Peace Order
Chapter 380 - 163 The Truth Revealed_2

Chapter 380: Chapter 163 The Truth Revealed_2

"Might as well just slaughter him with one strike!"

"After all, by coming here today, we never planned on leaving alive."

The crowd was excited.

Suddenly, a cool female voice said, "What if we manage to rescue General Yue?"

"Don’t we need a hostage in hand?"

"Or are you saying, even after rescuing General Yue, you want General Yue to die alongside you?"

Then, those martial artists from the Martial World remained silent, merely simmering with anger. Li Guanyi looked over and saw a woman dressed in white had spoken. She had an air of cool indifference and was carrying a sword. It was she who had just repelled the experts from the Chen royal family.

Yan Xuanji said, "As the Luzhou Sword Immortal has stated, since you all came here to rescue Pengwu, you are comrades."

"Although we face dangers at this moment, we must pull together."

The Luzhou Sword Immortal?!

Li Guanyi was pondering when he heard this name, and his scalp went numb instantly.

The Luzhou Sword Immortal?

Wait a minute!

Wasn’t Yue injured by the Luzhou Sword Immortal? How could the Luzhou Sword Immortal be among these martial artists who came to rescue General Yue? Li Guanyi realized that the news of Yue Qianfeng’s injury might not be as widely spread in the Martial World as he thought.

But it was strange that Yan Xuanji and his group didn’t know about it.

Could it be that Yue had not contacted these people?

If there was no contact, how could these people know the map of the Imperial Palace? How could it be possible for them to storm in? And if there was contact, why didn’t Yan Xuanji know anything about the Luzhou Sword Immortal?

Li Guanyi suddenly thought.

Someone had intercepted the information but had only hidden parts of it.

Then they passed on the remaining true information.

Nine parts true, one part false.

In this piece of information, the true layout of the Imperial Palace was left intact, but the most critical parts were concealed. Eventually, the entire Imperial Palace would become a massive deadly trap, luring in all those martial artists and those who came to rescue General Yue.

Even placing the Luzhou Sword Immortal as an inside agent.

With one Luzhou Sword Immortal present, could there possibly be other martial artists as well?

Li Guanyi looked at these indignant, valiant-looking warriors. He didn’t know who could be trusted, so at this moment, he almost felt as if every one of them could be an inside agent, each a master from the Chen Imperial Palace.

This was an overt plot.

Even if Li Guanyi had seen through the strategy, he was powerless. Even if he spoke out, it would only trigger a greater backlash, and ultimately even if all the inside agents were captured, the doubt already sown could not possibly lead to thorough cooperation again.

And it would also waste the most crucial time at this moment.

No matter what he did, it was a loss.

To toy with these warriors who had come to rescue General Yue so effortlessly, such a move could only be attributed to...

’Tantai Xianming.’

Li Guanyi whispered in his heart.

He felt as if the old man was sitting right in front of him, watching him dispassionately.

Tantai Xianming, considered by the common folk as obsequious without capability; seen by officials as forming cliques for personal gain, old and cunning; regarded by Elder Xue as his lifetime arch-enemy, viewed by the Emperor as an old fox, and taken by Breaking Army as the only opponent in Chen Country worthy of being feared, an outstanding strategist dreaded by generations of Breaking Army.

As if he had a thousand faces.

This old man seemed to be watching the situation unfold with a detached gaze, focusing on Li Guanyi.

The young man suddenly understood the feeling Tantai Xianming must have had when facing an overt plot by Breaking Army. These top strategists focused on the bigger picture, calculated human nature, and pursued levels that were not merely about tricks within ordinary intricate strategies but about massive, overwhelming trends.

Li Guanyi could only be thankful that Tantai Xianming, a top strategist in the land, had been directly pulled off the board by Breaking Army, who was still green. Otherwise, this strategy would have continued to evolve, and what they were seeing now was just the beginning.

The only thing that could disrupt the plot was—Yan Xuanji.

Yan Xuanji had not trapped Li Guanyi, even allowed him to move freely. He turned around and realized this was one of the more secluded palaces within the Imperial Palace, where rolls of archives were stored. Li Guanyi pretended to casually walk over and browse through the archives.

He then made an excuse to request a private conversation with Yan Xuanji.

As Li Guanyi leafed through the documents, he was momentarily taken aback. All the archives here were confidential, falling into the most taboo category. Li Guanyi fell silent, rapidly searched, and in the middle of a shelf, he found an archive from ten years ago and pulled it out.

Li Guanyi held onto the archive, struggling to breathe.

He opened the archive and read the text inside: "Taiping Duke is dead."

Li Guanyi’s palms clenched like iron. He knew he should put the archive down at this moment and start distracting Yan Xuanji, but he couldn’t control his gaze and quietly continued reading.

’Before the great ceremony, the Prime Minister personally invited Taiping Duke and his wife to a banquet. The Emperor hosted the banquet.’

’That banquet had poison... We had already poisoned Taiping Duke before, but through a blunder, the poison ended up affecting Taiping Duke’s wife and their newborn child. Although this poison was a secret toxin from Ying Country, as precious as a Divine Weapon, it momentarily distracted Taiping Duke’

’But the Prime Minister said, we can’t wait any longer.’

’If we continued, Taiping Duke, with instincts like a fierce beast, would realize within a terribly short time, so on the third day, we invited them again, Taiping Duke was cautious, only coming at the Prime Minister’s invitation.’

’We first severely poisoned his wife. While Taiping Duke was transferring his power to save her, we struck him with a surprise attack. This series of strategies played out as his wife, trying to save their child, was gravely injured by the potent toxin and couldn’t withstand it...’