"Since that's the case, I understand even less!"
Thus, Meng Chao pretended to have completely believed the Wolf King's words and said excitedly, "Since you, too, came from the ratfolk—indeed, from the lowliest ratfolk—you should understand better than anyone the suffering and fury of the ratfolk, and how desperately they yearned to fight for freedom and glory. You should have stood firmly and unwaveringly on the ratfolk's side.
"Why, then, did you deceive your own kind and stir up a Great Horned Rebellion with no chance of victory, using the corpses of countless ratfolk to pave a road toward your own ambition?
"How were you any different from those Jackals, Wolves, Tigers, and Leopards who gnawed on ratfolk flesh and drank ratfolk blood?
"No, you were even more despicable than those true Jackals, Wolves, Tigers, and Leopards, because you exploited the ratfolk's trust and betrayed their cause!"
"You're wrong. Utterly, profoundly wrong."
Faced with Meng Chao's rebuke, the Wolf King showed not the slightest anger. Instead, he struck a pose of being misunderstood, even of enduring humiliation and bearing heavy burdens, and said gravely, "I admit that, when it came to launching the Great Horned Rebellion, I concealed many truths from countless ratfolk.
"Even if you blamed me for the tragic deaths of countless ratfolk, I would have nothing to say.
"But I can swear to the sky and the ancestral spirits that I never betrayed the ratfolk cause.
"On the contrary, everything I did was for the ratfolk cause—for the establishment of a Sixth Clan that belonged to the ratfolk, for the freedom, glory, and rise of all ratfolk!"
Meng Chao gave a cold snort and waited for the Wolf King's explanation.
"Precisely because I, too, was born among the ratfolk, no one understood better than I did how,