Chapter 1614 IF Line: The True Meaning of Taking What Others Want (Movie Viewing 1)

The wind is howling—

The horse is neighing—

Liao Jia was wailing—

As Shen Tang closed her eyes and fell into darkness during her "final moments," when she regained consciousness, her entire body felt incredibly heavy. The surroundings were filled with noise, clamor, and arguments, showing absolutely no respect for the funeral rites of a deceased emperor. What kind of loyal subjects were fighting in the mourning hall?

In a flash, a multitude of chaotic thoughts surged in.

As his memories returned, his body gradually became lighter.

Shen Tang rubbed her temples, her head aching. Having suddenly gained forty years of memories, she needed time to process them. Just then, a familiar but long-lost male voice reached her ears: "Your Majesty is awake?"

She opened her eyes upon hearing this.

As the light entered the pupil, it also reflected the young man's appearance.

Shen Tang was stunned for a moment, then quickly regained her composure.

"Why is Gong Su here?"

Or rather, how did I end up here?

Shen Tang's gaze passed over Qin Li, landing on the black and white space behind him, or rather, the space they were currently in—a space with no visible boundaries, where countless stars moved quietly in their respective orbits amidst a veil of starlight. She looked down and saw a void beneath her feet radiating a tranquil purple light. She raised her hand, and Qin Li offered it to her for support: "The Yin-Yang School's Holy Temple?"

"Hmm, is there anything wrong, my lord?"

Shen Tang sighed, "My head hurts."

For Qin Li and the others, it was only a short while, but for Shen Tang, it was more than forty years. However, her headache wasn't because she couldn't distinguish the intertwined memories, but because she was experiencing the same world twice, fighting and governing twice. It was like spending a whole summer vacation diligently finishing her homework, only to find herself back on the first day of summer vacation the night before school started.

The homework, which was filled with writing, was blank.

Having to do an assignment twice—who can understand the pain of that?

Qin Li: "Headache? Summon a physician from the medical field to take a look."

He, who had never known fear before, experienced cardiac arrest for the first time. He knew that few of his colleagues were normal, but he never expected that after so many years of peace and prosperity since the founding of the country, those treacherous colleagues would still pull off such a big stunt.

That's Liao Jia!

Few are beautiful!

Shen Tang waved his hand: "Who's calling?"

The screams were so pitiful.

Following the sound, she almost didn't recognize the man with the pig's head on his shoulder, only recognizing him by the distinctive pattern on his hair ornament. When Liao Jia saw Shen Tang wake up, two streams of tears instantly welled up in her dark, swollen eyes.

"My lord has finally woken up."

Whether the Lord believes it or not, he is truly innocent.

He had no idea that the ultimate advancement ceremony contained such a huge pitfall.

As everyone knows, Liao Jia's philosophy of scholarship is called "seizing what others love." In layman's terms, this means—the more the target likes or cares about something, the more he wants to take it away. In other words, he wants to make the target anxious and restless.

This way of the scholar is truly useful if used properly.

In wartime, it's incredibly effective at stealing secrets and sowing discord.

In peacetime, this is also a very useful skill for dealing with corrupt officials. What evidence is there that he, with his limited resources, cannot obtain?

The completion ceremony of that year embodied the principle of "stealing what others desire," allowing him to reach the completion realm by intercepting the fruits of others' completion ceremonies. Now, Liao Jia is attempting to reach the ultimate realm. He believes he has mastered every step—to increase his success rate, he even sought the assistance of Mei Meng, his former nemesis, to complete the ultimate ceremony. With their combined abilities, it shouldn't be difficult.

Even if we fail, it will only be World War II.

But he never expected that this ultimate ritual would be such a rip-off!

Lord Shen Tang was also implicated and became part of the ultimate ritual play. Success would be best, but if it failed, their lord would become someone else's lord. Your lord doesn't want you anymore.

At that moment, Liao Jia's blood pressure was about to skyrocket.

He wasn't Kang Jishou; he didn't like this kind of high-stakes gamble.

Now that things have come to this, he can only take it one step at a time.

He felt his consciousness enter a strange and mysterious space, where the chips were already placed on the gambling table. Liao Jia was so nervous that his fingers were trembling. In the darkness, an indistinguishable male and female voice was talking to him, and Liao Jia had no choice but to become a gambling addict.

At the gambling table, the house and the gamblers must have equal chips.

The voice said indifferently: "Not a single penny less. If you can't offer something equal to your lord's..."

Liao Jia didn't even have the right to start.

Naturally, there was no chance of winning.

Liao Jia: [...]

It's a real shame that Kang Shi wasn't allowed to participate in this ultimate ceremony.

This is so exciting, isn't it a gambler's dream?

Liao Jia has three opportunities to change his chips.

