Chapter 0277: Xie Chengze the Evil-Slayer, Xie Chengze Who Fears Not Death
Xie Chengze gasped for air as Sheng Shihai’s grip tightened around his neck. After coughing twice to steady his breathing, he curled his lips into a cold smile. “Heh… I’m already a dead man walking. If my death can rid the world of a scourge, what is there to fear?”
Perhaps dying would even return him to the modern era.
After all, he’d lived more than enough in this foreign world over the past year.
“Am I truly so unworthy of your allegiance?”
Sheng Shihai coughed up dark blood, his expression wretched. Crimson trickled from his ears—clear signs of advanced poisoning.
Knowing his fate was sealed, he sought only one answer.
Never before had he been betrayed twice by the same person.
Xie Chengze was the first.
“In what way am I inferior to Xie Jinyu?”
That madman’s desires never lay with the throne. Since he didn’t want it, what was wrong with Sheng Shihai taking it?
He was the grandson of a former dynasty’s prime minister! Master of both literary and martial arts, skilled in political strategy! Heaven had bestowed upon him such talents—he was the true chosen one!
While Xie Jinyu was merely the descendant of beggars!
“I admit, you are suited for that position,” Xie Chengze strained to lift his head, his gaze softening unusually. “But Xie Jinyu is my younger brother. How could I allow you to kill him?”
Having grown up deprived of parental affection, subjected to whippings and harsh discipline, how could he not pity this child who similarly lacked familial warmth?
Even imprisoned in Taiji Hall, stripped of freedom, he couldn’t bring himself to hate Xie Jinyu. For he understood best how desperately those starved of love cling to others, how fiercely they crave constant companionship.
“Of course, the primary reason is that you touched my reverse scale.”
Xie Chengze wiped the dark blood dripping from Sheng Shihai’s nose and mouth, his thumb pressing harder until grotesque blood streaks marred the man’s face. “You shouldn’t have touched the poisonous incense. Much less poisoned me.”
“I hold grudges.”
A gentleman might wait ten years for revenge.
But he was no gentleman—he couldn’t even wait ten days.
“Hahahahaha!” Sheng Shihai threw his head back in laughter, his chest aching with each convulsion until he coughed up more blood in misery. His organs were rapidly withering, life fading after the poisoning.
When his laughter subsided, he gazed evenly at Xie Chengze, who faced death with indifference, his smile gradually vanishing.
“How ridiculous that I actually felt a flicker of reluctance toward you just now.”
One moment of doubt, and the entire game collapses.
No wonder the Crown Prince was both soft-hearted and obsessive—this Second Prince indeed possessed some inexplicable quality that evoked pity.
Who would have thought that the very weakness he’d once despised could ruthlessly sever its own bones, driving sharp fragments straight into his heart.
“Since you fear not death, then accompany me to the grave!”
“With Your Highness as my companion on the yellow spring road, this subject shan’t travel alone!”
Sheng Shihai gripped Xie Chengze’s throat, lifting him bodily into the air before releasing him. Gathering his final reserves of inner energy, he launched a devastating strike toward Xie Chengze’s heart!
Xie Chengze instinctively shut his eyes tightly, his face scrunching up like a pleated meat bun.
Bring it on!
He was ready!
Could it hurt more than withdrawal symptoms?
Perhaps with one blink, he’d feel no pain at all—just lose consciousness instantly and ascend directly to immortality!
However, the expected pain never came. Instead, there was only the sound of a wall collapsing nearby. Xie Chengze, who had been suspended mid-air, stumbled as he fell to the ground, opening his eyes in bewilderment.
Noticing Sheng Shihai’s grim expression as he turned to look sideways, Xie Chengze instinctively followed his gaze.
Who was it?!
Which passing savior had saved his wretched life?!
