Dongfang Wang’s eyes bulged again, bloodshot. He exclaimed in desperation, “Why are you not shocked at all? You knew it a long time ago? You are Li Linghai’s conspirator!”

“No, not at all. I’m afraid that there is some misunderstanding, Prime Minister Dongfang. I am absolutely unaware of the issue, and I am certainly not the queen’s conspirator. It’s just that I’ve seen too many similar things based on personal experience, so it cannot surprise me anymore.”

Li Yao hurried to explain, “Please think about it carefully. Your karma is getting to you for your monstrous crimes, and you are about to die the most miserable death. There is no need for me to lie to you at all, is there?

“Speaking of which, you seem to be very certain that the queen is behind the scenes. What evidence do you have?”

Dongfang Wang stared at Li Yao and thought for a long time, only to come up with no reason why Li Yao would bother to lie to him right now. He said in regrets, “I do not have any direct evidence, but isn’t the truth obvious? Had it not been for the ‘incident of the Blood Oath Alliance’, which completely intensified the contradictions between the four Kurfürst families and the young officers from the frontline as well as the peripheral warlords of the Imperium, how could they have leaned toward the reformists so quickly?

“Also, if General Lei Chenghu were not arrested and informed that his commandership would be removed, how could he have made up his mind to betray the Council of Elders and join hands with Li Linghai?

“From the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance to the imprisonment of Lei Chenghu, the reformists have been given a large batch of allies without any cost, and the oppositions of the four Kurfürst families are more united than ever. Who gains the most from the whole matter? Li Linghai, of course!

“Then, who else could the whole thing have been planned by if not her?”

Holding his chin and considering for a long time, Li Yao shook his head slowly and said, “This is a serious allegation. Your speculation does not seem persuasive enough!”

“Then, how much evidence did you have when you accused me of planning the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance, and how persuasive were they?”

His eyes bloodshot, Dongfang Wang roared hysterically, “Both the young officers from the frontline and the warlords from the edge of the Imperium wanted nothing but interests. They would not shake the foundations of the four families or challenge me as the ‘prime minister of iron and blood’ at all. We could’ve totally negotiated slowly. With enough time, it is always possible to come up with a plan of interest distribution that everybody will be satisfied with.

“But when the war is not entirely over yet, and the distribution of the interest in the postwar reconstruction is still distant, why would I be in such a hurry to intensify all the conflicts through such radical approaches?

“Even if I were indeed crazy enough to completely annihilate all of you with violence, I would’ve certainly planned out everything. Once the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance was activated, there would’ve been incessant thunderous strangles that would’ve suffocated all the reformists, young officers, and peripheral warlords. You wouldn’t have stood any chance at all!

“But what about the reality? The reality was that I was running and fighting here and there. Did I seem to have planned everything out at all? Do you think that the enormous scheme of the prime minister of the Imperium was so flawed that it had no backup moves at all?

“If you want evidence, the greatest evidence is my misery right now. Is my current situation not enough to suggest that I truly did not know anything about the matter, and I was simply hit when I was not prepared at all?”

Dongfang Wang couldn’t have sounded more depressed and heartfelt.

Even Li Yao was somewhat convinced by him.

He continued roaring in fury, “After the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance, the reformists seemed to be hit heavily in the emergency. A lot of people were caught, and your organization suffered heavy losses, but you regrouped very soon and even admitted Lei Chenghu, the Astounding Thunder Fleet and its tremendous young officers, peripheral warlords, and the ambitious, unstable factors within the four Kurfürst families. Your capability soared more than ten times!

“Then, you initiated the overwhelming, incessant, and seamless counterattacks, bulldozing all my forces to the ground without any stop. Let me ask you, could such powerful and fierce counterattacks really have been made in a haste?

“Vulture Li Yao, I don’t know if you are Li Linghai’s accomplice or if you are aware of the whole thing, but if you are, then you have my admiration for your self-control, your planning, and your acting skills. This is really almost a perfect scheme. I did not have any chance to counterattack at all. Whatever I did, I was simply dead for sure!

“If you are unaware of the truth, that will be very pathetic, because you were manipulated by Li Linghai too, as her pawn, her hound, and her dagger!

“Trust me, Queen Li Linghai knew that an elder of the Imperium was going to be assassinated before the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance. She calculated all the chain reactions that followed and planned the coping strategies in every step. It was not a counterattack in a haste at all but a long-prepared aggression!

