Wrong With YouThe maid curtsied and turned to go prepare hot water.Zhao Rui let out a soft sigh, looking at the heavy snowfall outside her window and whispering: "Your Highness, I would never harm yo...Chapter 922: The Unfathomable Emperor

Of course, now we also need to add one more person, Your Highness over there.

Wu Qingcang's words made Li Chen's brain spin rapidly.

Among these characters, there seems to be an intricate web of connections, and all these threads ultimately converge on a single starting point.

And the common starting point of these threads lay in the hands of the great emperor, who was lying in bed in Qianyuan Palace.

With a blank expression, Li Chen's eyes were calm.

No one knows what he's thinking.

Wu Qingcang didn't seem to care what Li Chen was thinking. He continued, "Zhao Xuanji set a trap many years ago. His plan was to have my younger brother receive his favors, and one day he would have to repay the debt and erase this handle."

Even earlier, the Emperor had set a trap, and the one he had tasked with laying it was Zhao Xuanji.

Li Chen looked at Wu Qingcang and said, "Now I somewhat understand why you said that His Majesty the Emperor is ranked third."

"With a chuckle, Wu Qingcang said: 'Imperial strategy has been mastered to the extreme by His Majesty. Those below toil with their bodies, those in the middle toil with their minds, and those at the top... toil for others!'"

"Since father emperor has laid such a deep and intricate plan, why not resolve the problem of Zhao Xuanji, this confidant troublemaker, sooner" Li Chen asked.

Wu Qingcang calmly replied, "Heaven, earth, time and people are not all in the emperor's grasp. Even if the emperor has the power to overturn heaven and earth, there will always be things beyond human ability."

"If you were the prince, knowing you had a terminal illness, would you allow a treacherous official to rise and use their abilities to govern in your place, or would you risk the country falling apart and the nation collapsing by eliminating them"

Li Chen scoffed, "Back then, Zhao Xuanji was nothing but a small-time figure. Killing him would have been no big deal. How could it have caused the country to split"

Sighing, Wu Qingcang said: "Zhao Xuanji is a small fry. Even until now, in the emperor's consideration, he is just a pawn. To the emperor, to the country and the people, the real threat comes from the domestic princes and foreign barbarian tribes."

"Throughout the court, no one possessed talent comparable to Zhao Xuanji's. Although Zhao Xuanji was ambitious and ruthless, his abilities were undeniable. The emperor recognized this during their first encounter."

Li Chen nodded and admitted: "That's right, his ability to govern the country is indeed brilliant."

“If the Emperor hadn't been stricken with a terminal illness and could have held on for another decade, things would be different. But the Emperor didn't have that time, so he personally supported Zhao Xuanji, accelerating his growth and fueling his ambition. Only then, when the Emperor was no longer able to govern, would someone be able to step up and stabilize the current situation.”

"To ask Your Highness, if there were no Zhao Xuanji, with the current court situation, wouldn't Your Majesty have been ill for many years Would you even have a chance to grow and come into power Those feudal princes would have long since installed a new emperor, changing everything."

Li Chen frowned.

He had to admit that what Wu Qingcang said was true.

When he was fighting with Zhao Xuanji to the death, it was only then that he realized, the emperor who had been lying on the sickbed and unable to wake up, had long since stood on a higher level, calculating everything in the world even in his sleep.

In other words, Zhao Xuanji was intentionally left behind by the emperor. The purpose is twofold: firstly, to temporarily stabilize the situation when the emperor's condition worsens.

Secondly, we can leverage Zhao Xuanji's ambition and capabilities to buy the Prince time to grow stronger.ll. Because if he doesn't manage it well, the country will be lost, and the society will collapse. But being an official is different. One can live more luxuriously than the emperor, as long as one ma...