19: He eventually became the Emperor of Assassins

Chu Ye sat leisurely on the dragon bed-like wide couch and beckoned with his finger to the Empress, who stood frozen in place, a bright smile on his face: "Your Majesty, the spring night is short, remove your armor."

The Empress's body faithfully executed the command.

Her slender, jade-like fingers rose, meticulously unfastening the complex ties of the Black-bottomed Golden Phoenix Robe.

The outer robe slipped off, revealing the thin Cloud Brocade Inner Garment underneath.

With skin like ice and bones like jade, her curves were breathtaking, glowing like mutton-fat jade under the soft light of the bright pearls. Yet, that exquisite face remained cold, with humiliation and fury intertwining deep in her eyes, adding a heart-stopping sense of forbidden beauty.

Just as Chu Ye was admiring this "masterpiece" and preparing for the next step, the Empress's thoughts fluctuated violently, carrying a sense of desperate resolve: "Chu Ye! Let's talk! One last time!"

Chu Ye raised an eyebrow; interesting. With a slight thought, he temporarily released his complete suppression of the Empress's consciousness, allowing her to think and express herself autonomously, though he still held firm control over her body.

He stood up, walked to the nearly naked Empress, and reached out to pick her up in a horizontal carry.

She felt warm and soft to the touch, yet as firm as jade. He placed her on the bed and lay down on his side, his arm encircling her slender waist, pulling her into his embrace.

His other hand unceremoniously wandered and explored the hidden curves of her smooth back, feeling that indescribable, exquisite touch.

From afar, they truly looked like a loving couple whispering in bed.

The Empress's body trembled slightly, but she could not escape, forced to let that hand run wild.

She forced herself to stay calm, her voice transmitting through her Soul, cold and clear: "Chu Ye, even if you have controlled me with evil arts, Great Qin is still Great Qin. The Empire's will will not... collapse because of the fall of a single monarch."

"The officials will function normally, the iron cavalry will sweep the six directions, and the military's edge will remain as intended. You can imprison me alone, but you cannot stop Great Qin's thousand armies."

Chu Ye's fingers toyed with a strand of her stray black hair. Hearing this, he chuckled, his warm breath fanning against her sensitive earlobe.

He leaned close to her ear, a chuckle like a lover's murmur yet sounding like a demon's whisper spilling from his lips:

"Can't stop it? Then... just destroy it."

He felt the delicate body in his arms suddenly stiffen.

"And,"

Chu Ye's voice carried a cruel pleasure, "if it is Your Majesty, the supreme Empress of Great Qin, who personally signs the treaty, turns the army, or even acts personally..."

"Dismantling, annexing, and even eventually wiping the name 'Great Qin' off the map bit by bit... what a brilliant and magnificent 'charming tale' that would be, enough to be passed down for eternity. Don't you agree, Your Majesty?"

A long, dead silence fell over the bedchamber. Only Chu Ye's fingers continued to trace circles unhurriedly, sending waves of tremors through her.

The Empress remained silent.

Through that forced proximity to his chest, she seemed to hear the bone-chilling, rippleless, cruel essence beneath this young man's calm heartbeat. A laughing, joking, profligate Young Master?

No, this was more like a... demon who had crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, taking pleasure in toy with people's hearts and destruction.

In the most direct way, he had sliced open and laid before her the future possibility she feared most and found most unacceptable—that she might be able to protect nothing, and might even become an accomplice in destroying everything.

Chu Ye keenly sensed that within this body that seemed as hard as ice and naturally proud, the rock-solid line of defense deep in her heart was developing tiny, almost imperceptible cracks.

The proud spine that had supported her thousand-year imperial legacy seemed to be groaning under an invisible, overwhelming pressure.

He chuckled softly.

He continued to "whisper" in her ear in that slow, somewhat lazy and indifferent tone:

"To be honest, Your Majesty, I really don't have much interest in who rules this world. Whether it's Qin or Chu, the surname doesn't matter."

"I just want to hold beauties and live a few days of shameless, happy life. My only real ideal in life is probably to... gather all the world's beauties and pick up every Fairy in the myriad realms."

He paused, sensing the Empress's subtle, awkward fluctuations, knowing she was listening and analyzing.

"As for my father, he really wants the world. However..."

