Looking down at Su Xin, Ji Haodian smiled. "Rest assured. I have never mistreated my own people."
As he spoke, a cold look crossed Ji Haodian's face. "The world says I'm fickle and scheming, but they don't know that some people are insatiably greedy. I gave them what they deserved, yet they wanted more."
Ji Haodian glanced at Su Xin. "You were involved in the matter of Du Yuansheng, the 'Mad Lion,' leader of the Sanxiang Martial Alliance. You should know how it began and ended. The world surely says I crossed the river and tore down the bridge by killing Du Yuansheng, doesn't it?"
Su Xin lowered his head and said nothing. Of course, Ji Haodian didn't need him to answer.
Ji Haodian said coldly, "But they don't know that if someone hadn't been insatiably greedy, why would I have torn down my own defenses at such a critical moment?"
Ji Haodian looked at Su Xin and said calmly, "The people I hate most in this life are those who are never satisfied with what they have."
Su Xin understood. He had harbored doubts about the matter from the beginning. Ji Haodian's actions had been completely at odds with his usual way of doing things.
As a mighty ruler of his age, Ji Haodian—short-sighted as he might have been—would never have started a civil conflict and killed an ally before the realm was pacified.
That kind of conduct would have put him on par with the Great Jin's foolish emperor, who had sent a group of powerful warriors to kill General Lin Weiyuan because Lin's achievements had overshadowed the throne.
With Ji Haodian's intelligence, even if his mind had gone haywire, he would never have done something like that. Now it seemed there had indeed been more to the