2272 Who’s Responsible?

After Li Linghai took out tremendous jewelry from her Cosmos Rings and asked the members of the royal family to sell them on her behalf to subsidize the surplus generals and the disabled veterans, all the generals, soldiers, and people were shocked.

They finally understood why the queen, who should’ve looked elegant and poised, was so plain. It was because she had donated her last hairpin for them.

What Li Linghai did next raised even louder cheers and applause.

She asked Li Yao to put her down and walked to the below of Blackstar the Great’s enormous statue, where she grasped the hand of Zhou Lifu’s widow and comforted her sincerely.

Then, she hugged General Zhou Lifu’s youngest child and wept in grief.

The picture soon spread throughout the Emperor’s Mausoleum through the enormous light beam in the sky. Even the crowd hundreds of kilometers away saw it clearly that the queen of the Imperium who had been away from the public for half a year returned to the center of attention in such an unexpected way!

Then, the queen sent comfort and instructions to the Imperial Guards who defended the Emperor’s Mausoleum. She complimented them for their determination in defending the souls of their ancestors first and asked them to believe that His Majesty and most of the warriors of the expedition army were on the same side as the Imperial Guards. She also asked them to protect the safety of the mourning soldiers and people at whatever cost and to prevent malicious scoundrels from sneaking in and causing trouble.

Naturally, for the generals, soldiers, and people who had come for mourning, she also told them to trust the highest authorities, the Council of Elders, Prime Minister Dongfang Wang, and his cabinet, and that they must not do anything outrageous out of consideration of the big picture. Wailing and crying before the tomb of Blackstar the Great would disgrace the Imperium after all. Therefore, she asked everybody to abide by the rules of the Emperor’s Mausoleum. If they had anything they would like to speak to the previous emperors, they could totally mourn in silence.

Everybody was divided into three shifts so that the hundreds of thousands of people could mourn in silence in the Emperor’s Mausoleum at any moment during a day. Was there any problem at all? Not at all!

To ensure the supplies, the queen and the members of the royal family would encourage the hotels, restaurants, and business agencies near the Emperor’s Mausoleum to provide free residences and food for the disabled veterans who had come after a long way. Their reasonable, legitimate, and supreme rights to pay tributes would certainly be guaranteed. It would be absolutely fine even if they wanted to stay here and mourn for a year and a half.

The queen’s words were both practical and reasonable and controlled the agitating soldiers and people effectively, transforming the overwhelming tides into continuous brooks. In the meantime, it was impossible to find any fault in the queen’s arrangements. Everything was flawless both in law and according to the regulations regarding the mausoleum visits.

Li Linghai’s touching performance was delivered to every corner of the Empyreal Terminus Sector incessantly through the powerful propaganda machine of the Li family, before it was sent to the many worlds of the Imperium through the signal relay bases deployed at the edge of the Empyreal Terminus Sector.

Even though the Dongfang family could control the Spiritual Nexus in their own territory and block all the cursed information, it was not so easy to cut the network of the other three families as well as the peripheral worlds of the Imperium.

At this moment, countless people of the Imperium saw a queen who was benevolent, fearless, and truly considerate of the people.

Of course, they saw the “Gold Vulture” that had stood behind her and protected her dutifully all the time too!

Only half a year after the fall of “Manjusaka, the City in the Sky”, Li Yao shocked the entire Imperium in a whole new appearance. It was just like what they said. You never knew what would happen next!

Naturally, the scene had long been delivered to Dongfang Wang’s office and made Dongfang Wang burst into rare fury and broke his teaware.

Dongfang Wang was so determined of killing that the first thought after he saw Li Linghai was to kill her no matter what the cost was, or to simply announce through the propaganda machine of the Dongfang family that the real queen had died of illness a month ago and the current one in the Emperor’s Mausoleum was a counterfeit!

But after his fury slightly dispersed and rationality took over his head again, the prime minister heaved a long sigh and knew that it was not going to be so simple.

No matter what happened in the past few days, all the intelligence suggested the same result. The reformists led by Li Linghai had already forged an alliance with “Silver Fox” Li Jiande’s Li family. Therefore, the enemies that he had to deal with included not just the queen but also the old, cunning Li Jiande, as well as the many interest groups from the peripheral worlds of the Imperium.

The Colossus “Gold Vulture” behind Li Linghai was of a very high level. Unless the top tier experts of the Dongfang family were deployed, preferably multiple of them together, it would be barely possible to take the Colossus down. So, it was hard to kill Li Linghai.

It was one thing to poison the emperor and the queen deep inside the royal palace when the night was dark, but it was a whole other thing to kill the queen of the Imperium right in public in the sacred Emperor’s Mausoleum under the witness of so many people.

No matter how arrogant the Dongfang family was, it did not intend to rebel and claim the throne right now.

