“Now then…
tell me who’s behind all this.”
The sky had been stained an ominous crimson.
Buildings lay in ruins, their shattered remains scattered across the devastated landscape.
Amid the destruction stood Hongyu.
With one hand, he held a man who appeared to be the leader of the attackers by the throat.
His grip was carefully controlled—tight enough to cause considerable pain, but not so tight that the man couldn’t speak.
“You…
can’t kill me…”
The man struggled desperately in Hongyu’s grasp.
“Do you have any idea who my father—”
CRACK!
Before he could finish his threat, Hongyu broke his neck.
“Your father?”
Hongyu shook the blood from his hand and frowned.
“If your father doesn’t know his place, I’ll kill him too.”
‘Why the hell are you shouting so loudly?’
‘Who gave you the confidence to raise your voice at me?’
‘I don’t care how powerful your father is.
Is he supposed to be more important than the Grand Tutor, the Grand Warden, the Grand Chancellor, or the Grand Commandant?’
Hongyu gave the body on the ground a contemptuous look.
“Jie, I’ll take you home first.
Leave the rest of this to me.”
His voice carried an unmistakably hostile edge.
“Starting today, at least for as long as the current Emperor remains on the throne, none of you will ever have to experience anything like this again…”
‘Those bastards really did prepare an impressive ambush…’
Nearly every supposed civilian in the area had actually been a soldier in disguise.
The attackers had even known that Jie would be most vulnerable while exercising her divine authority.
By striking at that precise moment, they could have killed her while suffering only around half the casualties they would otherwise have sustained.
Until recently, Hongyu had assumed the ambush might at most leave Jie injured.
He hadn’t expected the conspirators to be completely serious about killing her.
They had even deployed a considerable number of Originium Arts-triggered explosives, weapons that were exceedingly rare in this era.
If he hadn’t taken the ambush and betrayal seriously, there was a very real possibility that Jie would have died on the spot.
And if that had happened…
What would become of the rest of the Sui family once they found out?
Hongyu couldn’t say how the others would react.
But Wang would probably be the first to become completely consumed by an obsession with avenging his family.
The more Hongyu considered these possibilities, the stronger that faint spark of anger within him became.
His brows remained tightly furrowed.
“Sir…”
Jie had never witnessed such an intense emotional reaction from Hongyu before.
She seemed to want to say something.
But in the end, she swallowed her words.
“When you get home, tell Wang that he should spend more time familiarizing himself with the Sui Regulator.”
Hongyu had naturally noticed Jie’s hesitation.
However, in the next instant, his expression returned to its usual smiling appearance.
Jie nodded.
She knew that the Sir she was familiar with would never change.
Although, admittedly, the sight of a bloodstained man smiling at you in the middle of such a scene was a little too…
picturesque.
…
…
…
That day, all of Great Yan was shaken.
The reason was simple.
Within the imperial capital, hundreds of people were sentenced to death.
They were brought to public execution grounds, where some were beheaded and others hanged.
Every single one of them was an official who had participated in the conspiracy to murder Jie.
Hongyu watched the proceedings with cold indifference.
He had placed a powerful mental command upon the current Emperor of Great Yan:
‘You shall never take any action that harms the Sui family.’
Hongyu had decided to give Great Yan another chance.
Rather than killing the Emperor outright, he had chosen to control his mind.
After all, Shuo was still traveling throughout Great Yan.
If he suddenly heard rumors that the Grand Warden had murdered the Emperor, he’d probably start worrying about the family again.
Hongyu didn’t want that.
Very few people knew what Hongyu had actually done.
As far as the public was concerned, a group of reckless fools had attempted to ambush Jie, only to be almost completely wiped out by the Grand Warden.
A small number of survivors had then been handed over to Great Yan’s authorities for judgment.
The people had merely witnessed their furious Emperor sentencing those remaining conspirators to death.
They had watched the very ministers who had previously opposed him meet their ends.
Almost overnight, Hongyu’s reputation reached unprecedented heights.
‘See that?!’
‘Those fools who failed to recognize Lord Grand Warden’s greatness and dared to plot against his family all suffered terrible consequences!’
‘Even His Majesty the Emperor places such extraordinary trust in Lord Grand Warden!’
‘Those idiots were truly blind!’
When Hongyu heard about the public’s reaction, he merely spread his hands and smiled.
What those people didn’t realize was that, if Hongyu genuinely wanted to, he could force the Emperor of Great Yan to abdicate and take the throne himself without the slightest difficulty.
