Chapter 759: Fishing

"Long live the Emperor!"

At this time, in this world, beneath the Nine Heavens, above Shenzhou, and across the four seas and eight wildernesses, only one person can be called "Long live," and that is the current Emperor!

That figure in the golden light is of medium height, with clear brows and eyes, slightly thin lips, and eyes shining with brilliance; he appears to be not yet twenty years of age, yet he is already steady and seasoned, possessing the bearing of a great leader, save for a hint of harshness amidst his solemnity. He is the Emperor who has been on the throne for ten years, who grew up amidst countless struggles, and who, having held his grand wedding and taken personal charge of the government last year, is already the legitimate master of the world!

The Emperor has arrived!

Everyone feels a sense of shock, a sense of absurdity, as if they are dreaming.

The Emperor has arrived at Jindinglou; is it strange?

Today is the traditional Golden Mountain Fireworks Festival; the Emperor was supposed to arrive anyway. The Empress Dowager came first, and the Emperor came later; one could say there is a reason for this.

Everyone is meeting the Emperor; is it strange?

Who among those present cannot meet the Emperor from time to time? With court sessions every ten days, the Emperor has never been negligent in his duties; even an ordinary court official can see him three times a month, so what is one more time? Moreover, the Emperor is currently wearing casual attire; although the colors and patterns are those used by the nobility, he is dressed like a young nobleman, lacking the solemn majesty of the twelve-tasseled crown and the twelve emblems, and he does not seem particularly special.

However...

How could the Emperor still be alive?

Wasn't he clearly dead?

No...

These clear-headed adults immediately reacted:

Who said the Emperor was dead?

Oh, Shou Wang said so.

What Shou Wang says is worth nothing! Could he not be a traitorous official who slandered the Empress Dowager and cursed the Emperor in order to commit treason?

But the Empress Dowager admitted it just now...

No, the Empress Dowager did not admit it either.

The Empress Dowager has always sternly denied killing the Emperor; rebellious officials like Shou Wang and Shou Wang pressed her step by step, using force to coerce the Empress Dowager, leaving her unable to speak, which created the illusion that the Emperor was already dead. As for the Protective Aura suddenly shielding the prince...

Who knows what conspiracy they played with? Perhaps even the Great Ancestor Protection was a smokescreen they created.

No matter how many twists and turns there are, and how many details one cannot bear to think about, the facts are all before their eyes.

The Emperor is still alive.

Being alive is good.

No matter if it is Shou Wang, Shou Wang, or other such ambitious people who take power, who knows what kind of great purge they would launch? The Emperor is better; his strength lies in stability.

Compared to the crowd, who easily accepted this fact that was greatly beneficial to stability, those caught in the middle were all as if they had seen a ghost.

There is no need to mention Shou Wang; in his eyes, seeing the living Emperor is exactly like seeing a ghost.

The fact that the Empress Dowager accidentally killed the Emperor, which was like a golden rule to him, is now completely overturned; the Emperor is standing right before his eyes, and his eyes are fixed, staring at the Emperor as he stammers: "You... who are you..."

As for Shou Wang and the others, they are incomparably terrified and feel great regret, because they accepted the second-hand news from Shou Wang and went to spy on the Forbidden Palace themselves, finding many clues as evidence, which were then connected by staff members like An Xiansheng, and added to their own ambitions and interests, finally leading to this point today. Upon seeing the Emperor, what they think is not that they have seen a ghost, but:

Damn it, this time we have been harmed terribly by that idiot Shou Wang!

That idiot must have fallen into a trap!

Compared to many people who do not know the truth and guess that Shou Wang and the others are spouting nonsense, Shou Wang knows that the rumor of the Emperor being accidentally killed by the Empress Dowager was not fabricated out of thin air; there are many traces that can corroborate each other, and it even looks seamless. This is by no means a coincidence, but a premeditated plan; someone set a trap, waiting for them to drill into it.

The one who set this trap can only be...

The Emperor!

In this instant, Shou Wang has almost guessed the answer to the riddle, and can even reverse-engineer the premise: somehow, the Emperor created the illusion that he had been accidentally killed; this illusion was very real, so real that even the Empress Dowager believed it, and Shou Wang likely had reliable informants in the inner court to obtain this top-secret news—the more top-secret it is, the more one would believe such a thing. So, like a big fish in a fishpond, he was fished out of the pond of Youzhou by the Emperor. And incidentally, he dragged Shou Wang and the others out as well.

For the Emperor to do this, if one thinks about it carefully, is still very explosive; it is simply making a joke of himself and the National Fortune. He must have some great goal, but clearing out a portion of the disloyal people in the royal family, and incidentally striking at or even completely destroying the Empress Dowager's political life, are all obvious purposes.

He succeeded, very easily.

How much strength did Shou Wang spend, fighting the Empress Dowager with knives and blood, almost perishing together, just to reach this advantageous situation? Yet the Emperor only needed to walk up the stairs to flip it. Now Shou Wang should still have the power to counterattack, and his situation is much better than the Empress Dowager who just failed in their confrontation, but everyone, including himself, feels that he is finished. Although the Emperor did not display any power and walked up alone, as long as he issues an imperial decree or a verbal order, he can send Shou Wang away effortlessly.

The gap is as vast as the distance between the clouds and the mud.

Only because he is the Emperor! The legitimate monarch of the world!

