103. Cliché White Lotus Fantasy Plot Male Lead Li Aozi

  "Looks like the pn is going smoothly." In a er of the ba, a few Law III agents withe farfold, smiling slightly.

  "Our iigation was indeed correct. The only men who resist Li Aozi's powerful charisma are people like Yanagimon Shinsuke, a Red Arrow-hating madman. It's hard for others to front him directly."

  The pn was simple and crude: find Yanagimon Shinsuke, a retainer of the Hojo family, tell him that Li Aozi was ae of the Red Arrow Empire, and offer him some bes. Yanagimon would gdly make things difficult for Li Aozi.

  But that alone wasn’t enough.

  The president's order was to have Tianhuan people kill Li Aozi, and mere instigation and provocation wouldn’t suffice.

  After all, Li Aozi was an invited guest. As a figure leading the "anti-imperialist" movement, he had to maintain his image and couldn't start a fight on the host's turf.

  "Reputation is a shackle. The better a person’s image, the less room for error in the public eye. Failing to maintain it, even slightly, will lead to being overwhelmed by criticism—this is the meism of praise turning into destru."

  Law III’s intelligence capabilities were impressive. They had long gathered evidence of the dealings between Tianhuan and Li Aozi, as well as his iional support of Granter’s independence. However, in the current iional situation, anything Frost-Pted said would be dismissed. It was better to save this as a hidden arrow, to be used against Tianhuan when necessary.

  "While that's true," one agent couldn’t help but pin, "pawns like Yanagimon Shinsuke don’t e easy. We spent a lot of effort finding someone so useful. As long as it’s about opposing Red Arrow, his enthusiasm is unmatched, requiring little supervision. But now, we’re about to burn him for this pn..."

  "It’s not just him we’ll use up." His colleague, discussing the matter, also felt a twinge ret: "We’ve mobilized a lot of people to take down Li Aozi, even bringing in someone from Frost-Pted headquarters."

  "As long as the provocation succeeds, the situation will turn in our favor." The others reassured, "Li Aozi’s existence is a stant instability for Frost-Pted, directly threatening our survival."

  "Whether politically, in terms of iional reputation, ies, or military matters, we’ve suffered heavy losses. We must retaliate. Not only that, but acc to the president's orders, we o ruin Li Aozi’s reputation, to crush the Granter people's will to resist."

  Heads lowered, and when it came to patriotism, eae of them was serious:

  "White Frost-Pted clothes, red blood on the ground."

  "With our bag, Yanagimon’s pn to severely fleece Li Aozi i is set in stone."

  "Exactly, and based on our profiling of Li Aozi and the psychological evaluation by the 【Medium】, Li Aozi is short-tempered and very protective of his personal is. He won’t be able to swallow this. All we o do is repeat simir provocations, and sooner or ter, Li Aozi will sh out."

  "Heh, when that happens, how could the Tianhuan people, hosting such a gra, stand by and watch Li Aozi start a fight at their celebration? Given Tianhuan’s usual temperament, they’ll have Gamma-tier forces punish Li Aozi—just wait and see."

  The method wasn’t sophisticated, and the trick was simple, but most spiracies in history were. The simpler the pn, the higher the success rate. Even the most basic assassinatiohod was often just walking up in publid shooting the target twi the back with a shotgun—simple but lethal.

  Often, this was how things worked. Execution was always more important than pnning, and subtrag plexity always reduced the ces of failure.

  As for whether Yanagimon was a fool foing along with this? Of course not. His hatred for Red Arrow far outweighed any feelings of being used by Frost-Pted.

  ‘Poor beauty, but you’re nothing more than a dog of the Red Arrow Empire. Bme yourself for choosing Red Arrow as your try!’

  Yanagimon g the catalog of renowned craftsmen in his hand, effortlessly seleg exhibition pieces from their works. Though the bet had been widely heard, not everyone was willing to py along with their antics. Some craftsmen, displeased with their behavior, refused to lend their items, f Yanagimon to promise to buy them.

  After a round of seles, Yanagimon realized he hadn’t gained much favor. Of the ten items he chose, he had to promise to purchase four just to secure them.

  Even so, each item was a masterpiece from a famous artisan, with magnifit appearances and prestigious heir prices were bound to be high.

  Sure enough, before presenting them to the judges, Frost-Pted had domestic experts evaluate them. The ten pieces were worth at least 30 million Debis, and sidering the infted prices at the Kowloon Gathering, the total could easily exceed 190 million Debis.

