If I Wanted Him Dead, One Year at Most

Of course, Xu Tianyuan had held back.

He had no choice. If he had really put his strength into that slap, Ju Zi would have been reunited with her father on the spot, without even time for a final word.

"Next, I'm going to slap you over and over."

Xu Tianyuan shook out his hand. "Until you agree to submit to me, or I beat you to death."

Smack!

The second slap landed, this time on the other cheek.

Xu Tianyuan had no other faults. He simply believed in fairness.

Slapping the left side but not the right was called favoritism, and he hated biased people more than anything.

"Aaaah!!!"

Both of Ju Zi's cheeks swelled evenly, burning with pain, and tears spilled uncontrollably from her eyes.

She had never suffered such humiliation in her life.

Being slapped was bad enough, but he controlled his strength with extraordinary precision. He neither killed her nor knocked her unconscious, yet made sure she felt one hundred percent of the pain and two hundred percent of the humiliation.

That was infuriating.

If you beat me to death, fine.

But what kind of ability does torturing me like this prove?

"Will you submit?"

Smack!

"Will you submit?"

Smack!

"Will you or won't you?"

Smack!

Xu Tianyuan punctuated every question with another slap, his rhythm steady and his strikes decisive, like a skilled worker driving screws on a factory assembly line.

In just a few minutes, Ju Zi's face had swollen beyond recognition.

Her mouth opened and closed as though she wanted to say something, but with her face swollen like that, even her tongue refused to cooperate. Only a few indistinct syllables squeezed out of her throat.

Seeing her like this only made Xu Tianyuan angrier.

Well, damn. I've beaten you this badly, and you still won't yield?

Still keeping that duck's beak stiff even in death, huh?

Smack, smack, smack, smack!

Another barrage of slaps-combo hits, critical hits, critical hits on top of combo hits.

"Boohoo... I never said I wouldn't agree... Let me speak..."

Ju Zi finally squeezed the words out, tears tumbling down like beads from a broken string. She felt utterly wronged.

What even was this?

Every time she tried to open her mouth, another slap landed.

She wanted to agree, but he gave her no time to speak.

How was she supposed to agree?

With her face?

Xu Tianyuan's hand stopped in midair.

"Uh..."

He felt a little embarrassed.

To be fair, this really wasn't Ju Zi's fault.

He had gotten into the swing of slapping her, and once his rhythm picked up, he couldn't hit the brakes. On top of that, Ju Zi's face had swollen so quickly that his expression-recognition system had gone on strike. He genuinely hadn't realized she was begging for mercy.

He quietly withdrew his hand and gave a dry cough. "So, you agree?"

Holding her face and enduring the pain, Ju Zi slowly sat up from the floor and looked up at him. Her orange eyes brimmed with tears, along with a deeply hidden trace of hatred.

"Yes... I agree, all right?"

That was what she said. Only she knew what she truly thought.

It was nothing more than a temporary expedient.

She wasn't stupid.

A sixteen-year-old wastrel prince, a rank twenty-nine Soul Grandmaster-what right did he have to demand her loyalty?

Even if she died, she would never sincerely risk her life for someone like him.

"Oh?"

Xu Tianyuan rubbed his chin and studied Ju Zi for a long while.

He thought something was off, too.

It had gone too smoothly.

Logically, a diehard loyalist whom Xu Tianran had rescued as a child and raised for so many years couldn't be slapped into submission so easily.

There had to be some fakery mixed in.

For all he knew, Ju Zi was currently cursing eighteen generations of his ancestors in her head.

"All right."

He nodded. "Get up first. Let's talk about something serious."

Ju Zi braced herself against the floor and stood, her legs still a little weak.

Xu Tianyuan turned and sat back down on the sofa, crossed his legs, casually poured himself some tea, and took a leisurely sip.

"Your enemy is Dai Hao, right?"

Ju Zi froze.

Her head snapped up, her eyes widening into perfect circles.

"How do you know?"

She had told almost no one about this.

Her father had been a military commander on the Sun Moon Empire's border.

Back when the Sun Moon Empire and the Star Luo Empire were at war, Dai Hao, the Star Luo Empire's White Tiger Duke, had led a surprise attack and routed her father's troops in a single battle.

Her father had fallen on the battlefield, his men had been all but wiped out, and her family had simply fallen apart.

She had still been young then. Hidden in a grain wagon, she had watched her father's command banner get trampled into the mud, then brutally stomped until its pole snapped.

From that moment on, only one thing had remained in her life.

Kill Dai Hao!

Later, she had fled from place to place. When she had nowhere left to turn, Xu Tianran had taken her in, given her food and shelter, and offered her hope of revenge.

Strictly speaking, she wasn't any sort of diehard loyalist to Xu Tianran.

Her loyalty was to the possibility of revenge, not to Xu Tianran himself.

"How did you know?"

Ju Zi asked again, her voice trembling slightly.

The corner of Xu Tianyuan's mouth lifted.

"Never mind how I know."

He set down his teacup and leaned forward a little. "I just wanted to remind you: if you're counting on Xu Tianran to avenge you, I'm afraid you're dreaming."

"Because he's destined to die by my hand."

"He can't even save his own life. How is he supposed to avenge you?"

Ju Zi's breath caught.

Xu Tianyuan continued, "Rather than counting on him, you should count on me."

"Dai Hao is only a Soul Douluo right now."

"If I wanted him dead, it would take one year at most."

There was absolutely no possibility of easing the conflict between the Sun Moon Empire and the Star Luo Empire.

Xu Tianyuan was the Sun Moon Empire's sixth prince. That identity couldn't be changed.

The old emperor was nearing the end of his life, and most of the princes were already dead. Once Xu Tianran died, who besides him would be left to take the throne?

When that time came, the burden of the entire Sun Moon Empire would rest on his shoulders alone, and the Star Luo Empire was destined to be his mortal enemy.

Even if he didn't want to kill Dai Hao, Dai Hao would do everything possible to kill him.

So there was nothing wrong with using that to win Ju Zi over.

Xu Tianyuan leaned back against the sofa, thinking.

He was a transmigrator. Since he had already crossed over, surely he couldn't let the trip go to waste?

He knew the original plot inside out.

Four great empires stood side by side in this world, with smaller powers scattered beneath them. A place like Shrek Academy, for instance, was above worldly affairs if you put it nicely, or a separatist power if you didn't.

If things kept developing like this, sooner or later everything would turn into a pot of chaotic porridge.

He had a grand plan.

That was to twist all these messy factions into a single rope and build a harmonious, unified empire. How wonderful would that be?

As for what methods he might need to use while twisting them together, he could figure that out when the time came.

It wasn't as though he had ever claimed to be a good person.

"One year..."

Those two words struck Ju Zi's ears like a thunderbolt.

She instinctively wanted to argue, but her mouth opened and closed without producing a single word.

Because Xu Tianyuan seemed to have a point.

Ju Zi fell silent for a long time.

There was no denying that Xu Tianyuan's words had struck a nerve.

Avenging her father was her only reason for living. Joining Xu Tianran had merely been a way to borrow his strength.

But hearing a promise like that from the wastrel prince before her was far too jarring.

Xu Tianran was the crown prince. He was powerful, highly talented, and had a host of capable people under him.

Apart from being unable to walk or father children, in what way wasn't he better than Xu Tianyuan?

At least when it came to avenging her father, she felt Xu Tianran had a far greater chance.