Chapter 707
Chapter 707
“This gu-worm treatment feels wonderful. I think my skin has improved a lot. An Fei, do you have any more of these super-premium gu-worms? An Fei, do you or don’t you? That tingling sensation just now was incredibly pleasant. I haven’t had nearly enough.”
Shen Lang’s face was wreathed in a smile, but in An Fei’s eyes, it was the smile of a devil. An Fei trembled all over, and a warmth spread through her lower body. It wasn't an exaggeration; she had truly wet herself. Right now, she was terrified of Shen Lang. She pleaded through her tears.
“Shen Lang, I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell you where the item to activate the gu-worms inside the King of Chu is. It’s not with me; it’s on Fudao Mountain. I’ll write a letter, and you can send someone to retrieve it. Shen Lang, I swear, I’ll forget everything that happened today. If you just don’t kill me, I will be eternally grateful and will surely repay you. I will, I really will…”
An Fei knelt on the floor, desperately kowtowing, her forehead striking the ground as she begged. Shen Lang took out a knife and split open the exquisitely crafted box, revealing a plump, fat worm inside. Wearing a glove, he gave it a gentle squeeze, and the worm spat out a clear, transparent liquid from its mouth. The air instantly filled with an incomparably fragrant, yet bizarre, scent. Shen Lang carefully sealed the liquid the worm had produced inside a vial.
“You implanted a gu-worm named Dark Fragrance into the King of Chu. It’s one of the gu-worms cultivated by Elder Wudaozi. Of course, she has no idea you used it on the King of Chu. She didn’t cultivate this type of gu-worm for killing, but to activate its properties under specific environments for her experiments. She is my master. I’ve read many of her experiment logs, including the records on this Dark Fragrance gu-worm. The liquid in this worm is not poisonous at all, but it can awaken the Dark Fragrance gu-worm. Just a little of this liquid needs to penetrate the skin. Once that gu-worm awakens, the King of Chu will die instantly.”
Shen Lang then grabbed An Fei by the hair and dragged her upstairs. An Fei’s voice trembled.
“Shen Lang, what are you doing? What in the world are you doing?”
“Nothing much. Just taking a beauty upstairs to see the view. If my guess is correct, Fudao Mountain and Ning Yi have already colluded. Ning Yi is probably planning to stage a performance of killing the King of Chu. A grand performance of saving the State of Yue! How wonderful. How could I miss out on such a great event? I must make his performance even more interesting. How does Ning Yi plan to stage the king’s death? Perhaps by shooting him with an arrow from hundreds of meters away. If he succeeds, how magnificent would that be? He’d become the great hero who single-handedly turned the tide in a perilous situation. That scene will surely be spectacular. I must think carefully… about how I can make Ning Yi suffer a crushing humiliation. But I must act quickly. Any delay and Ning Yi’s plan might succeed.”
With considerable effort, Shen Lang finally dragged An Fei up to the fifth floor. Thankfully, she was rail-thin, weighing less than a hundred pounds. During the ascent, An Fei had wet herself in terror. Shen Lang hadn't uttered a single harsh word, yet he had scared her out of her wits.
“Shen Lang, please don’t kill me. Don’t kill me. I’ll be your woman. I’ll sleep with you.”
“Didn’t you just inwardly vow to harm my wife and child? Is that right? One may commit a crime, but their family should not be touched! An Fei, isn’t the scenery of the capital beautiful? Since it is, you should take one last look.”
With that, Shen Lang pushed her. An Fei’s body plummeted from the nearly twenty-meter-high building.
“Aaaaaah!”
After a long, wretched scream, a sickening thud echoed as her beautiful body smashed into the ground, reduced to a pulp.
‘My thanks to the Hidden Yuan Society! If it weren't for the tall building you constructed, An Fei wouldn't have been turned into such a mess when she fell.’
***
Standing before Shen Lang, the trembling Queen of Chu showed none of her former arrogance. She had been so thoroughly tormented by him that she was now steeped in fear—from being paraded through the streets in a wretched state to having her body fester with sores. Even more shocking was the fact that Shen Lang had killed An Fei yesterday. He was a man of his word; if he said he would kill someone, he would truly kill them. It was as if, among the twelve zodiac animals, Shen Lang belonged to the year of the savage wolf.
Shen Lang said with a smile, “Your Majesty the Queen, your complexion has improved greatly.”
The queen forced an awkward smile. The virus Shen Lang had injected had truly made her suffer through a hellish ordeal.
“Young Master Shen, what… what kind of illness do I have?”
The Queen of Chu had wanted to ask what kind of poison he had used on her, but she dared not voice such words now.
“It’s just a type of rash. I’ll prescribe a few doses of medicine, and you’ll be fully recovered soon. You will feel no different when you use that part of your body again.”
“Thank you, Young Master Shen.”
Shen Lang then sniffed the air and asked, “I seem to detect a special fragrance from Your Majesty?”
The Queen of Chu flinched.
‘Surely Shen Lang doesn’t have designs on me? I’m old, and the rash on my body hasn’t even fully healed.’
“The perfume Your Majesty uses is quite unique.”
The queen replied in a trembling voice, “This… this is a perfume An Fei gifted to me.”
Just as he thought. The scent of the perfume was nearly identical to the fragrance of the liquid that activated the gu-worm in the King of Chu. An Fei had truly thought of everything. In the future, when the king died suddenly, anyone who recognized the scent would immediately suspect the queen.
