"Understood!" Wen Xunpeng acknowledged. Seeing that there was nothing more to be said, he bowed and withdrew.
"Sigh!" Su Ziji sat down in a daze, looking at the empty cabin. He pressed a hand to his forehead, revealing a trace of fatigue. "I'm really a bit tired!"
Breaking with Zhang Dai actually carried no small amount of risk.
That was, the emperor might suspect that he had already sensed some conspiracy.
In that case, the emperor's subsequent reaction would be very hard to predict.
To put it another way, this single matter alone could perhaps be brushed off as youthful impetuosity and arrogance since he had only just become the Imperial Grandson, but if there were one more incident, it would be indefensible.
Neither would the emperor deceive himself.
Therefore, the matters of Yu Lü and Fang Xi could not be unraveled too bluntly.
"Yet we cannot blame Yu Lü and Fang Xi. Let alone these two young men under twenty-five, even at fifty-five or sixty-five, the number of people constrained by righteousness is countless."
In any era, in any country, such people existed, and in great numbers at that.
"A ruler uses righteousness to make men die."
The so-called putting righteousness before family was itself the very model of this. How could Su Ziji demand that Yu Lü and Fang Xi see clearly and make the right choice?
"To say nothing of else, even Zhang Dai—was he not seeking benevolence and obtaining it?"
To say Zhang Dai had been completely unaware would also be false, but what the emperor gave happened to be precisely what he needed; naturally, he had been left with no way out either.
"In this world, who can transcend it?"
"Perhaps the victor has half a chance, at best."
Su Ziji suddenly thought once more