Huang Xiaohuai
11 Published Stories
Huang Xiaohuai's Books and Stories
Apocalypse Rebirth: Reclaiming My Infinite Space
Modern I thought the Burch family gave me a loving home when they took me out of the orphanage.
But when the global deep freeze apocalypse hit, my adoptive parents mercilessly kicked me out of the bunker to freeze to death.
As I lay dying in the snow, covered in horrific purple frostbite, my adoptive sister Kendal walked past me in a pristine designer jacket.
Around her neck was my only childhood possession—an antique gold necklace my adoptive mother had ripped off my neck to give to her.
Kendal gloated, bragging that my pendant held a magical space with infinite supplies and fresh food while the rest of the world starved.
I realized I had spent years emptying my life savings to fund their luxury cars and fake medical emergencies.
They had drained my bank accounts, stolen my bloodline's heirloom, and used my magical lifeline to live like royalty while leaving me to die.
I took my last ragged breath in that blinding blizzard, consumed by a toxic hatred.
Why was I so hopelessly weak? Why did I let them take everything from me?
Opening my eyes again, the painful frostbite scars were gone. My skin was warm.
I grabbed my phone. The screen lit up: November 12.
It was exactly three days before the world ended.
When my adoptive mother called, faking a tearful emergency to demand another thirty thousand dollars, I smiled coldly.
"Just tell me where to send the money, Mom."
This time, I'm taking my space back, and I'm going to drain them dry. His Unwanted Mate: The Secret Silvermoon Heir
Werewolf I waited a year for my mate, Alpha Justin, to return from the border war. While he was gone, I used my ten-million-dollar dowry to keep his crumbling pack afloat and buy life-saving elixirs for his mother.
But when he finally walked through the door, he reeked of another female's scent.
He brought back Gamma Brenna and a Royal Decree, coldly announcing she would be his "Co-Luna."
His family, who survived entirely on my wealth, immediately turned on me. They mocked me for being a wolfless orphan since my father and brothers were slaughtered defending the kingdom.
"You're just a fragile woman who belongs hidden away," Justin told me.
They demanded I accept this humiliation, step aside for his new warrior mate, and continue funding their luxurious lifestyle. Justin even arrogantly offered to sleep with me just once to give me a pup as a "consolation prize," declaring his heart and body belonged entirely to Brenna.
They thought my ruined pack meant I had no backing. They thought I was a pathetic victim who would cling to their scraps and accept a polluted mate-bond just to avoid being cast out into the woods as a Rogue.
They had no idea I had already visited the Alpha King.
I wasn't going to cry, and I certainly wasn't going to share my mate. I packed up every last cent of my ten million dollars, secured a Royal Severance Decree, and prepared to watch their arrogant pack starve to death. The Day I Caught Him Cheating, I Married Another
Modern I walked into my apartment dripping wet from the rain, only to hear a guttural moan coming from the bedroom. I told myself it was just the TV, but my shaking hands could barely fit the key into the lock.
When the door swung open, I saw a pair of red stilettos on the floor and my fiancé's favorite silk tie discarded like trash. I pushed the bedroom door open to find Javon in our bed with another woman, the sheets I had just washed two days ago tangled around them.
Instead of apologizing, Javon looked at me with a sneer and barked, "You don't know how to knock?" He claimed he paid the bills, even though I worked double shifts just to keep the lights on while he chased a promotion he'd never get.
When I slapped him, he didn't show remorse-he called me a "stupid bitch" and lunged at me with a look of pure malice. My life was a total wreck; my fiancé was a cheater, and my grandmother was about to be kicked out of her nursing home because I was forty dollars short of the payment.
I felt like I was falling off a cliff with no one to catch me. Why was the man I loved treating me like a cockroach in my own home? Just as Javon moved to strike me, a shadow fell over the room. A man in an expensive black trench coat stood in the doorway, his presence sucking the oxygen out of the room.
It was Carmine Wilkinson, a man I had never met but whose terrifying calm made my heart stop. He didn't look at the trash on the bed; he only looked at me. He handed me a monogrammed handkerchief and asked one simple, brutal question.
"Do you want revenge?"
I nodded, desperate for any lifeline in the middle of my imploding world. He didn't offer me a shoulder to cry on; he looked me in the eye and gave me an ultimatum that would change my life forever.
