Chapter 401: The Distressed Empress

The Golden Chambers were not in a rush to decline the task sat by the Empress.

They knew that when they declined, she would look for other options, and if she did that, then Xue Wei would be in danger.

So they simply held onto the task. Their aim was to at least hold onto it until the festival to celebrate the end of the Ascended’s realm was over.

That was the ideal time to strike at Xue Wei, when there was chaos everywhere.

It was easy to appear and get the job done, but because the Golden Chambers had not given a definite answer, the Empress was not in a hurry to make a move on Xue Wei.

Xue Wei was not a very good person and the Empress had touched his bottom line.

A cunning gleam flashed by Xue Wei’s eyes. Within a short time, rumours about the Empress having hired assassins to deal with Xue Wei was spread all over the capital.

As to how Xue Wei had succeeded in causing the rumour to flourish like this, no one knew, but everyone were aware of the rumours.

The Empress had spent a long time painting a pretty image about herself, that she was the most benevolent and admirable young woman who was the role model for all women in the continent.

Now it was as if everyone were glancing at her with strange expressions. Some of them

We’re looking at her with mockery and disdain, others with pity and even some with schadenfreude.

Although the Empress had a public reputation as being an angel, the many people from the palace knew otherwise. Especially the many concubines.

The Empress was jealous in nature, and she was causing problems for the concubines one after another. Often she would suppress them and sometimes she would even plot against them. Some had died in her hands, even the Emperor’s sons had died in her schemes.

So they were all ecstatic to see her battle it out with Xue Wei, they even wanted to add fuel to the fire.

If Xue Wei died due to an assassination attempt, everyone would put the blame onto the Empress. She would be known to be a merciless woman and a murderer.

Not to mention it was obvious how much the emperor doted on Xue Wei, it was likely that she would lose some of her power.

Since this was the case, many of the concubines headed to the Golden Chambers and tried to set up a mission to kill Xue Wei, but all of them were met with the same answer - he was untouchable.

Xue Wei was aware that him spreading the word would cause even more problems for him as others wanted to tread in the muddy waters, but he was quite satisfied with the result so far.

His performance had caused the empress to be extremely distressed.

She was unaware of who could have shared the news. She was initially blaming the Golden Chambers, but upon confronting them she was told that they could not take the mission and that they were unwilling to take the blame for spreading the rumors.

She knew then that she had to come up with a new way to deal with Xue Wei, but she was unsure of how.

As long as he was murdered it would be connected to her, but if he died in an accident, or if he broke the law and was forced to suffer the death penalty, then she would be in the clear.

Unfortunately, it was not easy to make him die in an accident. Not many accidents happened where someone could kill an ordinary saint.

At the same time scheming against him would also be hard as he had no contact with anyone really.

But when thinking deeper about it she came up with a few different plans. She was never going to let Xue Wei survive, not since he was the bloodline of the Holy Maiden.

This was where she was immensely naive. Xue Wei was not the holy maiden but he had the same ability as her, and he had her blood flowing through his veins. He was the new hope for all the sovereign beasts, hence he would never be given the death penalty by the emperor.

This identity also proved to be beneficial in other aspects. When the Emperor went to speak with the retired emperor and the grand elder about the thunder flame crown, although they were also eager about the items he could produce, their main concern was to get a good relationship with the new holy son, and hopefully make him mutate a few primordial beasts on top of the items already offered.

The Emperor was pleased with what he had gotten from the discussion. It seemed to him that Xue Wei really needed the crown and was willing to give a high price for it, so a bit of blood should not break the deal.

The two old Vermilion Birds were both pleased with the trade off. The thunder flame crown was an item of no use, and while everyone knew of it, not many had ever seen it before.

As for the amount of mutated beasts they could get, it would depend on Xue Wei. They understood too little about the blood mutation to make an answer now.

If they needed much blood for each mutation normally they would settle for fewer mutated beasts, but if it was a simple procedure then they would want at least ten.

But all of this was something they needed to discuss in detail with Xue Wei.