How to Deal with Having the Villainous Tyrant’s Child Chapter 114

Chapter 114

Lu Hanzhi stared at the pig’s trotter that had been gnawed on, and for a moment his emotions were indescribably mixed.

When he had made up that story back then, he probably never imagined that he would live to see a day like this.

Men really were all big pig’s trotters—not only pig’s trotters, but vindictive ones at that.

He raised his head and looked toward the courier standing at the door. The man gave him an awkward smile.

Lu Hanzhi asked, “When Wang Ye gave this to you… what did he say?”

The courier replied, “Wang Ye said that it couldn’t be eaten anymore, so it was just for Wang Fei to look at.”

Lu Hanzhi: …

Ah, I—

Yuwen Min, how could you be like this?

Were you even human?

You hadn’t seemed this petty before!

Lu Hanzhi sighed. Fine, then!

He said to the courier, “Then help me reply to Wang Ye. Tell him that I received the item, and that I’ll definitely keep it until he returns. I’ll hold it and sleep with it at night, treating it as if Wang Ye himself were by my side.”

The courier’s face flushed red. People said that Prince An and the Prince An’s Wang Fei were deeply in love, and seeing it today, it was indeed true.

Lu Hanzhi wrapped the pig’s trotter in oil paper and planned to hang it by the window to dry.

As he placed it on the windowsill, he said, “There’s really no one else like this—this kind of token of affection is even hard to store properly.”

Far away at the frontier, Yuwen Min sneezed again. He rubbed his nose, feeling vaguely that Wang Fei was talking badly about him once more.

Compared to Lu Hanzhi’s carefree satisfaction, Su Wan’ning could be said to be furious to the extreme.

She had been summoned into the palace and was severely reprimanded by the Empress Dowager in front of everyone.

The Empress Dowager’s exact words were that it was fortunate she had such an excellent cousin with superb medical skills.

If not for Lu Hanzhi bringing the dead back to life and assisting in the delivery of twins, she, as the Crown Prince’s side consort, would certainly have had her title stripped.

However, she was still punished. She was ordered to return all the silver she had earned to the common people who had purchased products from Wan Ji.

If anyone’s face had been ruined, she was required to compensate them tenfold.

After all this turmoil, not only did she gain nothing, she lost over ten thousand taels of silver.

Yet no matter how much she thought about it, she could not understand it. Her talisman papers clearly had a one-month duration—why had the incident occurred after only three days?

Her plan had been perfect. When those women had used them for twenty days, she would withdraw the talisman’s effects and replace them with other talismans.

In any case, they were all exchanging their lifespan for beauty—each taking what they needed. The women had not truly lost anything.

But just as she was raking in money hand over fist, something like this suddenly happened.

There was no need to think further—it was certainly Lu Hanzhi’s doing.

Although she knew Lu Hanzhi was behind it, she could not say anything.

At present, Lu Hanzhi’s reputation in the capital was soaring. Everyone called him Marvelous-Handed Lu, and even the Empress Dowager protected him.

The emperor claimed illness and withdrew from all affairs, pushing the Empress Dowager out as a shield.

Even after the incident, when Old Madam Lin donned her noblewoman’s court robes and went to strike the Dengwen Drum, the emperor did not say a single word.

On one hand, she felt the emperor was too cold-hearted; on the other, she felt this was a good thing.

The emperor had completely handed power over to the Crown Prince—didn’t that mean the Crown Prince’s succession was already set in stone?

If that was the case, then all she hoped for was that Yuwen Mingji would act faster and kill Yuwen Min in the Western Frontier.

Better yet, he should pin a charge of colluding with the enemy and treason on him, so that even Lu Hanzhi and Yuwen Jue would be implicated by association.

This idea was not something Su Wan’ning came up with out of thin air.

In the Western Frontier, Yuwen Mingji’s confidants had long been secretly colluding with various Western Region states.

As a prince, having enemy agents planted around him was nothing unusual.

Sometimes, these people could not be uprooted. If you removed them, the other side would simply send new ones.

It was better to keep them, feed them some inconsequential information, and even promote them, making them believe they were deeply embedded. Then, at the right moment, you could “accidentally” leak false intelligence to them.

This was something Lu Hanzhi had said. When he said it, Yuwen Min had thought he sounded rather sinister.

Lu Hanzhi, however, did not think much of it. It was merely a small counter-espionage tactic, not worth mentioning.

Although Yuwen Min disdained such schemes—after all, strategy was not his strength, but killing certainly was.

As long as those people were dead, any scheme would become meaningless.

Thus, in their partnership, Lu Hanzhi handled the strategies, while Yuwen Min handled the killing.

He had known early on that there were spies planted by Yuwen Mingji within his army.

He also knew that the spy had been leaking information to the enemy.

He had even deliberately leaked information once, allowing the spy to earn a great merit in Yuwen Mingji’s eyes.

Because of this incident, Yuwen Min had lost several of his own brothers.

That outcome had been unexpected. He had not anticipated that the other side would directly resort to fire.

However, he still won that battle, beheading over a hundred enemy soldiers, which could be considered revenge for his fallen brothers.

In war, casualties were inevitable. But those who could guarantee victory in every battle were extremely rare.

Yuwen Min felt that he could not continue like this—battle after battle, as though there were no end in sight.

Hadn’t it been said that the Western Region states were sparsely populated?

Why was it that no matter how many he killed, it was never enough?

It seemed his wife had been right—killing people was useless. The problem had to be solved at its root.

But how was the problem to be solved?

Yuwen Min frowned, unable to figure it out no matter how much he thought about it.

Just then, the courier returned and conveyed Lu Hanzhi’s words to Yuwen Min.

After hearing them, although Yuwen Min’s face remained expressionless, the corners of his lips subtly lifted.