Slaughtering the members of the royal family and the queen in the Emperor’s Mausoleum and even bulldozing the entire mausoleum to the ground would only give an excuse for the other three families and the new interest groups from the edge of the Imperium to attack and divide the Dongfang family together!

Besides, even if he truly gave such an insane order in his fury, the experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage who were capable of destroying “Gold Vulture” might not obey it at all.

Yes, since he was the leader of the Dongfang family, everybody in the family was supposed to listen to his command.

That was quite true. But it was on one premise, which was that his command would bring huge returns to the Dongfang family, instead of dragging the rank of the family into the abyss of destruction!

The latest intelligence he just received completely let Dongfang Wang abandon the idea of solving it through violence.

The fleet of the Li family deployed at the edge of the Empyreal Terminus Sector had sudden anomalies and showed vague hostility to the Dongfang family’s fleet.

Sweat leaked out of every wrinkle on Dongfang Wang’s face.

The defense of the sky of the Imperium was taken care of by the elite troops of the four families together. Leaving the edge aside, the Li family’s low-altitude fleets were hovering above the prime minister’s residence and the Council of Elders right now!

The Li family’s comprehensive capability was only half of that of the Dongfang family. A few days ago, a large number of starships were dispatched to the hometown to settle the rebellions. The fleets that were still stationed in the Imperium were far worse than the Dongfang family’s in terms of both scale and firepower.

However, Dongfang Wang still did not risk a full battle against the Li family in the capital.

Even more critically, now that the reformists and the Li family were in alliance, the Astounding Thunder Fleet that broke into the Li family’s heartland unexpectedly was no longer a threat to the Li family but its secret weapon.

If the Dongfang family’s elite troops were all stalled by the Li family’s fleets and the Imperial Guards in the capital, would the invincible troop in the frontline suddenly appear at the softest abdomen in the Dongfang family’s dominion under the command of “God of War” Lei Chenghu?

Dongfang Wang took a deep breath and thought calmly. Now was definitely not a time to start a killing spree. The most critical issue was the stances of the other two families, namely the Yun family and the Song family.

The stances of the two families were not promising either.

In the recent hundred years, the Dongfang family had been expanding rapidly and was now bigger than any of the other three families.

Therefore, the politics of the Imperium were mainly about the Li family, the Yun family, and the Song family working together to stop the expansion of the Dongfang family.

In the recent twenty years, after Dongfang Wang became the prime minister of the Imperium, most of the members of his cabinet were from the Dongfang family and its vassal families. Many of the national policies were inclined to the Dongfang family, which further accelerated the speed of expansion.

The other three families, unwilling to watch the Dongfang family growing larger and larger, were more and more inclined to work together.

To quote the political terms of the Star Ocean Republic in the past, it might be safe to say that the Dongfang family was the “ruling party” of the Imperium, whereas the other three families were the “opposition parties” in the Council of Elders.

While aristocracy was fundamentally different from partisan politics, and they were two concepts that must not be mixed up, they at least shared one thing in common. The natural and sole mission of the opposition parties was to hamstring the ruling party through whatever means possible, propose opinions that were the exact opposite of the ruling party’s, and then to laugh and mock the ruling party when they suffered setbacks.

Right now, it was obvious that the Li family had decided to wage a war on Dongfang Wang and his cabinet.

Even if the Yun family and the Song family did not stand on the Li family’s side openly, they would certainly be glad to watch everything and even secretly send fuel and cannonballs to the Li family to get the fire bigger. If he showed any sign of weakness, they might come to take advantage of him too!

As he expected, the news came one piece after another. The Yun family and the Song family, ignoring his ban, restored the Spiritual Nexus near the Emperor’s Mausoleum earlier than the Dongfang family and sent the media of their own for interviews.

Articles and comments soon appeared on the channels under the two families. Although their tones were not as aggressive and harsh as the news of the Li family, they were expressing the same idea—Dongfang Wang’s cabinet must take full blame for such an “unfortunate incident”, and that it must be settled immediately and unconditionally. In the meantime, the elders of the Yun family and the Song family would certainly enforce their “most sacred right of supervision” and demand Dongfang Wang’s cabinet to offer a satisfying reply.

With everything coming to this moment, it was impossible to block the event anymore.

The ripple from the stagnant water of the thirty-sixth district finally evolved into a storm that swept across the entire Imperium!

Looking at the elders of the Li family, the Yun family, and the Song family speaking to the major media solemnly, as if they were truly worried about the country, Dongfang Wang fell on the chair heavily and rubbed his nose hard.

But his voice showed absolutely no sign of exhaustion but was filled with determination and coldness. “Ask Dongfang Mingyue to meet me exactly. I want to know how many forces the queen has been hiding, who this ‘Vulture Li Yao’ is exactly, and how many men and resources are needed to take him down!”

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