"These... are what the Crown Prince taught you?"
Su Ziji listened quietly. He did not argue at once, but pursed his lips in thought. Only after a long while did he sigh. "The Crown Prince's entire household was executed. What does Your Majesty think of that?"
The Emperor could not help choking on his words. No matter how grand the rhetoric, this was one point he could not get around.
Of course, under ordinary circumstances, when ruler and subject had no grievance between them, even if someone were granted death without cause, they would still have to bow and cry, "Long live His Majesty." But in the present situation, if he refused to reason, it would mean he himself no longer wanted any dignity.
After a long while, the Emperor said, "That was the work of petty men. I, too, was deceived. Once I came to my senses, did I not kill those petty men and grant the Crown Prince a posthumous title and additional honors?"
"Moreover, the Crown Prince may say that I was wrong, but you may not!"
"You had originally fallen among the common folk, no different from a man in coarse cloth. If I had not sent people to investigate you in secret, laboring tirelessly for decades, how could you have cast aside the clouds and seen the moon, clad in purple and azure?"
"Not to mention that I entrusted the state to you, had you guard the sacred vessel and inherit the line, bear the weight of the seven ancestral temples. What greater favor could there be?"
As he said this, the Emperor became righteous and assured again. "Yet you have proved willful and perverse in your conduct, daring to force my palace! Leaving aside the outrage of gods and men, even if you somehow