Lin Zhenxiong watched Su Zhen’s movements, his brows drawing tightly together.
What was this supposed to be?
Burying his head in the sand?
With death staring him in the face, did this tyrant really think that covering his ears would keep him from hearing the funeral knell of an army a hundred thousand strong?
How laughable!
A desperate struggle!
“Your Majesty! I was blind, Your Majesty! I failed to see through this traitor’s wicked ambitions sooner!”
Just as the hall was shrouded in oppressive silence, several old and anguished voices suddenly rang out.
Three or four elderly officials, all with snow-white hair and beards, shakily rose from the crowd.
Unlike the Minister of Revenue, who had groveled obsequiously and sprawled on the floor like a dog, they straightened their hunched backs. Raising their withered fingers, they pointed them straight at Lin Zhenxiong’s nose.
“Lin Zhenxiong! You treacherous rebel! You shameless traitor!”
The Grand Tutor was trembling with rage. Even the black gauze cap on his head fell to the ground.
He suddenly coughed twice, then spat a mouthful of blood-flecked saliva at Lin Zhenxiong’s feet.
“The late emperor treated you well, and His Majesty even promoted you and granted you titles!”
“You enjoyed the emperor’s favor, yet committed such an act of treason! Have you no conscience? Did the dogs eat it?”
“You’ve gone so far as to plot rebellion and usurp the throne, acting worse than pigs and dogs! Aren’t you afraid Heaven will punish you?!”
Another elderly censor joined in, cursing furiously, his eyes bloodshot.
“So what if you have an army of a hundred thousand surrounding the city? So what if you have three hundred crossbowmen?”
“In all of Great Yuan, our loyal ministers would rather die on their feet than live on their knees!”
“Even if you kill every one of us today, the history books will record this disgraceful act and ensure your name reeks for ten thousand years!”
“You traitorous bastard! You’ll die a horrible death! When you die, you’ll descend into the Eighteen Levels of Hell and never be reincarnated!”
The furious curses of the old officials echoed violently through the vast Hall of Supreme Harmony.
They formed a stark and jarring contrast with the spineless fence-sitters kneeling on the floor and wagging their tails for mercy.
Yet even after having several old men point at his nose and curse him, Lin Zhenxiong showed not the slightest trace of anger.
He leisurely wiped the flecks of saliva from his shoe with a silk handkerchief.
Then he kicked the expensive brocade cloth aside as if it were garbage.
By now, Lin Zhenxiong’s ego had swollen beyond measure.
With an army of a hundred thousand in his grasp and the imperial palace under his control, he felt like the master of the world—the one true god.
Even the gods were magnanimous enough to forgive mortals. As the man about to ascend the throne, how could he lack a little breadth of spirit?
“Go on, curse me. Curse me as hard as you like. This general will simply take it as the barking of a few dogs.”
Lin Zhenxiong snorted, looking down at the old officials as if they were insignificant ants.
A cold, contemptuous smile curled his lips, as though he were granting them a favor.
“Considering that you old fools are advanced in years, with half your bodies already in the grave…”
He deliberately paused, replacing his usual title with an even more arrogant one.
“This king will not hold it against you!”
This king!
He no longer even called himself the Grand General!
He had crossed the bounds of a subject and proclaimed himself a king!
Those two words—“This king”—sent the elderly officials into such a fit of rage that they suffered sudden attacks and fainted on the spot.
Lin Zhenxiong no longer bothered to spare them another glance. He abruptly turned around.
His gaze, burning with murderous fervor, settled on the imperial family seated upon the high dais.
“Since you, Su Zhen, insist on remaining stubborn and blind, don’t blame This king for being ruthless!”
Lin Zhenxiong raised his right hand and gave a forceful sweep through the air.
The gesture was like the switch that activated the Grim Reaper’s scythe.
High upon the beams surrounding the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the eyes of three hundred black-clad death warriors instantly turned cold.
“Click.”
It was the sound of mechanisms being engaged.
The next moment, three hundred tempered-steel crossbows, already drawn and loaded, released their locked triggers in unison.
“Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!”
A dense barrage of sharp whistles tore through the frozen air of the hall.
The sound was piercing, as if countless vengeful ghosts were shrieking beside their ears.
Three hundred steel-forged arrows descended like a black rainstorm.
Under the swaying firelight, their arrowheads gleamed with a sinister blue radiance.
They had been coated with a deadly poison refined in the southern frontier—one that sealed the victim’s fate upon contact with blood.
The moment it merely grazed flesh, the venom would spread through the entire body. Not even an immortal could save the victim.
The shadow of death, carrying the force of falling timber and shattering mountains, swept toward the throne like a storm.
The officials below ducked and scrambled in terror, clamping their hands over their eyes.
They could already imagine the imperial family being turned into pincushions, their flesh and blood blasted apart.
Yet what happened next took everyone by surprise.
“Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud!”
A series of dense, muffled impacts erupted across the high dais.
Sparks flew in all directions, and splinters of stone scattered through the air.
The scene everyone had imagined—the imperial family dying horribly—never occurred.
Those three hundred icy, poisoned arrows had actually changed their deadly trajectories!
