"Eunuch Ma, His Majesty never said he was handing the Imperial City Office over to me. You are still in charge, so you may decide this matter yourself." Eunuch Zhao bowed slightly as he spoke.
The moment those words left his mouth, despite his vigilance, Ma Shunde still showed a trace of smugness. It was not that he failed to understand Eunuch Zhao might have other intentions, but where power was concerned, if one yielded a step, one would fall behind step by step.
How many had been poisoned by talk of "purity" and "non-action," only to reap no good fruit in the end?
Ma Shunde stared at him for a moment, then burst into laughter and rose to his feet. Snatching up the memorial, he said to Eunuch Zhao, "Come, let us go and see His Majesty at once!"
Watching the man stride ahead, Eunuch Zhao's lips twitched, and he secretly shook his head.
He had met Cao Yiyan before. His literary talent and official degree amounted to no more than a Provincial Graduate, hardly worth mentioning. Yet this man possessed extremely high martial skill and had followers of his own. His intelligence network also ran deep in its connections with the Kingdom of Ying. Handling such a matter well would be a great merit—but even freshly roasted meat depended on whether the person eating it would scald his mouth!
Eunuch Zhao did not believe Ma Shunde had the ability to involve himself in this affair and emerge unscathed.
But what did any of that have to do with him?
He had neither pushed this man into the affair nor been dragged into it himself.
It concerned remnants of the former dynasty, the Kingdom of Ying, and the struggle for the heir. If a eunuch leaped into such a