Open Scheme

The biting wind chills to the bone, snow falls on a hundred rivers, an endless expanse of white.

Li Qingyan watched his retreating figure in the wind and snow, and chuckled softly.

"It seems my position is still too low, so low that I can only see the fate of Beifeng City."

Xu Yuan glanced at her reaction, smiled slightly, and extended his hand:

"The world is like a game of chess, and all living beings are pieces. Only two or three people can hold the pieces. When that Barbarian Tribe Alien King took the risk of detouring around the Beifeng City, the overall situation in the Northern Border was already set."

Li Qingyan stared at his hand for a moment, then grabbed it, stood up from the snow, brushed the snowflakes off her shoulders, and casually said:

"That Barbarian Tribe Alien King is no obedient pawn; using him as a pawn could easily backfire."

Xu Yuan glanced back at the direction of Beifeng and chuckled softly:

"That Barbarian Tribe Alien King is indeed a great ruler; his vision, strategy, ambition, and courage are unparalleled. But for Di'an City, turning him into an obedient dog is not difficult at all."

Li Qingyan's phoenix eyes held a hint of strangeness:

"To tame that Barbarian King into an obedient dog?"

"It's just a metaphor."

Xu Yuan took her hand and stared into her eyes. "Qingyan, have you forgotten? In the Battle of Beifeng, although you didn't obey me, the result still made you mine. Heh."

Speaking of this,

Xu Yuan stopped there, grinned, and didn't continue.

Li Qingyan remained calm, letting out a cold snort from her delicate nose, and then laughed:

"Your Highness, do you want me to be your dog?"

"."

The directness of the words startled Xu Yuan for a moment, and the image of the princess behaving like a dog subconsciously flashed through his mind.

hiss.

Coming to his senses, seeing the smile in her eyes, Xu Yuan coughed lightly and quickly denied it:

"It's just a metaphor, I can..."

"I didn't say no."

Xu Yuan licked his lips.

Li Qingyan shook her head lightly:

"Ha, men."

Xu Yuan rolled his eyes and let out a breath:

"During my time in the Imperial Capital, my father taught me many things, the most important of which was how to manipulate someone who didn't obey me to do things for me."

"Driven by profit?" Li Qingyan's voice was cold.

I guess so.

Xu Yuan smiled and nodded, holding her hand tightly, and said with a smile:

"I can manipulate Qingyan because I know you want to defend Beifeng City, and the same reason my father and the others can manipulate the Barbarian King."

Li Qingyan glanced at her hand, which he was holding, and let him take advantage of her.

"Your Highness, you just spoke of the strategies and courage of that Barbarian Tribe Alien King."

"Yes, I said that."

Xu Yuan interrupted her with a smile, "If it were the previous Barbarian Tribe king, who had taken such a huge advantage of our Great Yan a few months ago, he would probably have already taken advantage of this blizzard disaster to escape to the Utterdark Lands of the north. But this Barbarian Tribe Alien King is different. It is precisely because of his strategy and his ambition that my father and the others are able to control him."

Speaking of this,

Xu Yuan couldn't help but chuckle softly, raising a finger:

"Now I'm the same. As long as I give that Barbarian Tribe Alien King a way to escape the game and become a player, even if the chances of success are slim, he'll become an obedient dog and desperately help me bite those sects."

"."

Li Qingyan's beautiful eyes flickered for a moment. "Can you confirm that the Barbarian King will attack those sect elites?"

Xu Yuan shook his head, but smiled and said:

"I can't be sure, but I sent someone to stay in the city to make contact with that Barbarian King."

Li Qingyan hesitated for a moment, then asked:

Aren't you afraid of messing things up?

Xu Yuan shook his head:

"Of course I'm not afraid."

"."

Upon hearing this, Li Qingyan's mind raced.

At that moment, Xu Yuan suddenly moved closer to her flawless face:

"Qingyan, as I just said, my father taught me how to use the power of the masses to turn enemies into your dogs. Even the most skillful cook can't make a meal without rice, and even the most brilliant strategist can't escape the limitations of material resources."

As he spoke, he pointed one finger to the distant north:

"Even if the Barbarian Tribe exhaust all their resources to develop their military in the Utterdark Lands, they still cannot match the richness of resources in the fourteen continents of the Central Plains. This is a process where the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker. Thousands of years ago, the Barbarian Tribe could still confront the Great Yan Border Army head-on, but what about now? As long as the generals and commanders are not incompetent, an equal number of the Barbarian Tribe soldiers simply cannot defeat our Great Yan Border Army."

