Chapter 1457: When Desire Occupies the High Ground, Intelligence Naturally Goes Offline

The days at Wang Fu were, on the whole, very pleasant.

Chen Chen Guanlou was so happy he almost forgot about everything else!

On the fifth day of the first month, the New Year gifts prepared by Hou Fu were finally delivered to Jin Wang Fu.

Looking at the endless stream of carts, Chen Chen Guanlou was a bit stunned—had they emptied out Hou Fu's storeroom? Was there really any need for this!

Jin Wang looked at the gift list and grinned from ear to ear. "Hou Fu still knows propriety! Unlike that…"

Everyone knew who "that" was.

Song Anxu spoke up for Chen Chen Guanlou. "When Lou-ge came, he brought gifts for me and for Dabao. He came alone, so he couldn't carry too much. Besides, the reason Hou Fu sent gifts at all is entirely because of Lou-ge. Father, you must not wrong him!"

Jin Wang was very displeased. "You are the heir of Wang Fu, yet you side with outsiders. If you cannot do the job of heir, then give up the position."

"Give it to whom?" Song Anxu's face darkened. "My status as heir was conferred by the imperial court, with Your Majesty's backing. You want me to give it to whom?"

"What's with that long face? Give it to your own son, will you!"

"No! Dabao is still young. Putting Dabao ahead of me would only harm him! He is your own grandson! Your own grandson, closer to you than any nephew or grandnephew. Father, I hope you can face reality and stop dreaming up wild schemes."

Song Anxu's fury flared. Right in front of Chen Chen Guanlou, she gave Jin Wang not a shred of face.

The Liu Liu Guanshi in charge of delivering the gifts from Hou Fu watched, utterly dumbfounded, unsure for the moment how to conduct himself.

Chen Chen Guanlou signaled him to withdraw—this was a domestic matter of Wang Fu, and it was not appropriate for an outsider to be present.

The Hou Fu Liu Liu Guanshi took the hint and hurriedly withdrew, putting plenty of distance between them. He firmly resolved to deal with Jin Wang as little as possible; any matters should be handled through Wang Fu's steward, subordinate officials, or the chief eunuch.

"What's wrong with this king thinking about it! This king has been ruined by you mother-and-daughter, and I'm not even allowed to think about it! Heir, don't be too overbearing! Don't forget—on paper, the one who runs this Wang Fu is this king!"

"Of course you mustn't think about it! Because the moment you do, you can't help blurting it out. We won't take it seriously, but outsiders might. They'll take your offhand remark as gospel truth and scheme against Dabao! Dabao is your own grandson. For his sake, I hope Father will not only keep a rein on his mouth from now on, but also keep a rein on his mind—stop letting his thoughts run wild."

Song Anxu put on the full bearing of the heir and sternly lectured Jin Wang.

Jin Wang was furious. "You unfilial daughter! Your mother consort targeting this king is one thing, but you oppose me too! If I'd known, I should have strangled you the moment you were born!"

"If you had strangled me, you'd truly have no descendants left! In this great Wang Fu, apart from you and Mother Consort, there isn't a second master! The moment you die, someone else will move in. Are you truly willing to accept that?"

Of course Jin Wang was unwilling!

As a man, he naturally hoped his own bloodline would inherit Wang Fu.

Song Dabao was an outside grandson, but he was still blood kin—deep down, he accepted it.

But…

Between husband and wife, between father and daughter, the conflicts ran deep, accumulated over many years! To expect him to change his tune in a moment, to accept it willingly and wholeheartedly, was impossible.

There was still a long way to go!

A person's heart does not turn to iron in an instant, nor does it turn soft and kind in an instant!

There has to be a process!

The deeper Jin Wang's hatred, the longer that process! It would take Zhi Gong of several years to dissolve the estrangement between them and reach a consensus on the inheritance!

To avoid mishaps in the meantime—such as someone taking desperate risks to harm the little chubby boy Song Dabao—Jin Wang truly did need to keep his mouth shut, not saying everything that came to mind, not making rash promises.

Some people are so thick-headed they can't tell a joke from a promise!

They instinctively assume that a prince's word is only one rank below the Emperor's, and must be as good as spoken—a team of four horses cannot chase it down! The Emperor's word is golden and jade-like; Jin Wang's should at least be silver and jade-like.

His word is as binding as a gob of spit and a driven nail—sure to carry the force of ancestral rules!

There are plenty of people like that!

Even if they know perfectly well Jin Wang is joking, they may still talk themselves into believing that once the deed is done, they can force Jin Wang to treat the joke as a promise! Force him to make good on it!

In any age, there is no shortage of bold, ruthless, iron-handed people!

It would be wrong to call them blind to reason, to say their intelligence has been forcibly lowered.

When desire occupies the high ground, intelligence naturally goes offline!

Especially in the face of power!

How many people are swindled out of money by a single phone call, how many are coaxed by the sweet words of a woman or a man and willingly walk into a pig-butchering scam. Can we say all these people are idiots?

Can we say they have no brains?

Their brains may well work better than most people's, yet they stumble into scam traps. In the final analysis, it all comes down to that one word: desire!

Desire occupies the high ground, takes command of the brain, and everything else must step aside!

Such a great Wang Fu, such a vast fief—not to mention how enormous the annual tax revenue must be, just the authority of Wang Fu alone—who wouldn't be tempted!

Chen Chen Guanlou himself admitted that, for the occasional fleeting moment, he too was tempted.

It was only because his Dao heart was steady that he could cast away the desire to seize Wang Fu by force and occupy it himself!

"Laozi is your biological father—can you give this king a little face in front of outsiders? Look at you, lecturing this king as if lecturing a grandson. Is that any way for a daughter to behave? That's gross unfiliality!"

Jin Wang was heartbroken and denounced Song Anxu's behavior.

A daughter lecturing her own father—the world turned upside down!

Song Anxu gave a cold snort. "Wang Fu has never been peaceful all these years, and it's all because of you. Mother Consort and I spent enormous effort purging Wang Fu—how many treacherous servants we swept away, you saw with your own eyes. These people dared to betray their master only because of you! If you hadn't run your mouth outside, giving others false confidence, how would they have dared take desperate risks and cause trouble in Wang Fu! You are the root of all the trouble!"

"You you you… Chen Chen Guanlou, you be the judge. The heir has no sense of hierarchy, no respect for elders—does she have any right to inherit Wang Fu?"

Jin Wang was so furious his brain had stopped working, and he actually asked Chen Chen Guanlou to judge the matter.

Fortunately, Jin Wang Fei was not present at that moment—otherwise the couple would have been at it again.

Chen Chen Guanlou cleared his throat lightly. "Your Highness has Your Highness's position, and I have mine. From my position, the heir did the right thing, without a single error! Too many people covet the power of Wang Fu; the heir's precautions are entirely necessary! Especially when it concerns the safety of the little chubby boy, no amount of strictness is excessive!

Your Highness, please remember—Song Dabao is your own grandson! He bears the surname Song; he is the future of Jin Wang Fu! The child I have with the heir has inherited the best of us both; in the future he will surely be clever, healthy, and outstanding—more outstanding than every member of the Wang Fu clan put together. This is beyond doubt! I can guarantee it!"

What he thought was: he carried within him the Dao Fruit of Xiao Changsheng; in scientific terms, his genes had already been altered by the Dao Fruit of Xiao Changsheng, and that was how he could live forever.

Could a child born of longevity genes be ordinary?

The Dao Fruit of Xiao Changsheng was such a heaven-defying existence—even a tiny fraction of genetic modification passed to the child would make the child absolutely extraordinary, outstanding in some particular way for certain!