"Good. Get your ID. We're going to City Hall." The Algorithm of His Ruin
Sci-fi My name is Sarah Miller, and I built an empire for the man I loved. AuraTech, David Chen' s tech company, was on the brink of collapse until I rescued it by writing the core algorithm that became its foundation. He promised me the world in return.
Now, he' s a tech titan, and I' m a prisoner, framed for corporate espionage-the very crime he committed against my family. He had me locked away in a remote, high-tech detention facility while he and his new fiancée, Chloe Davis, flaunted the smart-fabric made from my stolen family designs.
Chloe, David' s fiancée, arrived to mock me, wearing a dress made from my stolen code. She reveled in telling me how David not only stole my family' s unique textile archives but then crushed their business, turning their legacy into marketable assets for AuraTech. Everything they treasured was gone, destroyed by the man I loved.
The pain intensified when I recalled the truth I discovered just before my arrest: I was pregnant with David' s child. The stress of his betrayal and my imprisonment led to a miscarriage. Yet, in front of me, David coolly ordered the deletion of my family' s digital archives, knowing they contained the ultrasound scans and heartbeat recording of our baby. He erased our child.
He believed he had broken my spirit, but he was wrong. Fuelled by unimaginable grief and rage, I activated the fail-safe I had hidden in AuraTech' s core code. The digital curse, woven through every system and product built on my stolen work, would turn his triumph into a torment, making all who celebrated his fraud into living antennas for my pain. Betrayal's Echo: A Wife's Revenge
Sci-fi Dr. Evelyn Reed had finally done it.
Three years of relentless work, the neural interface cure for her paralyzed husband, Ethan, was a success.
A triumphant smile touched her lips as she reached for her phone to share the life-changing news.
But an email caught her eye, a cheerful invitation that turned her world to ice.
"Dr. Ethan Vance and Miss Tiffany Reed request the pleasure of your company at the celebration of their marriage."
Ethan. Her husband. Tiffany. Her own niece.
It was a sick joke, a complete error, yet the high-end Parisian wedding agency confirmed its legitimacy.
Her joy evaporated, replaced by a cold dread as she drove through the night, a ghost to a celebration she was never meant to see.
She saw him there, standing, whole, laughing, with Tiffany tucked into his arm, radiant in white.
He kissed her, a tender kiss meant for the world to see, and Evelyn' s world tilted off its axis.
Then she heard them talking, overheard their cruel confessions: he had always loved Tiffany, while Evelyn was merely "a necessary step," "a convenient solution."
The man she had sacrificed everything for, the man who had promised his undying love, had been betraying her for two years with her own blood.
The pain of betrayal, the hollowness of her sacrifice, the absolute injustice of it all, left her hollowed out, empty of tears.
She watched him walk away from her in the hospital, choosing Tiffany, right after a fire, right after she found out a bomb, orchestrated by Tiffany, nearly killed her.
This wasn't a love triangle; it was a war, and she was losing.
Driven by a quiet, ice-cold resolve, Evelyn began to fight back. The Medal of Honor: A Father's Fight
Modern The whistle blew, but the hit came a second later-a sickening crunch that echoed across the field.
I watched my son, Caleb, collapse, his dreams of a football scholarship shattering with his knee.
Ryan Blakely, the star linebacker from the town' s wealthiest, most powerful family, stood over him, flexing, a sneer on his face.
Then his father, Mr. Blakely, offered me a paltry sum to sign an NDA, dismissing the career-ending injury as an "in-game accident," outright threatening my livelihood if I didn't comply, all while the corrupt sheriff and coach turned a blind eye.
I saw my son's spirit break as he was mocked on crutches, and I realized nobody would help; the system was rigged.
But then, I remembered a promise, a fading beacon in the dark: a general, Maria' s commanding officer, who once told me, "We don't leave our own behind," after handing me my Medal of Honor wife' s medal.
With nothing left to lose, I clutched that medal and drove toward a military base, hoping a general's word still meant something. The Brewery Heiress's Reckoning
Romance The first thing I remembered from my last life was the smell.
Stale beer, blood, and the cheap, cloying perfume Jenna always wore.
I was on the cold concrete floor of my brewery, my head bleeding, watching my fiancé, Liam, kiss my best friend, Jenna.
They had just pushed me.
'Is she dead?' Jenna asked, pulling away.
