31: Chapter 31 Fourth Life, All-in Failure? Watch Me Turn the Tide (Part 8)

And he had to find a way to firmly nail the First Prince and the Second Prince to this forbidden red line.

In the blink of an eye, three years had passed.

To the outside world, this was merely a fleeting moment, but for Wang Shi and Heir Xiao Heng, it was a path to breaking the deadlock, one that required careful planning and burning their bridges.

Three years ago, when Wang Shi decided to castrate himself to gain the complete trust of the Third Prince, Heir Xiao Heng, as an attendant, the master and servant had already finalized their entire plan.

In his early years at Yingwu Hall, he had old acquaintances with many collateral descendants of the Tianhuang Princes Mansion, and these people had already successively taken sides with the First Prince and the Second Prince.

After the news of him defecting to the Third Prince and castrating himself spread, these people despised him incessantly, all feeling that he had debased himself, and one by one, they severed their open ties with him.

But after all, there was still a shred of their past friendship, so Wang Shi used this sentiment to package himself as someone with nowhere left to turn, soliciting sympathy.

After all, his own talent was limited, making it hard to get ahead, and coupled with the Third Prince's deep kindness towards him, he could only stay by his master's side to serve loyally in this manner.

Thereafter, Wang Shi frequently contacted these people, using tangible benefits to bind them.

He never made empty promises about a vague future, only bringing out real money and cultivation resources, entrusting them to pass on some fragmented, inconsequential messages.

For instance, bringing a note without a beginning or end, or keeping an eye on someone's daily whereabouts; the reward for each task was generous, and it never implicated the other party's core interests.

Whenever these people asked about his intentions, Wang Shi would only say that the struggle for succession in the Tianhuang Princes Mansion was intensifying, and the Third Prince only sought a stable future.

Collecting this information was merely to figure out the preferences of the two princes, so that in the future, he could find a wise master with higher odds of winning to defect to.

This way, after The New King ascended to the throne, the Third Prince could receive a rich fief, and he, as an attendant, could also secure his own livelihood.

These people did not doubt this. After all, the Third Prince's transparency and weakness were known to everyone in the Tianhuang Princes Mansion, and Wang Shi, being a eunuch, was naturally looked down upon.

For the sake of the immediate, easily obtainable benefits, these people flocked to him, and no one delved into what kind of earth-shattering scheme was hidden behind these trivial matters.

And these real money and cultivation resources all came from the Third Prince, Heir Xiao Heng's maternal family, the Song family.

Heir Xiao Heng's biological mother had passed away early when he was three, and the Song family was just a local family in the city, weak and isolated in the succession struggle of the Tianhuang Princes Mansion.

But supplying cultivation resources for the Iron Skin and Copper Bone Realm was still more than enough.

Over these years, under the matchmaking and coordination of the Head Steward of the Tianhuang Princes Mansion, the Song family had long staked all their chips on Heir Xiao Heng.

While they wanted to seek further advancement for their family, in reality, they had no other choice, as they had long been deeply bound to Heir Xiao Heng.

For the first two years, everything was peaceful, but by the third year, even though they had acted with extreme caution, those collateral descendants were not fools, and naturally, some smart people saw the clues within.

But even if someone sensed something was wrong, they absolutely dared not inform or turn traitor.

After all, every benefit they had received and every task they had performed over these years, Wang Shi remembered clearly.

Once the matter was exposed, they would first face the charge of "colluding with an attendant and accepting bribes," leaving them with no place in the Tianhuang Princes Mansion.

At this moment, they were already on the pirate ship; apart from following Wang Shi all the way, they had no other choice.

The plan, just like this, advanced steadily with risks but no disasters.

It was also during these three years that Wang Shi completely set aside the exclusive guard cultivation technique he had practiced for many years, the "Rock-Solid Skin Refining Method," and switched to cultivating a "Breath-Restraining Origin-Returning Technique" that the Third Prince, Heir Xiao Heng, had obtained by chance.

This technique was a secret transmission of the previous dynasty's secret guards, created specifically for covert investigation and stealthy concealment, never pursuing frontal lethality or defensive power.

