Odin's Little Scheme and Trading Chips

The phrase "playing mad and acting foolish" should really be split apart and understood as two different things. One was playing mad, and the other was acting foolish. In Xiang Qian's eyes, Odin was no longer playing mad, but he was still acting foolish.

Faced with Xiang Qian's questioning, the once-lofty king of the gods looked dejected and dispirited. He sighed. "Those matters are no longer my concern—whether it is Midgard, Asgard, or even the entire Nine Realms. Now, I am merely an old man who has lost his wife and been betrayed by his children."

"You? Betrayed by your children, and then exiled?" Xiang Qian frowned deeply. "Is the man before me not Odin, king of the gods, but King Lear? May I ask whether Your Majesty needs me to contact your Cordelia?"

Xiang Qian's cold mockery earned Odin's rebuke. "James, mocking an old man will bring neither you nor Kamar-Taj any honor."

"Showing courtesy to someone who has lost his honor would only bring shame upon Kamar-Taj and me."

Odin sighed again. "I admit that I deliberately allowed Loki to exile me. But I did not do so because I had lost my honor. I did it because I had lost my wife. Can you understand an old man whose heart has gone cold?"

"I seriously doubt that you truly understand the meaning of 'heartbroken and disheartened.'" Xiang Qian continued to strike at him with his words. "This isn't the first woman you've lost. Both the rumors throughout the Nine Realms and Kamar-Taj's historical records prove that, aside from Queen Frigga, you had quite a few lovers, most of whom have already died. If dead women were enough to leave you disheartened, you should have frozen into an ice sculpture by now."

"Frigga was different. She was my