Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

His laughter was as gloomy and creepy as that of a rotten crow.

If Li Yao were a real Immortal Cultivator and a reformist, and he had ambitions for the supreme power, he would certainly have been intimidated.

“It’s useless. Even if you can eradicate all the four Kurfürst families today and govern the Imperium yourself, it will still be useless. By then, you will be faced with all the problems that I am faced with today, and you will taste all the sufferings that I have tasted!”

There was intense mockery and hatred in Dongfang Wang’s eyes as he went on, “Hundreds of Sectors, each having their own interests. Tens of thousands of resource planets, where all the Immortal Cultivators secretly resist you and earn benefits for themselves with you as a disguise. Nobody cares about the future of the Imperium except for you. Even you will be deformed and bloated under the corruption of power. Eventually, you will watch yourself be swallowed by the universe like I am today, embracing your doom!

“By then, hahahaha, by then, I’ll be observing you from the deepest level of hell to see how you repeat the mistakes and how you struggle before your doom. Hahahahahaha!”

Dongfang Wang could barely catch his breath in his crazy laughter. He then coughed so hard that black clots of blood were spat out. Or maybe, they were not blood clots but the fragments of his internal organs.

Li Yao was truly worried that the man might be killed by his own laughter. He hurried to say, “Prime Minister Dongfang, please don’t be too excited. Let’s talk about it slowly. In fact, I can’t agree with your opinion more. I believe that both the reformists and the four Kurfürst families are hopeless and walking to their doom in different ways. One party dies faster and the other party dies more slowly, but they will be equally dead in the end anyway. What a profound speech you have made just now! It was such an enlightenment!”

Dumbfounded, Dongfang Wang did not say anything until a long time later. “… Excuse me? Aren’t… Aren’t you ‘Vulture Li Yao’, a reformist?”

“Well, I am a progressive young man among the reformists. You may consider me as a ‘reformist of the reformists’.”

Li Yao said, “My identity is not important. What is important is that your theories are too hollow and do not help the current situation at all. I’m not here for a lecture. If you do not have anything better to offer, why don’t we call it a day? I’ll get out of your way while you are busy dying. Right. You are a former prime minister of the Imperium after all. Do you have any last words? I can help you pass them out.”

Dongfang Wang rolled his eyes again and again. He seemed to be considering Li Yao’s identity and the insinuation of his previous words.

However, in his current situation, he did not have any leverage for negotiation, and he did not have a second choice other than to believe Li Yao.

“Wait!”

Dongfang Wang struggled to breathe and stand straight. With feeble light beaming out of his eyes, 1% of the charisma of the “prime minister of iron and blood” of the past was filled into his almost dry shell again.

“Tell me, Vulture Li Yao.”

Dongfang Wang looked at Li Yao earnestly. “Which is more important for you, Li Linghai or the Imperium?”

Looking at Dongfang Wang in the eyes, Li Yao said without any hesitation, “I am a real patriot. Naturally, the Imperium is more important. No matter how despicable today’s Imperium is, I do not want to watch it fall apart, which will only result in greater chaos. Like you described just now, the civilization of mankind might be separated into hundreds of countries attacking and destroying one another. Of course, there is also the Covenant Alliance to consider!

“Therefore, I am loyal to the queen because she is the leader of the reformists. We were also forced to counterattack and go against Prime Minister Dongfang only because the four Kurfürst families directed the ‘incident of the Blood Oath Alliance’, trying to exterminate the reformists!”

Dongfang Wang sneered and asked again, “General Lei Chenghu was rescued by you in person, right?”

Li Yao nodded his head, “Yes. It was me who broke into the Godly Might Prison and got Marquis Liaohai out!”

Dongfang Wang’s eyes were brighter and brighter, and his head was clearer and clearer. Even his voice was louder and more stable than just now. “Great. Even if I am dying, there is something that I must let you know. Please forward it to General Lei.”

Refreshed, Li Yao knew that the most important thing was coming. He hurried to send another stream of mild spiritual energy into Dongfang Wang’s body and injected a dosage of medical drugs, slowing the collapse of his body and soul for now. “You can speak now, Prime Minister Dongfang. I’m all ears. I swear that I’ll pass your words to General Lei Chenghu.”

“Alright, listen up—”

Dongfang Wang craned his head over, almost embedding his bright eyes into Li Yao’s face. His face twisted, he gnashed his teeth and said, one word after another, “I may have done a lot of things that are in violation of the law of the Imperium, and I may have been unfair to the miscellaneous troops commanded by General Lei Chenghu, because I intended to weaken the peripheral forces of the Imperium and ensure the long-term reign of the four Kurfürst families. I often regarded them as cannon fodder and even considered to swallow his troops many times. I have done a lot of things like ‘cannibal training’ too.

