The Serpent's Strike
The palace seethed with the anger of a kicked anthill. Lin Wei, the unnoticed architect of the chaos, surveyed his handiwork with grim satisfaction. Rumors slithered through the corridors, whispers about Lord Fei, a minor noble suddenly thrust into the limelight due to his (supposed) close connections with Prince Zhao. The stage was set. Now, all that was needed was the Enforcers' fatal misstep.
An Luo, poisoned by his own bitterness, was the perfect tool to spread the venom. Each lie he spewed had the bite of personal betrayal. Lin Wei watched from a distance, a puppet master observing his creation come to life. The Enforcers, already teetering on the edge, were about to plunge into the abyss.
He sent Lan Xin on a seemingly minor task – investigating whether Lord Fei could be a potential ally. It was a ruse, a smokescreen for his true scheme, yet also genuine. A pawn needed to believe they had a chance to become a queen, after all. The girl flitted through the shadows, her reports painting a picture of a desperate, indebted man – one ripe for manipulation. But beneath those details, something nagged. A whisper, out of place, about a group called the 'True Voice'. Lan Xin sensed a shift, a shadow play behind the visible power struggles.
Meanwhile, Su Mei watched him like a hawk circling its prey. Her smile was polite, her gaze razor-sharp. His deliberately amateurish performance with Prince Zhao should have eased her suspicions. Yet, a flicker in her eyes told him he'd merely deepened her uncertainty. Was he a blunderer to pity, or a threat to eliminate? The question hung unspoken, adding to the pressure already crushing down upon him.
He staged the final provocation: a "leaked" document, clumsy forged evidence implicating Lord Fei in a plot to betray Prince Zhao and steal from the royal treasury. The trap was baited, a snare waiting to tighten around the Enforcers' necks.
When they struck, they did so like wounded wolves. Lord Fei's estate wasn't just raided, it was ravaged. Soldiers, servants, even those caught in the crossfire...their deaths were collateral damage to the Enforcers' thirst for vengeance. This wasn't desperation; it was a calculated bloodletting.
Lin Wei played the shocked advisor, fanning Prince Zhao's outrage into a righteous bonfire. Calls for retribution echoed through the grand halls, the Enforcers painted as monstrous butchers. He even allowed a note of true concern to seep into his voice when discussing the innocent casualties. The flicker of guilt burned hot, then was ruthlessly extinguished. They were his pawns too, their deaths a grim part of the larger calculation.
Later, in the privacy of his room, the ouroboros mocked him from a scrap of bloodstained cloth. The protector's cryptic message echoed in his skull: "The target was not the one who falls..." Had he underestimated Lord Fei? Was his connection to the 'True Voice' the heart of the protector's plan? His thoughts whirled, strategizing and recalculating in equal measures.
His retaliation was swift, a brutal counteroffensive born of desperation as much as strategy. Prince Zhao, goaded into rash decisions, left a crucial section of his troops exposed. It was a trap within a trap - a dangerous gamble. He wasn't just baiting the Enforcers, he was hoping the protector's true hand might be forced into the open.
Lan Xin came to him, her hesitation a thorn in his side. Should she report the 'True Voice' connection, even if it derailed his strategy? Or had she learned enough of his ruthlessness to trust that this apparent blunder was somehow another piece in his grand, and terrifying, game?
The stage was set. All that remained was to see who the final hunter was – him, the Enforcers, or the unseen architect pulling them all like puppets on a string