The more Liu Zhang thought about it, the angrier he became, and he cursed:
"Fa Zheng."
"Li Yan."
"You two bastards."
Liu Zhang sprang from his seat, pointed at the two figures below who were still in shock, and roared hoarsely.
His face turned the color of pig liver, and the veins at his temples bulged one by one, as though they might burst through his skin at any moment.
"You... you actually went over to that slave."
"A lowborn bastard of slave origins."
"Were you blind?"
Inside the provincial governor's residence, the civil and military officials who had been whispering over the Heavenly Screen's strange spectacle fell as silent as cicadas in winter, their heads lowered, not daring even to breathe loudly.
Everyone's gaze drifted, deliberately or otherwise, toward the two men whose names had been called.
Fa Zheng and Li Yan.
"And you even knelt and bowed before his poetry collection."
"Knelt and bowed."
Liu Zhang trembled with rage, practically grinding those words out through clenched teeth, as though they had exhausted all his strength.
"The gentry of my Yizhou, the pillars of my rule, actually knelt and bowed before some worthless poems written by a slave."
"Where was your shame?"
"Where was your backbone?"
"This is simply... simply infuriating!"
His tirade froze the atmosphere throughout the hall.
At the center of everyone's attention, Fa Zheng and Li Yan wore expressions that could hardly have been more spectacular.
Damn it.
What was wrong with this Heavenly Screen?
Why did it single out things like this to reveal?
The two exchanged a glance, each seeing profound speechlessness and a trace of lingering embarrassment in the other's eyes.
Now they were in for it: the future had been spoiled ahead of time, and made public in the most face-slapping, socially mortifying way possible.
Liu Zhang was still sitting very much alive in the seat of honor, still their nominal lord.
Yet the Heavenly Screen had told him outright that his two most important subordinates would not only betray him, but go over to his enemy in a manner bordering on prostrating themselves in utter worship.
Who could stand that?
Anyone would have exploded on the spot.
Of course, embarrassing as it was, their admiration for Yang Feng's poetry was entirely genuine.
Especially those two lines displayed on the Heavenly Screen.
"Clouds evoke her robes, flowers her face."
"Ten years, the living and the dead, both lost in boundless desolation."
Simply reciting them once in their minds seemed to send an indescribable force straight into the depths of their souls.
The former captured peerless grace in full, while the latter told all the sorrow of separation between life and death.
With literary brilliance like this, never mind the present age-even if every great writer of past dynasties were brought out, probably not one could surpass him.
This man truly was an uncanny genius.
But admiration aside, the trouble before them was very real.
Seeing Liu Zhang bristling and glaring, looking almost ready to draw his sword and cut someone down, Fa Zheng and Li Yan dared not hesitate any longer.
They hurried out of the ranks and dropped to their knees together with a thud.
"Please calm your anger, my lord."
Li Yan spoke first, his voice ringing and earnest.
"Everything the Heavenly Screen showed was false, or perhaps some sorcery Yang Feng used to bewitch men's hearts."
"I, Li Yan, have received great kindness from you, my lord, and harbor no disloyalty whatsoever."
Fa Zheng followed at once, kowtowing. "The same is true of me."
"In life, I, Fa Zheng, belong to Yizhou; in death, I will be Yizhou's ghost. In this lifetime, I will serve only you, my lord."
"As for this supposed bowing before poetry manuscripts, it is utter nonsense. With our backbone as scholars, how could we do anything so absurd?"
"Please discern the truth, my lord."
The two backed each other up, their manner so utterly sincere that they fell just short of pointing to heaven and the sun and swearing dire oaths.
Yet to Liu Zhang, their declarations sounded immeasurably ironic.
Discern the truth?
Discern the truth, my ass.
Liu Zhang's chest heaved violently with rage, his lungs nearly bursting.
The Heavenly Screen had already shown scenes of the future, clear and plain for all to see.
Could something like that be fake?
This was a divine miracle connected to all the heavens and myriad worlds.
You two look down on me as a weak, ineffectual lord, so why put on this show of devotion between lord and subject now?
Do you take me for a fool?
Furious thoughts churned wildly through Liu Zhang's mind, and for one instant, he even felt the urge to kill.
Just drag these two scheming fellows outside and behead them, ending it all once and for all.
But the thought only flashed through his mind before he forcibly suppressed it.
No.
I couldn't kill them.
Quite apart from the enormous influence these two held among Yizhou's gentry, killing them would immediately plunge all of Yizhou into chaos.
More importantly, the Heavenly Screen had already foretold their betrayal.
If he killed them now, would that not mean cutting down Yizhou's future pillars with his own hands and playing right into Yang Feng's wishes instead?
When the time came, who would help him resist that man who was about to have "the yellow robe draped over him"?
After weighing the gains and losses in an instant, Liu Zhang was left with nothing but a profound sense of helplessness.
He realized there was absolutely nothing he could do.
Other than choosing to believe them-or rather, pretending to believe them-he had no other path.
"...Enough."
Liu Zhang forced the word through his teeth, waved a hand, and slumped back into his chair, as though all his strength had been drained away.
"This matter... must never be mentioned again."
"Both of you, rise."
"Thank you, my lord."
Li Yan and Fa Zheng inwardly breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Only after kowtowing once more did they slowly rise and return to the ranks.
The crisis had passed for the moment, but deeper private calculations began stirring in their hearts.
Outwardly, they betrayed nothing, while inwardly, their minds raced.
What exactly was going on with what the Heavenly Screen had said?
However well written, poetry was ultimately only poetry.
No matter how much we cherished talent, surely we wouldn't switch allegiances and go over to a fellow of slave origins with no foundation whatsoever just because of a few poems?
That made no political sense at all.
Something more important must have happened that the Heavenly Screen hadn't explained in detail.
What could have made the two of us resolve to abandon Liu Zhang and support Yang Feng?
Could it be... that Yang Feng really possessed talent capable of ordering heaven and earth, or that his proposed "Yizhou Discourse" really held such enormous appeal?
A grand blueprint that could transform Yizhou to its very bones, and even take it a step further?
Both men's thoughts began stirring in unison.
And just as everyone within the provincial governor's residence harbored different thoughts, with the atmosphere strange to the extreme.
High in the sky, the golden Heavenly Screen, which had remained still for so long, slowly began moving once again.