The Valued Lady is Truly Dominant

Emperor Chu glanced at the lifeless man on the ground; with a flick of his hand, Guard Eunuchs came in to deal with the body.

Xia Houzhe grew anxious and, who knows what suddenly came to mind, snapped his mouth shut.

At this point, what could he still do for him? He himself was nothing but a prisoner under the stairs. He could only watch as Mr. Ning’s corpse was wrapped up in a reed mat and disappeared from his sight, and inside he felt an inexplicable sense of desolation and loss.

”I’ll say it again: if you want to live, you have to put something of value on the table to trade for it.”

Xia Houzhe stood up and said, ”I’ve already told you all the strongholds I know. Whether you can catch anyone is your business. But from the looks of it, you haven’t, have you.”

Even at the end he had to stab in a line or two to vent his spleen.

”From the fall of the Xia Dynasty until now, at least thirty years have passed. You could say that from the moment the country was destroyed and your father was put under house arrest, they started going to ground. At the latest, after the death of the Xia Crown Prince, it’s been more than twenty years. All these years, if you wanted to lie low and recuperate, build up your forces, there’s no way you could rely only on hiding and farming.”

Song Zhiyuan said coolly, ”So there must be money-making enterprises supporting you. Otherwise, what would you use to train troops and men? I’ve heard you even collude with the Green Forest.”

Without Silver, why would Green Forest Heroes go risk their necks doing these treasonous things.

Xia Houzhe’s gaze flickered.

Emperor Chu arched a brow. ”Or perhaps, back when the Xia Crown Prince was cultivating his own power, he already stashed away an enormous fortune?”

The Xia Country bureaucracy was rotten to the core. Once a Crown Prince was established and the Emperor Xia was muddle-headed and greedy for pleasure, you think the Crown Prince would have no ideas of his own?

Could it be that the Xia Crown Prince secretly expanded his own faction and hid away a vast hoard, in hopes of forcing a palace coup?

It was just a pity the Xia Crown Prince had no luck; Emperor Chu’s father beat him to it and rose in rebellion first—and succeeded.

This is the paranoia of an emperor.

As emperor, you guard against ministers, against the empress’s kin, and also against your own sons. Once they come of age, you guard against the Crown Prince most of all.

Just like himself back then; didn’t the late Emperor guard against him too.

Xia Houzhe snorted with laughter. ”Your Majesty must be so crazed for money you’re hallucinating treasure now. If there really were a hoard, you think I wouldn’t have risen up already?”

”It’s not that you didn’t want to rise; it’s that Mr. Ning kept you under his thumb. Didn’t you just say so yourself?”

Xia Houzhe’s face went green.

”You’d better think clearly. If you want your life, you need information that’s worth something.” Emperor Chu slanted him a look.

Xia Houzhe said, ”Now you’re asking the wrong person. I truly don’t know of any treasure.”

Song Zhiyuan, seeing him like this, chuckled. ”Après moi, le déluge, is that it? What you mean is, you don’t care whether you live or die. You’re content to let those people who abandoned you—the legitimate heir—sit on what should rightfully be yours, hiding in the dark, eating your flesh, drinking your blood, while laughing and cursing you as a good-for-nothing. And they’ll use that wealth to fatten their own clans and build up their power.”

”Given time, once their wings are full, their fighting strength honed and their coffers heavy, they’ll be itching to raise a banner and revolt. Who knows, they might even manage to snatch themselves an emperor’s throne. After all, as the old saying goes, the wheel of fortune turns; today it stops at my house—who’s to say they won’t become the new Emperor someday. ’Après moi, le déluge’ indeed. I really did underestimate you; you’re quite the open-minded, magnanimous fellow.”

Emperor Chu’s eyelids twitched. He flexed his fingers, forcing himself not to strike.

This traitor was utterly unbridled, practically begging to be thrown into the deepest dungeon—while I’m very much alive and standing right here!

Xia Houzhe’s forehead was full of dark lines as he looked at Emperor Chu. Such a blatantly treasonous curse, and you can stomach it?

Confiscate him already.