'Doesn' t matter,' Liam said, his voice cold.
'With her gone, the brewery is ours.
Her parents will be lost.'
They left me there to die.
In that life, their betrayal led to my family' s ruin and my own demise, bled dry by their endless demands for 'business expenses' that were really just lavish trips and gifts.
I perished, feeling the bitter sting of ultimate betrayal and injustice.
But then, I somehow returned.
I was staring at that same man, my fiancé Liam, very much alive, standing in my parents' living room.
He was giving me the exact same ultimatum, demanding my family' s money for his 'Master Brewer program' and Jenna' s living expenses.
This was the moment I chose him over my family last time.
The moment I signed their death warrant and my own.
Not this time.
This time, the memory of my own blood on the brewery floor was a burning clarity.
This time, Liam and Jenna would pay.
This time, I' m strong enough to fight back. Framed No More: My Vengeful Rebirth
Modern I was at that awful class reunion, the air thick with fake smiles and bitter memories.
Jessica' s sneering laughter echoed in my ears, and then, a crushing pain in my chest.
Darkness.
I was dead.
Not a peaceful passing, but a final, bitter end to a life they' d stolen.
Mike Johnson, my childhood friend, and his toxic girlfriend, Jessica Smith, had meticulously orchestrated my downfall years ago.
They framed me for hacking, shattered my dreams of a Stanford scholarship, and left me with dead-end jobs and a broken spirit.
My death at that reunion was just the cruel crescendo of their lifelong amusement at my expense.
The injustice burned hotter than any physical pain.
Why did I have to suffer for their venomous games?
Why was my future stolen, and they got away scot-free?
The sheer, unfair waste of it all.
Then, sunlight streamed through my bedroom window.
My old room, exactly as it was before everything went wrong.
My hands, seventeen again.
I wasn't just back in time, I was back, a second chance.
But a chilling notification on my phone confirmed my worst fear.
"Did you see it? Mike and Jessica at the game last night!"
They were back too.
And they remembered.
They thought they had a cheat code to life.
They were wrong.
This time, I was ready. My Fall and The Billionaire's Fall
Modern Our anniversary was supposed to be a night of celebration, a quiet evening in our Brooklyn brownstone, cementing the perfect life my husband Ethan and I had built.
But a sudden fall down our dimly lit stairs ripped that perfect facade apart, plunging me into darkness and pain.
In the sterile blur of the Manhattan hospital, drifting in and out of consciousness, I heard my husband' s voice, clear and cold, talking to a doctor: "The increased sedative dose is my directive... She won't feel it... The fetus is viable, but proceed with the induction... It's critical for Liam's formal introduction to the Miller Family Foundation."
Our baby, gone. My legs, paralyzed. Ethan' s sorrow felt too practiced, too deep. As I lay 'unconscious,' I overheard him tell his lawyer something monstrous: the fall wasn' t an accident; it was orchestrated. My baby' s death, planned. My paralysis, a consequence he accepted. All for a child named Liam, and a debt to a woman named Olivia.
My entire marriage was a meticulously crafted lie, my life a pawn in his ruthless game. How could the man who promised me forever shatter my world so utterly, all for a 'debt' and a hidden son, ensuring I could never have children again?
But beneath the feigned despair, a steel resolve took root. They thought I was broken and gone. They were about to learn that Sarah Miller doesn' t break, she rebuilds – and she comes back for everything they took. His Sister's Last Gift
Fantasy As a successful surgeon, I, Michael, dedicated my life to my chosen sister, Chloe, whose critical lung condition required a transplant.
My biological sister, Sarah, however, remained nothing but a painful, inconvenient burden, ignored and resented for years.
Terminally ill and near death, Sarah made a final, desperate call from her hospital bed, her voice weak as she tried to say goodbye.
My only response?
A chilling, impatient "If you're not dead, stop bothering me!" before I hung up.
I dismissed every subsequent plea from her university, every warning about her rapidly deteriorating health, convinced she was just a "drama queen" faking for attention.
Even when her name appeared on the critical admissions list at the very hospital where Chloe was scheduled for her life-saving surgery, I coldly scoffed, "She's doing this to ruin my day."
How could I, a healer, allow such a festering hatred to consume me, built on a lie I blindly believed for years?
