"Mother, look at this man."
Cao Mao sat down beside Empress Dowager Guo with a smile and pointed at Sima Zhao, who knelt before them both.
Empress Dowager Guo looked at Sima Zhao below them in bewilderment and alarm. She leaned back uneasily, instinctively trying to put more distance between them.
The sun blazed overhead. It was just the hour when Empress Dowager Guo began to worry.
The Sima Family's lingering might remained. Even though Sima Zhao knelt before them with his head lowered, Empress Dowager Guo still felt deeply uneasy.
Not only Empress Dowager Guo, but the ministers and many generals had developed a certain awe of them as well.
People who dared to beat Sima Zhao as Cheng Ji had were few and far between.
But that Cheng Ji could do such a thing came as no surprise at all.
He had always called himself and Wen Yang the emperor's two tiger generals.
Whether they were generals, Cao Mao could not say for certain, but they certainly had the ferocity of tigers: one dared to stab an emperor to death, and the other dared to charge an enemy formation late at night and frighten a Grand General to death.
Ever since Sima Yi's time, their family's prestige had risen steadily. That prestige was intangible, but its concrete manifestation was this: even reduced to such straits, Sima Zhao could still intimidate everyone and keep others from lightly humiliating him.
Cao Mao very much wanted to make a reckoning of the historical events after Cao Rui's reign and pass judgment on the actions of Cao Shuang, Sima Yi, Sima Shi, and the others.
After Sima Yi, Cao Shuang had been branded a domineering minister, while those who opposed Sima Yi, such as Wang Ling, had all been branded treacherous ministers.