Chapter 802 Isn't it only incompetent people who find it difficult?

Upon hearing Shu Yan's words, Xie Shang frowned, and his expression turned extremely ugly. He said to the guards, "Gag her and shut her up."

Soon, a smelly handkerchief was stuffed into Shu Yan's mouth by the guards. Shu Yan babbled and tried to confess her feelings to Xie Shang. She had always liked the Emperor and couldn't accept becoming the Emperor's cousin. She had suffered several blows in the past two days, her identity had changed again and again, and she wondered how many men her birth mother had.

In Shu Yan's heart, no matter how many men Consort Chang had, she was the most foolish woman. The late emperor had power and was noble and extraordinary, but she must have been blinded by shit. Prince Kang had long been demoted to the Northwest, powerless and without influence, possessing only the title of prince, and was not even as good as Shu Lang.

The more she thought about it, the more desperate she became. It was already a blessing she had accumulated over several lifetimes to marry the emperor, but now she had become the emperor's cousin. Would she be implicated by them and banished to a bitter and cold place to suffer again?

She would rather die than go.

Seeing that she was writhing too violently and her emotions were unstable, the guards had no way to deal with her, so they simply knocked her unconscious with a chop to the neck.

Shu Yan's neck was already in pain, and now that she had been knocked unconscious, she glared hatefully at the guard who had knocked her out before slipping and falling to the ground.

Jiang Fenghua stared at Xie Shang's face for a long time, and Xie Shang said impatiently with cold eyes, "There's nothing between me and her."

Jiang Fenghua just wanted to laugh, while Xie Shang's face looked as if he had swallowed a thousand flies.

Seeing this, Consort Chang was so angry that she wanted to open her mouth and curse.

Chang Shun didn't care about anything else. He directly ordered his assassins: "Kill them all without mercy."

Before he could finish speaking, a hidden arrow shot directly at Chang Shun. The arrowhead didn't kill him outright, but instead struck the tendon above his ankle, causing him to scream in pain: "Who attacked me?"

Ao Xue's eyes were filled with rage; her gaze seemed to shoot out sharp knives, as if she wanted to skin him alive and tear him apart.

She could have shot an arrow through his heart and killed him instantly, but then she thought of the suffering Nightshade had endured, how could she let him die so easily?

Chang Shun tried to dodge, but Ao Xue stared intently at him, and then another arrow shot into his shoulder.

At the same time, because Ao Xue fired an arrow first, the scene instantly became chaotic, and soon only the clanging sound of clashing swords could be heard.

Xie Shang, along with Jiang Fenghua, chased after Xie Kang in the direction he had fled.

Consort Chang wanted to take Shu Yan away, but the scene was too chaotic, so she could only call out to Xie Yang, "Yang'er, take good care of your sister."

After saying that, she ran off with Xie Kang, knowing that Xie Yang would listen to her.

Xie Yang glanced at the unconscious Shu Yan. He originally wanted to ignore her, but he couldn't let go of his mother's instructions, so he stepped forward and helped Shu Yan out of the underground palace.

"Xie Kang, don't you understand? Even without your orders, these assassins will still act. Haven't you ever considered that one day you might lose control of them?" Xie Shang said, "The Crescent Moon Whale Pattern appeared as early as the reign of our Imperial Grandfather, or even earlier, before you went to the Northwest!"

Xie Kang suddenly stopped pressing the button on the mechanism. "How did you know?"

Xie Shang continued, "There is an assassin organization in the martial arts world called the Earthly Fiends Sect. What position does Uncle Kang hold in the Earthly Fiends Sect? Is he the top leader, the second-in-command, or is he not even among their leaders? What benefits did you promise him when they helped you?"

Xie Kang was stunned. He didn't expect that Xie Shang had already found out about the Earthly Fiend Sect. It wasn't surprising that he knew. Xie Shang had created the Hidden God Camp more than ten years ago and trained secret guards to work for him. He did have his father's ambition.

Back then, Xie Jing also secretly recruited many disciples to help him, and even secretly trained assassins to serve him in order to eliminate dissidents.

The death of the Holy Ancestor Emperor became a mystery, but according to his understanding, the Holy Ancestor Emperor died at the hands of Xie Jing, who had foreseen that his father intended to depose the Crown Prince and killed the emperor and his father before that could happen.

"Of course, it's money and power." Xie Kang actually had his own influence in the Northwest. In those years, Xie Jing would often send people to the Northwest to keep an eye on him, and each time he would have to spend a large sum of hush money to shut them up.

Xie Jing thought he would only feel at ease if he lived in poverty in the Northwest.

"Didn't Uncle Kang ever consider that you were actually dealing with a tiger for its skin?"

Xie Kang said coldly, "What do you mean?"

"The whale pattern is actually the totem of the Northern Owl Kingdom. It was recorded long ago by a Central Plains person who liked to travel around. There are many legends about whales, some true and some false, some real and some fake. We have never seen one."

However, the Northern Owl Kingdom truly exists. If the Earthly Fiend Sect is related to the Northern Owl Kingdom, and Uncle Kang has been in contact with them all these years, what does Uncle Kang think will happen in the end? If Grandfather knew that you had colluded with another country, I wonder if he would be disappointed in you, and disappointed in the descendants of the Xie family.”

Xie Kang sneered, "You mean the Earthly Fiend Sect is related to the Northern Owl Kingdom? Do you even know where the Northern Owl Kingdom is?"

Xie Shang said, "I can only deduce that they live in the region north of the Arctic glaciers."

Xie Kang laughed, "That place is extremely cold. You'd probably freeze to death on the way there. It's uninhabitable."

“The world is so vast, how could King Kang know that it’s uninhabitable? Even if they don’t live in the far north, they can live elsewhere. In all directions, from the North Pole to the east, west, north, and south, they can surely find a place to live. Whales can only live in the sea, so why do the people of the Earthly Fiend Sect all have whale patterns tattooed on their faces, yet they roam the Central Plains and even serve you? We can’t help but suspect that King Kang is colluding with the enemy and betraying the country, conspiring with foreign traitors to harm the Great Zhou.” Jiang Fenghua deliberately accused him of betraying the country for personal gain, but of course, she didn’t rule out the possibility that King Kang was colluding with the enemy.

Xie Kang was so angry upon hearing the words "treasonous and disloyal" that his beard bristled. He strode toward them, completely ignoring Consort Chang's attempts to stop him. He even pointed at Jiang Fenghua's nose and said coldly, "I would never do anything to betray my country. If Xie Shang were not a good emperor of the Great Zhou, he wouldn't be standing here unharmed today. The Great Zhou Dynasty is my father's life's work. How could I betray my father? The one who truly betrayed my father is his father."

Xie Shang said in a deep voice, "So you're saying I should thank Uncle Kang for showing me mercy? Isn't it because Uncle Kang was afraid of not being a good emperor and didn't dare to lay a hand on me?"

The couple's back-and-forth banter infuriated Xie Kang, who glared and puffed out his beard: "If I had been emperor back then, I would have done a better job than your father. The Great Zhou Dynasty wouldn't be what it is now. Let Xie Jing go outside the palace and see what kind of lives the people are living. His advisors and protégés have all been promoted to become corrupt officials, all because of his indulgence."

Xie Shang paused for a moment, "Uncle Kang is half right, and there's another half you'll never understand because you've never been an emperor."

"I watched my father become emperor, and I thought the same way. Only by sitting on that throne can one truly understand the difficulties of being an emperor."

Jiang Fenghua glanced at him sideways, "Isn't it only incompetent people who find it difficult?"