Chapter 672 – A Matter (1/2)
Chapter 672 – A Matter
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
After Chen Changsheng said those two words, it was naturally impossible for the reading of the decree to continue.
Eunuch Lin calmly gazed at him, asking, ”Do you think I won't dare kill you?”
Chen Changsheng replied, ”Three days after the new emperor took the throne, he sent someone to kill the future Pope. Such a deed will go down in history.”
Eunuch Lin still calmly gazed at him, speaking in a composed voice. ”You are His Majesty's cherished junior, and you also have many supporters in the Orthodoxy. Just as you said, if I really do kill you, His Majesty will be aggrieved and the capital in chaos. In order to pacify the situation, to give an explanation to history, presumably I will also be ordered to commit suicide.”
Chen Changsheng replied, ”But you will still kill me.”
Eunuch Lin spoke with a cold expression on his face. ”Because you've already made your position clear and I've sensed the danger you present. Since you're not willing to become a minister, you can only die. When His Majesty ascends to the throne, he must awe the entire world. Anyone who still feels loyalty to the Demon Empress must die, no matter who they are. As for my own conclusion, that's not important…because I am a stupidly loyal person.”
”Stupidity does not mean you have the power to speak unreasonably, nor is it something that requires respect.”
Chen Changsheng turned away from the window. The clear and cold autumn sun fell on his uniform, seeming very much like starlight.
He unsheathed his sword and inserted the hilt into the sheath.
His hand was very steady, as were his breathing and voice. ”My master is in the Li Palace right now?”
Eunuch Lin slightly creased his brow. He had not expected Chen Changsheng to still be able to remain so sober and calm at this moment.
”Did you ever think about why, three days ago on the peak of the Mausoleum of Books, he didn't kill me, and why he's never come to visit me at the Orthodox Academy?”
Chen Changsheng looked at Eunuch Lin and continued, ”Because he doesn't dare to see me, and he can't ensure that he'll be able to silently kill me.”
……
……
”He was raised by my hand. If I open my mouth and tell him to die, he should just obediently die. This is his obligation.”
In that most quiet and secluded hall of the Li Palace, a voice clear and cold like the autumn rose up.
”If this is an obligation, Senior Brother, then why don't you dare go to the Orthodox Academy and see him?”
The Pope's voice also rose up.
”Why don't I dare see him? I just don't want to visit because of his silly depression and have him say some inappropriate words to me, making me angry.”
Shang Xingzhou was no longer as ordinary as he had appeared in the last twenty years. He was still wearing a Daoist robe, but nobody would take him for some ordinary middle-aged Daoist.
He had a head of black hair run through with the occasional streak of frosty white. His appearance was handsome, his skin tender and smooth as if newly born. He was calm and indifferent, so refined that it was frightening. He was even older than the Pope, but he still looked incomparably young, his body seeming to brim with an infinite amount of energy.
The Pope looked at him and calmly asked, ”Is that so? Then Senior, why have you come to see me? You're not afraid that I'll say something inappropriate and make you angry?”
Shang Xingzhou replied, ”I came to visit you because I wished to discuss you with the matter of the successor to my teachings.”
The Pope replied, ”That staff?”
Shang Xingzhou affirmed, ”Correct.”
The Pope had confirmed his intentions. After a pause, he questioned, ”Why?”
Shang Xingzhou calmly replied, ”With Tianhai dead, what use is there in leaving him around?”
The Pope slowly shook his head. ”As a child, he became well-versed in the three thousand scriptures of the Dao, he possesses an absolutely exceptional talent in cultivation, and there is nothing to complain about with regards to his behavior.”
Shang Xingzhou calmly looked back and said, ”Junior Brother, you should know very well that the succession of the Orthodoxy has nothing to do with talent, or how would it have come to you?”
The most important consideration in the succession of the Orthodoxy was how a successor would be able to make the Orthodoxy persist for thousands of generations. Candidacy truly had nothing to do with talent, only with benefit.
Back when the Li Palace was choosing the next Pope, Shang Xingzhou, who had been slightly stronger in cultivation and who was even better in terms of strategy and will, had withdrawn himself from the competition precisely for these reasons.
This was how it was one thousand years ago, how it was in their era, and so why would there be an exception now?
As he thought of the matters of the past, the Pope was quiet for a very long time. Suddenly, he noted, ”His blood clearly comes from the descendants of the deceased.”
Since he could not speak of talent or Dao heart, only of benefit, what he had in mind was this.
”Correct, I once promised that monk that as long as the great undertaking succeeded, Chen Changsheng, as a representative of the descendants of the deceased, would become the next Pope, and they would not contend for the imperial throne.”