Three hundred powerful bows and crossbows were drawn taut, their limbs curved like full moons as they creaked ominously.
In the wavering candlelight, the icy arrowheads gleamed with a terrifying, ghostly blue sheen.
The poison coating them was lethal on contact. One tiny scratch was enough to kill—even the immortals themselves could do nothing to save the victim.
The air inside the Hall of Supreme Harmony froze.
The shadow of death hung heavily over every head.
With three hundred poisoned arrows trained on them from above, the suffocating pressure was enough to drive anyone mad.
“Don’t fire! Please, don’t fire!”
The few neutral officials who had been sprawled on the floor, unable to take a side in time, completely broke down.
They stared at the densely packed arrows overhead, terrified that one archer might slip and send an arrow astray, turning them into human pincushions.
Overcome by fear, they cast aside the dignity and backbone expected of officials of the Great Yuan Dynasty.
“General Lin, spare our lives! We’re willing to submit! Please, General, don’t accidentally shoot us!”
Several officials crawled out from beneath the tables, sobbing so hard their noses ran.
Some were too weak in the knees to stand and simply crawled forward on all fours like dogs.
“General Lin, this humble official still has an eighty-year-old mother at home! Please, show mercy!”
“If you’ll only say the word, all the gold, silver, farmland, and property in my household will be given to the army as military provisions!”
The Hall of Supreme Harmony rang with the officials’ shrill cries and pleas for mercy.
Their disgraceful spectacle was even noisier and more revolting than a pack of street thugs throwing tantrums.
Lin Zhenxiong looked at these men who had once held themselves above all others, constantly mouthing lofty principles of benevolence and righteousness.
Yet now they were no better than stray dogs wagging their tails for mercy, trembling at his feet.
The arrogance and triumph surging through Lin Zhenxiong’s heart reached an unprecedented peak.
“Hahahahaha!”
Lin Zhenxiong threw back his head and roared with imperious laughter. The sound shook the dust loose from the rafters, sending it fluttering down throughout the great hall.
He suddenly raised one foot and kicked over the heavy redwood dining table before him.
With a resounding crash, the table toppled down the jade steps, sending delicacies and fine dishes smashing across the floor.
Juices splattered everywhere, leaving the hall in utter disarray.
It was like the crumbling realm of the Great Yuan imperial family.
Lin Zhenxiong stepped through the wreckage, his bloodstained sword in hand, advancing toward the raised dais one step at a time.
He pointed the tip of his sword straight at Su Zhen, seated upon the Dragon Throne. The muscles of his face twisted with excitement.
“Su Zhen! Look at your Great Yuan court. Is there anyone left who’s willing to die for you?”
“Since ascending the throne, you’ve been tyrannical and bloodthirsty, slaughtering innocents at will and treating human lives as worthless as blades of grass!”
“You’ve shown no respect for your ancestors or the rites of propriety. You do whatever you please, leaving the court filled with resentment and the people unable to survive!”
“You appoint treacherous sycophants and drive out loyal ministers. How many pillars of the nation have died beneath your butcher’s blade?”
“And now you’ve gone even further, placing your trust in this demoness bastard who appeared out of nowhere!”
He cast a vicious glare at Su Yaoyao, who was sitting nearby and happily eating a chicken leg. His eyes were full of contempt.
“You allowed that Demoness to wreak havoc in the imperial court, turning the grand Hall of Supreme Harmony into a complete mess. What an utter farce!”
With every sentence Lin Zhenxiong spoke, the murderous aura around him intensified, as though he truly were a saint come to save the nation and its people.
In one breath, he listed Su Zhen’s ten great crimes, spittle flying as he expounded upon each one.
It was as if Lin Zhenxiong had not come here today to usurp the throne, but to uphold Heaven’s will and save the common people.
“The Great Abyss Empire must not be ruined in the hands of a wicked emperor like you!”
With a cold sneer, Lin Zhenxiong reached into his robes with his left hand.
From over his chest, he drew out a scroll of yellow silk and snapped it open in midair.
It was, astonishingly, an imperial edict prepared long in advance.
“Su Zhen, your time has come. The hundred thousand troops outside are ready at any moment to raze this palace to the ground!”
“But for the sake of the bond once shared between sovereign and subject, this general will grant you one final measure of dignity.”
Lin Zhenxiong slammed the silk scroll down onto the imperial desk, his eyes cold and venomous as a serpent’s.
“This is an abdication edict. I have already written the words for you.”
“All you need to do is produce the Imperial Jade Seal and stamp it upon this decree.”
“Then find yourself a length of white silk and send yourself off with dignity. Perhaps this general, in his mercy, will even allow your Su family to keep their bodies intact!”