They seemed to have eyes of their own. Every single one of them avoided the people seated on the high dais.
Instead, in a flawless semicircular formation, they all sank deeply into the floor tiles in front of them.
The tightly packed shafts formed a bizarre wall of arrows before Su Yaoyao, Su Zhen, and Su Jin.
The pure-steel arrowheads had sunk a full two inches into the hard white jade tiles.
The black feathers at their tails still trembled violently from the tremendous force, humming in the air.
It sounded like the cold laughter of the Grim Reaper.
The most dangerous arrow was less than half an inch from Su Yaoyao!
The ghostly blue gleam of its poison was reflected in the little girl’s clear eyes.
This was no accident!
There was no way three hundred elite crossbowmen could all miss at precisely the same angle.
This was deliberate on Lin Zhenxiong’s part!
It was nothing less than a death threat laced with cruel amusement!
At that moment, Lin Zhenxiong was unbearably arrogant.
He reveled in the thrill of holding other people’s lives in the palm of his hand.
Like a cat that had caught a mouse, he had no intention of killing it right away. He wanted to toy with it first.
He did not want Su Zhen to die so quickly. Killing the tyrant with a single arrow would be letting him off far too easily.
He wanted to watch the high and mighty emperor of Great Yuan face the threat of death and slowly crumble as despair devoured his defenses.
He wanted the civil and military officials of the court to see that, beneath the vast heavens, Lin Zhenxiong had risen from being second only to one man to becoming the sole master of all.
“Hahahaha! Su Zhen, how does it feel?”
Lin Zhenxiong’s wild laughter shook the entire hall.
“Does it feel as though you just took a stroll through the gates of hell? Has even breathing become a luxury?”
He looked at the throne surrounded by poisoned arrows, his smugness practically spilling from his eyes.
“If This king had truly wanted you dead, you and your entire family would have been reduced to bloody pulp by that last volley!”
“From this moment on, This king alone decides the fate of Great Yuan!”
Lin Zhenxiong was arrogant beyond measure. His overbearing expression made people want to rush forward and slap him across the face.
He suddenly drew the sword at his waist, a blade capable of cleaving gold and cutting through jade.
Its tip passed over the wreckage scattered across the floor and pointed straight at Su Zhen, seated upon the throne.
“Su Zhen, This king will give you one final chance!”
His tone was filled with condescending arrogance.
“If you immediately draw your sword and kill yourself, then obediently hand the throne of Great Yuan over to This king…”
“This general can still show mercy and leave you an intact corpse, allowing you to be buried with dignity in the imperial mausoleum!”
Then Lin Zhenxiong’s blade suddenly swung toward another target.
It carved a cold arc through the air, pointing straight at Su Yaoyao, who was sitting on the little golden throne beside him.
A vicious, merciless light flickered in his eyes, twisting his features with hatred.
Lin Zhenxiong hated this troublesome little brat to the bone. She had ruined his plans time and again.
If that Demoness hadn’t come up with the ridiculous red-carpet ice-skating stunt, his lion-dance troupe would have succeeded long ago!
If it weren’t for her, how could the weapons from Black Wind Stronghold have gone missing?
He vented all his resentment on the eight-year-old girl.
“And as for your daughter, that little Demoness who pretends to be a spirit medium…”
Lin Zhenxiong gritted his teeth, every word squeezing out between them like shards of ice.
“This general will have her skinned and dragged to Meridian Gate to be burned as an offering to the battle standard!”
“I’ll make her suffer the agony of a thousand cuts, screaming in the flames for three days and three nights before she dies!”
Burned as an offering!
At those three words, all the officials kneeling in the great hall shuddered in unison.
It was one of the most brutal and inhumane tortures of ancient times!
The victim would be stripped naked, wrapped in burlap, and soaked overnight in a vat of oil.
The next day, they would be hung upside down from a tall wooden pole, with a flame lit beneath their feet.
A living person would be burned bit by bit into ash, like a candle, enduring unimaginable agony all the while.
Lin Zhenxiong actually intended to inflict such a horrific torture on an eight-year-old girl!
This was no longer something a human being could do. He was a demon wearing human skin!
As that maniacal roar faded, the atmosphere inside the Hall of Supreme Harmony grew oppressively tense.
The air seemed to solidify into heavy lead, pressing down on everyone’s hearts.
The officials held their breath, not daring to make the slightest sound.
In the enormous palace hall, the only noises were the heavy breathing and chattering teeth.
Their lives hung by a thread. It was suffocating!
Everyone believed the outcome had already been decided.
The Great Abyss imperial family was doomed today. There was no way they could escape their fate; they were destined for the most tragic ending imaginable.
They had no idea what kind of interstellar ancestor they had provoked.
At the moment when everything hung in the balance, Su Yaoyao was surrounded by poisoned arrows and threatened with being burned alive.
Yet she didn’t cry—not even a little.
Instead, she shook her head helplessly and let out a soft sigh.
“Ah… The villain always dies because he talks too much. The ancients really knew what they were saying.”
She rose from her chair and brushed the crumbs of pastry from her hands.
Then she turned to Su Jin beside her, her clear, childish voice ringing through the great hall.
“Big Brother Crown Prince, time to get to work!”
