Chapter 3: Oh, My Daughter—

As an emperor who had clawed his way to the throne over mountains of corpses and seas of blood, Su Zhen had never experienced anything in his life that could be called trembling hands.

Yet now, the peerless Longquan sword that could slice through iron was quivering against Su Yaoyao’s neck.

His entire worldview was undergoing a devastating assault!

Su Zhen stared at the young girl before him.

Beneath the firelight, her lips had not moved.

Then where had that voice come from?!

【Hey, hey, hey! Hold it steady, old man! Don’t let your hands shake and sever my carotid artery!】

【There aren’t even tetanus shots in this ancient era, and your lousy sword is crawling with bacteria, okay?!】

【If you weren’t my Tyrant Dad—the father I’ve never even met—I would’ve blasted you with a handful of interstellar poison dust by now!】

That crisp feminine voice, carrying three parts nonchalance and seven parts disdain, exploded once more deep inside Su Zhen’s mind!

Su Zhen took a deep breath. His heart was pounding so hard it seemed ready to burst out of his chest.

Confirmed.

That voice really was coming from the girl’s heart!

Tyrant Dad?

Poisoned to death by the chief eunuch?

Strip off his imperial robe and sell it for a hundred thousand taels?

Su Zhen rapidly digested the explosive information.

He carefully examined Su Yaoyao’s clear, bright, peach-shaped eyes.

This face, these features—they resembled those of his deceased wife, who had died violently eight years ago, by at least seventy percent!

But this was no time to acknowledge a long-lost daughter.

Compared with the sudden appearance of a daughter, the Qianji poison threatening his life tonight was the blade hanging over his head.

It was a rare and deadly poison from the Western Regions. Even the chief physician of the Imperial Medical Bureau was helpless against it. How could this girl know every detail so clearly?

Su Zhen did not immediately withdraw the sword from Su Yaoyao’s neck.

He had to personally verify whether this voice was telling the truth.

The underground hall fell into deathly silence. Everyone held their breath.

Su Zhen turned his head.

His cold gaze, sharp as two blades of ice, fell upon the chief eunuch kneeling beside him, Li Fu.

Li Fu knelt on the floor, his forehead slick with sweat.

When he suddenly felt a suffocating killing intent envelop him, he shuddered.

“Y-Your Majesty?” Li Fu forced out a fawning smile.

Looking down at him from on high, Su Zhen’s lips curled into a smile that was not quite a smile.

“Li Fu.”

He drew out the name, his calm voice sending chills down the spine.

“This servant is here!” Li Fu’s entire body trembled as he lowered his head even further.

“You just said you were in such a hurry to urge Me back to the palace to rest?”

Su Zhen toyed with the hilt of his sword, his tone low and eerie. “Is My calming tonic ready?”

At the words “calming tonic,” Li Fu’s body visibly stiffened for half a second.

Though it lasted only a brief moment, it could never escape the eyes of a supreme expert like Su Zhen.

Li Fu swallowed and forced himself to remain composed as he raised his head.

“To answer Your Majesty, the tonic... the tonic has been kept warm in the purple clay stove in the imperial kitchen.”

“The heat is just right. It has been waiting for Your Majesty to return and enjoy it, so that it may ensure Your Majesty’s health and grant You a peaceful night’s sleep.”

A peaceful night’s sleep? More like eternal sleep!

Su Zhen’s gaze turned utterly cold.

He clearly caught the evasiveness deep in Li Fu’s eyes, saw the cold sweat involuntarily beading on his temples,

and noticed the unnatural twitch in the muscles of his left cheek when he answered.

His microexpressions had completely exposed the old dog’s murderous intentions!

Everything the girl had said in her heart was true!

This treacherous dog of a servant had truly colluded with outsiders and planned to poison him to death tonight!

【Wow, this old eunuch has terrible nerves. He’s already sweating bullets.】

【When he was talking, his eyes drifted down and to the right. That’s a classic lying microexpression.】

【What a shame for my Tyrant Dad. A mighty emperor of his generation, and he’s about to be sent off by a bowl of soup.】

Su Yaoyao was thoroughly enjoying the spectacle and continued to complain wildly in her heart.

