"Your Majesty..."
Wang Rong knelt before Cao Mao and began to speak, trembling.
Wang Rong was a man who had seen much of the world.
Yet even he found it hard to remain calm under these circumstances.
This move of Cao Mao's was simply too frightening.
Appearing and vanishing like a ghost-he had never imagined he would come home to find the emperor in his own residence.
For a moment, Wang Rong's mind went blank. He was so frightened that he did not know what to say.
Cao Mao merely stared coldly at him.
A cold wind blew, stirring Cao Mao's robes, while his face remained dark as deep water.
"Wang Rong... over these past days, have I ever treated you with contempt?"
"Your Majesty, you have not."
"Then... was your salary insufficient? Did it leave you going hungry?"
"Well..."
"Answer me!!"
"No."
"Then why did you commit such shameless acts? I treated you as a pillar of the realm, entertained you at banquets day after day, and debated the classics with you. You were not yet thirty, and I made you Yellow Gate Gentleman of the Ministry of Personnel... yet you dared to embezzle, take bribes, seize other people's land, and build yourself a residence..."
"Those traitorous scoundrels in the Censorate were also your recommendations."
"Wang Rong, oh, Wang Rong, can you still call yourself a celebrated scholar of Great Wei? A model for the literati?!"
Cao Mao's tone grew increasingly cold.
Wang Rong was trembling uncontrollably. At last, he could bear it no longer and hurriedly said, "Your Majesty, the men I recommended were not without ability. Their appointments and dismissals were all approved by Duke Zheng. They already possessed the ability to hold those posts. It was absolutely not because of bribes..."
"Nor did I plunder anyone's