Jiao Province.
Yan Daoyi, the patriarch of Jiao Province, gazed toward Yang Province and sighed.
"A storm is brewing. This world grows more unsettled by the day."
Behind him, Yan Lüji, the Yan Family's grand elder, said quietly, "Patriarch, that man in Yang Province has the ravenous ambition of a wolf. Everyone knows it now. Is the man in Chu Province simply going to watch?"
"If he chooses not to act, he naturally has his reasons."
"Then should we..."
Yan Lüji hesitated.
His expression was uncertain. "Patriarch, when the lips are gone, the teeth feel the cold. Today, the Li Family can swallow Jade Prefecture; tomorrow, they can scheme against our Jiao Province. If we keep watching them grow stronger, aren't we raising a tiger that will one day turn on us?"
"Raising a tiger that will turn on us?"
Yan Daoyi gave a bitter laugh.
He walked to the window and looked at an ancient tree in the courtyard outside, weathered by wind and frost.
"You see only that the Li Family is a tiger, but you forget that there is more than one tiger or wolf in this world. The one in the north is the true primordial beast. While it sleeps, the tigers and wolves can coexist in peace. Once it wakes and opens its bloodstained maw..."
He paused, his voice sinking lower.
"When that time comes, will we need a tiger strong enough and savage enough to meet it head-on, or will jackals like us... each going our own way, even tearing at one another, merely serve as scraps between its teeth?"
Yan Lüji shuddered and abruptly raised his head. "Patriarch, you mean... the Royal House?!"
Yan Daoyi did not answer directly. He merely said in a somber voice, "Great Zhou was founded six thousand years