majesty re-examined three officials, two with results, one good and one bad. The third one, Your Majesty only questioned but made no judgment, yet Your Majesty’s expression clearly showed confusion.”
Wei Wanlan covered his face with his dragon claws. Was it that obvious?
Xiao Mengshi continued, “Your Majesty, after hearing my guess, unconsciously nodded, perhaps Your Majesty didn’t even notice.”
Oh, I really didn’t notice.
Wei Wanlan came out from behind the curtains.
He lifted the curtains with a hook and sat on the edge of the bed: “I sent someone to find out about that evaluator.” Wei Wanlan intentionally concealed the fact that he had a system, inventing an intelligence network: “My people told me that the evaluator had worshipped at the Lushan Da Buddha in Luoyang.”
This was the inner thought that Wei Wanlan didn’t understand.
He told Xiao Ji, hoping he could analyze it for him.
But as soon as these words reached Xiao Ji’s ears, his expression changed drastically, from the initial calmness to slowly tightening.
Then, the tension could no longer be controlled.
Anger appeared between Xiao Mengshi’s brows.
He was still kneeling under the dragon bed, but he struck the ground with his right hand, making a thud:
“Your Majesty—the Luoyang governor deceived the emperor, dared not be exposed within the court, the examination officials and the supervisory censors were all bribed by Yuan Xizai, Yuan Xizai has a problem!”
“What problem???”
Wei Wanlan sat straight.
Xiao Mengshi created suspense, and Wei Wanlan listened, as if a shocking secret about Yuan Xizai was about to be revealed. Wei Wanlan took a gentle breath. A bit expectant.
He felt like he was participating in a suspense drama.
“Speak freely, Aiqing. I want to hear.”
Xiao Ji calmed himself down and said,
“The Lushan Da Buddha is a giant statue carved into the mountain. If the heavy snow blocked the mountain, how could the evaluator have worshiped? The evaluator was invited by Yuan Xizai to play in Dongdu and then returned to Chang’an to report—there was no snow disaster in Luoyang.”
“…”
The breath he had taken suddenly turned cold.
Wei Wanlan felt cold from his heart to his lungs.
He didn’t expect Xiao Mengshi to reveal such shocking news; he hadn’t even considered the truth of the Luoyang snow disaster. Because since he received the report from the local government requesting disaster relief funds, he had been concerned about the safety of the disaster victims.
The Da Wei emperor asked stupidly, his worldview shattered, his voice hoarse:
“But isn’t it difficult to spread such a huge lie?”
Xiao Ji smiled, “Throughout history, there have been countless cases of falsely reporting disasters to profit; it’s Your Majesty’s kindness, not the absence of such things.”
Xiao Ji, without blinking, casually gave Wei Wanlan a real-life example of falsely reporting a disaster from the previous dynasty:
“About seven or eight years ago, the Yellow River had floods year after year; disaster reports were sent to the court year after year, and the court allocated funds for disaster relief year after year.”
Xiao Ji paused and continued, “However, the floods were even greater the following year. At first, the court thought it was due to the long-term disrepair of the Yellow River, so they allocated funds for dredging the river; yet the floods continued.”
Wei Wanlan asked, “Then what?”
Xiao Ji: “It was because initially, only parts of the Yellow River region suffered from disasters, but local officials inflated the number of disaster victims to obtain funds from the court. Then, other regions, seeing the profit, followed suit, reporting more severe disasters to the court.”
Hearing this, Wei Wanlan began to understand.
He nodded slightly.
Then he tried to generalize:
“You mean that this year, these people didn’t dare report the Yellow River flood, but reported a snow disaster in Luoyang? They exaggerated the disaster.”
Xiao Mengshi: “The Yellow River flood stopped three years ago. Since then, no one in the Da Wei court dared to mention the Yellow River flood again.”
Xiao Mengshi didn’t know Wei Wanlan wasn’t the original owner.
Wei Wanlan wasn’t very sensitive to the timeframe of three years ago.
After a moment of reaction, he realized that it was the year when the original owner ascended the throne and the Regent King came to power.
Because he suddenly thought of the Regent King.
Wei Wanlan’s heart inexplicably ached.
His heart was sour and bitter, but there was also the occasional warm, fuzzy feeling from the unavoidable interactions with the Regent King over the long period, a feeling he didn’t recognize as sweet.
Wei Wanlan sniffed.
