Chapter 62: The Time for a Showdown Has Come!

[Throughout history, few powerful ministers have never harbored ambitions of usurpation. Figures like Wang Mang, Dong Zhuo, Cao Pi, and Huan Xuan are prime examples. Some succeeded while others failed, but regardless of the outcome, their reputations in later generations have never been anything to praise.]

[Among the very few powerful ministers who did not usurp the throne, many nevertheless ruined their reputations or even dragged their names through the mud due to family scandals...]

[Representative figures of this include Huo Guang, Huan Wen, and Zhuge Liang... Huo Guang's wife and children poisoned the empress and plotted a rebellion, resulting in the virtual extermination of his entire clan by Emperor Xuan of Han. Even though Emperor Xuan maintained old affections and refrained from intentionally slandering Huo Guang, his posthumous reputation still suffered greatly.]

[Huan Wen's son, Huan Xuan, eventually usurped the Eastern Jin Dynasty, only to be suppressed by "Great Jin's loyalist" Liu Liu and others. Consequently, not only did Huan Xuan ruin his own reputation, but even his long-dead father, Huan Wen, was implicated...]

[Zhuge Liang is the archetype of them all. While he himself remained a paragon of absolute loyalty whose fame endured through the ages, his son and grandson were utterly incompetent. They may not have rebelled, but they were true disasters... so much so that this became the greatest blot on Zhuge Liang's entire life. Had those two not died with a shred of backbone, Zhuge Liang's halo would have dropped another notch...]

[The above examples thoroughly prove one fundamental truth: if you wish to attain a completely flawless reputation both in life and after death, you had best have a group of reliable family members—or better yet, no family at all. Model yourself entirely after Batman...]

[You deeply understood this principle. Therefore, upon ascending to the position of Chancellor, you ruthlessly cut ties with your relatives back in your hometown!]

[As for your parents, you did your utmost to instruct them not to stir up trouble and to always regard themselves as commoners... Your parents clearly understood your intentions, and henceforth the elderly couple kept a low profile in the capital, striving never to add to your burdens.]

[What remained were only a wife and children... To this, you resolutely chose refusal. Even amidst your parents' earnest entreaties, you absolutely refused to leave yourself any vulnerabilities!]

[How many heroes and great men had fallen on account of their wives and children? Rather than leaving yourself a flank to be attacked, it was better to be utterly perfect!]

[Perhaps others might consider you inhuman for this, because normal human beings are inherently imperfect, and ultimate perfection naturally implies something abnormal...]

[But what does abnormality matter? This life is fleeting anyway. Once you reset and start over, opportunities to take a wife and have children will be as numerous as you want—why cling stubbornly to this lifetime?]

[Besides, even if it is abnormal, it is the Divine Emperor who forced you into it! It is His utilization of extreme feudal ruler-subject etiquette that has alienated and distorted your personality!]

[When all is said and done, this world has never been normal to begin with! Under the chaotic mental domination of the Divine Emperor, whether it is the peasants tilling the fields or the bureaucrats in the imperial court, every single one of them is a raving lunatic!]

[You are merely the most extreme lunatic of them all—so deranged that the world thinks you abnormal, and so unhinged that even the Divine Emperor Herself finds you incomprehensible...]

[Yes, in truth, you had already guessed quite a bit about the Divine Emperor's mental state. The reason She insisted on forcing you to rebel and compelling you to drop your disguise, aside from certain necessary reasons of Her own, was largely because She could not understand you... She thought you were sick! She thought you were abnormal!]

[A living human being, having spent a lifetime reading dry and boring books, serving a lifetime as a high-ranking and powerful official, with body and mind subjected to unimaginable torture and distortion... Normally speaking, your desires should be limitless, and you should indulge at least somewhat in wine, women, wealth, or power.]

[Yet ever since ascending to your high position, you have sought no personal gain whatsoever and committed no vices. You could be called the epitome of extreme self-cultivation. Aside from your basic salary, you accept nothing; nor have you ever been seen forming cliques for personal gain. Your conduct is so upright that it would make the likes of Zhuge Liang feel ashamed by comparison!]

[You are so extreme that you lack even basic carnal desires. A man in his fifties, you neither take a wife nor keep concubines, have zero children, and do not even keep young attendants in your household—only a few elderly servants brought from your hometown in northern Shaanxi...]

[No... what on earth are you playing at? This is utterly absurd! Not even Hai Rui reached your level of austerity!]

[Aside from governing the state and managing official business, your daily routine consists only of three meals, using the lavatory, and sleeping... And even then, relying on divine power, you don't even sleep, reviewing memorials from one morning straight through to the next... Come on, the Founding Emperor of the Great Ming, the most diligent ruler in history, wasn't as outrageous as you!]