“Yes, I’ve done all those things. I admit that you are not wrong to say that I am ‘unpardonable’ from your stance. However, the ‘incident of the Blood Oath Alliance’ was truly not done by me!”

It was Li Yao who was stunned this time. “What? The incident of the Blood Oath Alliance was not your trick?”

“Of course not. Although there were certain contradictions between me and Dongfang Tuo, who was the CEO of the Expedition Bank of the Imperium, within the family, because our ideas did not really agree, and we were not in the closest relation because I imposed a lot of pressure on him to exploit more resources during the Imperium’s counterattack, how could I have assassinated him in public when he was an honorable elder of the Imperium?”

With a bitter smile, Dongfang Wang said, “Also, three days before his assassination, I had already reached a blanket agreement with him in secret. I gave away part of my interests by allowing his personal group to be deeply involved in the postwar reconstruction. There would be great profits in it!

“Was there any reason why I should attack him when we had already reached a deal?”

Thinking quickly, Li Yao asked, “Why did nobody else bring up the issue? And why did you not defend yourself?”

“It’s a secret agreement with a lot of clandestine parts.”

Dongfang Wang slightly blushed. But he still went on, “The advantages in the postwar reconstruction were not offered to him for nothing but exchanged for his interests in the Expedition Bank of the Imperium. It was too great a matter to be exposed to the public.”

Li Yao immediately understood everything.

Dongfang Tuo, the elder of the Imperium who was assassinated, was the CEO of the Expedition Bank of the Imperium, but it did not mean that the Expedition Bank was his private property. He was just a leader and had some shares in it at best.

With the power in his hands, he could secretly separate the interests of the Expedition Bank and let them pass into the hands of Dongfang Wang before they were returned to Dongfang Tuo’s personal consortium. Then, the profits would’ve been 100% his own. Everybody would be happy.

But naturally, the other stakeholders of the Expedition Bank would not be happy. They would certainly not allow Dongfang Tuo to benefit from their losses. It was only reasonable that the blanket agreement was kept a secret.

Dongfang Wang groped on his body for a moment and found a Cosmos Ring, before he went on intermittently, “The secret agreements between Dongfang Tuo and I are all inside. There are also two drops of our blood and our signatures with the soul stamps. However, he who has a mind to beat his dog can easily find a stick. Now that everybody wanted me dead, what could I have achieved by presenting the ‘unquestionable’ proof? I am already denigrated. Even if the evidence is real, somebody will prove that it is fabricated. I would’ve lost the great card if I defended myself recklessly.

“I can only hold myself back and wait for someone who can possibly trust me to show up. In the hands of the right person, those agreements will prove that I absolutely did not have any motive to assassinate Dongfang Tuo. Even if I truly intended to set up a trap, I could’ve assassinated any other elder of the Imperium, instead of Dongfang Tuo whose support I had finally won after all the trouble!”

Holding the Cosmos Ring in his hands, Li Yao felt that thousands of thoughts were raging inside his brain.

“Also, I did not plan to keep General Lei Chenghu in custody at all in the beginning. He was the highest commander of the Third Battle Area after all and the commander of the Astounding Thunder Fleet. With his high prestige in the expedition army, how could I have deprived him of his commandership without being fully prepared? I was not such an idiot!”

Panting, Dongfang Wang went on, “However, some of my subordinates did it before they reported the issue. I did not receive any message until he was in custody for two days. At that time, rumors were already arising in the frontline, and it was already impossible for General Lei Chenghu to abandon his biases against the Council of Elders and me. What was done was done. I certainly could not release the tiger back to the mountain but could only grit my teeth and continue locking him.

“The incident of the Blood Oath Alliance was not planned by you, and General Lei Chenghu was not arrested under your command?”

Li Yao frowned. “Don’t forget that General Lei Chenghu was captured and imprisoned by Dongfang Bai, your biological son. Has your son turned you into a figurehead?”

“Biological son. Hehehehe. Does blood bond mean anything compared to the interests and the power of the entire universe?”

Dongfang Wang laughed more unpleasantly than crying. “I was simply baffled. I was already the prime minister of the Imperium, and Dongfang Bai was nominated as the director of the secret force at a young age. He was one of my favorite sons. For him, wasn’t it in his best interests to help me stabilize the current situation and to help me make one step further? He would be the director of the secret force as long as I was the prime minister. What could he have possibly gained by doing that?

“What enticing attractions of interests and power could’ve possibly made him betray me without any hesitation? What made him believe in that person, trusting that his position would still be stable, if not one step higher, after the fallout of the Dongfang family?”

Li Yao asked, “Who is that person?”

Dongfang Wang said coldly, “Naturally, it was the person who really planned the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance and the incarceration of General Lei Chenghu—our Queen Li Linghai!”