Both Strike

Prince Qin's voice surged like a roaring flood.

It reached the ears of everyone present.

Upon the high platform, the old eunuch stood with bowed back and lowered head, silent, as though Prince Qin's accusations meant nothing to him.

And beneath Emperor Wude's overwhelming dragonlike might,

the ministers and officials remained as silent as winter cicadas.

The smile on Emperor Wude's face, which had just seemed like congealed lava, slowly spread again inch by inch, exposing his ghastly white teeth. Beneath those sharp, man-eating eyes, it seemed all the more grotesquely terrifying.

"Boy, turn around and look at these illustrious lords!"

"Is there anyone standing behind you?"

Prince Qin had no need to turn around.

From beginning to end, he had known that only he had stepped forward. Yet he remained calm, as though not a single ripple had ever stirred within him.

Even the Vice Minister of Rites raised his voice and declared:

"That demoness usurped the state—this is an indisputable fact."

"Yet Prince Qin wishes to divert disaster elsewhere and slander His Majesty Emperor Wude. Could it be that you, too, are colluding with the demonic sects and evil cults?!"

"You seek to throw the governance of Great Xia into chaos!"

The ministers, who had been silent moments before, now began whispering among themselves, with no shortage of voices echoing the accusation.

Even among the imperial clan, elder kinsmen stepped forth to accuse Prince Qin of acting perversely and showing disrespect to his ancestors, and so on.

Prince Xiang wished to persuade them otherwise,

but as he watched the condemnations grow ever fiercer, how could he alone restrain the verbal onslaught of so many people?

Prince Qin said nothing.

He had never held any illusions about the ministers and officials.

Most of these people were fence-sitters. To put