Chapter 11632 — What If the Queen Has Other Intentions

Wei Zhao was taken aback.

Judging by the Zhou Son of Heaven's manner, the Queen was no ordinary queen—she was practically an emperor above the emperor.

He had assumed the Zhou Son of Heaven's spinelessness was reserved for real powers like the Seven Princely Houses. So he was this same way even before his own harem—truly worthy of the name puppet Son of Heaven.

Just as the scene was frozen in awkwardness, a palace maid suddenly appeared at the door.

"Your Majesty, the Queen summons Wei Zhao to the Phoenix Ceremony Hall."

The Zhou Son of Heaven's eyelid twitched, and his expression turned all the more tense. "Miss Zijuan, did the Queen truly say so?"

Wei Zhao was speechless all over again. Was this puppet Son of Heaven this courteous to everyone? He was treading on eggshells even when speaking to a palace maid?

The maid glanced at Wei Zhao and gave a slight nod. "It is indeed the Queen's decree."

"How can this be… how could the Queen summon a court official from outside…"

The Zhou Son of Heaven instantly turned distraught.

Wei Zhao could not help feeling a little dazed. The Queen had merely sent someone to summon him to the Phoenix Ceremony Hall—yet from the other man's reaction, one would think he had cuckolded him.

The maid said to Wei Zhao, "Young Master Lin, please come with me."

With that, she gave the Zhou Son of Heaven only the slightest bow, then turned and left, her every gesture and bearing nothing like an ordinary palace maid's.

"Interesting."

Wei Zhao followed at once, leaving the assembled elite imperial guards staring at one another.

Hou Chuang quietly let out a breath of relief and offered comfort: "Your Majesty need not worry. Since the Queen has summoned Wei Zhao, she must have her reasons; the matter should be resolved amicably."

That the situation just now could be defused in this fashion was, for them, already the best possible outcome.

Otherwise, if blows had truly been exchanged, the consequences were unimaginable.

Yet the Zhou Son of Heaven remained distraught. "How can the Queen receive an outside man? By what right does an outside man get to see Our Queen?"

"…"

Hou Chuang was rendered speechless.

He knew the Zhou Son of Heaven was the Queen's devoted dog, but you are, after all, the exalted Son of Heaven—to grovel over your own harem to such a degree, was that not laying it on a bit thick?

"No!"

The Zhou Son of Heaven suddenly made up his mind and hurried out the door in pursuit.

Hou Chuang's face darkened. They had finally defused the situation, and you're actually chasing after him?

He could not help wavering inwardly. Was it truly a wise choice to stake his wager on such a brainless puppet Son of Heaven?

These days everyone was looking for someone to back. To be honest, he had never really expected the Zhou Son of Heaven to stage a counterattack, to overturn the board with one move and become the king of a new age—that was simply unrealistic.

But to achieve his own ends, the Zhou Son of Heaven did not need to win in the end; at the very least, he had to amount to something.

Timid and weak to begin with, and now behaving like a mindless, fawning lapdog—what could a man like that ever amount to?

Hou Chuang smiled bitterly to himself. It seemed he really would have to find a chance to abandon ship.

The Fengyi Hall.

Led by the palace maid Zijuan, Wei Zhao stepped inside.

The instant he entered the hall, a delicate fragrance filled his nostrils, and Wei Zhao felt his whole spirit lift.

This queen he had never met was indeed somewhat interesting.

At his present level, for a mere physical stimulus to produce a fluctuation at the level of his primordial spirit was already an exceedingly difficult feat.

Behind the gauze curtains, a seductive and opulent figure flickered in and out of view. Even as Wei Zhao sized her up, a pair of soul-hooking eyes were sizing him up in turn.

Zijuan reported respectfully: "Your Majesty the Queen, Young Master Lin has been brought."

"Raise the curtains."

Her voice was sweet and syrupy, bewitchingly so. Even Wei Zhao had to admit that with that voice alone, this woman had what it took to enchant all living things.

When the gauze curtains rose and he saw her face clearly, Wei Zhao was slightly taken aback.

To have so utterly bewitched the Zhou Son of Heaven, he had assumed this queen must at least be a peerless beauty of the highest order. Yet now, looking at her, her looks could not be called ugly, but they were merely ordinary—she could not even compare to the palace maid standing before him.

The strange thing was that upon seeing the queen's true face, everyone around him—including the maid named Zijuan—wore expressions of intoxication.

And these were all women.

Could the queen's beauty really have such devastating effect on other women?

Recalling the Zhou Son of Heaven's behavior moments ago, he had clearly been bewitched out of his wits as well.

She slew men and women alike.

Wei Zhao could not help studying her features anew, yet the more he looked, the more ordinary they seemed; he simply could not discern what charm she possessed.

Could there be something wrong with my aesthetic sense?

Wei Zhao could not resist running through Gu Mengyao and the other women in his mind. That could not be it—his taste was clearly quite normal.

"So you are Wei Zhao?"

The sweet, cloying voice sounded again; the Queen regarded Wei Zhao with keen interest.

In every frown and every smile she was a thousand graces incarnate, leaving the crowd around her ever more dazzled and bewitched.

Yet Wei Zhao only found it more and more peculiar.

To his eyes, her whole manner stood out as starkly affected—not a trace of beauty in it, but rather something repellent.

Such a violent discrepancy was genuinely suspicious.

"I am."

As Wei Zhao answered, a sudden thought stirred in his mind; he withdrew the World Will and reexamined her with his own eyes and his divine sense.

Sure enough, the effect was entirely different this time.

The Queen, who a moment ago had been merely plain, was in an instant transformed into a woman of matchless loveliness and peerless elegance.

Judged from this vantage, she was beyond all question the most beautiful woman Wei Zhao had ever seen—not merely among them, but without equal; even Gu Mengyao and the other women, set beside her, showed a gap visible to the naked eye, the two not on the same level at all.

Seeing the infatuation surface in Wei Zhao's gaze, the Queen let a trace of triumph show in her eyes and smiled a radiant smile.

At that smile, everyone in the hall again stared fixedly, eyes gone blank.

One smile to topple a city, a second to topple a nation.

The ancients truly did not deceive me.

Yet though Wei Zhao's face looked as besotted as the rest, his heart was clear as a mirror.

The same Queen, viewed with the World Will and viewed without it, was simply two different people.

To sum it up in a single phrase:

Too much beauty filter.

Under ordinary sight, what the crowd saw was not the Queen's true appearance at all, but a false image beneath layer upon layer of beautifying filters.

Only through a cheat-like perspective such as the World Will could her real appearance be seen clearly—in essence, she was merely a woman of plain looks, as ordinary as ordinary could be.

Watching her affected posturing, Wei Zhao felt only a sense of absurdity.

He had thought that "photo fraud" happened only in the secular world; he had never imagined it existed here in the Inner Royal Court as well—and their methods were far more sophisticated than phone beauty filters. An ordinary person could not detect the slightest flaw.

The Queen's eyes were silken with charm as she smiled sweetly and asked, "Am I beautiful?"

"…"

Wei Zhao felt an urge to throw up his last night's meal, but fortunately suppressed it in time—after all, it would have been rather impolite.

Still, asking him to play along with the other party's act was truly a tall order.