Entering the Palace

At the gates of the imperial city, Ying Qin, dark circles under his eyes, yawned as he stood waiting before the entrance without a shred of decorum.

Suddenly seeing Lin Qi riding over toward the imperial city with his entourage, Ying Qin's haggard, wine-and-women-worn face immediately broke into a brilliant smile. He hurried to greet him. With all the dignity of the Seventh Prince, Ying Qin eagerly seized Lin Qi's reins and smiled ingratiatingly. "Eastern Harmony King, you must look after this prince in the future!"

Beneath Ying Qin's smile, alongside his delight, lurked immense terror.

In merely one night, while he had done nothing more than spend the night competing in bed with the Xiong brothers, Xiong Wanjin and Xiong Qianjin, Twin Sun Red Dragon City had turned into a sea of blood, heads rolling everywhere. First Prince Ying Sheng had been killed. The Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Princes, along with a great many other ambitious princes, had all been beheaded. A number of senior imperial princes had also been slaughtered like pigs and dogs. Sent to the execution ground alongside them were tens of thousands of dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, barons, and countless civil and military officials.

Early that morning, Ying Qin had brought a large guard contingent to a gorge outside the city to watch the spectacle.

The result was that Ying Qin had nearly fainted dead from fright—the gorge, nearly a hundred li long, over a dozen li wide at its broadest point, and a thousand meters deep, was already piled full of corpses. Those soldiers who had participated in the rebellion, whether ringleaders or blind followers, had all been butchered on the spot like chickens and dogs, then tossed into the gorge.

Wei Yao, accompanied by a great many imperial guards, was overseeing the