Chapter 448

At the same time, the moment Liu Bei died, Zhang Fei, far away in Zhuojun, and Guan Yu, far away in Xuchang, suddenly felt their right eyelids twitching, and had an ominous premonition in their hearts.

"Eldest brother?"

Although the two were in different places, they both subconsciously called out, and at the same time, thought with suspicion: "This feeling, could it be that eldest brother is in trouble? That shouldn't be?"

"Perhaps it's just an illusion!"

Although they thought so, both of them took their premonitions to heart and began to inquire about Liu Bei's situation through their own means.

In Xiangyang,

Su Xuan saw the scene of Liu Bei's fall through the Qi-watching technique, and the corners of his mouth curled slightly: "Sure enough, what Son of Luck, in front of me, it's of no use!"

"Although you yourself may not be as insidious as some people in the past life guessed, I really don't like you very much!"

"Plus, you have indeed become an obstacle to my subduing Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. To avoid you dragging them down to the grave with you in the future, you'd better die first!"

In the end, Su Xuan still felt it was too much of a pity to let Guan Yu and Zhang Fei be buried with Liu Bei.

They deserved a brighter and longer future.

He needed such talent for his future conquests of the heavens and worlds.

On Cao Cao's side, the next day he received the good news brought back by the Office of Affairs.

"Hahaha!"

Cao Cao couldn't help but laugh loudly.

However, while laughing, he suddenly stopped, walked out of the tent to look around, and after confirming that no one else was nearby, he revealed a smile again, walked over, patted the commander of the Office of Affairs on the shoulder, and praised: "You did this very well! I am very satisfied!"

"Oh my! Liu Bei is finally dead! The key is that he died at Lord Yuan Shao's hands. Now, Yunchang should be able to follow me wholeheartedly, right~?"

"After all, I still have Liu Bei's two orphans in my hands, hehe!"

The commander of the Office of Affairs on the side felt a black line appear on his forehead, thinking: "My lord! Have some shame! Are those Liu Bei's orphans? Those are clearly your illegitimate children!"

To be this shameless, you deserve to succeed!

If he had his lord's shamelessness, perhaps his achievements wouldn't be limited to this.

"Right!"

At this time, Cao Cao turned around again, looked at the commander of the Office of Affairs seriously, and instructed: "This matter must not be revealed to a third person, understand?"

If it weren't for the fact that this person was his loyal follower and very capable, and hard to replace, Cao Cao would have had the thought of dealing with him directly.

He wanted to extinguish any factor that would affect his subduing of Guan Yu.

"Yes!"

The commander of the Office of Affairs seemed to have sensed something, his expression tightened, and he immediately stated solemnly: "This subordinate will absolutely not leak a single bit!"

"No! This subordinate doesn't even know why Lord Yuan Shao wanted to kill Liu Bei. This matter has nothing to do with me or you, my lord. Everything is Lord Yuan Shao's fault."

"Yes! That's it!"

Hearing this, Cao Cao nodded with satisfaction.

The commander of the Office of Affairs reacted quickly.

That's right, this matter had nothing to do with him.

"However,"

Suddenly, the commander of the Office of Affairs remembered something, and his expression was hesitant: "Although we have nothing to do with this matter, I can't guarantee whether Xu You will talk nonsense!"

"For the sake of stability, this subordinate believes it's best to find an opportunity to take out Xu You!"

"After all, this person is not someone with high moral character or a tight mouth!"

"For the sake of profit, he can sell anything."

Just like this scheme against Liu Bei.

Xu You clearly knew that doing this was very disadvantageous to Lord Yuan Shao and would cause significant losses, but for Cao Cao's bribe and to leave himself a way out, Xu You did it without hesitation.

How could one trust the integrity of such a person?

"Hmm..."

Cao Cao nodded while stroking his beard: "This is indeed a problem! However, Xu You just helped me a lot. Isn't it a bit bad to burn the bridge like this?"

The commander of the Office of Affairs was speechless: "My lord is being hypocritical again!"

But who told him to be the lord?

The commander of the Office of Affairs could only brace himself: "This subordinate thinks otherwise! We paid a large amount of money for this matter; it was just a normal transaction!"

"We are doing this to prevent future trouble!"

"In the end, we have to blame Xu You himself for having moral problems and not being able to let you trust him completely, otherwise we wouldn't have to take action at all!"

Saying this, the commander of the Office of Affairs felt he wasn't a good person either.

Listen, is that human talk?

Could a person with high moral character be bribed by him to do such a thing to harm others?

Would a person with high moral character choose to bribe him?

Obviously impossible!

"...Hahaha! You are really a talent!"

But Cao Cao heard these shameless words and blossomed with joy, pointing at the commander of the Office of Affairs: "Very good! You are very good! That's right! Blame Xu You himself!"

"I remember you said last time that Guo Tu was collecting evidence of Xu You's crimes, preparing to deal Xu You a fatal blow at a critical moment, and let Lord Yuan Shao kill Xu You?"

"Yes!"

The commander of the Office of Affairs nodded affirmatively and understood: "Does my lord want to borrow Guo Tu and Lord Yuan Shao's hands to kill Xu You?"

"You could say that!"

Cao Cao nodded affirmatively, then shook his head: "But that's not all!"

"Xu You still has other utility; just scheming to kill him would be too wasteful!"

"Our army is currently confronting Lord Yuan Shao. Even though I used Yunchang to behead Yan Liang and Wen Chou, we are still at a disadvantage compared to Lord Yuan Shao in terms of numbers and money/grain!"

"Dragging it out for a long time is disadvantageous to us!"

"Moreover, I need to preserve more vitality to deal with Su Boyuan in the future! I can't waste too much energy on Lord Yuan Shao!"

"So, I need you to push Guo Tu to accelerate his attacks on Xu You, forcing Xu You into a dead end, making him desperate, and then, send me the location and layout of Lord Yuan Shao's grain camp;"

"I want him to help me defeat Lord Yuan Shao again, and then, kill him!"

"Only then can we say we have used everything to its full potential. What do you think?"

— Author's Notes —

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