As Su Xin and the others departed, the council hall fell into silence as well.
Seated upon the imperial throne, Ji Yancheng quietly signaled Tang Xian to leave.
He was nothing more than a puppet emperor now. Yet matters had reached this point—even if Ji Xuanyuan and the others were to hand power over to him now, he would not dare accept it.
Only after hearing Ji Yancheng leave did Ji Xuanyuan and the other two turn and depart as well. Yet each of them harbored their own thoughts, and no one knew what they were contemplating.
At Great Zhou's level, with its countless internal factions, conflicts were perfectly normal.
Thus, for Great Zhou's ruler, strength was fundamentally not the important thing. What mattered was capability—the ability to balance the conflicts between all sides and set them against one another. That was the sort of leader Great Zhou needed.
But clearly, Ji Yancheng could not do that now. Not even Ji Haodian, at the height of his power in the past, had managed it with anything more than difficulty. And after he grew old, the rash acts he carried out single-mindedly had also caused many in Great Zhou to become estranged.
Ji Yancheng could not handle such matters now, so everything was simply left to drift. The military handled its own affairs, while the Six Fan Sect could only handle the Six Fan Sect's affairs.
Today, Ji Xuanyuan had used Great Zhou's interests to pressure Su Xin, making him lower his head to the Esoteric Sect and invite Suonanche. Su Xin would undoubtedly be displeased by this.
But displeased or not, it could only remain this way for now. With Great Zhou facing a national crisis, Ji Xuanyuan could only put Great Zhou's interests first.
Meanwhile, Pang Yuande, having returned