"You have yet to become Chief Minister, and you are unworthy of being Duke Lai's descendant!"
"The office of Chief Minister remains far beyond your reach!"
As Shen Duan's stern words fell, Kou Yuan slumped back into his seat, his expression stricken.
Shen Duan's words were a blade, plunging straight into a hidden wound!
He, Kou Zhun's great-grandson, was not of Kou Zhun's direct bloodline, but the great-grandson of an adopted son.
Li Guang of the Former Han had never been enfeoffed as a marquis in his lifetime, while his younger cousin Li Cai
ranked only middling among the inferior in character and ability, and his reputation fell far short of Li Guang's.
Alas, Guang received neither a title nor a fief, and his office rose no higher than the Nine Ministers.
Guang once asked a reader of vital auras, "Does my physiognomy make me unfit to be a marquis? Is this truly my fate?"
How alike Kou Yuan and Li Guang were. It was not that he lacked talent, but that the burden he carried was too heavy.
Kou Laigong was a monument. Kou Yuan lived in its shadow, and the harder he strove, the smaller he became.
Kou Laigong was a mountain. Kou Yuan stood upon its summit, yet everyone saw only the mountain, never him.
Shen Duan's words had shoved him straight off that mountain.
Only as he fell did he discover that he had never stood upon it at all.
He had merely stood at its foot, looking upward, deceiving himself into believing that its shadow was his own.
Kou Yuan stared at Shen Duan and opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end, not a single word emerged.
Fang Qi froze at first, then a trace of delight