  This wasn’t a small sum. The added value of a renowned name was terrifying. Even Yanagimon, a retainer of the Hojo family, was stunned by the figure—it was equivalent to the price of a heavy fighter jet. Yet these were just cold ons.

  At this point, the staggering number made Yanagimoate, a thought creeping into his mind: What if I lose and have to buy all of these? How many lifetimes would it take to pay off?

  But he quickly shook the thought away.

  How could that be? With such valuable items, he was certain to win.

  As if to reinforce his belief, he turo g Li Aozi, uo stop himself from ughing.

  "Look at him—he’s pig items from nobodies, from washed-up middle-aged men, and from a rookie who just rose to fame this year. Not a single famous artisan. Is he joking? Does he think he win with that? What a joke!"

  He couldn’t help but mock aloud. In truth, it wasn’t just him—many were pointing and enting on Li Aozi’s choices.

  No matter how you looked at it, Li Aozi didn’t seem like someone who knew what he was doing. He didn’t use aion instruments, didn’t test the items, didn’t eveo know how to s for renowned artisans. He just gnced and picked them.

  Li Aozi paid no attention to their opinions.

  To others, it seemed like he was just messing around.

  Iy, he was messing around.

  Ever sihat idiot showed up looking for trouble, it was clear he wouldn’t let Yanagimo what he wahanks to the effect of 【Benevolence Aura】, Yanagimon wouldn’t attack him, but being stantly annoyed was getting on Li Aozi’s nerves.

  He didn’t even bother using 【Eye of Truth】, walking straight to an obscure young swordsmith’s booth. He casually picked up a short bde, weighed it in his hand, found it pleasing, and tossed it into his cart before the craftsman even had time to react. The craftsman, seeing Li Aozi’s attitude, thought he was giving up and cautiously suggested, “Do you want to resider? It might not be that good…”

  “Have some fiden your own product.”

  —In fact, Li Aozi hadn’t even looked at the bde’s craftsmanship, but his ent made Yanagimon’s face darken.

  Just a moment ago, Yanagimon had been going on about "defending Tianhuan’s honor," but now Li Aozi’s words sounded far menuine and friendly.

  “But so what? Reputation won’t cover the fact that you’re destio lose.”

  Yanagimon snorted coldly.

  A few pyers, posing as volunteers, wandered around the event. Seeing the drama unfold, some couldn’t help but ent:

  “This is such a brainless, cliché web novel plot. I already predict what’ll happe—Li Aozi will use 【Eye of Truth】 to secretly evaluate the items, act all humble, and then pletely destroy Yanagimon.”

  “Yeah, sure, Li Aozi’s hot, but the writing here is too dumb. Maybe they should throw in a beautiful aueer who falls in love with him at first sight to make it spicier.”

  “Li Aozi! Omega Energy, triple the power! Don’t uimate the young, don’t uimate the middle-aged, and don’t uimate the elderly—respect the dead! Hiss, this kid is terrifying, and he must be eliminated.”

  “If the game writers don’t know how to write a plot, they shouldn’t bother. I handle a ck of story, but I ’t stand brainless clichés. If I wahat, I wouldn’t be paying to py this game. This is just ruining the quality of《Star Abyss 》.”

  Li Aozi walked a few more steps and this time found a moderately famous swordsmith.

  The swordsmith was a burly, solidly built man with a wax-yellow faamed Honda Isshin. Li Aozi, without a word, poio a katana with a bck cquered scabbard, white cord ing, and a deep purple pierced tsuba, and said:

  "That Tsu: Shadow’s Edge—I’ll take it."

  Honda Isshin didn’t hesitate. His booth had a lot of traffic, but few buyers. Sineone wao buy the bde, he was happy to sell it.

  Tsu: Shadow’s Edge was a famous sword, reputed to be a demon bde capable of "sying heavenly thunder," passed down for turies. However, despite its history, its priever increased, rgely due to the radioactive minerals it tained, which gave it a "cursed" nature. Most people just came to see it, but no one ever bought it.

  A Law III agent, watg Li Aozi purchase the bde, calmly remarked, "1.3 million Debis."

  That price was quite low. Up to this point, the total value of all the ons in Li Aozi’s cart didn’t even exceed 6 million Debis, and this one was sidered one of the more expeems.

  Now, Li Aozi only had one slot left, and the oute was all but decided.

  FAL