Guagua spoke up next:
Who is saying otherwise?
After Liu Guangxu arrived at the county town, to everyone's surprise, before long he hooked up with Li Huilan, the daughter of a wealthy merchant.
Li Huilan greatly admired Liu Guangxu's literary talent, and Liu Guangxu seized the opportunity to portray himself as a tragic figure forced by his teacher into marrying the teacher's ugly daughter, painting his own misery in the most wretched colors imaginable.
He even claimed that, leaning on this betrothal, the teacher was forcing him to provide for the teacher in his old age.
Li Huilan flew into a rage the moment she heard this. A married-off daughter was like spilled water; where was the logic of a son-in-law providing for his father-in-law?
This violated all rules! It violated all rites and decorum!
The more Li Huilan thought about it, the angrier she grew, so she paid off a band of thieves, sending them straight into Teacher Wang's home to brutally murder Teacher Wang and Wang Xiuxiu.
The thieves even ransacked Teacher Wang's home, turning everything upside down to fake a robbery-homicide.
Song Yaoyao said indignantly:
This is simply unhinged!
Guagua, were those thieves eventually caught by the authorities? Did the trail lead to Li Huilan at all?
Hearing this, everyone present collectively drew in a sharp breath. This was brutally vicious, damn it.
They had never suspected that Liu Guangxu could be so venomous. Wanting to eliminate Teacher Wang and Wang Xiuxiu, he had incited Li Huilan and made her wield the knife of murder.
Guagua continued dropping bombshells:
The thieves were quietly disposed of afterward by men Li Huilan dispatched. By the time the neighbors discovered the bodies of Teacher Wang and Wang Xiuxiu, several days had already passed, and both corpses were already rotting. The neighbors immediately reported it to the authorities, but the local yamen investigated nothing, and the matter became a local unsolved cold case.
Under Liu Guangxu's honeyed words, Li Huilan engaged in illicit relations with Liu Guangxu without the three letters and six etiquettes, and even fell pregnant.
By the time Master Li discovered it, Li Huilan's belly was already showing.
When Master Li learned of Liu Guangxu's literary talent, he felt that one day, their Li Household might ride the coattails of this son-in-law to soaring success and great wealth.
Although Master Li was deeply displeased that Liu Guangxu and his own daughter had engaged in premarital relations, matters had already reached this point, and for the sake of future glory and wealth, he agreed to their marriage.
With the vast and wealthy resources of the Li Household, they could well afford to support Liu Guangxu!
Just like that, Liu Guangxu did not spend a single coin on betrothal gifts, yet he married the wealthy merchant's daughter and thus stepped into a comfortable life with worries of food and drink far behind him.
Once Liu Guangxu had saved up a sum of silver, he bought an estate outside, hired servants and maids, and brought Liu's Mother to the county town to live the life of an old matriarch.
Because of Master Li, Liu Guangxu also became acquainted with many wealthy merchants. Bit by bit, his ambitions grew, and he was no longer content with living under Master Li's suppression.
Colluding with outsiders, Liu Guangxu conspired to murder Master Li's sons-killing those he could, and reducing the rest to utter idiocy.
Master Li suspected someone was targeting his family, but never once did his suspicions land on Liu Guangxu.
Mainly, Liu Guangxu usually maintained the facade of a bookworm who paid no attention to the affairs outside his window and dedicated himself entirely to reading the sages, completely hoodwinking Master Li.
Having murdered Master Li's sons, Liu Guangxu seized the two sons of Master Li's personal attendant's elder brother, coercing that attendant into poisoning Master Li.
That attendant was incapable of bearing children, and the continuation of his family's ancestral incense relied entirely on his brother's two sons. Those two children could not be allowed to come to harm, leaving him with no choice but to betray Master Li and administer the slow poison.
This attendant had also served Master Li for over twenty years, and Master Li usually trusted him deeply, which was why he lowered his guard.
A year later, Master Li died of the poison, and Liu Guangxu seized complete control of the entire Li Household.