He asked, “Did Wang Fei have you bring another letter this time?”

The courier replied, “In response to Wang Ye, no. However, Wang Fei sent you a great gift.”

“A great gift?” Yuwen Min asked. “What great gift?”

The courier shook his head and answered, “This humble one does not know. It was covered with thick quilts and escorted by more than a dozen men. They said Wang Ye must personally unwrap it.”

Yuwen Min was startled—escorted by more than a dozen people?

What on earth had his crafty Wang Fei sent him this time?

Could it be that he had angered him because of the pig’s trotter he sent last time?

He could not help but laugh, suddenly curious to see what kind of counterattack this fellow had prepared.

So he said, “Lead the way.”

The few men responsible for escorting that massive object actually looked somewhat familiar—they were all trusted personal guards under his command.

For this western campaign, he had not brought the personal guard battalion with him. He had left them all to Lu Hanzhi.

They had been split in two: half remained in the capital, and half lay in ambush outside the city.

These few were the ones stationed in the capital, each tall, broad-shouldered, and powerfully built.

When they saw him arrive, they immediately stepped forward to salute.

Yuwen Min said, “Rise. What exactly did Wang Fei have you deliver to this prince?”

He had already mentally prepared himself to be mocked by him.

But when the guards pulled away the thick quilts covering the massive object, Yuwen Min was instantly stunned.

A towering ballista, over the height of a man, stood before him. Its rough wooden structure made it look like a giant.

It was formed by combining three enormous bows, and was therefore also called the Triple-Bow Bed Crossbow.

Only after a long moment did Yuwen Min speak. “Did Wang Fei say what this object is called?”

Lu Hanzhi clearly remembered that the Eight-Ox Ballista was historically recorded in the Great Song dynasty, and that Great Zhao—still half-slave, half-feudal—clearly did not possess such a heavy ballista.

However, the attendants did not answer his question. Instead, the lead guard respectfully presented a booklet and said, “In response to Wang Ye, Wang Fei instructed this subordinate to present this illustrated manual to Your Highness for review.”

Yuwen Min took the booklet, which contained Lu Hanzhi’s introduction to the Eight-Ox Ballista.

Not only was there an explanation, but also Lu Hanzhi’s distinctive simple drawings, forming a short comic-style story.

Lu Hanzhi’s drawing style was something Yuwen Min had never seen nor heard of before.

He had kept the few drawings Lu Hanzhi sent last time close to his body at all times.

This time, being given an entire illustrated booklet, he felt that even his inner robe could no longer hold everything.

Yuwen Min flipped open the booklet and saw that it detailed the ballista’s operating method, internal structure, and maximum firing range.

When he saw that the maximum range was 1,500 meters, he was completely shocked.

Indeed, historically, the Eight-Ox Ballista’s maximum range truly had reached 1,500 meters—more precisely, 1,536 meters.

The short story appended afterward also revolved around firing range.

Lu Hanzhi had told the story of the Liao invasion of Song—how Great Song relied on a single Eight-Ox Ballista to shoot and kill the enemy commander with one arrow on the eve of an all-out battle.

After finishing the illustrated booklet Lu Hanzhi had prepared, Yuwen Min could not wait to test the ballista himself.

Such a divine weapon would surely allow him to fight this battle with the power of a tiger given wings.

Far away in the capital, Lu Hanzhi held Ah Chan and stood atop the roof, gazing westward. From the highest viewing pavilion in Prince An’s residence, one glance could take in half of the capital.

But he knew very well that he could not see the western frontier at all.

He suddenly felt a bit of regret—why had he not told Yuwen Min about Ah Chan’s origins earlier?

At the same time, he also felt fortunate that he had not clung to this secret before Yuwen Min left.

He had told Yuwen Min this precisely to ignite his fighting spirit.

When people carried hope in their hearts, they worked all the harder—even the tyrant was no exception.

If he could burn the Zichen Palace to the ground when his heart was dead ash, then he could also defy fate and return when hope filled his heart.

Lu Hanzhi held Ah Chan when he heard the child speak in a soft, babyish voice while pointing ahead, “Ah-dad… black… black…”

Lu Hanzhi sniffed and said, “What are you laughing at? Your dad is being sentimental here, and you still have the nerve to laugh.”

But Ah Chan stubbornly continued, “Black… black-black… Ah-dad… black!”

Lu Hanzhi set aside his sadness and looked in the direction Ah Chan was pointing. He saw a group of pitch-black figures—like lumps of coal—charging toward the residence in broad daylight, resembling a band of demons.

Lu Hanzhi shivered and stood up. “What’s going on? Are ghosts running rampant in the middle of the day?”

Ah Chan looked at his father. “Ghost?”

The group of black figures hurried into his courtyard. The gatekeeper only stopped them briefly to ask a few questions before letting them in, and faint laughter could even be heard.

Oh—so they were their own people?

But what were they doing? Why had they dyed themselves completely black?

Lu Hanzhi climbed down from the roof, and only then did he recognize who those “black ghosts” really were.

Once he clearly saw who they were, he set Ah Chan down and burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Ah Chan ran over curiously to surround the black figures, making them extremely awkward.

Yu He cleared his throat, and He Ming said, “Young Master, you’re still laughing? Look at what we’ve become, and you’re still laughing.”

Lu Hanzhi had not meant to laugh, but he truly could not help it. Laughing as he spoke, he asked, “What happened to you all?”

Yu He replied, “Didn’t Young Master tell us to dig a well? After we dug down more than a hundred meters, a stream of black liquid suddenly surged out, and it carried a strange smell! We didn’t know what it was and didn’t dare act rashly, so we came to ask Young Master.”

“Black water?” Lu Hanzhi stepped forward and, sure enough, caught a faint smell of gasoline.

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