What utterly arrogant words!
Yet the speaker's tone was gentle and haughty. He was clearly in the inferior position, but anyone could see the careless disdain in his voice, as though he were giving alms to a beggar by the roadside. This was simply—
Grinding His Majesty's dignity beneath his feet and stomping on it hard. And even that was not enough; he had to toss it into a mud pit, leaving His Majesty covered in filth, no longer as he had once been.
At once, the hall fell so silent that time itself seemed to have stopped. Even Bian Chunchou, who had been enjoying the spectacle most avidly, could now smell the tangible, viscous mockery and ridicule hanging in the air.
Wen Xu-Xu, you truly were someone destined for great things.
"Why had you stopped talking? Weren't you shouting for me to kill you just now?" Wen Xu kicked Lan Qiao aside and slowly stepped forward. "You weren't even afraid of death. I've laid the path to heaven before you—why had you fallen silent instead?"
The Imperial Qian Palace was furnished with great simplicity. From the main hall to the imperial throne, there was only one gradual flight of steps. There were exactly nine steps—neither more nor less, the ultimate number. Wen Xu stepped onto the final one, and at that moment, he was only a hair's breadth from the throne.
Yet he did not continue forward.
"Ha! Hahahahaha, hahahaha—absurd! Absurd!" The Emperor's eyes were bloodshot as he stared at the young, powerful man before him. The deep hatred in his gaze was on the verge of swallowing his reason whole. "You—you truly are my seed! Ruthless! Heartless! Far better than that elder brother born of the same womb!"
*Oh, so the Crown Prince had actually been born a