The queen and ministers of the Hui Kingdom felt so nervous that they decided to adopt an unconventional measure: inviting the Dragon King to take part in an one-on-one negotiation with the queen inside the Council Chamber.
Even in Western Region, which was a not very conservative place, it was not appropriate for a young queen to be alone with a young lord from a foreign country—such meeting were bound to invite lots of gossip. However, all of the ministers of the Hui Kingdom seemed to firmly believe that their queen was a decent woman. They insisted on inviting the Dragon King for the private negotiation. If Long Fanyun had not reminded them that no one was allowed to get within five steps of the Dragon King, they would have worked together to physically push the young lord into the Council Chamber.
The old prime minister, who hurried back later, was the only one who realized how embarrassing the situation would be for the queen. As such, he tried to think of a solution to this problem. He ran into the royal palace, shouting, “Go invite the little prince to join the negotiation.”
One hour later, the negotiation began. In the Council Chamber, the Dragon King stood at one side of a table, while the beautiful queen and a boy, who was about 8 or 9 years old, stood on the other side of the table.
The boy was evidently full of curiosity and fear of the Dragon King. During the negotiation, he kept lifting up his head occasionally to cast a glance at the young lord and then quickly lowered his head again to look at his feet, before unconsciously squirming toward his mother’s back.
Every time the boy got close to the queen, she would push him aside and fix him with a harsh glare as a way to remind him how a royal prince should behave on such occasions.
The negotiation did not begin smoothly. The queen was still holding on to an impractical illusion that she was able to dissuade the Dragon King from meeting the King of the Hui nation. Although her voice sounded much softer that it had been a moment ago when they had been outside the chamber, her attitude was still firm.
Gu Shenwei listened patiently to her nagging but did not pay much attention to the contents of her words. He counted away the minutes silently and cut her off when he felt that it was almost the time. “Now, it’s my turn to speak.”
The queen’s eyes grew wide in surprise as she swallowed back the words she was about to say. She grabbed the timid little prince’s arm and pulled him close to her, as if he were a vase that she could smash to vent her anger. “Go ahead please, Dragon King,” said the queen.
“I respect the royal family and customs of the Hui Kingdom, and I also take pity on the little prince. Given these, I’ve spent such a long time listening to your excuses, but now, I order you to let me meet the king.”
Upon hearing this, the queen knew that she had failed. The Dragon King was much more ruthless than she had imagined. After a moment of thought, she lowered her head and murmured to the little prince, “Cover your ears.”
The little prince seemed unable to comprehend what she said at first. It was only when she gave him an angry look that he quickly pressed his hands on his ears and tightly closed his eyes.
“Well, I’ll take you to see His Majesty, but before that, I want to tell you the truth,” said the queen.
“I like to listen to the truth,” replied Gu Shenwei.
Believing that her words were going to surprise the Dragon King, the queen deliberately paused for a while before saying, “His Majesty has already passed on.”
“When did he die?” asked Gu Shenwei, while remaining perfectly calm. He already had a hunch about the state of the king before entering the capital, and the reactions of the queen and the ministers had further confirmed his suspicion.
It was the queen’s turn to look surprised, but she quickly concealed her amazement and said, “His Majesty left the country to form an alliance with you this autumn, and shortly after he came back, he passed away from an incurable disease.”
“I’ve heard that he has shown up recently,” said the Dragon King.
“We found a man who looked similar to the king. The people were not allowed to get close to him, so none of them found out that he was not the king.”
“Uhm,” Gu Shenwei said, waiting for the queen to give him an explanation, although he had already realized what she was up to.
The queen lifted her head slightly. She was not sad about her husband’s death, and at the same time, the current situation did not allow her to be consumed by meaningless emotions. “I hope… I mean, the ministers of the Hui Kingdom and I all hope that you can support the prince as the new king,” she said.
The prince was naturally referred to the boy standing beside the queen, not the crown prince, who was still kept as a hostage in the Stone Kingdom.