What?
The Grand Tutor and the other powerful officials wouldn’t agree?
Come on.
Even a True Lung could be hypnotized with a single glance.
At most, those other officials might require Hongyu to look at them twice.
Fortunately, Hongyu had absolutely no interest in becoming Emperor.
As a result, the imperial court of Great Yan had narrowly escaped a rather unpleasant fate.
Nevertheless, the incident had caused such an enormous disturbance that a considerable amount of information inevitably leaked into the civilian population.
Rumors quickly began spreading throughout the country.
Even Shuo, who was traveling somewhere far away, found time to send a letter expressing his concern.
Hongyu responded by teleporting directly to Shuo’s side.
He told him to continue enjoying his journey and stop worrying about the family every single day.
After all, Hongyu wasn’t so old that he could no longer walk or speak.
Then he promptly disappeared again.
Shuo, who had been thoroughly startled by Hongyu’s sudden appearance and equally sudden departure, stood there in a daze.
After a while, he nodded numbly.
Then he pinched his own arm to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
He immediately decided that he should go to bed a little earlier that night.
Of course, wherever there were rumors favorable to Hongyu, there were bound to be malicious ones as well.
Some claimed that the Grand Warden was a bloodthirsty murderer.
Others insisted he would eventually become the next person to overthrow the imperial family.
There were even more outrageous rumors suggesting that the Grand Warden was actually Sui itself, while the other fragments were merely illusions created to conceal its true identity. Visit novelping dot com for the full chapter.
Hongyu couldn’t have cared less.
If he wanted to put an end to those rumors, all he’d have to do was glance at the people spreading them.
However, Wang was a different matter.
Having spent the past few days handling paperwork at the Sui Regulator on Hongyu’s behalf, he had been exposed to considerably more information than usual.
And the rumors had made him absolutely furious.
Despite his normally excellent upbringing and refined manners, Wang stormed straight into the imperial capital.
There, he unleashed an uninterrupted verbal assault upon the officials responsible for spreading the rumors.
Their parents, grandparents, distant relatives, and practically every branch of their family trees were subjected to a comprehensive, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree bombardment of insults.
If not for Wang’s extraordinary loss of composure that day, Hongyu might never have discovered just how devastating his second eldest could be with words alone.
Naturally, Hongyu was concerned about Wang.
So he paid another visit to the imperial palace.
The following day, the Emperor issued orders to confiscate the homes and property of the officials responsible for spreading the rumors.
After that incident, the atmosphere within the imperial court became considerably more pleasant than it had ever been before.
“Big Brother, I don’t think Sir ever told you everything that happened at the imperial palace back then, did he?”
Wang had come to Yumen Pass.
Even during his visit, he continued working through the documents in his hands.
At the moment, the two brothers were alone inside Chongyue’s military tent.
“Back then…?”
Chongyue stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“Are you referring to the period when rumors about Sir and our family were spreading throughout Great Yan?”
“No, Sir told me about those matters long ago.”
“He told me about the mental command he placed upon the Emperor of that era.”
“And about how he ordered the confiscation of several ministers’ estates out of concern for your safety…”
“Although I don’t entirely agree with how readily Sir resorted to lethal force, I can understand why he did it.”
“I don’t blame him.”
“If I were looking at the situation purely from the perspective of protecting my family, I might have been even more ruthless.”
“…What did you just say?”
Wang froze.
“Out of concern for my safety?”
Originally, Wang had only intended to visit Chongyue for a casual conversation.
He hadn’t expected to uncover something like this.
“…”
Chongyue paused.
It seemed he had once again said something he probably shouldn’t have.
But since the subject had already been raised, he decided to explain.
“Second Brother, when you stormed into the imperial capital alone and publicly berated those ministers, did it never occur to you that the same kind of assassination attempt made against Jie could also be directed at you?”
“Sir considered that possibility.”
“And because of it, he ordered a thorough investigation into the imperial court at the time…”
Wang hurriedly stopped Chongyue before he could continue.
The two brothers exchanged a few more words, but their conversation soon came to an end.
Wang’s assistant had arrived to summon him back for more overtime.
On the journey home, an unexpected feeling gradually swelled within Wang’s heart.
He had never realized…
‘So all of us have been causing trouble for Sir, one way or another, all this time?’
‘Even me…’
‘Tch.’
‘How could I have been so stupid back then…?’