“Haha. Impressive, Li Linghai. I have underestimated you again and again. I never realized that you were so dreadful that everybody—from the four Kurfürst families to the reformists, from the soldiers in the frontline to the warlords in the rear, and from a prime minister like me to the seasoned generals like Lei Chenghu—was manipulated by you like a puppet!”

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Dongfang Wang laughed in the most devastating way. His dangling skin and his hideous smile made him truly like a scary ghost.

“Wait, there is still the most critical question.”

Frowning hard, Li Yao pondered carefully for a long time before he asked, “Prime Minister Dongfang, you claim that the queen was the mastermind who came up with all the schemes because she gained the most from them. But I’m confused. What exactly has she gained?

“In terms of commandership, she does not have any troops. The Deep Sea Fleet is commanded by General Dongfang Sheng, and the Astounding Thunder Fleet is managed by General Lei Chenghu. The elite troops of the four Kurfürst families are not her place to control at all either.

“In terms of prestige, while she is the leader of the reformists, she has done nothing except for calling for the supporters and facilitating the communication. Except for her performance in the ‘crying event’ in the capital, where she won the favor of the surplus generals and the disabled veterans, she has been keeping a low profile and barely left a deep impression. If we are being completely honest, she has appeared on the battlefield even less often than me. Right now, everybody knows Vulture Li Yao and the Gold Vulture, but not everybody knows the queen’s role in the revival of the Imperium!

“In terms of the situation, after the fall of Prime Minister Dongfang, the Dongfang family will certainly be greatly weakened, but the other three families and the reformists are very likely to settle everything peacefully. We are about to welcome the return of Emperor Shenwu and rebuild the Council of Elders. The queen’s position and influence will only be further lowered.

“From the perspective that the interests of the Imperium should be above everything else, her so-called ‘schemes’ do not carry many disadvantages or bring many returns to the queen herself! If you insist that the queen lurked and secretly operated for decades planning the traps carefully for no selfish reasons at all but the revival and rise of the Imperium, then I… will have nothing to say.”

“For no selfish reasons at all? Hehehehe! You are about to welcome the return of Emperor Shenwu? Hahahaha!”

Dongfang Wang laughed so hard that he almost choked himself. He suddenly bulged his eyes and shrieked, “Then come on and welcome His Majesty now!”

Since the very beginning, he had been clutching a human-shaped package the size of a dog. There was no telling what the package was made of, but it had a high blockage ability. Li Yao peeped at it many times with his telepathic thoughts but never penetrated in successfully.

At this moment, Dongfang Wang shook the package and opened it. From inside the package, an object that was as dark as charcoal flew out with a pungent smell. It fell right before Li Yao into pieces.

Slightly dazed, Li Yao activated his spiritual shield before the pieces splashed to his body. He then observed the charcoal-like object carefully.

At first look, it was like a burnt monkey.

But the limbs and the face were apparently a human’s, except that they had been reduced multiple times proportionally.

Although it was as dark as charcoal, it did not seem to have just been burnt in a fire. Instead, the water inside the body seemed to have been entirely vaporized, and the blood and the soul were sucked up by certain secret techniques before the body shriveled to such an extent.

“Well—”

Staring at the blackened head the size of a fist for a long time, Li Yao tried to locate some traces from the grimacing, painful face, only to find nothing. “What is this?”

He was confused about why Dongfang Wang was holding such a terribly burnt body in his arms when he was about to die.

“Don’t you see? As I have said just now—”

Dongfang Wang’s smile was both bitter and hideous. “This is the dominator of the universe, the sovereign of the Imperium of True Human Beings, and Li Linghai’s husband—His Majesty Emperor Shenwu that you have been trying to rescue!”

Li Yao’s eyes were immediately frozen and did not move again until half a minute later. “Wow… You are truly… audacious and unrestrained. You were crazy enough to turn His Majesty into this?”

With a bitter smile, Dongfang Wang said, “If I say I wasn’t the one who did this, would you believe me?”

“I… would.”

Thinking for a moment, Li Yao nodded his head. “You can only coerce the other people into obeying you with a living emperor, not a dead one. But speaking of which, when you kidnapped His Majesty, he couldn’t have looked so… sorry back then, right? Therefore, His Majesty died under your watch, and you certainly can’t get away from it. How exactly did it happen?”

“Intoxication.”

Intense confusion surfaced in Dongfang Wang’s eyes as he said, “By a very uncanny but strong poison. I asked the best doctors to examine His Majesty’s body every day to ensure his safety, but nothing had been found at all! Also, I’m highly suspicious that the poison was injected into His Majesty’s body a long time ago and could be activated indirectly through timing or remote control, just so that His Majesty would die in my hands!”