After three attempts, if he doesn't offer an absolutely fair bargaining chip, he will have failed this time. The price of failure could be Shen Tang's premature return to his position, or it could be that everyone forgets him. Neither of these is something Liao Jia can atone for with his death.

He racked his brains to find a sufficiently substantial bargaining chip.

The real assessment will only begin once the necessary resources are secured.

Both attempts failed.

He faced immense pressure until the third time.

[...Since the price of failure is the loss of our lord, then the price of success should also be the loss of their lord!]

The voice carried a hint of sarcasm: "Is the weight your lord holds in your eyes and the world's eyes something that others can so easily attain?"

Of course not.

I do not agree with your choice.

But what if their lord is also my lord?

Since the goal is to carry out the principle of "taking what others like" to the end—

Then let's do something fairer.

And this is true fairness.

The voice remained silent for a long time.

Then, a dazzling golden light flashed, and Shen Tang, who was reviewing government affairs, appeared in front of Liao Jia with a bewildered look on her face, her right hand holding a writing brush and her left hand holding a memorial that was about to fall to the ground. Before she could ask what was going on, Liao Jia realized the malice of the voice in a flash and hurriedly tried to stop her, but Shen Tang was hit by a golden brick that flew from nowhere and was made dizzy.

So many stars...

Shen Tangga lay down abruptly.

Liao Jia: 【…How…how could this be?】

The voice said: "The offer you made does meet the assessment criteria, but there's a problem. She hasn't yet become 'their lord' as you call her; her value hasn't been realized."

Liao Jia: [...]

At this moment, I feel like killing someone.

What made him even more murderous was that he had also brought his colleagues along.

Liao Jia felt a chill run down his spine as he looked at his menacing colleagues.

Lu Jue first inquired about Shen Tang's condition, then asked about Mei Meng, who had come with Liao Jia, and why she was nowhere to be found. The others, on the other hand, were concerned about Shen Tang's situation first, and then asked him why the Supreme Ceremony was such a grand affair, drawing their attention to this place.

Liao Jia: [...]

He truly had a bitter pill to swallow.

But He was troublesome, revealing to the grave the true essence of the scholar's way of "taking what others desire"—any action requiring his personal intervention was condemned by the scholar's way, including the Supreme Ritual. His task wasn't to complete the Supreme Ritual, but to find someone to complete every step of it for him. Finding Mei Meng was indeed a good move, but not enough; therefore, he needed to find Shen Tang.

Liao Jia chose the right person on her third attempt.

The true essence is simply to reap the rewards without sowing.

【夺人所好】not only means taking away what others cherish, but also implies taking away what one likes.

Liao Jia's face turned pale upon hearing this.

At first, his colleagues were confused, merely clicking their tongues in disapproval of Liao Jia's unethical scholarly practices and ritualistic manner. But they quickly realized something was amiss. If Liao Jia, this human trafficker, only wanted to reap the benefits without lifting a finger, then who was the one doing the work?

For a moment, everyone looked at Shen Tang, whose head was bulging with a bump.

They all cried out in agony, "My lord!"

That voice only added fuel to the fire.

He gave them a 360-degree, unobstructed view.

The scene opens with a picturesque, idyllic paradise. Two groups are engaged in a tense chase until a somewhat familiar figure rolls out of a fallen coffin—it's the young master. A group of strangely dressed men and women surround her.

The decorative style of these men and women is similar to that of the Qiu brothers from Jimo.

Where am I?

The young lord clutched his head in pain and sat up.

Last night, I wasn't reviewing official documents... what were they again? No, wait, I think I was drinking with someone last night? That doesn't seem right either... who was I drinking with? The third brother, the eldest brother, or the editor? Wasn't the editor calling to urge me to finish the manuscript? Why was he drinking with me?

They listened to the Lord's incoherent murmurs.

For a moment, my heart ached terribly.

Is the Lord so badly injured that he's lost his mind or has he lost his memory?

Look at the Lord in the picture, look at the Lord who is currently unconscious, there is a huge bump on the back of his head, it looks painful.

The men and women warmly welcomed the Lord.

Some people breathed a sigh of relief, while others said that one should always be wary of others.

Shen Tang: [Conquer the world? Me?]

Ji Mo Cong: [Your Highness is destined to be a ruler.]

These scenes didn't appear gradually in chronological order; the images alternated between black and white, and several days passed in the blink of an eye. The legendary King Ji Sunyin of the Wu Kingdom appeared in the scene with several familiar faces who looked much younger than themselves. Everyone was worried that their lord wouldn't be able to handle them, since Yunda and Weicheng were not easy to deal with at this time, until Shen Tang suppressed Yunda with absolute strength.

At the same time, it also suppressed the restless thoughts of Ji Sunyin's entourage.

