A moment of life and death

"Your Majesty! The disciples of Jixia Academy are all wealthy or noble! Every one of them has the talent to guide a sovereign! If they die, Chang'an will surely erupt into turmoil!"

"The Crown Prince traded a Heavenly Oath to set the Human Emperor Fortune in motion. Great Zhou will inevitably draw covetous eyes from every quarter!"

"This is a moment of life and death for the nation. I beg Your Majesty to show mercy!"

Though Ruan Yuan was grievously wounded and coughing blood, he still pleaded desperately for the students throughout the academy.

Wu Junji lay against the old bastard and watched quietly. He had once begged like that, too.

Under the Head-Chopping Interest scheme the Second Prince had devised, a loan of ten coins came with a three-coin handling fee, leaving the borrower with only seven.

After one day, principal and interest totaled thirteen coins. After two days, seventeen. The debt snowballed, growing larger and larger.

Unable to repay, a family of three had killed themselves in a horrific fashion before the gates of Chang'an City. At last, the matter reached the emperor's ears.

Yet the case became a tool for those above to balance the princes' struggle for succession and manipulate power.

Was the Head-Chopping Interest case meant to bring down the Second Prince? No.

His Majesty wanted to bring down the Crown Prince.

Five years after the Crown Prince's return, his influence had grown. His wings needed clipping.

Conveniently, the Second Prince's men had committed a crime, and the Crown Prince investigated. Two tigers fought, and the emperor reaped the benefits.

There were twenty-seven ringleaders in all, yet only three scapegoats were handed over.

Wu Junji was falsely accused of tax evasion, murder, extracting confessions through torture, and abuse of authority.

Everyone knew the charges were false, but the emperor was willing to believe them.

After all Wu Junji's efforts, Wu Junzheng lost only three lackeys. Wu Junji turned around to discover that everything he had accumulated over five years had been swallowed up.

His fields were gone. His shops were gone. The people he had trained were gone, too.

How could Wu Junji accept that? If he suffered, Wu Junzheng and Emperor Zhou would suffer, too!

He sought out Ruan Yuan, hoping to use his reputation among scholars to turn the matter into an uproar, forcing the old bastard to abandon Wu Junzheng and provide an honest accounting.

Just like Ruan Yuan now, he had bowed and begged, appealed to reason and stirred emotion. He pleaded until his throat ran dry.

For the sake of their bond as teacher and student. For the sake of those who had killed themselves. For the sake of the common people whose families had been shattered by Head-Chopping Interest.

Help him!

All he received was a single answer: the imperial command could not be defied.

Before he even made it out the door, he was arrested and thrown into prison.

For ten days, too hungry to sleep, he racked his brain. Was it truly because the imperial command could not be defied, or did his teacher have selfish motives, favoring Chen Yu?

Because his beloved disciple wanted to seize the opportunity to suppress Wu Junji and force him to obediently become a puppet for his revenge, Ruan Yuan had chosen not to help!

On the day he was released, Wu Junji passed the gates of Chang'an City. He saw the ground where ordinary men had spilled their blood and heard people in the streets spouting bullshit:

The court was wise and just. A Crown Prince who broke the law faced the same punishment as a commoner.

They even said that the Crown Prince had sought Master Ruan's help, but Master Ruan had proven himself a true grandmaster, placing righteousness above personal ties and showing no fear of the powerful. He had arrested the Crown Prince on the spot and confined him in the Heavenly Prison.

Whenever Wu Junji remembered those words, he laughed until his stomach hurt.

Ignorant fools. What a pack of ignorant fools!

The twenty-seven ringleaders responsible for the Head-Chopping Interest bloodshed were singing and celebrating at home!

The Second Prince, the chief culprit, hadn't lost a single hair!

Every civil and military official at court was busy choosing sides. Who spared those three dead people a glance?

The law could not deliver justice.

The heavens above had rotted.

Only I could save them!

From that day onward, Wu Junji swore that he would become emperor!

Now their positions had reversed. Ruan Yuan was the one begging, appealing to reason and stirring emotion, his words earnest, every sentence spoken for the nation. Wu Junji wanted to laugh again.

What a sorry sight.

"A moment of life and death?"

Emperor Zhou smiled scornfully. "Because of them?"

"Because of Jixia Academy?"

He waved a hand, and someone hurried over to seize Ruan Yuan.

"I will spare your life, so you can see whether their deaths bring Great Zhou to the brink of destruction!"

The long pink dragon was dreamlike and domineering. It wove through the entire academy, and no Monster could escape its eyes.

Roaring flames reduced the century-old academy to scorched earth.

Out of habit, Wu Junji considered how much unrest this slaughter would cause. Jixia Academy accepted neither students of humble birth nor ordinary people who could not see fortune.

It truly was a gathering of elites. In his previous life, Wu Junji would never have dared slaughter them like this.

His resources had been too meager. A single defeat would leave him with nothing. He endured whenever he could, and as long as he could survive, he would not fight until the fish died and the net broke.

He had been cautious, deliberating and weighing his options, always leaving himself a way out.