It focused solely on the convergence of breath and the concealment of form; when cultivated to the depths, even experts with higher cultivation would find it hard to detect his tracks, and the technique's upper limit was enough to cultivate to the Silver Marrow Realm.

Heir Xiao Heng had no use for this technique, and seeing that Wang Shi was single-mindedly breaking the deadlock for him, he handed the technique over to him without reservation.

Through three years of bitter cultivation, assisted by methods to stimulate potential, Wang Shi not only cultivated the "Breath-Restraining Origin-Returning Technique" to great completion but his own cultivation also steadily stepped into the Copper Bone Realm, and his ability to sneak and conceal was unmatched by few within the Tianhuang Princes Mansion.

Furthermore, relying on this skill, he snuck into the banquet inner courtyards of the First Prince's and Second Prince's mansions several times without a sound.

Avoiding the eyes and ears of the guards in the mansions, he recorded the entire content of the two men's secret meetings with external forces.

He obtained ironclad evidence of their illicit dealings with Grand Marshal Yuan Hong and Garrison Commander Lin Lantian.

Of course, these two princes had been able to fight for succession in the Tianhuang Princes Mansion for many years and were certainly not stupid; they naturally understood that "colluding with external officials and inviting external forces to interfere in the internal affairs of the Tianhuang Princes Mansion" was a taboo.

Being able to make them break the taboo step by step and completely cross the line was all thanks to Wang Shi's continuous fanning of the flames and pushing of the waves over these three years.

Leveraging those collateral descendants who were already on the pirate ship, and adding his own actions, he several times used "coincidences" and "accidents" to intensify the conflict between the two princes, deliberately creating information asymmetry, and precisely conveying the provocative rumors to their ears.

What reached the First Prince's ears was that the Second Prince frequently visited the Garrison Commandery, and that he and Lin Lantian, uncle and nephew, had long since conspired to strike first before the Old Prince came out of seclusion, to eliminate him and then sideline the Old Prince.

What reached the Second Prince's ears was that the First Prince had long sent confidants to enter the capital secretly to conclude an alliance with Grand Marshal Yuan Hong, and if he didn't strike first, once the Yuan family exerted their power, he would only end up with no place to be buried.

In the deliberately created information asymmetry, Lin Lantian, who was a nouveau riche by origin and had no idea about the heritage of the Tianhuang Princes Mansion or the bottom line of the royal family, was completely panicked by the reputation of the Yuan family's four generations of high-ranking officials, constantly urging the Second Prince to strike first.

Ultimately, on the eve of the Old Prince coming out of seclusion, the Second Prince and Lin Lantian decided to secretly take action against the First Prince, which instead truly confirmed the rumors of "conspiring to sideline" that Wang Shi had previously spread.

And the First Prince also [timely] received the news; in his desperation, he had no other choice but to officially lean towards Grand Marshal Yuan Hong, borrowing the Yuan family's power to protect himself, and completely becoming a pawn for the Yuan family to test the bottom line of the royal family and the Tianhuang Princes Mansion.

After all, after years of fighting, the two were already irreconcilable.

If the First Prince ascended to the throne, he would inevitably thoroughly purge the Second Prince, and vice versa.

Both of them held the mindset of gambling, feeling that as long as they could take down the other party first, by the time the Old Prince came out of seclusion, the wood would already be carved into a boat, and all faults could be suppressed.

Yet they did not know that every step they took had long fallen into the calculations of Wang Shi and Heir Xiao Heng.

After obtaining all the ironclad evidence, Wang Shi and Heir Xiao Heng did not act rashly, but continued to stabilize the situation through side-attacks, quietly waiting for the Old Prince to successfully come out of seclusion.

The moment the Old Prince came out of seclusion, he figured out the changes in the situation of the Tianhuang Princes Mansion during his three years of seclusion.

Subsequently, he summoned all the princes and core members of the clan to discuss matters, and during the meeting, the other two underage princes remained silent throughout.

The First Prince and the Second Prince attacked and accused each other, exposing each other's crimes completely, yet both refrained from mentioning their own collusion with external officials.

The Old Prince watched the farce before him; having controlled the Tianhuang Princes Mansion for decades, how could he not see the trickery within?

It was just that for a moment, he could not make up his mind, and could only coldly announce the end of the meeting.