After Master Li's death, Liu Guangxu brought Liu's Mother into the Li residence.
Fearing the gossipy tongues of outsiders, although he did not rename the Li residence to the Liu residence, the entire estate was firmly under Liu Guangxu's thumb.
Heaven truly was blind. A few years later, Liu Guangxu passed the provincial imperial examination, advanced all the way to the palace examination, and was finally hand-picked by the current emperor as Second Place in the Palace Examination.
During the triumphant procession on horseback through the streets, Liu Guangxu's current wife, Cheng Qinqin, took a fancy to him.
Cheng Qinqin was a concubine-born daughter of Duke Zhenguo's Estate; although she was a concubine-born daughter, as a match for Liu Guangxu, she was more than fitting.
When Liu Guangxu learned that Duke Zhenguo's Estate wished to marry their concubine-born daughter to him, he was overjoyed, but upon seeing Cheng Qinqin's appearance, his face twisted in disgust and disdain. Although he deeply despised Cheng Qinqin for being fat and brawny without a shred of femininity, what did an ugly woman matter compared to power and influence?
A daughter of the Duke's Residence could by no means be a concubine, leaving Liu Guangxu with no choice but to demote Li Huilan from primary wife to concubine.
How could Li Huilan possibly resign herself to this?
Now that Liu Guangxu had finally become Second Place in the Palace Examination and she could become an official's lady, by what right was she demoted from the legitimate wife to a disreputable concubine?
Yet Liu Guangxu's attitude was unyielding. Left with no other way, Li Huilan attempted to use the past deaths of Teacher Wang and Wang Xiuxiu to coerce Liu Guangxu into abandoning his plan to demote her.
This merely reminded Liu Guangxu of his own disgraceful past.
Deciding to make a clean job of it, when Li Huilan went to burn incense at the temple, he had men disguised as mountain bandits murder Li Huilan and his own daughter.
After Li Huilan's death, Liu Guangxu put on a deeply affectionate front. Everyone praised him for being righteous and loyal, utterly devoted to Li Huilan, blaming only her frail destiny for taking her away just days after becoming an official's lady, with her daughter following right along-truly, the vicissitudes of the world were unpredictable!
Following Li Huilan's death, there were no more obstacles. Using the Li Household's wealth as betrothal gifts, Liu Guangxu married Cheng Qinqin.
With the backing and support of Duke Zhenguo's Estate over the years, Liu Guangxu rose to his current position as a Subordinate Fourth Rank Counsellor Grandee.
Though a Counsellor Grandee was an idle sinecure, it was still a Subordinate Fourth Rank post all the same-this saved him several decades of grinding compared to everyone else!
Hearing the history of Liu Guangxu's meteoric rise, Song Yaoyao could not help shuddering.
The officials sitting close to Liu Guangxu's family instinctively shifted their positions, moving a bit further away from them.
Everyone present likewise found themselves shuddering involuntarily. They never expected that Liu Guangxu, who usually maintained the demeanor of a refined scholar, would actually commit the murders of his mentor, his fiancée, his wife, and his own daughter. A person truly could not be judged merely by their surface appearance.
At this moment, Song Yaoyao's inner voice rang out once again:
Guagua, is this what they call "cruelty knows no bounds"?
This fellow Liu Guangxu climbed his way up entirely by relying on women. He's nothing more than a parasite living off women!
Not only did he kill so many people, but he didn't even spare his own biological daughter. Even tigers do not eat their own cubs-this Liu Guangxu is simply a beast unworthy of the name!
If such a person is allowed to be an official, will the common folk ever see a good day?
Thank goodness he only holds an idle post right now. If he ever reached a prominent position at court, whenever he took a dislike to someone, wouldn't he just have them straight up killed?
Those who heard these inner thoughts nodded in unison. If Liu Guangxu ever gained real power one day, heaven only knew what disasters would follow!
Upon hearing these inner thoughts, the emperor's face shifted drastically. How could such a venomously vicious man exist among his subjects?