"This..."
Looking at the memorial handed up by the person beside him, even Li Kun was immensely surprised. But then he recalled the Memorial on Settling the Various Tribes that Qiu Yan had prepared before the decisive battle in the Northern Frontier, and the surging thoughts in his heart gradually settled.
Still, he could not help growing even more wary. Xu Yingyi had not begun guiding the emperor's thoughts only today; the rebel army's words had merely served as a spark, thoroughly igniting the concerns in Li Kun's heart.
Yet on the other hand, faced with such a situation, Qiu Yan showed no intention of holding back. Instead, he displayed his calculating, all-seeing side more and more openly. This approach of doing the opposite had yielded an unexpected result.
When an emperor had become deeply wary of someone, he instead dared not act rashly. The reason was simple enough. Moreover, Li Kun was no muddleheaded ruler. He knew where Qiu Yan's ambitions lay. Even if his instinct for power had given rise to other thoughts, the memorial Qiu Yan had presented had startled him awake. He opened it and gave it a glance, only to freeze, his expression turning grave.
"Th-this... is everything recorded here true?"
Li Kun had originally only intended to skim it before naturally assigning Qiu Yan to handle the matter. In his view, since this affair had been stirred up by Xu Yingyi and the others, who wished to shift the disaster eastward and make Qiu Yan take on this hot potato, Qiu Yan's prior preparation of a memorial meant he had long been ready for the matter once it was brought up. As for what the final outcome would be, that was truly hard to say. Still, Li Kun had not believed that Qiu Yan