"If that Barbarian Tribe Alien King wants to lead his Barbarian Tribe to victory against all odds and achieve his grand southward expansion, he must follow the path I have laid out for him."

Li Qingyan saw the smile in his eyes and didn't care that the two were almost touching:

Aren't you worried about the conditions the sect offered to the Barbarian Tribe?

"The sect's conditions?"

Xu Yuan glanced to the side, then leaned close to her ear and whispered:

"The sect's offer to the Barbarian Tribe is at most to cede the Houting County to the Barbarian Tribe, but the price is to give up Beifeng City. Qingyan, you should know what that means, right?"

A surge of emotion welled up within Li Qingyan, who suddenly realized that Xu Yuan before her was somewhat unfamiliar:

"The Barbarian Tribe, however, have reverted to their original state."

"Yes."

Xu Yuan sighed softly, "If we follow the sect's path, even if the Barbarian Tribe manage to hold off the Beifeng Army and the Black Scale Army around Houting County, or even successfully encircle and annihilate them all while they are well-rested, the Barbarian Tribe will only be back to square one. If they want to move south, they will have to fight all over Beifeng City again, where their elite troops are located. Moreover..."

"And is it that the Barbarian King dares not easily trust the sect?" Li Qingyan suddenly interjected.

Xu Yuan raised an eyebrow; she remained as quick-witted as ever.

Li Qingyan narrowed her phoenix eyes and added in a low voice:

"Once the sect leaves some troops in the Houting County, the main force of the entire Barbarian Tribe will be directly surrounded between Houting County and Beifeng City."

Xu Yuan smiled slightly:

"That's why I said earlier that when the Barbarian Tribe bypassed the Beifeng City, the overall situation in the Northern Border had already been completely set."

"If that Barbarian Tribe Alien King wants to win, he must go all the way to the end, annihilate all 700,000 elite troops in the Northern Border of my Great Yan, and then successfully occupy the pass of Beifeng City."

"And I gave him this opportunity, so he will inevitably become my dog, Xu Changtian."

Silence followed.

After a while,

Li Qingyan suddenly tiptoed, her tall figure close to his ear, her voice devoid of any emotion:

"Prince Consort, were those Source Crystal you left behind originally intended for that Barbarian King?"

Upon hearing this, Xu Yuan took a slight step back, his narrow, phoenix-shaped eyes narrowing into slits, but he did not deny it.

"If you could find the location of these Source Crystal, there's no reason why that Barbarian Tribe Alien King couldn't."

"Aren't you afraid he'll use the Source Crystal for other things?"

"Don't worry, the Source Crystal will self-destruct at the slightest sign of disturbance."

"."

Neither of them spoke again.

She looked at him, at the smile on his lips, at the disdain in his eyes, and her gaze gradually became wary.

Li Qingyan never believed in so-called rumors.

After spending time together, her opinion of him was neither high nor low.

He was indeed a playboy, but far more shrewd than the rumored good-for-nothing Third Young Master master.

However, compared to the sons of other prominent Aristocratic Clan, his character and magnanimity were rather ordinary, without anything particularly remarkable.

But at this moment,

His recent frivolous behavior, his cynicism, and even his lustful advances toward her all began to show cracks at this moment.

She began to lose sight of him, and started to doubt whether everything he was doing was a facade.

In the silent wind and snow, Xu Yuan suddenly smiled:

"What? Is my Prince Wu Yuan afraid?"

"Oh"

Upon hearing this, a hint of amusement suddenly appeared in Li Qingyan's spirited phoenix eyes. "Afraid?"

While speaking,

Li Qingyan grabbed Xu Yuan's large hand, which had been teasing her, and pulled it in front of them, her beautiful crimson eyes filled with a subtle excitement.

On the snow-covered hillside, white mist rose in all directions.

Her smile was as radiant as a flower.

"My lord, I am Li Qingyan."

Xu Yuan withdrew her hand, but held it tightly, half-jokingly:

"Your Highness, you are not afraid, but I am."

Li Qingyan chuckled:

"It's probably too late now, my body has already been seen naked by you, my consort."

After a moment of silence, Xu Yuan smiled and asked:

"Can't we consider divorce?"

Li Qingyan tightened her grip on his hand slightly, tilting her head and chuckling softly:

"Hmm, I might consider widowhood."

This chapter was a bit brain-taxing; I revised it several times.