The Demon Lords

"Please, Father, make your will clear."

"One who is king must possess a will that does not break though bent a hundred times, must possess the bearing of standing alone even when heaven and earth collapse together.

Because your ministers, your brothers, your subjects are all watching you. You cannot be cowardly; you are not even qualified to be cowardly.

To put it another way,

ministers may bow, commoners may bow,

but one who is king,

to whom should he lower his head?

This is the dragon throne. Once you sit on it, you are a solitary tyrant. Other than dying of old age on this chair, any other way of stepping down from it is a dead end!

My Crown Prince,

Yan’s heir apparent,

how could he be so fragile,

how dare he be so craven!"

Lord Zheng felt in his heart that His Majesty truly was inhuman; this kind of child-rearing, like breeding Undead Insects, was really a form of torment to a child.

Yet in this world, no one dares teach His Majesty a parenting manual.

"Are you all dead? Put your Second Prince’s hat back on his head."

The Yan Emperor flared in anger.

From the wording, the Yan Emperor meant for one of the princes to help the Crown Prince put it on, so Wei Zhonghe did not step forward.

And naturally that meant the two immortals-by-the-side duo had nothing to do with it either.

However,

the Fourth Prince continued kneeling with his forehead to the ground, unmoving.

The Fifth Prince continued kneeling with his forehead to the ground, unmoving.

Ji Chengsu obediently stood up; his mother-consort often told him he must listen to his father, whatever Father ordered, he must do.

So he ran to the front and picked up the hat lying beside the Crown Prince.

Just as he was about to put it on his Crown Prince brother,

he even deliberately turned his head to look toward his father,

hoping to see approval in his father’s eyes.

The elder brothers were disobedient—see, I, Chengsu, am good, aren’t I?

Yet,

in his father’s eyes he saw only a deep, simmering rage.

Ji Chengsu suddenly felt his breath catch; at once he dropped the hat and sank back to his knees.

As a son of the Royal Family, even at a very young age, one possesses a kind of innate instinct.

Now Ji Chengsu understood why the other brothers remained kneeling without moving.

The atmosphere

suddenly grew awkward.

At last,

Ji Chengjue rose to his feet.

He did not know if this was the Crown Prince’s outburst of self-abandonment, or a tactic of retreating to advance;

in any case,

Ji Chengjue was very flustered right now.

Yes,

he was very useful at present;

on ordinary days he could even use his usefulness to bargain a little with his father—those tacit trades both father and son understood.

But his father was his father after all; he was keenly aware of just how proud a man his father was at heart.

His father would not bow to anyone.

Once it touched upon matters of great principle, he absolutely could not rely on the fact that he was still of use to go and prod at the dignity that belongs to an emperor.

This is a solitary tyrant.

After having a son,

Ji Chengjue felt that his fear of death had grown much stronger.

Being afraid to die

is nothing shameful;

just look at that fellow surnamed Zheng sitting beside him,

who has always put his fear of death openly on his lips as something perfectly legitimate.

When he entered the capital he even brought the Sword Saint along with him and took him all the way to the palace gate; if Wei Zhonghe had not intercepted the Sword Saint and made other arrangements, he might even have brought the Sword Saint into Chunfang Hall!

The other brothers did not move,

because they clearly understood

whom their father wanted to help the Crown Prince put that hat back on.

The Crown Prince had taken off his own hat—equivalent to moving the seat of the East Palace aside.

Whosoever was most likely to enter the East Palace would be the one to pick it up.

Picking it up was not to put it on his own head, but to put it back on the Crown Prince.

This was a plain and open way of telling you,

the Crown Prince

is appointed by him, the Yan Emperor.

Without his permission,

if you wish not to be Crown Prince—it’s impossible!

If you wish to be Crown Prince—it’s equally impossible!

Ji Chengjue walked to the Crown Prince’s side and knelt.

He picked up the hat that had fallen to the floor,

reached out,

brushed the dust off its surface,

then, very solemnly,

placed this hat upon the Crown Prince’s head.

Their eyes met,

and in the Crown Prince’s gaze there was no joy, no sense of triumph—only calm.

Ji Chengjue realized that ever since the Empress’s passing, every time he saw the Crown Prince, he seemed to wear this same expression.

Ji Chengjue felt no pity.

All of them were fish in the same pond, each biting at the hook their father had deliberately cast down; who had any right to pity whom?

In the end,

Ji Chengjue turned toward the Yan Emperor

and bowed down.

Lord Zheng watched these scenes unfold before his eyes—this was the Royal Family’s most primitive ecology. To use a phrase from postmodernism to describe it, the desire for power had already warped the kinship ethics of this entire family.

If he could,

Lord Zheng truly wished he could pull out a drawing board and oils right then, to make a painting.

To paint the Yan Emperor’s expression, the Crown Prince’s expression, Ji Chengjue’s expression, and then the expressions of the other princes below;

of course,

he and the Prime Minister, seated in attendance, would have to be painted in as well; the two of them, as outsiders, could provide those who later viewed the painting with a second perspective.

For example,

look at these two who sit with them—pay attention to their gaze and their expressions; from this, what can you perceive?

In Europe, there is in fact a somewhat similar painting.

But Lord Zheng felt that painting was too simple and too blunt—so blunt it could only provoke a knowing chuckle, and that fell into the lower tier.

Lord Zheng let out a slight breath,

again glanced toward the "fellow Daoist" beside him,

and noticed Zhao Jiulang was making the same motion.

At the same time,

Zhao Jiulang’s eyes also flicked over toward him.

Honestly,

Lord Zheng could not taste any particular meaning from Zhao Jiulang’s eyes;

likewise, Lord Zheng believed Zhao Jiulang had not caught any meaning from his own gaze either,

because he simply had no meaning.

At this moment,

the Yan Emperor spoke:

"Draft the edict."

Wei Zhonghe immediately prepared brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, then personally carried them to Zhao Jiulang’s desk, cleared away the wine and dishes on it, and spread out the imperial edict and the writing tools on top.