Smooth Departure

"Leaving is not something to rush. Have you ever heard of being in the darkest place under the lamp? Staying in the Imperial City right now is actually the safest option. I brought you here because I want you to help me kill Yingtao. Furthermore, those corrupt officials and greedy lackeys have no reason to stay alive either."

"In addition, there are the corpses of my Imperial Father as well as my brothers and sisters."

Saying this, Xue Fuyao's voice suddenly turned heavy, and her gaze dimmed.

"Help me bring their corpses back."

Though there was not much affection, they at least shared the same bloodline, and she could not simply watch them left to rot in the wilderness.

In her previous life, the Zhang Family used the corpses of her Imperial Father and her siblings to threaten her into appearing, so she deduced that their remains were still around.

Hearing Xue Fuyao's words, Shadow Eleven said in a deep voice, "Yes, your subordinates will definitely spare no cost to bring back Your Majesty's and the Highnesses' corpses and let them rest in peace, even if it costs us our lives, no matter what."

"That won't be necessary; the living are always much more important than the dead."

These Dark Guards were her biggest trump cards now, and her heart would ache if even one of them died.

Yet, whether in the previous life or this one, she held a lingering doubt: why had these Dark Guards come to her side?

In this lifetime she had taken the initiative to present herself, but in the past life, these people had sought her out on their own accord.

Xue Fuyao wanted to directly ask Shadow Eleven for the reason, but the words stopped at her lips and remained unspoken.

Forget it, I will ask after the matters are settled.

After Xue Fuyao left the tofu workshop with a block of tofu, Shadow Eleven immediately contacted the remaining forty-nine Dark Guards and conveyed Xue Fuyao's orders.

In an instant, the Imperial City, which had briefly welcomed peace, was once again stirred into a bloody storm.

Back at the tofu workshop, Xue Fuyao had taken out all the various secret medicines and poisons searched from the palaces of the inner court concubines and given them to Shadow Eleven, telling him to use them and not hold back; besides those, there were also poisons exclusively used by the imperial family.

With the enemy's numbers being numerous, going head-to-head directly was definitely not a wise choice.

Just as Xue Fuyao had anticipated, the corpses of her brothers and sisters had not been destroyed; instead, they were very well preserved and stored inside an ice cellar, heavily guarded.

However, with the secret tunnels provided by Xue Fuyao, bypassing the guarding soldiers to directly enter the ice cellar was still very easy.

Taking a full five days, Shadow Eleven led people to swap out the bodies of Xue Fuyao's twenty-four brothers and sisters along with her Imperial Father, leaving behind only the heads.

At the same time, the secret medicines and poisons that Shadow Eleven and the others had scattered everywhere began to take effect. Throughout the entire Imperial City, either an official of this household suddenly dropped dead, or a young master of that household suddenly went mad.

Moreover, everyone fell ill almost back-to-back, without a single sign of warning.

"These are imperial secret medicines after all. If they were so easily discovered, they would have been phased out long ago."

As for the secret medicines searched from the concubines' palaces in the inner court, almost all of them were malicious poisons used to deal with women, possessing both strong toxicity and high concealment.

With Shadow Eleven and the others around, Xue Fuyao completely stopped going out, as the shadow of being felt up all over had not yet completely faded away.

During this period, she persisted in exercising her body every day, preparing for future cultivation.

"Shadow Three, why have you been staring at my face?" Xue Fuyao looked at Shadow Three, who had been fixing his gaze on her since just a moment ago.

Although she did not go out, Xue Fuyao was after all much too young at only five years old. If others found out, it would inevitably arouse suspicion, so after a serious discussion, they decided that Shadow Three would temporarily play Xue Fuyao's older brother to accompany her by her side while also making it convenient to protect her.

Among all the Dark Guards, Shadow Three excelled the most at disguise; back when they swapped the corpses, Shadow Three's mastery of the art of disguise had played a monumental role.

"Highness, who taught you the art of disguise? Why is the mask on your face so vividly lifelike? I have tried many kinds of materials to make human-skin masks, but none of them could achieve this effect."

At these words, Xue Fuyao touched her own face and said, "That is because I am not using the art of disguise, but directly utilizing a dharma artifact to change my appearance."

"A dharma artifact!"

The Cultivation Realm had always existed, but it was not so easy for mortals in the Mortal Realm to enter it; at the same time, to protect mortals, cultivators could not casually enter the Mortal Realm.

Compared to mortals in the Cultivation Realm who only needed to possess a Spiritual Root to cultivate, people in the Mortal Realm required monumental fortune to do so.

Shadow Three did not continue probing. Being a Dark Guard, he knew what should be asked and what should not.

After a few more days, more and more people died on the outside, and the situation grew increasingly chaotic. Almost everyone knew that this was the former dynasty's princess taking revenge, yet they were utterly helpless because no one could be found, even after they rounded up every girl of matching age in the Imperial City.

Yet the small palace maid who had been the only one to see the little princess was also assassinated. Her death was extremely tragic, with every bone in her body crushed into pieces, dying with her eyes open in lingering resentment.

At this time, the Zhang Family wanted to use the corpses of Xue Fuyao's other brothers and sisters to force her to appear.

In the previous life, even real corpses had failed; how could fake corpses possibly succeed in this one?

Watching the increasingly chaotic Imperial City, with those who deserved to die mostly dead, Xue Fuyao knew it was time to leave.

That very night, Shadow One, coordinating with Shadow Five and Shadow Six, manufactured yet another chaos within the Imperial City. Multiple mansions experienced explosions almost simultaneously, followed by fierce flames soaring into the skies, and even the imperial palace was no exception.

The palace that had experienced a major fire not long ago and whose burned halls had yet to be repaired now completely avoided the need for renovation, having been blown directly into ruins.

As for the gunpowder, it was naturally discovered within the secret tunnels.

It was worth mentioning that the basement discovered in the kitchen of the first mansion where she had administered poison was actually part of the secret tunnel system.

Having been accidentally discovered by someone, that person had unexpectedly sealed off that section of the secret tunnel and remodeled it into a small hidden chamber.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Shadow One successfully snatched away the head of Xue Fuyao's Imperial Father.

After finishing all this, without any hesitation, Xue Fuyao and her party departed the Imperial City through the secret tunnel almost immediately, subsequently destroying the tunnel entrance completely to prevent pursuing forces from discovering its existence along any traces.

"Phew." They finally came out.

Xue Fuyao looked up at the stars in the sky, feeling as though it were a lifetime away, and the heavy stone in her heart finally dropped.

"Highness, the carriage is already prepared. When shall we depart?" Shadow One asked.

Xue Fuyao calculated the time and said, "We set off now."