Lin Zhenxiong’s voice echoed through the hall, carrying an overbearing threat.
As he spoke, the arrowheads of the three hundred crossbowmen lowered another fraction.
The taut twang of bowstrings was like a death knell, pounding madly in everyone’s ears.
Below the dais, the turncoat civil officials who had already submitted erupted into fervent agreement.
The Minister of Revenue in particular, having been the first to defect, was eager to put on a good show before his new master.
Like a clown capering on stage, he sprang up from the floor.
“Su Zhen, you traitor! Do you still refuse to recognize the situation?”
The Minister of Revenue pointed at the emperor on the dragon throne and cursed loudly, having completely forgotten how he had once fawned and groveled before him.
“The Great General is kind enough to leave you a whole corpse. That is a blessing you must have cultivated over eight lifetimes!”
“A wicked emperor like you deserves to be sliced into a thousand pieces and cursed for all eternity!”
After finishing his tirade, the Minister of Revenue immediately turned toward Lin Zhenxiong, his face shifting into a smile so ingratiating it reached his very bones.
His knees buckled, and he fell heavily to the floor in a deep kowtow, his voice ringing through the hall.
“Great General, you have answered Heaven’s will and rescued the people from fire and flood. You are the true Dragon Emperor!”
“This humble servant begs the Great General to ascend the throne at once, and thereby set the hearts of all officials and subjects at ease!”
With the Minister of Revenue taking the lead, how could the other fence-sitting officials dare to hesitate?
This was the perfect opportunity to prove their loyalty!
If they were even a step too late, they would surely pay for it when the reckoning came!
“Long live the Great General! Long live Emperor Lin! Ten thousand years, ten thousand years, ten thousand times ten thousand years!”
A great many officials scrambled forward on hands and knees, terrified of being left behind.
They knelt in a dense mass at Lin Zhenxiong’s feet, like a pack of mangy dogs wagging their tails for favor.
Throughout the Hall of Supreme Harmony, cries of “Long live!” rose and fell in waves, deafening in their force.
Their faces were alight with fanaticism and flattery, as though they could already see the glorious future in which they would be promoted and richly rewarded under the new dynasty.
They did not care in the least about the dignity they had sold, nor did they care that three hundred deadly poisoned arrows hung over their heads.
As long as they could stay alive, as long as they could preserve their wealth and glory, they would have no qualms about acknowledging a thief as their father!
Lin Zhenxiong stood in the center of the grand hall, his eyes closed as he accepted the kneeling homage of the entire court.
He felt as though he had reached the pinnacle of power, with the fate of the realm firmly in his grasp.
The thrill of holding the power of life and death, of having tens of thousands bow before him, made every pore on his body tremble with pleasure.
He had done it!
He had truly done it!
An army of one hundred thousand had surrounded the city. Three hundred elite assassins had sealed off the hall. The court officials had submitted. The tide had turned beyond all doubt!
Lin Zhenxiong drew a deep breath, forcibly suppressing some of the wild joy surging in his chest.
Slowly and arrogantly, he turned his head and looked toward the dragon throne atop the raised platform.
In Lin Zhenxiong's imagination, faced with such an inescapable predicament, Su Zhen must have broken down by now!
He expected to see the Tyrant pale with terror, trembling from head to toe.
He expected to see the Tyrant kneeling on the ground like a beaten dog, desperately begging him for mercy.
He had prepared several choice insults, intending to savor the Tyrant's pathetic state in the moments before his death.
Yet when Lin Zhenxiong's gaze truly fell upon Su Zhen's face—
the smug triumph on his own face suddenly froze.
The terror he had expected did not appear. Nor did the anticipated groveling and pleas for mercy.
Seated upon the pure-steel dragon throne, Su Zhen showed not the slightest trace of panic.
There was not even anger or despair on his face.
The Tyrant's features were as calm as a pool of stagnant water.
And in his eyes was a strange glint, as though he were looking at a fool.
What left Lin Zhenxiong even more baffled was this:
Su Zhen did not so much as glance at the forged abdication edict on the table, nor did he pay any attention to the archers above.
Amid the uproar of the entire court crying out their allegiance, and Lin Zhenxiong's brazen coup—
Su Zhen merely reached into the wide sleeve of his dragon robe and took out two white objects.
Two unusually thick wads of absorbent cotton, kneaded into round, plump balls.
Su Zhen remained composed, his movements unhurried.
He pinched and adjusted their shape.
Then, before Lin Zhenxiong and the entire court of traitors,
he calmly pressed the two wads of cotton snugly into his ears.