The other princes who appeared also felt a sense of despair. Only the eldest and most experienced Shou Wang refused to give up at this moment; he gritted his teeth and thought to himself: There must still be a chance to turn things around, hurry and think!

At the same time, the other person who is even more shocked than Shou Wang and cannot accept reality is, of course, the Empress Dowager.

She is the primary eyewitness!

Whether Shou Wang was spouting nonsense, how could she not know?

These past few days, every time she closed her eyes, it was the scene of her sword piercing her son's body, the sound of it entering the flesh, the spurting blood, the temperature cooling bit by bit in her arms...

Those were facts that could not be more real.

So seeing the Emperor standing before her, she felt no joy of recovery, but instead felt heartfelt fear:

Her own son is already dead; who is this?

At this moment, she is utterly devastated; she wants to open her mouth to ask, but having been severely injured, she cannot make a sound when she opens her mouth, only spitting out a mouthful of blood foam.

At this time, the Emperor walked over and reached out to help the Empress Dowager up, just like a mother holding a child, holding the bloody and dusty Empress Dowager in his arms, saying: "Mother, I am here."

At this moment, the Empress Dowager saw his eyes.

They were a pair of sharp, hard pupils that seemed to be burning with fire forever; although they were so close and the posture was so intimate, she could not see any emotion belonging to family, only incomparable calmness.

This seems... to really be her son.

Ever since her son grew up and his wings became full, he had always had this kind of look; he never looked at her like a son looking at a mother, but like a predator looking at a competing beast in his territory.

When the conflict happened that day, these eyes also stared at her so sharply, evoking the Empress Dowager's fear; that fatal sword strike was precisely her stress response.

"You..."

"Empress Dowager, do not worry. I am fine." The Emperor leaned down and said coldly in the Empress Dowager's ear: "You cannot kill me. Isn't it good like this now? You can finally understand human speech."

Sure enough, it was his scheme.

The Empress Dowager only felt a sense of horror, and then a sense of relief. Sure enough, she could never defeat him. Although there was a twenty-year age gap, she had always been retreating step by step.

Now that she has completely lost, it should end here.

Although she did not understand why the Emperor did this, and it seemed too high a price to pay for a mere fishing scheme, she no longer had the strength to investigate.

She could not catch up to the Emperor, and in any case, the Emperor did not want to kill her yet, did he?

If the Emperor wanted her dead, he only needed to arrive a small step later and could have used the blade of Shou Wang to kill her; since he came out to stop it, it meant he would still spare her life.

Then she should know her place, withdraw, and return the stage to the rightful lead.

The Emperor Look at Shou Wang, his voice as cold as a god high above: "Shou Wang, was it you who harmed the Empress Dowager to this extent? You have such great audacity! To commit such an act of treason!"

Shou Wang glared at him; by now he had somewhat realized that he had fallen into a trap, having pointlessly dealt with the Empress Dowager for the Emperor, only to be left holding the bag alone, and this person who borrowed the blade was actually looking down from on high to accuse him!

The Emperor came to Ask him, and he knew there were two choices at this moment: one was to expose the truth, give the Emperor a good, satisfying scolding, and tell this mantis-stalking-the-cicada not to get too smug, as he was nothing but a black-hearted wretch himself.

The price would be a miserable death, though perhaps not the total annihilation of his nine clans.

There was another choice, which was to say that he too had been deceived, truly believing the Empress Dowager had killed the Emperor, and that he had acted out of righteous indignation to hold the Empress Dowager accountable, not out of rebellion, but rather out of loyalty to the Emperor. This would be a way to absolve himself of guilt and beg for the Emperor's forgiveness.

This might save his life, but the price would be abandoning all dignity and any possibility of a comeback, begging only for the Emperor's pity. The success rate for survival was by no means high, though it was possible his family might be spared.

Logically, as a political animal, Shou Wang should have chosen to be sensible without hesitation—as long as the green hills remain, one need not worry about firewood—and even if there was only a one-in-ten-thousand chance of survival, he should have adopted the most humble posture; posture meant nothing, living was everything. But for some reason, he did not want to yield, even though there was still room for maneuver.

The Emperor did not continue to apply pressure; he did not care about Shou Wang at all, turning instead to Look at Shou Wang, saying: "Uncle, you have disappointed Me too much. Shou Wang has long been in a distant fief, but you watched Me grow up. Not only Me, but Xingwang was also raised under your watch. To think you could actually bring yourself to do it."

Shou Wang, however, did not hesitate in the slightest, prostrating himself completely and saying loudly: "Your Majesty, please see clearly, this subject's heart is filled with loyalty to Your Majesty. This was all because Shou Wang deceived this subject; he swore that the Empress Dowager had harmed Your Majesty and was suspected of rebellion. As a member of the imperial clan, this subject has the duty to protect the throne, which is why I joined forces with him. Who would have thought this villain would have such treacherous intentions, fabricating rumors to use us? This subject wishes he could tear him into ten thousand pieces!"

Because Shou Wang hesitated, the niche left for him was occupied by Shou Wang, and he no longer had the chance to slide into submission.

Hearing Shou Wang's statement, the Emperor was noncommittal and said: "You say you spared no effort to clash with the Empress Dowager for My sake, then why did you also plot against the State Preceptor?"

Shou Wang immediately said: "This was also Shou Wang's arrangement; this subject was deceived and acted according to his orders."

Shou Wang was furious and shouted: "Bullshit, wasn't this your own scheme?"