“Oh, really? I thought you were planning to drive me away before secretly crowning a new king of your choosing. Wait a minute. Let me see. You didn’t just want to hide the truth from me. The previous king of the Hui nation died long before I came here, and back then, the war in the east would break out at any moment. You must’ve intended to announce the death of the king after that of the crown prince during the war. However, how can you be so sure about that? I think there are only two possible explanations. You firmly believed that the Dragon army would be utterly destroyed in the war. Or, you found another way to ensure that the crown prince would be killed on the battlefield,” said the Dragon King.
The queen blushed a little bit in embarrassment and felt afraid of the young lord for the first time.
Unlike the ministers outside, she had not feared the Dragon King very much before. They dreaded to see his saber, sword and soldiers, while she somehow instinctively found these things quite appealing. Nevertheless, when she heard the Dragon King say these words to her in an extremely straightforward manner, she began to feel scared.
The Dragon King’s cold attitude showed that he never treated this good-looking queen as a woman. He regarded her as an ordinary negotiator and put pressure on her without mercy.
Upon learning that the most effective way to communicate with the Dragon King was coming straight to the point, the queen also began to speak bluntly. “As long as you can support my son as the new king, I can spare the crown prince’s life.”
“It’s too late. You’ve missed the best time to ask for my help.”
“This is our fault. We’ll compensate for it to make you feel satisfied, Dragon King.”
The queen repeatedly emphasized that making the little prince the new king was a decision made by her together with the ministers, but Gu Shenwei deliberately neglected this point and never mentioned about them during the negotiation.
“Speak, how are you going to compensate for your mistake? I’m really pressed for time. I’ll give you a reply immediately,” said the Dragon King.
The formal negotiation inside the imperial Council Chamber had turned into mere haggling over the price; the queen did not like it. Compared to this maketplace-style negotiation, she was more accustomed to the royal negotiating protocols: hiding the facts behind trivial details and using a set of code words that was known by all parties of the negotiation.
“The Dragon King is such a barbarian,” she thought while looking down at her son. “I’ll be sacrificing so much for you.”
The little prince was still pressing his hands to his ears and keeping his eyes tightly shut. He seemed to have a bad feeling and went to hide in the shadows.
The queen walked toward the Dragon King, slowly and gracefully. She still carried herself with great pride and dignity, as she knew that it was these qualities that made her look attractive and unique. In her eyes, only a woman of humble origin would try to seduce a man by smiling obsequiously and throwing herself at him.
“You can win the loyal support of the Hui Kingdom,” said the queen.
Upon seeing that the Dragon King had no interest in this, she added, “We’ll dispatch more soldiers to fight for you, including the most talented and important noble young men of our country.”
However, the Dragon King still looked dissatisfied.
“You can appoint a person that you trust as the Prime Minister or even a regent of the Hui Kingdom. As such, you’ll have the whole country under your control. Everyone of us will become your loyal servant, including—me.”
With these words, the queen stopped about five steps away from the Dragon King. She did not act flirtatiously at all, but her charm and grace were enough to make a man’s heart palpitate with excitement. To further stimulate the Dragon King, who never allowed anyone to come within 5 steps of him, she took one step forward, looking confident.
Such strong self-confidence would often make a man, whose status was lower than hers, feel small. A powerful man, however, would feel his authority being challenged and even get irritated. When that happened, he would do anything to overpower her, and thus she would succeed in arousing his romantic interest in her.
She knew from her past experience that this trick always worked on those powerful men.
She was familiar with them and believed that the Dragon King was just like them except that he was more pitiless. This was one of the reasons why she could always remain calm and collected when faced with the Dragon King.
However, she did not know that it was not the first time that the Dragon King had dealt with such a confident and seductive woman. Compared to Xiao Fengchai in Pleasure Alley, she was still a beginner. She kept using the same old trick and did not know how to improvise.
