"Then, Father, are you planning to keep traveling incognito, or come back and be emperor?" Jiang Qun asked.
The Xia Emperor thought back over the past few days. Either Lu Yang had been shouting about executing his entire clan, or he had been trying to drag him into a rebellion. He decided it was safer to be emperor.
"I'll come back. These old bones of mine can't take any more of this."
Jiang Qun brightened at that. He hurriedly gave the throne a token wipe and invited his father to sit down.
After returning to his original appearance, the Xia Emperor seemed to lose his strength as well. Even walking left him panting.
Even sitting in his chair, he could barely sit upright and had to lean against the backrest.
"Father, are you all right?" Jiang Qun was badly startled. As he supported his father, he felt his arm, dry as a dead man's bones and utterly devoid of vitality. It was as though the father who had been joking with him just moments ago had been an illusion.
The Xia Emperor took a couple of breaths and waved a hand, managing a weak smile. "It's nothing. I just haven't moved around in a long time, and my body can't take it."
He said he was fine, but his face was deathly pale, his eye sockets sunken deep. He looked like a dying man, and the sight made the eldest prince's heart ache.
He had little life left to begin with. Then, to make the most of these past few days, he had forcibly wrung out his remaining vitality, leaving him in even worse shape.
"Qun'er, I'm afraid I don't have much time left. I can say that, in this life, I've done right by our ancestors above and the