Chapter 98: Can This Still Be Set Right?

It was Alberic.

After seeing the man meeting with Neilger, the intelligence officer assigned to the African region murmured the name.

"You know him?"

Tong Wanxin lowered the binoculars and turned to look at him. The Special Response Unit had no intelligence network of its own; every mission depended on support from the various regions. The same old story: they simply had too few people.

Alberic was one of the more active operatives in Africa, attached to British intelligence. Several past missions had led to him, but the director had not wanted to push Britain too hard, so nothing had ever been done.

By battling experts of every stripe across the internet, his skill had now risen to seventy-five percent.

At last, under the crushing force of those two streams of power, the formidable assassin from the Dark Tides abruptly faltered, driven backward by that terrifying energy.

The guqin spans four octaves and two notes. Its tones are divided into seven open strings, ninety-one harmonics, and one hundred forty-seven pressed notes, all themed around stillness. After two years of cultivation, Duan Qin had mastered them completely; with a movement of her fingers, the three kinds of sound intertwined, the music shifting endlessly on and on.

Madam Zhang had thought she would defend herself, that she would beg for mercy, but she had not expected Su Qingge to request leaving instead, and she froze in surprise.

Hundreds of splendid palace lanterns lit the vermilion-and-gilded corridor, rising and falling in layers that complemented one another, dazzling beyond compare.

"You two..." Yu Guo rolled her eyes so hard they nearly vanished, then resigned herself and got to her feet, trudging toward the kitchen.

Bors was perhaps too obsessed with strength. He only wanted others to acknowledge him, yet he paid no heed to connections; at times, those mattered more than anything else.

As Mu Jieliang spoke, he leapt into the pool and turned into a fish of molten lava. He darted through it, stirring the magma to rapidly sear the fragments, until they melted at last into charred slag.

Because of Qing Zhenzi's words, Madam Fu once again believed that Fu Linyan had shielded her from a fatal calamity. Yet that doom had been meant for Fu Linyan herself. Now, whenever Madam Fu saw anyone, she would praise the Fourth Miss for her filial devotion, and within a day the capital was abuzz with talk of the Fourth Miss's heaven-shaking piety.

That poor relative from a distant branch of the Ding family could be ignored well enough, as long as it was not that maternal aunt.

Seeing the newcomer, the old man standing beside Lin Yi burst into loud laughter, showing not the slightest fear of the visitor.

Lan Xi wiped the sweat from her brow at the words. She had driven the emperor away and failed to win his favor; instead, he had gone to Noble Consort Hua's palace, wasting the empress's painstaking effort. The one still favored was Noble Consort Hua. Wouldn't the two of them hate her to death?

Dragon King clearly remembered that Clark's target had been the rockery by the pond, and after Clark's attack, there had only been a pond left there, with no rockery anywhere in sight.

Most of the garden was filled with rare flowers and exotic plants originally growing on Mount Ming. Once inside, one was met by a heady fragrance; unusual blossoms competed in full bloom, every flower vying for beauty and color, so splendid it felt as though one had fallen into a sea of blossoms. A pavilion stood at the garden's center, exquisitely built, simply arranged, and made of comfortable materials—a true masterpiece.

Liu Qianjun did not pause; with a single push of his feet, he was no longer where he had stood. Palm extended, he moved like a ghost and appeared before the man playing the pipa.

At the sight of the eyes of those two disciples, disgust rose once more in Ye Fengling's heart. If his self-control had not been strong enough, he might have slapped them across the face again.

A refined-tier magic core was already hard to come by, so Zhao Yan held the magnificent-tier core in his hands and could not bear to let it go.

Lin Yi, listening now, had no idea what was going on. His only concern was how to completely resolve the two souls still spinning without cease; if this went on, who knew what would happen next?

The captain of the guard glanced over and saw that one of their own ships had already rammed a Japanese vessel not far from their position. The violent impact sent spray surging up, even flinging it toward their side. There was no time to take Gan Ning away, so the captain had no choice but to lower himself and shield him from the splashing water.

By summoning him at this moment, the emperor was probably speaking more about the matter of the prince. Seeing the legitimate heir turn out so accomplished, even if he felt no affection for her as empress, he ought at least to bear some respect and gratitude. That would be enough; enough for her position to stand unmatched among the countless concubines of the harem.