His eyes fell upon a man in travel-stained white robes, his face tense with lingering fear as he withdrew his striking right hand. The man then drew the slender Azure Sword from his waist, his focused gaze instantly solidifying into tangible killing intent as he launched a fierce assault toward Sheng Shihai!
“Sheng Shihai! How dare you harm him!”
Shen Yuan deflected the internal energy unleashed by Sheng Shihai with a wave of his hand, the cold-glinting tip of his sword aiming straight for Sheng Shihai’s heart. Already deeply poisoned and with his senses dulled, Sheng Shihai was no match for Shen Yuan. In just two moves, the Jian’an Sword pierced through his garments and plunged unimpeded into his chest.
“Pfft—” A sweet taste filled Sheng Shihai’s throat as he coughed up another mouthful of fresh blood.
The black droplets fell to the ground like scattered black chess pieces. Across the vast chessboard, white pieces had long spread in all directions, with several particularly conspicuous ones. As the final white piece sacrificed itself as bait to enter the game, it triggered a lethal trap that devoured all the black pieces, mercilessly casting them out beyond the board!
The thick fog shrouding the chessboard was forced to retreat step by step with the elimination of the most lethal black piece, eventually squeezed into a narrow corner, exposing the entire game under the sunlight.
The black pieces had clearly crumbled into a hopeless situation.
Sheng Shihai’s body swayed. As life drained from him, he stared unwillingly at Xie Chengze, who was rapidly retreating in search of cover in the distance. His outstretched hand fell limply to the ground.
In that moment, he thought:
He truly shouldn’t have used that poisonous incense on Xie Chengze.
He should have just killed him with a single sword strike.
This time, Sheng Shihai died with wide-open eyes, his bloodshot pupils densely veined and fixed unblinkingly on Xie Chengze’s direction.
And Xie Chengze finally understood why, on the day of the palace coup, he had felt something amiss while looking at Sheng Shihai’s corpse.
How could Sheng Shihai—so arrogant and self-satisfied, so certain of claiming the throne—rest peacefully with closed eyes in death?
Dying with unresolved grievances was the true portrayal of his tragic defeat.
After delivering two additional strikes to Sheng Shihai’s chest, Shen Yuan impatiently turned and strode toward Xie Chengze, eager to check his injuries.
Unexpectedly, someone was faster than him.
“Waaah—Your Highness! My dear Your Highness—! You mustn’t die!”
“This humble one still has twenty-eight concubines for you to provide for! If you die, I’ll have to stay up all night writing storybooks to make ends meet! At my age, working overnight could easily lead to sudden death!”
“Your Highness! Your Highness, don’t leave Hu Lai all alone in this world!”
Hu Lai staggered toward Xie Chengze, embracing his waist while weeping as pitifully as pear blossoms bathed in rain. Despite being advanced in years with who-knows-how-many children, his sobs resembled large and small pearls falling onto a jade plate—tears flying from his eyes in a discordant yet rhythmic “plinking” cascade.
Xie Chengze truly couldn’t believe this nonsense.
The nonsense Hu Lai was spouting, he wouldn’t believe a single word of it. The moment he died, Hu Lai would probably immediately abscond with his small gold cakes and rush off to find the next target without stopping.
“Get the hell off me.” Xie Chengze was still wracked with unbearable pain all over his body. Earlier, he had been struck by Sheng Shihai along with the door, and if not for his nerves being stretched taut, he would have likely fainted long ago.
Watching Shen Yuan rushing over with a panicked expression and completely undignified haste, he teased, “If you don’t get up soon, watch out for the impatient Lord Shen kicking you aside.”
Lord Shen didn’t kick Hu Lai aside. Instead, he grabbed Hu Lai by the back of his collar and flung him aside fiercely, then immediately wrapped Xie Chengze in a tight embrace.
His whole body trembling, his arms already numb and weak, his scorching palms continuously channeled inner energy into the young man. His voice couldn’t stop quivering lightly, “Xie Chengze… you’re being reckless again.”