“All these years, how much effort have I put into cooperating with you?
I’ve helped craft your image as a war god who passes by his home three times without entering, wholly devoted to the nation.
And you, out there, have styled yourself as someone with strict self-discipline regarding women, telling everyone you meet that ‘if a man cannot control his desires for women, he will never achieve anything great.’ Now that the paper can no longer contain the fire, and your first image is on the verge of collapse, you’re worried that I, as a witness, might shatter your second golden body?”
The Duchess parted her vermilion lips, but the words that came out were laced with venom.
That bitch!
A flicker of ferocity passed through Dai Hao’s eyes.
If it weren’t for the fact that the Zhu family’s ancestor, Zhu Zhuqing, was just as much a deity as the Dai family’s ancestor, Dai Mubai, making direct conflict between the two families inadvisable, he would have long since disposed of his nominal wife.
This Marshal Dai Hao, who commanded the sixty-thousand-strong Western Army Group of the Star Luo Empire, wielded the power of a million men from the outside: aside from the three hundred thousand combat personnel and three hundred thousand logistics troops in the Western Army Group, Dai Hao also had a force of four hundred thousand men dedicated to public opinion control, intelligence gathering, and cultural performances.
After all, back when the Sun Moon Empire had come, the Dai family had lost the throne due to the incompetence of that generation’s White Tiger Douluo.
But as divine descendants, they still held the power of a state within a state within the Star Luo Empire.
By Dai Hao’s generation, the Dai family no longer bothered sending their heirs Dai Yueheng and Dai Huabin to the Star Luo Royal Academy as surface-level “hostages.” Instead, they sent them directly to Shrek Academy.
After all, the Star Crown martial soul family, the Xu clan, was nothing more than remnants of the Spirit Hall that had scrambled onto the table like rats during the Dai family’s decline when the Sun Moon Empire came.
How much face did the Dai family owe them?
In the Dai family’s plan, the Xu clan was now suffering “retribution,” much like the Dai family had when the Sun Moon Empire arrived—their population was sparse, with only one capable fighter among the younger generation: Princess Xu Jiujiu.
In the future, when war broke out between the Star Luo Empire and the Sun Moon Empire, the Dai family would only need to rely on the power of Shrek Academy to stage a performance of “saving the nation from peril” in Star Luo and reclaim the throne.
Of course, the current imperial Xu family of the Star Luo Empire was no fool either.
They would seize any opportunity to centralize power, using such confrontational methods to delay the arrival of the moment the Dai family had planned.
“So you want to watch your husband die and become a widow?” Seeing that his wife seemed intent on laying all her cards on the table, Dai Hao said coldly.
“It seems you want Yueheng and Huabin to become orphans!”
The Dai family knew very well that the only force in the Star Luo Empire capable of bringing down the Dai family was the Zhu family, who were also divine descendants.
Now that he, Dai Hao, had disgraced the nation through military defeat, if the Zhu family were willing to cooperate with the imperial house and seize this opportunity to attack the Dai family, the Dai family would be finished.
Just days earlier, the Star Luo Emperor Xu Jiawei had extended an olive branch to the Zhu family by adopting his own wife as a goddaughter.
So Dai Hao, retreating in order to advance, brought up the fact that Dai Yueheng and Dai Huabin could not be left fatherless.
The Duchess said calmly, “So you do remember Yueheng and Huabin.
I thought you, you beast, had forgotten they were your Dai family’s heirs amidst all those pleasure houses—Zui Meng Lou, Huan Xi Lou, and all those dens of delight.”
Hearing his wife’s words finally soften, Dai Hao narrowed his eyes slightly and said, “Then let’s talk.
What do you want me to do to get your cooperation?
What I can promise you here is that I will not mistreat Yueheng and Huabin.
After all, they are my heirs…”
“Very simple—that woman, and the bastard she bore, Dai Luoli, cannot be allowed to live.” Seeing Dai Hao’s eager demeanor, the Duchess named her price.
“You’re worried about the Zhu family drawing closer to the Xu family, aren’t you?
So why do you think we aren’t worried that the Dai family might one day turn its back on us?
Therefore, you must offer that lowly woman, that distant relative of the Xu clan, as a gift to prove your sincerity.”
“Deal…” Dai Hao hesitated for only a moment before agreeing to the Duchess’s demand.
At this moment, outside the window, Huo Yuhao and Huo Yun’er’s soul, their auras concealed, quietly listened to the conversation between the two inside.
“Do you see now, Mother?
This is the man you loved!
If you wish to reunite with him, I can take you in right now.
I have no objections.” Huo Yuhao said this as he made a move as if to push the door open.
Huo Yuhao’s words left Huo Yun’er dazed.
If she were not currently in a soul state, tears would have already streamed down her face.
Instinctively, Huo Yun’er grasped Huo Yuhao’s hand.
From his mother’s reaction, Huo Yuhao could see that the fantasy she had always harbored about Dai Hao had been shattered.
Once a maidservant serving Dai Hao in the White Tiger Duke’s mansion, Huo Yun’er had understood Dai Hao as a great hero resisting the foreign armies of the Sun Moon Empire, a pillar of the nation.
On the day Dai Hao, drunk, had raped her, her first reaction had been to commit suicide to preserve Dai Hao’s reputation.
After Dai Hao stopped her and said something about “life alone must not be betrayed,” Huo Yun’er had been moved beyond measure.
Thus, “feelings” developed between them—or so Huo Yun’er believed.
And so Huo Yuhao came into being.
It wasn’t until the night before Dai Hao departed for the front lines, when he gave her that White Tiger Dagger, that she understood what it meant: Dai Hao still wanted her to die, and as for her little Yuhao, Dai Hao would raise him.
She believed him again!
If not for the Duchess’s sudden attack the following day—the very day she had decided to end her life—which made her realize things had changed, she would have already taken her own life and never even made it to the day she fell ill in that wood shed.
Until that cold winter day, in that dark wood shed, when she drew her last breath, what she had been waiting for was Dai Hao’s promise: that after the war, he would take her child, little Yuhao, to “enjoy a good life.”
Feeling his mother’s soul grasp his hand, Huo Yuhao turned to look at her and said, “Mother, what’s wrong?
Don’t you want to go see your great hero?”
Huo Yun’er’s soul, almost sobbing, murmured, “Little Yuhao, let’s go!
This is not our home.”
After the mother and son left the Duke’s mansion, a look of relief appeared on Huo Yuhao’s face.
But he still held back the urge to weep.
Because in his previous life, on that day in that dim, freezing wood shed, his mother’s last words to him had been: “Little Yuhao, don’t cry.
You are a man—men don’t shed tears easily!
Be strong!
Live strong!”
In his previous life, Huo Yuhao could only hold his mother, feeling her body grow progressively colder.
And then, after walking the path of a soul master to its very end, he had seen his mother’s soul retrieved by Tang San from the underworld to the divine realm, where it became one of the key tools used to domesticate him from Huo Yuhao into Dai Yuhao.
Finally, finally—in this life, all of that had been changed by him.
The struggles and helplessness beneath all that hypocrisy had been dissolved as he had brought his mother to witness, with her own eyes, the truth of the Duke’s mansion.
After leaving the Duke’s mansion, Huo Yuhao cast a meaningful glance in the direction of Shrek Academy.
“This is only the beginning.
Dai Hao is merely the smallest idol to be shattered.
Just you wait, O pure and innocent Divine King Tang—you and all your greater idols will crumble one by one.”