The sheer, crushing weight of Sarah's silent suffering and my monstrous indifference hangs over me, a chilling testament to my unforgivable cruelty.
But then, the unimaginable truth was slammed into my reality: the anonymous donor who saved Chloe's life was none other than Sarah.
In a single, devastating moment, her ultimate sacrifice exposed the agonizing depths of my abandonment, shattering my carefully constructed world and setting me on a course of inescapable, public ruin. You might like
Married To My Ex-Fiancé's Silent Uncle
Ming Yue Twenty minutes before the "Wedding of the Century" at The Plaza, I stood outside the Presidential Suite in a fifty-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown. I was the girl from a West Virginia trailer park about to marry Hugh Maxwell, the golden heir to a billion-dollar defense empire.
I pushed the door open only to find Hugh pinned against the bed with my own stepsister, Floy. She was wearing my bridal diamond necklace, and the sounds of their laughter scraped against my eardrums like sandpaper.
I didn't scream; I listened as Hugh grunted that once the wedding was over and the trust fund unlocked, he'd dump "that hillbilly trash" on a bus back to the mountains. They weren't just cheating; they were planning to steal my family's land deeds and leave me with nothing. When I set off the sprinklers and exposed their naked bodies to the paparazzi, the Maxwell family didn't apologize. They called me a "greedy peasant" and threatened to ruin my life unless I signed a new deal to save their crashing stock.
I realized then that I was never a bride to them. I was a transaction, a rounding error in a ledger to be used and discarded. They thought my poverty made me weak and my silence made me a victim.
"If we don't have a marriage certificate by midnight, the bank freezes thirty percent of our liquidity," their lawyer warned.
So, I gave them exactly what they wanted. I used a loophole in their hundred-year-old family covenant and married the only other direct heir available. I didn't marry Hugh. I walked into the ICU and married his uncle, Fleet Maxwell-the legendary war hero who had been in a vegetative state for months.
Now, I am the matriarch of the Maxwell dynasty. I've suspended Hugh's executive powers, exiled my mother-in-law to the Swiss Alps, and taken control of the family vault. They think I'm just a gold-digger waiting for a "corpse" to die so I can collect a fifty-million-dollar widow's payout.
But last night, as I lay beside my comatose husband, the man they called a vegetable gripped my hand back. Flash Marriage to the Tycoon, I'm Spoiled Rotten
Hollow Echo Cast out by an "elite" family and mocked by high society, Elena shocked everyone by marrying the most powerful man in town.
They assumed it was a temporary arrangement-after all, he had said, "The agreement is for two years. After that, we're done."
Yet after the wedding, he refused to let her go. "Elena, you can't leave me."
As he doted on her, rumors shattered one by one. A renowned painter, top hacker, and tech mastermind-her true identities stunned the world.
When a luxury empire announced their lost heiress, all eyes turned to her. "Why did she look exactly like Elena?" The Unwanted Wife Is A Zillionaire
Reilly Mcardle For seven years, I played the perfect, hidden wife to billionaire August Chambers while working quietly as an ER nurse.
Three days before our marriage contract expired, he stormed into my emergency room carrying a bleeding woman. It was Allena, his cousin's fiancée.
She had suffered a ruptured corpus luteum from their violent, aggressive sex. Instead of hiding his affair, August ordered me to clear the floor and threw a massive check at my face to buy my silence. Later, his friends trapped me in a VIP club. When a waiter tripped, August violently shoved me aside just to protect Allena from a spilled cup of coffee. I crashed into a glass table, a sharp edge slicing deep into my arm.
"Apologize to her, and I'll have my driver take you to the hospital."
As my blood soaked into the white rug, he stood over me, demanding I get on my knees for his mistress. He didn't know I had faked a miscarriage five years ago to secretly raise our daughter far away from his cruelty. He also didn't know the money he flaunted was pocket change compared to my hidden AI tech empire.
I calmly tied a tourniquet around my bleeding arm with my teeth and wiped my blood directly over his heart onto his custom suit.
"I'm done with you."
The submissive nurse was dead, and it was time to let him burn in the ruins of his own lies. Abandoned Ex-Wife: Now Untouchable
Tao Yaoyao My five-year-old daughter was dying in the ICU, her heartbeat replaced by the continuous, electronic scream of a flatline. I gripped her cold hand, my throat sealed shut by a terror so absolute I couldn't even cry out.