[You are like a pre-programmed simulation robot born solely to lead the Great Ming toward a great resurgence, completely devoid of mortal passions and desires...]

[A loyal minister? More like a flesh-and-blood automaton!]

[With an automaton-like loyalist of this caliber, how on earth could you expect the Divine Emperor to believe you are truly loyal?!]

[Can this possibly be real?! Huh?!]

[According to the arts of imperial governance, subjects should all have personal desires, and only subjects with desires can be controlled by the sovereign... If a subject never demonstrates any desires, it means you harbor even greater desires!]

[All manifestations of freedom from desire are merely disguises—the ultimate result of strenuous self-repression. To endure what ordinary people cannot endure means the desires harbored within must naturally be beyond the reach of ordinary people!]

[The more you try to present yourself as pure and flawless, the more She will perceive you as hypocritical. Coupled with Her inherently suspicious nature... in the eyes of the Divine Emperor, you are no loyal pillar of the state, but the number one hypocritical villain in the world!]

[You fake automaton! You must have an ulterior motive! You must harbor evil thoughts! You must be plotting to harm Me!]

[She is like an extreme psychiatric patient, obsessed with the desire to expose the sickening true face beneath your mask!]

[And you happen to be an extreme psychiatric patient as well, filled entirely with feudalist values. Relying on your ability to restart, you demand of yourself with superhuman willpower to reach an inhuman state, hingga your psyche has become twisted beyond description!]

[Two incomprehensible, extreme evil deities locking horns like stubborn rivals, battling to the very edges of the cosmos until even the cosmic dao was ground to dust...]

[...l

[Thus, day after day, year after year.]

[On the surface, you were a wise ruler and a loyal minister; in reality, you engaged in a secret war of attrition, two peerless contrarians stubbornly pitting themselves against each other to see who would crack first!]

[As time wore on, your advantage of youth gradually began to manifest...]

[After all, you were a junior nearly sixty years younger than the Divine Emperor, currently only in your fifties, and you possessed divine power to nourish your body and mind. Living another forty or fifty years under normal conditions posed no pressure at all!]

[Contrast this with the Divine Emperor: She had ascended the throne at age sixteen and ruled for nearly a hundred years. Without divine power propping Her up, She would have collapsed long ago.]

[Furthermore, She had aged remarkably fast during the decades of your administration. Though the exact reason remained unknown—and whether it was real or an act—She certainly looked the part.]

[Therefore, in this endurance match of stubborn rivals, She was ultimately the first to crack...]

[...l

[In the one hundred and third year of Chongzhen, the Divine Emperor, lying upon the dragon bed, was already white-haired and emaciated, as if time had hit the fast-forward button on Her body... Yet despite this, Her supreme might still caused all the eunuchs and Embroidered Uniform Guards in the palace to prostrate themselves in trembling terror, not daring to show the slightest anomaly.]

[She was merely old, not dead!]

[Yet She could hold on no longer.]

[Lying in bed at this moment, She was completely devoid of Her past agitation and resentment. Her turbid eyes held only tranquility—a tranquility so deathly and profound that it was terrifying...]

[“I have lost...”]

[She murmured softly, though it was unclear precisely what else She said.]

[At last, She calmly issued a command: “Go and deliver the imperial edict to the Chancellor. I shall celebrate my one hundred and nineteenth birthday.”]

[A one hundred and nineteenth birthday?]

[Everyone was bewildered: which elderly person ever celebrated such an odd age? Weren't grand birthdays always celebrated in round numbers?]

[Only a single old man in the hall shuddered, as if awakened to some distant memory...]

[And the Divine Emperor, whether intentionally or inadvertently, called out his name: “Zhu Chengchong...”]

[Zhu Chengchong, former Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guards and former Minister of War, gave a start and hastily responded: “This subject is here!”]

[“This edict shall be delivered by your hand. You must deliver it personally into the Chancellor's hands...”]

[“Your decree shall be obeyed!”]

[Seventy-something Zhu Chengchong acknowledged respectfully, then, driven by some inexplicable impulse, asked: “I wonder where Your Majesty wishes to hold this birthday celebration?”]

[The Divine Emperor smiled slightly.]

[“Tell him, it will be at the very same place—that Verdant Spring Garden he gifted me all those years ago...”]

[Zhu Chengchong's blood instantly ran cold...]

[...l

[On the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth month in the one hundred and third year of Chongzhen, the Emperor invited the Chancellor to a birthday banquet, appointing former Embroidered Uniform Guards Commander Zhu Chengchong as the imperial envoy!]

[The original cast, the original location, meticulously recreated on a one-to-one scale, fully displaying the consummate craftsmanship of great nation artisans!]

[A calculated plot you once used against Her was now being returned in kind, its blatant malice causing panic in everyone who knew the truth!]

[At last, the time for the showdown had arrived...]