The emperor flew into a rage. Zhao Bingzhong lowered his eyelids, concealing the emotions in his eyes.
The others standing nearby also lowered their heads at the sound, hands hanging at their sides as they stood bowed, not daring to look directly upon the imperial countenance.
If they had a choice, most of them would have wanted to leave immediately. They did not wish to see His Majesty lose control, much less learn why he had done so.
Within this palace, knowing too much was not always a good thing.
For household slaves like them, the more they knew, the faster they died.
This was no empty claim. In the Emperor's twenty years of reign, one or two close attendants who handled dirty work disappeared every year.
"Bastard! That wretched beast, that wretched beast!"
The emperor gripped the scroll of paper, the veins on his hand throbbing as his teeth ground together.
Zhao Bingzhong even suspected that, at this very moment, if either Prince Qi or Prince Shu stood before His Majesty, then although the emperor would not bite them on account of their status, he would still seize a whip and lash the two princes until they howled without end.
But neither prince was before the emperor, and so they could not let him vent this fury.
For the two princes, that was likely no blessing either.
If he vented his anger, watched his sons suffer, and saw them plead sincerely for mercy, then many matters could be wiped away in one stroke. But if that anger went unvented and festered in his heart, the bond between father and sons might grow distant.
History had always been thus. The less an emperor beat or scolded his sons, the more it showed that he had taken their mistakes to heart.