“Your Majesty, do you often write letters to the King of Chu?”
The Queen of Chu nodded.
“I do.”
“Do you use your own personal stationery?”
The Queen of Chu nodded.
“Bring it here.”
A moment later, someone brought the stationery, and Shen Lang smelled it. As expected, it had the same scent as the one on the Queen of Chu. To solidify her favor and desperately hold onto the king’s heart, the Queen of Chu had used every method to leave an impression. Thus, this unique fragrance had become her signature.
“Then, might I trouble you to write one more secret letter?”
The Queen of Chu nodded.
“Just write what I tell you to.”
She nodded, and fifteen minutes later, the letter to the King of Chu was complete.
***
Shen Lang took the secret letter written to the King of Chu and made a few more adjustments. An hour later, a young man of about twenty appeared before him. He was the King of Chu’s seventh son, the legitimate son born to the queen. However, the Crown Prince was also the queen’s biological son, and having held the title for so long—he was nearly forty this year—the Crown Prince's position was truly unshakable.
“Are you Prince Chu Ren?”
“I am!”
The young man was rather composed. Shen Lang said to him, “Your wife, child, and mother are all in my hands. You understand what you must do, don’t you?”
The King of Chu’s seventh son, Chu Ren, nodded. Shen Lang handed him a vial of medicine.
“Drink this.”
Chu Ren asked in a shaky voice, “If there’s something you need me to do, I’ll do it. Is this really necessary?”
“Drink it. It will be a great loss of face for you, Your Highness, if I have my men force it down your throat.”
Chu Ren drank the medicine in anguish.
“This is a rather startling virus, far more terrifying than the one used on your mother. No one in this world, including Fudao Mountain, can cure it. Only I can. If it is not treated in time, first your genitals will fester, and then your entire body will rot away. You will die a most, most miserable death.”
Hearing this, the King of Chu’s seventh son, Chu Ren, could no longer maintain his composure. He lost his calm completely. He asked in a quavering voice, “I will do what you ask of me. Why must you torment me like this?”
“You must now deliver this secret letter to your royal father at the fastest possible speed. You must deliver it to him personally with the utmost haste. Otherwise, it will be too late for everything.”
“What is written in this letter?”
Unable to contain his curiosity, Chu Ren asked. Shen Lang handed the letter to him. Chu Ren immediately opened it, and upon reading the contents, he nearly jumped for joy. The letter stated that the Crown Prince and An Fei had an illicit affair and plotted to harm the King of Chu. When their crime was exposed, An Fei committed suicide, and the Grand Eunuch Yan Liang, who was by the king's side, was the mastermind behind the plot to assassinate the king. Upon reading this, Chu Ren couldn't hide his delight. Wasn't this good news for him? He was his father’s seventh son, but he was also the queen’s second legitimate son. If the Crown Prince was found guilty, wasn’t there a slight chance the throne would fall to him in the future?
“Go quickly. This is a matter of great urgency!”
Chu Ren was about to rush out.
“Wait! If, when Your Highness arrives, the King of Chu is engaged in battle with Ning Yi, you are to give him this letter instead of the previous one.”
Chu Ren was once again startled. He opened the other secret letter he received and saw that it, too, was in the Queen of Chu’s handwriting. The contents were similar, stating that An Fei had plotted to harm the King of Chu, and the mastermind was still Yan Liang. The only difference was that this letter claimed An Fei had colluded with the third prince of Yue, Ning Yi.
‘Why write it this way? Isn’t it better to say An Fei had an affair with the Crown Prince?’
Shen Lang said coldly, “You must remember my words. When you arrive at the battlefield, if the King of Chu has not yet engaged Ning Yi in battle, give him the first secret letter. However, if you arrive and the King of Chu is already on the battlefield, and Ning Yi has charged in to kill him, you must give this second secret letter to the King of Chu. You must not make a mistake. If you do, you will die of festering genitals, and your entire family will die with you!”
The King of Chu’s seventh son, Chu Ren, nodded his head desperately.
“Leave at once. Do not rest on the way. I will have men protect you and also watch you. Travel day and night, and change horses every hundred li.”
Before Shen Lang had even finished speaking, Chu Ren bolted. At this moment, even without Shen Lang’s urging, he wanted nothing more than to reach the King of Chu’s side before anyone else.
Currently, the best-case scenario for Shen Lang was to first save the King of Chu, then have the king conquer Zhenxi Province and annihilate Zhong Yao’s grand army. Afterward, Shen Lang would devise a way to kill the King of Chu, throwing the Chu army into chaos. Then, Zhang Chong’s army would advance south, and Aruonana’s army would push north, driving the Chu forces out of Tianxi Province and reclaiming all the lost territory. However, this was just his ideal scenario. If the best outcome was unattainable, he would have no choice but to fall back on his second-best plan.
The seventh prince of Chu galloped out of the capital. Before he had gone ten li, a group of Chu warriors approached to protect him.
“Protect me until we reach my royal father’s military camp. I carry an urgent dispatch.”
The Chu cavalry had originally intended to escort Chu Ren to a nearby city or garrison, but upon hearing his words, they immediately followed him, racing eastward. Along the way, they changed to fresh mounts every hundred li, truly traveling day and night without rest or sleep.
‘Faster, I must get there faster!’