ITVCFITB CHAPTER 115

 Chapter 115 — Found It

Shen Mingyun was livid. Not only had the Third Prince’s manor refused to fall after hours of assault, his children had been taken.

Even setting aside how the children were doing, the fact that Luo Shuyu’s people could spirit them out of the Fourth Prince’s residence without anyone noticing left Shen cold with aftershocks.

With his kids in another man’s hands, even Shen knew better than to charge in blind.

Clearly, Luo Shuyu had prepared for this. Shen’s early swagger had cratered; he could only hope the Fourth Prince was faring better in the palace.

While Shen dithered outside, a shadow guard reported to Luo Shuyu that their arrows were running low.

“Don’t worry yet,” Luo said. “They won’t dare press now. My guess is His Highness is nearly finished in the palace.”

He watched the two innocent little guests playing within arm’s reach and felt no real guilt. He hadn’t brought them here to hurt them, but to keep his own household alive. This wasn’t about using children as leverage so much as buying time, time for Li Mingjin to settle matters at court.

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In the palace, the Fourth Prince drove his sword straight for Li Mingjin, only to be knocked aside by the soft sword coiled at Li Mingjin’s waist. The Fourth had forgotten his third brother’s mastery of whip-like weapons. His mistake.

Among the civil officials, the Fourth could pass for a formidable fighter. Before Li Mingjin, he wasn’t much to look at. Mingjin didn’t bother to trade blows. He twisted the Fourth’s arm, pinned him, and had him bound on the spot.

The ministers blanched as the situation flipped in a heartbeat. A moment ago they’d been “observing.” Now they were the spectacle.

The censors squawked, decrying Li Mingjin’s “methods,” but Mingjin ignored them. The martial faction, fresh from being threatened by the Fourth, couldn’t bear their chirping and started hurling insults back. One hotheaded general leapt up and punched a censor who’d been braying straight into his face; the hall dissolved into chaos.

The Grand Chancellor turned ashen. Ruined, utterly ruined. He’d backed the wrong horse and knew it. The Fourth had fallen far faster than he’d ever imagined. Had he been blind to Li Mingjin’s strength or just drunk on his own judgment?

Li Mingjin simply let it play. His elite troops ringed the hall and penned everyone in. The edict had been read; the future was decided. Great Xia had a new sovereign.

Those shock troops had ghosted in through the East Gate the previous night. The main force would reach the capital by midday.

Li Mingjin glanced at the sun. Just about time.

Tied and grimy, the Fourth Prince was left sitting to one side, unguarded except for the net of spears all around. Being ignored stung worse than any cell.

He refused to admit defeat. This was a stumble, nothing more. He still had Shen Mingyun. He still had the Zhou Second Prince. They would turn the tide.

Mingjin’s weakness was Luo Shuyu and the child; seize them, and Mingjin would kneel. That was the thought the Fourth clung to.

By noon, Mingjin’s men had mopped up the palace faction. Prison for most; a quieter cell for the Fourth.

Clutching the bars, the Fourth bellowed, “Bring Li Mingjin! How dare he treat his brother like this! I am the true heir, he’s the liar! All of you are blind to follow him!”

The guard from Gucheng looked through him like stone. No one answered.

Mingjin finished in the palace and rode for home. The avenues still crawled with Imperial Guards until Mingjin’s vanguard pressed from the front and Chen Rong, arriving with perfect timing, closed from the rear. Their commander surrendered without a fight.

Chen Rong had entered the city just as the Fourth encircled the palace. He freed detained officials’ families, swept the Fourth’s men from the streets, and smashed a supporting force before it reached the walls, capturing its general for good measure.

With the Imperial Guards cleared, Chen Rong kept hunting remnants.

Mingjin’s next objective was Zhou’s Second Prince. Catching him alongside Shen would make the Fourth’s treason, conspiracy with a foreign royal, unanswerably clear. Old slanders about Mingjin colluding with enemies would die on the spot. A prince who bartered Great Xia to outsiders had no right to the throne; not an inch of ancestral land would be ceded.

Out by the manor, Shen still fretted over his children and never noticed his ranks being carved away. Mingjin’s soldiers closed, ring tightening.

At five hundred paces, the system shrilled in Shen’s head: Danger approaching. Evacuate. Hide immediately.