Wei, the party involved, Lou: "..."

Seeing himself from over a hundred years ago appear on the screen, he was slightly surprised, but only for a moment, and soon his attention was focused on the old friend he hadn't seen for many years. He never expected that he would see his former master young and vibrant again, and his thoughts were complicated.

However, the camera angle is not under human control.

Ji Sunyin's appearance was brief.

Wei Cheng said, "Uncle, does this mean that if Lord Shen had woken up at that time, we would have followed the late Lord to the former territory of the Gongxi clan? This is a path we never thought of."

Wei Lou replied indifferently: "Vague, empty, nothingness."

There's no need to speculate about paths that never happened and could never happen.

Wei Cheng: "...But the Gongxi clan is too rich."

They too had endured a period of hardship and struggle back then. If they had received assistance from the Gongxi clan, their lives would have been so much smoother. They didn't know then, but they do now. But soon, reality will tell them that their assumptions were far too naive.

Having ample supplies isn't just a matter of things going smoothly, it's an absolute blast!

As long as you're willing to spend money, there will be people willing to do any job.

Unfamiliar with the prices of that time, Shen Jun immediately quoted half a shi (a unit of dry measure) per person per day, and readily agreed to the 500 yuan price for the supply wagon rental and animal labor. Xun Zhen and the others watching from off-screen were anxiously scratching their heads. Half a shi was too expensive, and there was no need to pay for the supply wagon rental and animal labor. The warriors summoned by the Martial Warrior were comparable to the cheapest and most capable oxen and horses, so this was a free service!

But they could only watch helplessly as the deal was completed.

Xun Zhen clutched his chest and murmured, "What a loss! What a huge loss!"

Wei Lou in the picture is simply bullying people.

A cunning and greedy businessman who demands exorbitant prices!

Wei Cheng was displeased to hear his uncle from over a hundred years ago being insulted.

The flames in his eyes darted around, and his gaze shifted to the quiet and unmoving Kang Guowenwu. He added fuel to the fire, saying, "I'm quite curious, has Lord Shen ever fought such a lucrative battle?"

Everyone: "..."

Every word was like a knife stuck in their hearts.

Now that you mention it, it seems our lord has indeed suffered these past years.

Having money and food can solve many initial problems.

The Lord could even use it to hire Ji Sunyin's strategist as a temporary worker for him. Seeing Wei Lou's unwillingness and his expression of gloom, impatience, displeasure, or disgust in a corner where the Lord couldn't notice, Qi Shan and the others were furious: "What does he mean by this?"

Are their lords subject to the scrutiny of outsiders?

Don't forget, Wei Lou is now one of the court officials of the Kang Kingdom!

Luan Xin stared at him intently, seemingly pondering the feasibility of making the year-end personnel examination more difficult. Meanwhile, in the scene, Shen Tang was already happily slaughtering the entire family of the local tyrant.

The crowd looked at the impoverished tenant farmers from over a hundred years ago; their suffering was not much different from that of the tenants who were exploited to the bone before the unification of Kangguo. They had lived in peacetime for so long that some of them could hardly remember how bitter their suffering had truly been: "Alas."

During those hundred-plus years, how desperate these people must have felt.

Someone clapped their hands: "Hmph, these villains should be killed! As expected of our lord, even with amnesia, he remains so decisive!"

The Wei Lou uncle and nephew were also reminded of some memories from back then.

The tension between them dissipated completely.

Although Shen Tang in the scene has lost her memory, she still possesses considerable martial arts skills and a construction budget that Ji Mo Cong described as mere pocket money. After her series of actions, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that she spends money like water.

[Wei is not a female strategist.]

I have money, name your price!

However, some problems cannot be solved immediately with money.

For example, there is a shortage of staff.

[Wei is only one person, and I'm afraid he's not capable of handling the task.]

Off-screen, Qian Yong and Wei Shou were making sarcastic remarks.

"If Lord Wei alone cannot handle this, then let the King of Wu send a few more people. After all, they are short of food, while our lord has no shortage of food. Why then do we need to search among the tenant farmers for a literate person? Isn't that a waste of effort?"

That makes sense.

However--

Wei Cheng said, "The late lord was also in need at this time."

Shen Jun was severely unbalanced in his studies back then, excelling in academic subjects but lacking in martial arts.

The First Emperor did the opposite; he had more military skills than civil ones.

The scene shows that the late emperor actually gritted his teeth and lent out his uncle, which indicates that he truly valued Shen Jun, and also that he really had few capable people to offer. Lending out a capable uncle was perhaps the result of the late emperor's repeated hardship.

(ω)

The ultimate ritual of taking what others desire is to call on others to do the work and then reap the benefits yourself.

(End of this chapter)