Chapter 11640 — Hou Chuang's Face Was Also Written All Over With Disbelief, Yet in the End, He Still Gave a Firm Nod
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
Seeing that no one still dared speak, the Prince of Qi issued his order directly.
"Send the invitation. Summon Wei Zhao to our gates. Tell him this Prince intends to apologize to him in person!"
The assembled officials were dumbstruck.
This was no posture for an apology—the Prince of Qi clearly meant to devour the man alive!
Someone could not help but worry: "What if Wei Zhao is unsensible and brings those Ten Sins of his along—is that not a bit risky?"
It was true that his Prince of Qi's manor now had ancestral lords presiding, and the strength of those lords was indeed no trifling matter—but they were, after all, bound by the ancestral shrine, and could not bring their full power to bear.
By contrast, the Ten Sins beneath Wei Zhao's command were, one and all, genuine fiends and demons.
Moreover, when it came to ancestral lords, his Prince of Qi's manor had them—but so did the Prince of Han's manor. At most, the difference was a matter of numbers.
And judging by the Prince of Han's manor's present conduct, they were clearly in the same boat as Wei Zhao!
The Prince of Han's manor had defected so cleanly and briskly—plainly, they knew more than they were letting on.
"Feed troops for a thousand days, use them for a single hour. The manor has lavished so much effort on the Eight Ultimate Guards—it is time to test their mettle."
At these words from the Prince of Qi, every high official present wore a look of shock.
As for the existence of the Eight Ultimate Guards, even with the authority of these core high officials, they had only ever heard whispers—never had they seen them face to face.
They knew only that the Eight Ultimate Guards were controlled personally by each successive Prince of Qi, and were the manor's mightiest trump card, second only to the several ancestral lords!
To deploy the Eight Ultimate Guards—the Prince of Qi was truly preparing to go all in this time.
Even as the crowd's spirits lifted, they could not help but secretly worry.
The Eight Ultimate Guards, as the top-tier trump card cultivated by the Prince of Qi's manor through the generations, needed no worry as to their strength—but in the end, none of them had ever seen these guards. Facing Wei Zhao's Ten Sins in true combat, what the outcome would be, no one could say.
If the Eight Ultimate Guards were to be lost as well, then matters would truly become grave.
This was an outright gamble of the highest stakes.
Yet at this moment, no one dared speak up in counsel.
The Prince of Qi's manor as it stood truly needed a great victory to lift morale—and especially, if that lost face could be reclaimed from Wei Zhao, so much the better.
Otherwise, continuing in this present dispirited state, the manor's chances of weathering the coming Great Upheaval would be exceedingly slim.
The Prince of Qi said darkly: "Since Wei Zhao wishes to climb to power by trampling over our Prince of Qi's manor, he had best be prepared for us to trample back. Fair and square."
The officials exchanged glances, and one after another voiced their assent.
Meanwhile, in the Son of Heaven's palace, the Phoenix Ceremony Hall.
Wei Zhao had departed with Cheng Shuang'er, and the hall fell abruptly silent and cold.
The Queen at last ceased her hysterical wailing and sat slumped on the ground, dazed and silent. As for mirrors—she did not dare look at one again.
Her divine countenance had been her everything.
Once she saw herself again without it, she feared she would not be able to restrain the urge to seek death.
After all, without the divine countenance, she was just an ordinary woman, ordinary beyond all ordinary—those around her could not even muster the interest to glance at her twice. What meaning was there left in living?
The Son of Heaven, for his part, said nothing.