Xiao Mengshi explained in front of him, “Three years ago, Su Yan took office, and the first thing he did was to purge corruption in the Yellow River flood area, killing and replacing people in the court, implicating tens of thousands of people. The Regent King used this to establish his authority, and no one dared to mention the Yellow River flood again.”
—A few months ago, when Wei Wanlan had just arrived here.
404 had introduced the Regent King like this:
【The male protagonist of this book, Su Jingzhi, holds supreme power, and kills mercilessly, once killing tens of thousands of his enemies in a single day。】
A chill ran down his spine.
Wei Wanlan’s moist eyes trembled, and he asked Xiao Ji, “Among those he killed, there were also people who weren’t corrupt officials, right?”
Xiao Ji had never admired the Regent King’s methods; Wei Wanlan’s question allowed Xiao Ji to express his personal emotions:
“Your Majesty, this person has always wanted supreme power. He will do anything to seize power.”
Wei Wanlan:…
This fact was confirmed again.
The skin on Wei Wanlan’s cheeks, which had just dried, seemed to be moistened by tears again. His tear-laden eyelashes were cold, and his throat was tight.
【He’s the big bad guy, you’re the little puppet。】
【Remember the Jinling plot!!!】
“I… I understand.”
The little warmth from his interactions with the Regent King was completely worn away by the days of fright and anxiety.
Since the Sage Emperor Cultivation System’s expert was the warrior.
Then, the warrior should be officially recognized, someone he could trust, right?
But he still didn’t dare to mention that he was a book transmigrator.
Wei Wanlan, in a manner seen on television, assumed a posture of honoring talent, got up from the dragon bed, and helped Xiao Ji up.
His voice still had a hint of crying, Wei Wanlan sincerely asked Xiao Ji:
“Xiao She Ren, in your opinion, what should I do in my current situation?”
Xiao Ji’s eyes flashed.
Even dressed in simple undergarments, his eyes were sharp, his deep pupils filled with political maneuvering and scheming.
Xiao Ji bowed, “This subordinate believes that for Your Majesty to rule the world and truly escape the Regent King’s control, we can proceed in the following steps.”
Wei Wanlan leaned forward, “Tell me.”
Xiao Ji: “Quell internal strife, eliminate enemy states, kill powerful officials.”
Familiar tasks, concise words.
Every word from Xiao She Ren was filled with confidence and professionalism, showing an indescribable tacit understanding with his transmigration mission.
“We use Su Yan’s power to quell internal and external troubles, slowly develop ourselves, and finally eliminate him; this subordinate believes it is feasible.”
Xiao Ji’s plan reversed the order of the tasks compared to 404. In Xiao Ji’s eyes, the young emperor currently doesn’t have the upper hand in directly confronting the Regent King.
Wei Wanlan’s two soft strands of hair swayed slightly as his mind raced:
Actually, he also felt that prioritizing Task Two was better than focusing on Task One; he had been focusing on Task One.
It seemed that for the second task, he could use the system’s power to push it forward, but for Task One…
After working on it for so long, there was still no progress.
Wei Wanlan nodded slightly, seemingly agreeing with Xiao Ji’s statement, and seemingly reaching an important agreement with Xiao Ji.
Xiao Ji was also very understanding and joined Wei Wanlan’s side.
He kowtowed again, his tone sincere:
“This subordinate’s ancestors have served as ministers in Da Wei for generations. Su Yan disregards the emperor and acts arbitrarily in the court. This subordinate is willing to assist Your Majesty in planning for a prosperous reign.”
—Does this mean you’ll help me with the mission?
Wei Wanlan was delighted. His moist doe eyes blinked slowly, tilting his head to look at this newly acquired companion. The tide of tears receded.
Wei Wanlan had carefully observed the warrior; the warrior was a pure civil servant. Although a bit of a scholar, he was generally safe to be around. He had good rapport with Wei Wanlan and was intelligent and talented.
He was very happy.
Thus, Wei Wanlan’s eyes curved slightly, as if holding moonlight. He extended his hand towards the warrior, wanting to make friends with Xiao Mengshi. From now on, there would be someone to share secrets with, to fight alongside, and also the first person he had taken the initiative to get to know.
This friend was very important to him.
Wei Wanlan would certainly cherish him.
Their secret plan was reaching a crucial point.
A brisk footstep was heard in the corridor of the Zichen Palace. The footsteps were crisp and decisive, accompanied by the sounds of palace maids and eunuchs bowing along the way.
Soon, the footsteps reached the entrance to Wei Wanlan’s bedroom…
An Ruyi shouted outside the door:
“The Regent King has arrived—”
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