Chu Ye drawled, "Whether the world is named Chu or continues to be named Qin, sometimes... it's not entirely non-negotiable, right? The key is how we 'negotiate'."

With the Empress's intellect, she instantly captured the vague yet clear hint and the room for maneuver in his words!

In the midst of a desperate situation, she seemed to see an extremely faint yet real gap!

Without the slightest hesitation, she made a prompt decision, her Soul-transmitted words clear and carrying the calm and calculation of the imperial family:

"First, in private, I... I can serve you with all my heart as you wish. And I will use Great Qin's intelligence and resources to search for and introduce you to the world's exquisite women who meet your requirements."

"Second, I promise that during my reign, Great Qin's military edge will never be pointed at Great Chu. The two countries can maintain a surface peace and even engage in limited cooperation."

"Third, in exchange, you must not interfere with or sabotage my conquests and rule in other directions of the Empire in any form. You shall not meddle in Great Qin's internal affairs or expansion."

She proposed her conditions; it seemed like a compromise, but in reality, it was an attempt under extreme pressure to win the maximum possible autonomous space and breathing room for herself and Great Qin.

Serving one person in exchange for the possibility of the Empire's survival and expansion—for a monarch, this was a transaction humiliating to the extreme, yet it was the only "way out" at the moment.

Chu Ye stopped his mischievous hand at her waist and raised his head slightly, meeting the Empress's Phoenix eyes that remained calm and sharp even in the depths of humiliation.

The corners of his mouth slowly curled into a satisfied, somewhat wicked arc.

"Your Majesty is indeed smart and knows how to adapt to the circumstances."

He leaned down and lightly imprinted a kiss on her smooth forehead, like a stamp of confirmation. "Deal."

The Empress uncontrollably raised her hand, lowering the arm that had been shielding herself, and her constantly tensed body finally relaxed for a moment.

However, deep within those cold eyes, there still hid a chill and unwillingness that could not be washed away, along with a hint of complexity she hadn't even noticed herself.

Chu Ye looked at her state and curled his lips in pleasure; taming a proud Phoenix was much more interesting than conquering a country.

Inside the hundred phoenix diagram, time passed both leisurely and agonizingly.

When the Empress finally closed those cold and proud Phoenix eyes and her body went from tensed to slowly relaxing in powerless resistance, making a silent compromise, Chu Ye was not the least bit polite.

Like a conqueror finally breaking into a Forbidden Ground and seizing the most precious Treasure Trove, he thoroughly pressed this Empress of Great Qin, who had once looked down upon the Nine Provinces, onto the Spirit-Warming Jade Couch.

The more than a month of "teaching everything they knew" from the five beautiful female cultivators of the Hehuan Sect was now put into practice by Chu Ye to its fullest extent.

Those secret arts and techniques—some gentle, some overbearing, some treacherous, and some direct—fell upon the Empress, who was experiencing such a storm for the first time, like a torrential rain.

Although Her Majesty the Empress had the powerful Physical Body of the Peak Emperor Realm, she was facing Chu Ye's "perpetual motion machine" style of conquest, reinforced by the System and enhanced by The Treasure Codex of Yin-Yang Harmony and the hundred phoenix diagram.

Coupled with those Hehuan Secret Arts that specialized in targeting the weaknesses of human desire... how could she hold her ground?

At first, she could barely maintain a sliver of clarity and stiff resistance, but she soon met with defeat.

Those eyes, always calm and self-possessed, gradually grew vacant and misted over; her long, powerful legs hung limply, and her crystalline toes sometimes tensed and sometimes curled... Seven days and seven nights passed within the hundred phoenix diagram, while only a mere instant passed in the outside world.

When Chu Ye finally descended slowly from the Peak of ultimate conquest and pleasure and looked at the Empress in his arms—already as limp as mud, unable to even lift a finger, with only her chest slightly heaving and her sweat-soaked long hair clinging to her exquisite face—a sense of satisfaction and conquest never felt before flooded him like a warm current, filling his entire being.

It was worth it! Whatever risks, whatever schemes, at this moment, it all felt worth it!

This was the Empress of Great Qin with a 99 Rating, the Ziwei Emperor Star, True Dragon Protection, and one who looked down upon the world!