A Man on the Verge of Death, Even the Son of Heaven Must Fall!

Hall of Revering Heaven!

"Lu Chen, why did you kill Chen Sanzhong?"

The Grand Empress Dowager had barely spoken.

Zhou Zhen laughed loudly from atop the steps.

"A eunuch slave. Dead is dead."

"What's the rush? When Father Emperor died, I never saw the Grand Empress Dowager this anxious!"

The moment those words left his mouth!

Anger finally appeared on the Grand Empress Dowager's usually tranquil face.

"Second Brother, Sanzhong had always treated you exceptionally well. Have you forgotten that after you first ascended the throne, he knew you feared for your safety and stood guard outside your room all night?"

"After you became emperor, if not for his Western Depot clearing away so many hidden dangers for you, could you have sat so securely on the throne?"

"If you had not gone to beg him, would he have gone to ambush Lu Chen?"

Zhou Zhen cut her off.

"Isn't that what a slave ought to do?"

"A slave who called himself Nine Thousand Years, wielding power that reached the skies—I, the Son of Heaven, had to fear him by three parts. Why? Do you know how much I hated him?"

"A eunuch, a mere castrated man—do you know how he looked at me? He treated me like his own descendant."

"What? Did he want to become the ancestor of me, Zhou Zhen? Or did the Great Qing Grand Empress Dowager wish to remarry?"

"A dog slave like him—was he worthy?"

The Grand Empress Dowager trembled from head to toe with rage. Never had she imagined that the grandson she had raised with her own hands would utter such monstrously disrespectful words.

A flicker of grief passed through her eyes, but even more than that was her disappointment and heartbreak over Zhou Zhen.

"Zhou Zhen, you... what are you saying?!"