I dialed my husband Grayson's private number, the one reserved only for me and his assistants. He declined the call instantly. A second later, a text buzzed against my palm:
"In a meeting. Do not disturb. Stop calling."
Five miles away, Grayson was at a luxury gala, adjusting his silk tie and laughing with Belle Escobar. He told her I was just being "dramatic" and using our daughter's "fever" as an excuse to avoid the event. He had no idea Effie's heart had already stopped.
When I finally reached our penthouse, soaked from the rain and carrying Effie's small socks in a plastic bag, Grayson didn't even look at me. He snapped at me for ruining the hardwood floors and asked if I'd left Effie with the nanny just to "feel sorry for myself."
Three days later, while I buried our daughter in a small, lonely ceremony, Grayson was at the Hamptons. Belle posted a photo of him golfing with the caption: "A mental health day with the boys." He didn't even attend the funeral, but he returned home demanding I clear out Effie's room to make a study for Belle's son.
The injustice burned through me until there was nothing left. I swallowed a handful of sleeping pills, desperate to join my daughter. But instead of the darkness, I woke up to blinding lights and the scent of Grayson's expensive cologne.
I was standing in a ballroom, wearing a blue silk dress I had already burned. Above me, a banner read: "Happy 5th Birthday Kaiden & Effie."
I was back, exactly one year before the tragedy. This time, I wasn't going to be the grieving wife. I was going to be their worst nightmare. The Humble Ex-wife Is Now A Brilliant Tycoon
Flory Corkery For three quiet, patient years, Christina kept house, only to be coldly discarded by the man she once trusted.
Instead, he paraded a new lover, making her the punchline of every town joke.
Liberated, she honed her long-ignored gifts, astonishing the town with triumph after gleaming triumph.
Upon discovering she'd been a treasure all along, her ex-husband's regret drove him to pursue her. "Honey, let's get back together!"
With a cold smirk, Christina spat, "Fuck off."
A silken-suited mogul slipped an arm around her waist. "She's married to me now. Guards, get him the hell out of here!" Phoenix Of Ruin: My Second Life Comes With A Better Man
Maple Breeze Ashley gave Nicolas ten years of love and five years of loyalty as his perfect housewife, only to be repaid with betrayal, humiliation, and death at the hands of him and his mistress.
After being reborn, she vowed to make them pay.
She tore apart the mistress, kicked her useless husband aside, and returned as the heiress of a top-tier family.
Surrounded by billions, luxury, and a parade of elite bachelors, Ashley became the woman everyone wanted-including a cold, powerful tycoon.
When Nicolas came begging for forgiveness, she smiled coldly. "Fuck off! My man is worth a hundred of you." The Cold CEO's Unwanted Genius Wife
Meng Xinyu I stood in the darkest corner of the Pierre Hotel’s ballroom, my cheap polyester dress itching against my skin while my wristband buzzed with a DARPA Priority Red alert.
In front of the city’s elite, my fiancé Bryce Calloway took the stage, not to toast our future, but to publicly end our engagement and announce he was with my sister, Chloe.
The room turned on me instantly, a hundred pairs of eyes pinning me down with pity and disgust as they physically backed away like I was contagious.
When I returned home, my mother shattered a crystal vase at my feet, screaming that I was a humiliation and a "dropout" who didn't deserve a cent of the family fortune.
Chloe and Bryce mocked me, laughing when I told them I had a mission with the National Security Agency, convinced I was either a pathological liar or a low-level criminal.
They watched in horror as a black, unmarked military helicopter descended on our backyard to extract me, yet they still chose to believe I was being arrested for drug trafficking.
They saw a pathetic girl who couldn't even parallel park, never realizing I was Dr. Nova Vance, the lead physicist behind the world's first successful fusion reactor.
To secure funding for my research and gain a "fortress" of a name, I signed a thirty-day marriage contract with the arrogant billionaire Roman Knight.
He treats me like a fraud, convinced I’m a gold-digger who failed out of college, while I quietly run global energy simulations from his guest bedroom.
He has no idea that the "loser" he’s forced to live with is the same anonymous grandmaster who has been ruthlessly crushing him in online strategy games for months.
"The contract is active," I told him, looking past his expensive suit.
