Future Beast World: Becoming A Pampered Beauty-Chapter 515 - 454: Send Him on His Final Journey
Sang Luo opened the envelope, and a flicker of surprise crossed her face as she read its contents.
Fei Yuan leaned over for a look and smiled knowingly.
"See? The opportunity has arrived."
...
The Crown Prince had not yet come of age, so the women of the Eastern Palace were not required to sleep with him.
In the past, Prince Yun Hua would sometimes come to Sang Luo’s room at night to sleep beside her. It was entirely innocent; they would simply get under the covers and sleep, with a long bolster pillow separating them like a line drawn down the middle.
Lately, however, Prince Yun Hua was clearly busy with other matters. Perhaps he was preparing for his coming-of-age ceremony in two months. Sang Luo hadn’t seen much of him, which, conveniently, made it easier for her to come and go from the Imperial Palace.
Late the night after receiving the clandestine letter, Sang Luo found an opportunity to leave the Imperial Palace. She went to a forest on the outskirts of the city, where a group of men in black had already been waiting for some time.
Their leader was a tall, burly, middle-aged man. The lower half of his face was covered with a triangular black cloth, revealing only a pair of sharp, hawk-like eyes.
Seeing Sang Luo approach, the man let out a smug laugh. "I knew you’d come!"
"Where are they?" Sang Luo asked, her voice devoid of emotion.
To a bystander, it would have sounded like a cold, furious question.
The burly man waved his hand, and two tall, lanky men hauled three people forward and threw them to the ground.
Two were older and one was young. They were all bound with ropes, and their mouths had been crudely stuffed with gags.
The moment the three saw Sang Luo, tears streamed down their faces, and they began to cry out in agitated, muffled shrieks.
One of the men tore the gag from the old woman’s mouth.
"Pengpeng!" the old woman cried, tears streaming down her face. "Save your parents and your brother! We don’t want to die! Whatever these people want, just give it to them!"
Yao Qin’s real name was, in fact, Kuang Pengpeng.
Sang Luo hadn’t changed her appearance, but she had used an Illusion Technique. To outsiders, she still had the face of the Dancing Girl, Yao Qin.
She confirmed the identities of the three captives: the crying old woman was Kuang Pengpeng’s biological mother, and the other two, an older man and a young one, were her stepfather and younger brother.
Kuang Pengpeng came from a poor background, and her family was not well-off. To provide for them, she relied on her good looks and a tenacious will to learn and endure hardship. By a strange twist of fate, she set foot on the lucrative path of a Dancing Girl in a brothel. She not only supported her family’s livelihood but had also saved enough Silver Taels for her brother to pursue a career as a government official.
She worked herself to the bone, enduring all manner of humiliation, just hoping her brother could bring honor to their ancestors by securing an official post. Then, she could finally be free.
What she didn’t know, however, was that her brother, a young man from a poor family, had long been corrupted by the dazzlingly prosperous Imperial City. He indulged in wining, dining, whoring, and gambling, racking up a mountain of debt and, in turn, dragging her deeper into the mire with him.
Of course, these were not matters for Sang Luo to worry about. But to Yao Qin, her family was the most important thing in the world, which was precisely why this group of thugs dared to use them to threaten her.
"So, what do you say?" the burly leader began, laying out his terms. "Agree to do this for us, and I’ll release your parents and your brother. Once the job is done, your brother’s debts will be wiped clean. Our master will even give you a huge sum of money and send you away from the Capital City, so you’ll never have to worry about food or drink for the rest of your lives!"
Sang Luo’s eyes instantly welled with tears. "Don’t touch my family," she said, her voice choked with emotion. "As long as my family is safe, I’ll do anything!"
Seeing her in such a tearful state, the men became even more confident.
The burly man stepped forward and pressed a small packet of powder into her hand.
"It’s your own fault for being the Crown Prince’s favorite Concubine. You’re the one he trusts most in that harem of his. But you should be thanking our master for giving you this opportunity. You could sell your body in a brothel for a lifetime and never earn this much money!"
