"Bang, bang, bang," Huang Biren heard a sharp knocking on the heavy wooden door. Before she could voice a single word, a raspy, uninvited voice spoke from behind it.
"I am coming in."
Huang Biren was deeply displeased by the presumptuous, arrogant tone, but she quickly collected herself, her face smoothing into a mask of perfect composure. A scrawny man who looked entirely exhausted, breathless, and fatigued, with swollen limbs and a distinct limp, stepped into the room. Huang Biren looked at the intruder with absolute indifference in her eyes. The man didn't seem to mind her cold behavior in the slightest. He walked confidently toward her, where she sat calmly on the massive bed in the center of the large bedroom.
"What exactly do you hope to achieve by doing this?" Huang Biren asked, her voice laced with quiet curiosity.
The man smiled at her before taking a seat on a chair next to the large dressing mirror. "Is your heart so fortified against me that you cannot accept my singular devotion, free from any deceptive ploys?" he questioned, his breath hitching mid-sentence as a stifled, bloody cough escaped his lips.
"Your insatiable depravity is a permanent stain upon this land, a notorious truth whispered in every corner of the kingdom, from the youngest child to the oldest woman," Huang Biren said, her eyes callously examining the prince's frail, diseased body. "You have routinely exploited your royal status to abduct and violate women of every station, treating their lives as disposable playthings in your wake. Your monstrous appetite has branded you with the vile moniker of 'Sex Fiend'—a name so pervasive that your true identity has been entirely erased by your own filth."
"Hahahahahahahah," the prince laughed loudly, his greedy eyes roaming all over Huang Biren's enticing, perfect body. Huang Biren flinched in raw disgust, which finally caused the prince to stop laughing and adopt a more serious face.
"I don't care for what the useless commoners think of me, just as I don't care for what the bees think of me as I take their honey," the prince sneered. "Women were created by the gods for the sole enjoyment of powerful men. I am a powerful man, so all women are mine to do with as I please. If a woman doesn't like my advances, she should be fully prepared to be taken by force before being discarded like an old doll. It is such a pity that I won't be able to enjoy both you and your older sister, Huang Shengyi. The two of you together would have made the perfect drink to quench my thirst for a few months. Sigh, what a tragedy that your sister left the kingdom to go study in the distant Yulong Empire. Now, are you going to be one of those stubborn women that I forcefully take and then discard, or are you going to be a good little girl and fall willingly into my arms while I am still happy?"
The prince's unhinged rant didn't come as a surprise to Huang Biren. "Do you know what will happen, now that you have undoubtedly angered the entire Huang family?" she asked, completely ignoring the prince's stupid question.
The prince wasn't happy with her defiance, but he forced himself to cool down. "Of course I do. By week's end, there will no longer be a ruling family with the surname Huang," the prince said with supreme confidence. Before Huang Biren could interject, he continued. "Do not put your foolish hopes on receiving help from the other ruling families. My father, the king, wants to die after ensuring that our royal lineage will remain in power for generations to come. For this exact purpose, he has been meticulously planning the total destruction of the Huang family for twenty long years. To ensure the Tinding dynasty remains unshakeable upon the throne, we must act with ruthless precision. We must obliterate the primary architect of our potential downfall before their shadow grows long enough to eclipse the crown. And that looming catastrophe is none other than the treasonous Huang clan."
The more the prince spoke, the angrier and more animated he became. "Although your Huang family is the newest ruling family in the Tinding kingdom, you are also undeniably the most powerful. With your family's cultivation technique, the Rumbling Tiger, no ordinary cultivator in the kingdom can exchange blows with a Huang family member at the same stage of cultivation. With such a powerful family residing in the kingdom, even a mighty king cannot sleep due to the stress, causing many of the previous kings to die young, just like my father, who is currently on his last breath. Driven by the absolute need to extinguish this looming catastrophe, the King has orchestrated a plan of absolute finality. The King has sacrificed sovereign treasures and yielded unprecedented power to the other four ruling houses, effectively bribing the nobility to ensure their blades stay sheathed—or pointed directly at his enemies. So, as I said, you will not be getting help from those families, no matter how much gold you offer them."
Observing Huang Biren's infuriatingly unshakable composure, the prince began to unveil the king's darkest, most treacherous machinations in a desperate attempt to finally crush her spirit beneath the weight of an all-consuming despair. "The entire kingdom knows that your Huang family has more wealth than the king himself, probably even more than all the gold in the kingdom combined, but this time, the king offered those families something only a sovereign can give: hereditary noble titles. The four families will officially become duke families and swear eternal loyalty to the king. With these titles, the four families can truly become supreme ruling entities."
Still, the young miss did not seem flustered at all by his revelations, causing the prince to look at her with a sudden sense of defeat in his eyes. "Do you not care at all for the grim fate of your family?" he asked, genuine confusion bleeding into his voice.
"Now that you are completely done with your nonsensical rant, let me tell you exactly what will happen now that you have angered the Huang family," the young miss said in a terrifyingly calm voice, sending a sudden, icy premonition shivering through the prince's entire body.