"But don't expect me to be your maid." The Placeholder Bride's Secret Billionaire Revenge
Luo Ye For two years, I was the invisible force behind tech billionaire Kieran Douglas, convinced that our "private" romance was his way of protecting us from the tabloid spotlight. I managed his mergers, warmed his bed, and waited for a future that didn't exist.
The illusion shattered at 6:00 AM when a Page Six alert debuted Kieran's "real" romance with socialite Aspen Schneider. Before I could even process the betrayal, Kieran sent me a cold, professional text: "Order flowers for Aspen. Pink peonies. Her favorite."
When I tried to walk away, my own mother called me a disgrace and threatened to lock my inheritance forever unless I married a sixty-year-old businessman to save her failing estate. At a high-society gala that same night, Aspen intentionally crushed my burned hand in front of the cameras, while Kieran stood by and dismissed me as a "mediocre assistant" who had overstayed her welcome.
I stood in the cold New York rain, drenched in champagne and humiliation, realizing that every sacrifice I made for Kieran was a joke. I was a ghost in a penthouse that was never mine, discarded the moment his "soulmate" returned. To the world, I was just a placeholder whose time had run out.
But Kieran forgot one thing: my father's multi-million dollar trust fund unlocks the moment I legally marry. I didn't need love; I needed a signature and a shield. I walked into a discreet law firm and signed a marriage contract with a man I believed was the city's most notorious, scandal-ridden playboy.
I thought I was marrying a degenerate "beard" to buy my freedom and secure my revenge. I didn't realize the man who signed that paper wasn't a playboy at all, but Gaston Collins-the most powerful and dangerous man on Wall Street-and he had no intention of letting our fake marriage stay fake. Zero Alimony: The CEO's Runaway Wife
Yue Manshuang I was hemorrhaging severely on the operating table, risking my life to deliver the billionaire Carlisle heir.
Through the unsealed door, I heard my husband Axel's cold, mechanical voice giving a ruthless order to the panicked doctors.
"Prioritize the heir. Above all else."
The ice spread through my veins as he reduced my entire existence to a mere vessel. After I barely survived the emergency delivery, his mother marched into my room, telling me I should be on my knees thanking God they kept me alive long enough to fulfill my only purpose. His sister barged in just to scream at me, calling me a manipulative gold-digger. And Axel? He didn't ask about my pain. He simply stared at me like a CEO evaluating a damaged asset, eventually kidnapping me from the hospital and threatening to use his Wall Street power to ensure I would never see my newborn son again.
I had secretly loved this man for years, swallowing my pride and enduring his toxic family's abuse, only to realize that in my most vulnerable moment, my life meant absolutely nothing to him. Why did I ever think I could melt his icy heart?
My heart simply stopped breaking and turned to solid stone. I bypassed his billions, called a top-tier litigator, and handed Axel a zero-alimony divorce agreement, waiving every single cent of his fortune just to make a clean break. Pregnant And Fleeing The Ruthless Billionaire
Xiao Youzi For five years, Jodi was the perfect, compliant secret lover to billionaire CEO Armand Taylor.
Then, she woke up to a cold email and a seven-figure wire transfer. Armand was marrying European royalty. The money was a severance package to quietly warehouse her out of sight.
Refusing to be his dirty secret, Jodi invoked her contract's termination clause to leave for good. But Armand wouldn't let her go easily. He forced her to personally train her vicious new replacement, Selah.
Selah immediately tampered with a crucial financial file, framing Jodi for sabotaging Taylor Corp's multi-billion-dollar tech acquisition.
Without a second thought, Armand took the new girl's side. He cornered Jodi in the boardroom, his eyes dead and cold.
"You have three days to fix this. If you fail, I will personally see to it that you go to prison for corporate fraud."
He froze her bank accounts and stripped away her dignity, ready to destroy her life over a blatant lie.
He thought she was just a weak, discarded toy who would break under his threats.
What Armand didn't know was the terrifying secret Jodi had just discovered hidden at the bottom of her bathroom trash can.
Three positive pregnancy tests.
If the ruthless billionaire found out she was carrying his heir, he would never let her escape.
Wiping her tears, Jodi slipped into a severe black silk gown and crashed an exclusive Hamptons gala to intercept the tech CEO herself.
This time, she wasn't playing the obedient lover. She was going to clear her name and burn Armand's empire to the ground.