The Dragon King held his saber to her chest without warning.
The queen’s face changed. She had never been threatened in this way before. She was frightened and subconsciously took a step back, wondering why her trick failed.
“Here’s my reply,” said Gu Shenwei.
The queen had not recovered from the shock. Therefore, she just nodded to the Dragon King with a blank expression on her face.
“Tomorrow morning, you’re going to tell the people of the king’s death. You’ll tell them that you just wanted to protect the country by hiding the truth from the public and you’ll move out of the palace together with your son to atone for what you’ve done. As for the ministers, you’ll pronounce them guilty and promise to let the crown prince decide how to deal with them when your people bring him back,” said the Dragon King.
“You want to take everything away from me!” the queen shouted grumpily. The little prince on the other side of the table started to tremble and pressed his hands against his ears even harder.
“No, not everything. I spare your lives.” Gu Shenwei retorted.
“That’s meaningless. Once the crown prince becomes the king, he’ll kill me and my son immediately. You’ve met him before, and you know what kind of person he is. There are so many ministers in the royal court, but none of them support the crown prince. This fact speaks for itself,” said the queen.
“He won’t kill anyone over this incident. I won’t allow him to do so,” Gu Shenwei said assertively. For him, this was an easy choice to make. Now that the queen and the little prince had already won the support of the ministers, the crown prince who had been betrayed by them would surely be willing to pay a higher price to regain his throne.
“No, no, no…” the queen said repeatedly while walking backward. When she was close to a corner of the table, she finally stopped and said, “The crown prince can’t return to this country. He can’t become the next king. Tell me what you want, Dragon King. I’ll satisfy all your requirements and promise you anything, as long as you let my son become the king. So will the ministers. They don’t like the crown prince either. You can ask them directly or send your men to investigate this matter. There are really no problems that we cannot solve. Do you agree with me?”
“Let me make this clear. You planned to make your son the king after the war not only because you intended to kill the crown prince first, but also because you didn’t want to suffer the consequences of supporting the Dragon army during the war. You must’ve been 100-percent sure that the Golden Roc Fort would win the war.” Upon seeing that the queen was on the brink of a complete emotional collapse, Gu Shenwei became even more blunt and remorseless.
“No, I wasn’t. We just…” the queen still wanted to talk back but only appeared more panicked.
“You seemed to be very confident about the outcome of the war, but I didn’t see such confidence in the late king of the Hui nation. Where did this confidence come from? I’ve given you a chance to confess, but you’ve wasted it. You kept lying to me. This is the problem that I want to solve tonight,” said Gu Shenwei.
“Guards! Guards!” the queen shouted while pushing herself up from the table, but no one rushed in to save her. Even the ministers standing outside the door, who should be loyal to her and her son, seemed to have escaped.
A moment later, she heard thousands of soldiers hurrying into the palace, but she knew that she did not have so many guards.
“The crown prince has permitted the Dragon army to enter the capital.”
With these words, Gu Shenwei threw a parchment on the table. It was the permission signed by the crown prince of the Hui Kingdom. Gu Shenwei had not shown it before, since he had been unsure about the situation inside the palace. Before entering the palace, he had made a deal with Wu Zongheng and according to it, if he did not send a new command back to his camp in time, Wu Zongheng would lead his guard troops to occupy the royal palace.
“You’re such a sneaky and cruel wretch!” The queen’s voice rose hysterically. “But you’ll never get what you want. You’re just a gang leader and can never compete with the Supreme King.”
When the queen started screaming, the little prince could no longer pretend to hear nothing. He put his hands down and shifted his gaze to her mother. His eyes widened in fear, as he discovered that the queen had already lost control of herself. He walked backward step by step while holding the edge of the table for support. Suddenly, several shiny weapons flew out of his hand toward the Dragon King, who was only a dozen steps away from him.
Upon seeing that, Gu Shenwei finally knew where the queen’s confidence came from.