By taking the initiative to walk out of Purple Extreme Hall, He had already lost a round.
But He faced it.
He knew that all under heaven had turned against Him, that the people's hearts had deserted Him, that everyone longed for the late sovereign.
But He accepted it.
Let history praise or condemn His reign as it would; He could face the hatred in all under heaven with composure!
Anyone could oppose Him. Anyone could take the road opposite His—yet the first step toward realizing a great ideal was for even those who did not acknowledge that ideal to be included within His great ideal!
Then what was it that He could not face?
What was it that He could not accept?
What kind of opponent could make Him straighten His attitude and say, "When paths meet, they diverge," rather than loftily declare, "There is no difference," or lightly ask, "Where is this slander?"
The late sovereign, forever separated from Him in the Netherworld, was precisely the answer.
In the end, only that which could destroy His ideals and sever the foundation of His path was something He had to endure in silence, something that would make Him surely sleep on brushwood and taste gall, something for which He must draw His sword and fight.
He regarded Jiang Wang as one of the younger generation!
He believed that everyone in all under heaven who hated Him and denied Him would, sooner or later, come to recognize that He was right.
Jiang Wang faced His rightness, accepted His bow, then raised his sword and mounted the stairs.
It meant that they truly understood one another—and that they would now decide life and death utterly.
The new emperor's bow bore the weight of the state and its altars.
Jiang Wang's step