That was why, when the Crown Prince held a Poison Banquet, openly severing all ties by poisoning all twenty-seven Head-Chopping Interest ringleaders in one stroke, then cutting off their heads and sending them by carriage to the Second Prince's residence, the officials at court finally came to understand him.

Wu Junji was a dog. He could neither be fed his fill nor left to starve.

Feed him his fill, and he would devour his master.

Starve him, and he would bite.

So Emperor Zhou hastily fashioned him a Dog Leash-a bestowed marriage.

That was the second grievance between Wu Junji and Ruan Yuan.

He lowered his head and bit hard into Emperor Zhou's shoulder.

His entire life had been a wretched struggle, and Emperor Zhou was the chief culprit.

Were it not for the debt of his birth and these three years together, he would long since have plotted to establish himself independently.

Emperor Zhou's body tensed with pain, then slowly relaxed.

Blood entered Wu Junji's mouth, while a soothing hand settled on his back.

See? The difference between being loved and unloved was that obvious.

What Wu Junzheng had once possessed, he now had, too-and more.

The little Crown Prince released his bite.

Wu Junzheng looked up, his face full of envy.

Ruan Yuan knelt on the ground, wailing over the scattered corpses.

The heirs of other nations were tense and terrified. No one could have imagined another reversal in the fate of Zhou's Crown Prince, who had been sent out as food.

How was he a discarded pawn? Great Zhou's emperor clearly treasured him like the apple of his eye.

No one dared slaughter everyone in the world's foremost academy in a single stroke.

Behind these two thousand people stood over two thousand clans united together!

This shook the very foundations of the nation!

They could rack their brains to pieces and still fail to understand how Emperor Zhou dared do it. Even Wu Junji wondered how he would handle what came next.

The five Demon Heirs were now like trapped beasts.

For everyone still alive and breathing, life or death rested on a word from Emperor Zhou.

The flames roared.

From that moment on, Jixia Academy no longer existed.

From glory to ruin, it had taken only a single night.

The Golden Eagle Guards and the Golden Armor Army escorted the foreign royal heirs and Demon Heirs to lodge at the Foreign Guests' Inn.

Emperor Zhou's meaning was clear: I have no time for you right now. Stay put and behave. Don't stir up trouble.

Faced with this emperor whose actions were impossible to fathom, anyone would have no choice but to obey.

Emperor Zhou mounted his horse with his son in his arms.

He galloped into the imperial palace.

Only then did Wu Junji learn that the old bastard had deployed troops.

The Northern Army under Chen Yang had surrounded the imperial palace with the speed of thunder that struck before one could cover one's ears. The Golden Armor Army remained around Jixia Academy to prevent anyone not quite dead from escaping the fire.

The Golden Eagle Guards followed Emperor Zhou into the Imperial City.

The Retired Emperor in the Palace of Eternal Longevity had become a beast trapped within a single palace.

His greatest regret now was allowing Chen Yang to gain command of the Northern Army.

Who could have imagined that Emperor Zhou would hook up with Chen Yang and even produce a bastard!

Heaven was unjust, too. Wu Junzheng, born of the legitimate line, had no Human Emperor Fortune, while Wu Junji, with his impure blood, did!

Was it just because he had crawled out first?!

Was it just because the eldest son would bring prosperity to the nation?!

The eldest son, the eldest son, the eldest son!

The Retired Emperor pointed at the Empress Dowager and cursed. "This is the fine son you bore!"

"A bastard!"

"The older bastard hooked up with a man for the younger bastard! Even as emperor, he still behaves so disgracefully. He rejected the noble daughters of Aristocratic Clans I chose for him and insisted on fooling around with a pack of men!"

"A little extra between the legs, and he's drowning in romantic sentiment! For one bastard, he would disregard the dynasty's very survival!"

The Empress Dowager sat upright on the couch, like an exquisite vase. Only the prayer beads in her hands drew tighter and tighter, like her reason under an unbearable burden. Stretched to its limit, it would erupt without regard for anything.

"Bastard!"

"Bastard!"

"Back then, you begged me to give birth to this very bastard!"

The Empress Dowager advanced step by step. Watching the Retired Emperor retreat in shock and uncertainty, the urge to vent surged straight to the crown of her head.

"If Bing'er is a bastard, then what are you?!"

"You despise the Crown Prince's status as the eldest son because you aren't the eldest son!"

"Everything you have now was stolen! You took the throne illegitimately! Your inability to sire children is retribution!"

"You keep crying bastard, bastard, because you dare not face the truth of your own impotence!"

"Insolence!" the Retired Emperor roared, kicking the Empress Dowager to the floor.

The Empress Dowager caught her breath, then gave a sorrowful laugh.

Slowly, she straightened into a proper kneeling posture.

"Your Majesty, do you still remember? I was summoned as a general by your own elder brother, Wu An!"

The Retired Emperor covered his ears and shouted, "Shut up! I have no elder brother!"

"None!"

The Empress Dowager returned to her earlier numb silence, a weary voice spilling from her soul.

"If you say you have none, then you have none."