Chapter 11607 — King Qin, Apologize

Wei Zhao's words sent violent tremors through the hearts of everyone else.

The King of Qin was the strongest among them; that Wei Zhao had handled him lightly was hardly good news for the rest.

On the contrary, it meant that Wei Zhao was about to come down hard on them next.

Yet Wei Zhao's next sentence lifted their hearts again.

"King Qin, offer an apology, and we will let today's matter rest."

What colossal nerve!

Not only the whole of the Prince of Qin's estate, but every faction of the Inner Royal Court felt that Wei Zhao had grown absurdly, outrageously arrogant.

Your Ten Great Sins may blaze with imperious fury, but the Prince of Qin's estate is by no means fashioned from clay.

To think a single sentence could make the King of Qin bow his head—do you take yourself for a god-tier expert?

At the sight, the Son of Heaven of Zhou was wild with delight.

Folly! This was sheer, unmitigated folly!

The situation had already been beyond salvaging, yet now Wei Zhao's one sentence had forced the King of Qin into an impossible corner—and suddenly there was a turning point.

If the sky fell, a tall man like the King of Qin would be there in front to hold it up; what did they have to fear?

And then, just when everyone expected the King of Qin to erupt, his phantom image suddenly cupped his hands in a salute to Wei Zhao across the empty air.

"Today's affair was my fault, Your Highness. Hereafter I shall withdraw three hundred li before you. I beg young hero Lin's forgiveness."

The entire hall was dumbstruck.

Even after the King of Qin's phantom image dissolved, no one could recover from the shock.

This was the King of Qin—the lofty, exalted King of Qin, in many eyes the de facto foremost man of the Inner Royal Court—and he had actually lowered his head to Wei Zhao just like that?

In that instant, everyone in the Inner Royal Court felt their worldview shatter to pieces.

And hard upon it, a sense of crisis beyond anything they had known surged into their hearts.

The King of Qin was no spineless weakling.

If even he had declared himself thus, it could only mean one thing.

The Wei Zhao of today was truly not someone they could afford to provoke.

Feeling Wei Zhao's gaze sweep over them, the remaining five kings and the Son of Heaven of Zhou lost every last ounce of fighting spirit.

With their pride, they might otherwise, caught in a dilemma, have thought to trade a blow or two with Wei Zhao, still clinging to the faint hope that perhaps he was only a paper tiger.

But now, the King of Qin was the first to bow his head, and that shattered the last shred of their confidence beyond repair.

Wei Zhao regarded them with a faint, unreadable calm. "The King of Qin has apologized. What about the rest of you?"

"We apologize! We apologize!"

The Zhou Son of Heaven blurted it out without a moment's hesitation; the shred of imperial majesty he had conjured up mere moments ago with that phantom throne vanished clean away on the spot.

Contempt rose in a murmur from every direction.

But the Zhou Son of Heaven could no longer afford to care. He had been a puppet sovereign from the start; if his face was lost, then lost it was. Whatever the cost, it was better than losing the last shred of substance he had left.

The pressure now shifted onto the Five Kings.

After a moment of silence, the King of Qi spoke, his voice hoarse. "I apologize to you."

Six words alone, yet they seemed to drain him of every ounce of strength, and his whole bearing collapsed in an instant, like a dam bursting and carrying everything before it.

Then, one after another, the remaining four kings spoke.

"I apologize to you."

Their voices carried through the entire Inner Royal Court.

Amplified by those with a mind to spread it, the words reached not only the great powers watching the Nightfall Palace with keen attention, but even the common folk on every side, who heard them clear as day.

The Inner Royal Court had changed hands.

In that moment, the same thought rose in the minds of many.

"A true man should be like this!"

A year ago, Wei Zhao had founded the Coalition Alliance with his own hands and received the salutes of the Six Kings.

Now a year had passed, the times had turned, and despite being stabbed in the back from every quarter, Wei Zhao had forced the Six Kings to bow their heads and apologize. What towering, magnificent spirit was this!

Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west.

Even Wei Zhao himself had never imagined that from this single gesture of his alone, the burning ambition of countless rootless vagabond cultivators would be set ablaze, and that he would personally raise the curtain on a great age in which a hundred boats would race the current!

Yet the matter did not end there.

Wei Zhao tilted his head slightly. "The King of Qin's apology, I accept. Yours, I do not."

"……"

Once again, everyone was struck dumb.

The Zhou Son of Heaven and the Five Kings had all apologized in public; their faces had been thrown to the ground and trampled. And still it was not enough?

Even a petty man drunk on his moment of triumph ought to know where to draw the line.

The Prince of Qi answered in a low, heavy voice: "What more do you want?"

The same question was in every other quarter.

To all who watched, forcing an apology out of the aloof Six Princes was already an indisputable and total victory.

Since the Inner Royal Court had first been founded, had such a scene ever been witnessed?

For a moment, many of them actually began to find Wei Zhao an eyesore.

They had already apologized—what more did he want?

Was he really going to keep pushing, taking a yard for every inch given?

Wei Zhao bared his teeth in a grin. "Forgive me—your apologies are worthless to me. I see no sincerity in any of you."

"……"

The Prince of Qi and his company were struck dumb in unison, and the whole Inner Royal Court went numb with them.

An apology offered with bowed heads by the Six Princes and the Son of Heaven himself—and in this man's eyes it was worthless?

What on earth was he thinking?

Inside the Prince of Qin's residence, the Prince of Qin, Elder Qin, and Qin Siren looked at one another in silence, while Bai Shizu brewed tea off to the side.

They had not expected Wei Zhao's counterattack to come with such overwhelming force; still less had they expected that Wei Zhao would show not the slightest intention of quitting while he was ahead.

The Prince of Qin frowned and brooded aloud: "I truly cannot make this one out anymore."

Elder Qin said darkly, "He is seizing on this pretext to press his advantage. The boy's ambition is greater than we imagined. For Your Highness to pull out in time was the wise move."

Qin Siren and Bai Shizu exchanged a glance, their expressions complicated and peculiar.

Since when had bowing one's head to another become the wise move—for a man of the Prince of Qin's exalted station, no less?

The crux of it was that the other party was nothing but a Wei Zhao, a minor figure they had looked down upon just a year ago. The world was ever inconstant, true—but had it really changed this fast?

At that moment, in the hall.

The Prince of Qi exhaled a foul breath. "You want us to compensate you?"

"That is one aspect of it."

Wei Zhao nodded without the least courtesy.

The crowd erupted in an uproar—you bastard, you have already swallowed up the entire Yeyang Palace whole; compared with the Institute of Rule Design you devoured before, that is a return a hundred, even a thousand times over. Aren't you being a shade too insatiable?

But at that moment, not a single soul dared to contradict him.

Matters having come to this pass, if money could buy off the disaster, that was already a fine enough outcome for them.

At the very least, it was acceptable.

The Prince of Qi asked in a low voice, "What else do you want?"

Wei Zhao said mildly, "Your apologies."

"Huh?"