Chapter 11665 — Even We Know It's Bound to Be So
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
"We are not skilled with words; this is all We can say. Which way to go, and the fate of the Inner Royal Court hereafter, rests on your choice."
With that, he knocked his head to the ground once more.
The whole hall was struck dumb.
Never mind the ordinary folk who knew nothing of the truth; even among the assembled civil and military officials, any of the lesser ranks would have been taken in by him.
The assembled magnates exchanged glances.
It seemed the Zhou Son of Heaven had not been idle all these years; he had practiced his acting no small amount.
Otherwise, however much scheming he poured into it, to speak with such feeling and pathos before a crowd was no easy feat.
At this very moment, the sky above the Son of Heaven's palace had already congealed into a thick bank of piled clouds; what was more, from every direction still more and thicker layers were swiftly gathering.
All of it was public sentiment made substance.
It was no exaggeration to say that this was public sentiment towering to the heavens.
The magnates of every faction wore the look of spectators at a play.
Even they, mere onlookers, felt no small pressure from such public sentiment, let alone Wei Zhao, the man at the very center of it.
"Hijacking public sentiment — the Son of Heaven's methods are base enough, and yet, say what you will, they are quite effective."
Qin Siren shook his head with a smile.
Wei Zhao's star was blazing too fiercely of late; even his own Prince of Qin's Estate had been pressed down a peg by it. They might scorn the Zhou Son of Heaven's petty tricks, but to see Wei Zhao take a fall was still a sight they were glad to witness.
What Wei Zhao needed now was for someone to knock him down a notch.
Otherwise, if his momentum were allowed to keep surging unchecked, the situation would truly spiral beyond all control.
The Prince of Qin, however, said, "The Zhou Son of Heaven has set a bad precedent. He cannot be allowed to remain."
Everyone in the Prince of Qin's Estate felt a chill at heart.
Before this, though they had never much held the Zhou Son of Heaven in their eyes, the thought of taking him down had never once crossed their minds.
After all, even a puppet Son of Heaven had his uses.
But with these words from the Prince of Qin, even if the Zhou Son of Heaven succeeded today, his death was certain hereafter.
No one could save him now.
The Zhou Son of Heaven himself was utterly oblivious to this; feeling the surging public sentiment he had marshaled above his head, he was secretly gloating.
He had already won.
The reason an open conspiracy is an open conspiracy is that it admits no solution.
Whatever choice Wei Zhao made next would be wrong: either he set himself wholly against the public sentiment of the entire Inner Royal Court and became its enemy, or he took on the karma and obediently became the stepping stone for the Son of Heaven's whitewashing.
What he truly gloated over was that this move had not only trapped Wei Zhao as he wished, but, more importantly, had borrowed the momentum of that great figure behind the Queen.
Invisibly, he had as good as dragged that great figure aboard his warship.
In truth, without that great figure's tacit consent and the behind-the-scenes prodding, the Zhou Son of Heaven could never have conjured such a tremendous display by his own strength alone.
Rather than saying he was trapping Wei Zhao this time, it would be truer to say that the great figure behind the Queen was using his hand to trap Wei Zhao.
And it was precisely for this reason that he was so utterly fearless.
The Zhou Son of Heaven was utterly certain that Wei Zhao would choose to submit this time, for no one could withstand such towering public sentiment.
No one at all!
Above the clouds, a pair of deep-set eyes watched every flicker of Wei Zhao's reaction.
Had Wei Zhao seen them, he would surely have recognized them: the eyes of Yi Liuchao, a powerhouse of quasi-god rank.