As he spoke, the burly man’s lecherous gaze roved over Sang Luo’s face. He clicked his tongue in appreciation. "I have to say, the great Crown Prince has some damn good taste. You really are worthy of being the top Dancing Girl of Zuihuan Building. That face! That body! Too bad I’m on a mission, otherwise I’d definitely have some fun with you for a night..."
"Fucking the Crown Prince’s woman... just thinking about it is a thrill!"
The surrounding men erupted in raucous laughter, and more malicious, predatory gazes fell upon her.
A cold glint flashed in the depths of Sang Luo’s eyes.
The burly man reached out to grope her, but in the next second, a scream of agony tore through the air. The man collapsed, his arm bent at an unnatural angle.
"The bitch actually dared to fight back!"
"Tie her up! Teach this bitch a good lesson about who she’s supposed to obey!"
The men started to rush forward, but then, one by one, their eyes lost focus. They froze in place like marionettes whose strings had been cut.
"Go," Sang Luo said, "and tell your master I agree to his deal."
"...Yes."
As if soulless, the thugs turned and left obediently.
Father Kuang, Mother Kuang, and her brother, who had witnessed the entire scene, wore expressions of utter shock. An instant later, they too collapsed to the ground. Sang Luo had used her spiritual power to alter their memories of the night.
Once she had taken care of matters there, Sang Luo returned to the Imperial Palace. Fei Yuan was in her room, waiting for her.
"How did it go?"
"The Emperor has thirteen children," Sang Luo began, "but the most capable are Prince Yun Hua and the Third Prince. The Third Prince has been building factions within the court for his own gain, and his power has grown immense. Meanwhile, Prince Yun Hua spent all his years before adulthood in ascetic cultivation at a temple. Aside from the backing of his maternal clan and a few old court ministers, he has little support. What’s more, Prince Yun Hua’s birth mother, Empress Little Zhuang, died many years ago, whereas the Third Prince’s mother, Consort Rou, controls the imperial harem."
"The Emperor’s health is failing by the day. And while Prince Yun Hua still holds the title of Crown Prince, popular sentiment favors the Third Prince." Sang Luo took out the packet of powder and continued, "If the Third Prince wants to ascend to that position, he must first eliminate Prince Yun Hua. So, he set a trap for me to walk into."
Fei Yuan’s gaze fell on the packet of powder. Having been the Phoenix Emperor for so many years, he was long since unfazed by such underhanded schemes. "He wants to use you to poison Prince Yun Hua?"
"Yes. It’s common knowledge that I’m currently Prince Yun Hua’s favorite. I have the opportunity to act. The Third Prince doesn’t actually expect me to succeed; this is just an extra layer of insurance for his own plan." Sang Luo sighed. "But I don’t want to be the one to do it."
Fei Yuan looked at her intently. "Luo’er, you know better than anyone that for Yan to return, Prince Yun Hua must die."
"...I know."
Although Prince Yun Hua was the reincarnation of one of Yan’s Soul fragments, she couldn’t see the two of them as the same person. She felt a certain regret at the thought of ending a young man’s life for Yan’s sake.
"As you said, if not you, it would be someone else. You are simply taking the place of another killer," Fei Yuan said. "Rather than let him die at the hands of another, it is better that you personally see him off on his final journey."
Sang Luo let out a deep, sorrowful sigh.
’It seems Prince Yun Hua can’t escape his fate of dying before twenty in this life, either.’
"For the past few hundred years, in every reincarnation, he has never met a peaceful end..."
A wry smile touched Fei Yuan’s lips. "These old coots are all quite ruthless with themselves."
Sang Luo caught the meaning behind his words and looked surprised. "There are others besides Yan?"
Fei Yuan nodded. "The longer these [beings] have lived—for tens of thousands of years—the more they fear the arrival of a life-and-death tribulation. Some do it to seek a higher breakthrough, some to resolve a Death Tribulation, and others for reasons they cannot avoid. All these [beings] will choose to enter the mortal world..."