She even clicked her tongue regretfully.

Listening to the girl’s gleeful remarks, Su Zhen’s chest heaved violently.

He did not know whether he should be angry at the treacherous servant’s treason, or at this unfilial daughter for hoping he would die so she could strip him of his clothes and sell them.

Suddenly, he moved.

“Heh.”

Su Zhen let out a low chuckle.

The laughter grew louder and louder, eventually becoming an unrestrained, booming roar that echoed through the hall.

“Hahahaha! Good! What a wonderful ‘peaceful night’s sleep’!”

His savage laughter reverberated through the underground hall, rattling everyone’s eardrums.

The Imperial Guards tightened their grips on their spears, while the black-market thugs were so terrified that they flattened themselves against the ground and frantically kowtowed.

Everyone thought the Tyrant had gone mad again and was about to begin another massacre.

Li Fu’s scalp went numb as he was consumed by an ominous premonition of death.

“Your Majesty... you...”

The laughter abruptly stopped.

Su Zhen’s gaze transformed into the very embodiment of a demon from hell.

Without wasting even half a word, he twisted his wrist, gripping the Longquan sword as he swung it backward.

The blade slashed toward Li Fu, who was kneeling on the ground!

Everyone saw only a blinding flash of silver cold light explode before their eyes.

“Splurt!”

The dull, horrifying sound of a blade slicing through flesh and bone rang out.

Li Fu’s expression froze on his face.

His mouth hung slightly open. He did not even have time to scream.

A thin red line appeared between his brows and extended all the way down to his groin.

“Crack.”

Li Fu’s body split apart like a watermelon sliced down the middle.

The two halves fell away from each other as he was cleaved cleanly in two!

Foul blood mixed with organs and sprayed everywhere, splattering the entire floor.

The chief eunuch of Great Yuan, a man of tremendous power, had been sent straight to the afterlife!

Silence.

The entire underground hall once again sank into suffocating silence.

A thick wave of blood and gore swept through the underground headquarters like a storm.

Several black-market thugs with weak stomachs felt their insides churn. They dropped to their knees and began vomiting violently.

Even the battle-hardened commander of the Imperial Guards sucked in a sharp breath, feeling somewhat tense.

To cleave his most trusted eunuch in half at the slightest provocation—the man’s methods were simply too brutal!

Su Yaoyao was stunned as well.

【Holy crap! His combat power is insane!】

【Clean and decisive. No pointless speeches—he just gets the job done. I like it!】

Hearing her thoughts, the corners of Su Zhen’s lips involuntarily lifted.

He stood in the pool of blood, yet not a single drop had touched his dark imperial robes. His presence was overwhelmingly domineering.

His deep gaze returned to Su Yaoyao.

Then he did something that shattered the worldview of everyone present.

Clang!

Su Zhen casually flung away the peerless divine weapon, the Longquan sword still drenched in blood, tossing it to the ground as if it were garbage.

Su Yaoyao’s eyes widened when she saw the precious sword land in the bloody water.

【What a waste! That’s the Longquan sword forged from meteoric iron from beyond the heavens!】

【There’s even a flawless emerald set into the hilt! And he just threw it away? That sword is worth at least fifty thousand taels!】

Just as Su Yaoyao’s heart ached over the money,

this cold-blooded Tyrant, this eternal emperor who slaughtered with ruthless decisiveness,

bent his knees.

On the bloodstained floor, he performed an impossibly smooth sliding kneel.

Then he threw himself at the foot of Su Yaoyao’s white-tiger-pelt armchair!

Under the horrified gazes of every Imperial Guard and black-market thug present—so horrified their eyeballs nearly fell from their sockets—

the Tyrant Su Zhen wrapped both arms around Su Yaoyao’s leg.

He raised his head, opened his mouth, and let out a mournful yet thunderous howl:

“My daughter—!”