“What? That can’t be right!” Shen snapped. “We checked the Fourth Prince’s plan a dozen times!”

Danger approaching. Evacuate now.

“And my children?”

The warning lights in his mind pulsed an angry red, pounding behind his eyes.

Mingjin’s men completed the encirclement. The Imperial Guards buckled almost at once; the men around Mingjin carried the stink of real battle.

Shen chose himself. He bolted behind a stone plinth and threw on his invisibility cloak, alone. One person lasted longer than two. He’d lie low and slip out when he could. That’s how the war dramas did it.

Shen ran.

Shen ran.

He didn’t get far.

Luo Shuyu had given Mingjin a simple trick: if Shen bolted, dust flour into the air and watch where it coats the “empty” space. An invisible man is only invisible until he isn’t.

They hooked him cleanly, trussed him tight.

“You know who I am!” Shen spat through the gag. “Let me go!”

They knew. That was why the ropes were so precise, hands bound behind him, palms wrapped tight so no “mysterious tool” could be palmed from nowhere.

They hauled him into the Third Prince’s manor. Hearing Mingjin had returned and brought Shen like a parcel, Luo Shuyu immediately had the two children led away. No reunions.

Gagged and furious, Shen could only glare, blade-sharp, at Mingjin and Luo.

Luo Shuyu spared him a single glance. “Where’s Zhou Er?”

“Tried to slip off the moment Shen vanished,” Mingjin said mildly. “We picked him up. He’s in a cell, good company for the Fourth.”

They discussed it as calmly as the evening menu. Shen thrashed, muffled protests rising.

The Fourth… had lost?

How?

He seized on the only lifeline left. System, what’s happening? If the Fourth fails, do I die too?

In the past, failed tasks were just… failed: no reward, no punishment. But this mission was marked mandatory. Failure meant death.

You won’t survive, the system said flatly. Li Mingjin won’t leave any of you alive.

Then help me! Shen pleaded. Open more tools, let me break them out of prison!

Your points are gone. I’ve given you everything I could. The task has failed. Your fate now rests with Li Mingjin and Luo Shuyu.

…But you’re a system.

Not omnipotent. I have constraints.

Mingjin and Luo finished comparing notes and turned back to Shen who sat there, eyes unfocused, clearly “listening” to something only he could hear.

Luo crouched and tugged the gag free. “Shen Mingyun, where is your trash system hiding?”

Silence, on two fronts.

Shen stared. He knows? “You’re… a transmigrator too?”

Luo smiled and didn’t answer. “Shave his head.”

He’d thought it through. If the system could spit out ready-to-use items, it didn’t have to be some mystical soul-thing. It might be attached to Shen, somewhere physical. And what better place to hide than in his hair?

Clumps fell. A smooth, gleaming scalp emerged.

Shen barely registered the haircut. His hair had been thinning anyway. What stunned him was this: as the razor skated across his crown, the system’s interface blinked out. The task pane vanished. The glaring red exclamation mark was gone.

He screamed inwardly. Nothing answered. How? Wasn’t the system bound to his soul?

This might not be quick transmigration, but it was still game-like. The system couldn’t be a thing… could it?

Luo studied the newly minted “salted egg” with ruthless focus. Fresh-shaved skin shone bluish. He examined inch by inch—front to back, side to side.

A thought struck him. “Bring the foreign magnifying lens I bought.”

Moments later, a glass was pressed into his hand.

He combed Shen’s scalp with it, slow and careful. Everyone else stood guard, only Luo knew what to look for.

Li Mingjin rested the flat of the soft sword at Shen’s neck. Shen’s voice shrank to a whisper. “Luo Shuyu, what are you doing?”

“Even if you are a transmigrator, even if you know about a ‘system’, how would it live on my scalp?”

“Let me go. Let my children go. I’ll tell you everything.”

Luo didn’t so much as twitch. He worked from the right temple, millimeter by millimeter.

Then he flicked a glance at Mingjin. “Knock him out.”

The blade hilt tapped. Shen slumped.

Finding a needle is a craftsman’s task. If the system was delivering painless injection-like tools, it could be tiny, anchored where Shen never noticed, especially if he’d woken from his first crossing sore from running for his life.

Luo’s eyes were starting to ache when, there.

A pinprick of red.

“Found it,” he breathed.

He’d found the system.

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