Chapter 61 Shameless to the Extreme

Watching Zhao Siwen's frantic and madness-driven actions, everyone present let out long sighs of disbelief.

For everyone knew full well why Zhao Siwen was reacting with such sheer panic.

This high-stakes wager had originally been initiated by Zhao Siwen himself.

Months later, it was again Zhao Siwen who had provocatively brought it up in the imperial court.

And he had done so because he was utterly convinced that the young emperor could never possibly pull it off.

That was precisely why, during yesterday's court session and even moments earlier in the throne room, he had acted so relentless and utterly unwilling to let the matter rest!

Yet now, with mountains of glittering silver actually laid out before his eyes, how could he possibly bring himself to accept this reality?

He was, after all, the esteemed Minister of Revenue, the head of the Six Ministries, and second in power only to Prime Minister Song Guozhong.

In recent years, he had clearly established himself as the Empress Dowager's absolute confidant, with his influence even showing signs of rivaling that of the Prime Minister.

Climbing step by step from a humble, insignificant seventh-rank official to the position he held today, he had invested countless efforts and sacrifices.

Yet now, no one had anticipated that the young emperor would actually succeed!

This meant that Zhao Siwen had lost the wager!

In accordance with the bet that he had stubbornly refused to cancel or invalidate, he was now required to commit suicide right before the civil and military officials to appease the realm!

He was only in his early fifties, currently at the absolute pinnacle of his life; how could he possibly accept such a fate?

Let alone lunging at the silver like a madman as he was doing now, it would hardly be surprising if he suffered a sudden stroke right then and there and dropped dead on the spot!

Yet, compared to the shock caused by Zhao Siwen's current reaction, the profound impact delivered by the nine-year-old puppet emperor, Ning Chen, struck their hearts with the force of an overwhelming flood.

Seeing Ning Chen's frail yet straight and upright figure standing resolutely there, a unanimous question arose in every single one of their minds:

Surely the Empress Dowager must have been completely unaware of this; otherwise, how could she have possibly stood by and watched her most trusted confidant fall into such a desperate predicament?

That being the case, the young emperor must have managed to pull this off entirely in secret, right under the Empress Dowager's very nose!

Yet just how on earth did he manage it?

How could it be that even the Empress Dowager had no inkling of it whatsoever...

At that moment, their faces burned with a stinging sensation, as if Ning Chen had personally delivered a heavy, resounding slap across each of their cheeks.

Unconsciously, a strange and unsettling thought began to take root deep within their hearts: It would seem that the young emperor was truly no longer the useless, spineless puppet he once was...

Suddenly, just as a lingering trace of inexplicable dread toward the young emperor began to spread among the crowd, a new development occurred.

On the other side, Zhao Siwen—still acting like a crazed lunatic, stubbornly and frantically biting into the silver ingots in a desperate attempt to prove them counterfeits—let out a miserable shriek and collapsed straight to the ground.

Cao Dahai, the Commander of the Imperial Guards, seized the exact right moment to order his men to support Zhao Siwen and bring him before the Empress Dowager. Zhao Siwen remained in a daze, repeatedly muttering in a delirious haze, "Impossible, absolutely impossible, this silver must be fake, it's all fake..."

Roused as if from a deep dream, the Empress Dowager turned her gaze toward Ning Chen, making no effort whatsoever to conceal the chilling malice gleaming in her eyes.

However, just as she was about to open her mouth,

*Clang!*

With a sharp ring, Ning Chen had already unsheathed the ceremonial blade of a nearby imperial guard and tossed it heavily onto the stone floor with a loud *clatter*.

Coldly, he proclaimed, "Lord Zhao, are you now ready to honor your promise and commit suicide right here before the Empress Dowager and all the civil and military officials to appease the realm?"

Unexpectedly, upon hearing this, Zhao Siwen seemed to spring back to life from the dead.

As he stared at the icy, ruthless blade lying on the ground, all the color drained entirely from his face, and cold sweat poured profusely down his forehead.

*Thud!*

He dropped abruptly to his knees, slamming his head heavily against the stone floor. The dull, echoing thuds of *dong, dong, dong* reverberated through the air as fresh blood instantly began to seep from his battered forehead.

Crying out at the absolute top of his lungs, he wailed, "Your Majesty, please save me! Empress, save me..."

"I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"

"This humble subject's loyalty to you is as clear as the heavens and the earth! I beg you, Your Majesty, please save me, save me..."

At this sight, everyone present could not help but draw in a sharp breath of cold air.

No one had ever imagined that the once towering and unassailable Minister of Revenue, Zhao Siwen, would ever be reduced to such a pathetic state.

Even less did they expect that this nine-year-old puppet emperor would be so relentlessly determined to drive Zhao Siwen straight to his death!

The Empress Dowager frowned deeply, shifting her gaze to Ning Chen. "Chen'er, where on earth did you manage to get all this silver..."

Before she could finish, Ning Chen abruptly cut her off. "Mother Empress, no matter what questions you may have, Chen'er will answer them in full detail later!"

"But right now, it is time for Lord Zhao to honor his wager!"

"He made this bet openly before the entire imperial court, and furthermore, you yourself, Mother Empress, acted as the witness to this wager!"

"The officials witnessed it, and the subjects of the entire realm witnessed it as well..."

Ning Chen knew all too well that as the Empress Dowager's most devoted confidant, she would never simply allow Zhao Siwen to be executed so easily.

Therefore, he could not afford to give the Empress Dowager the slightest opportunity to change the subject or stall for time!

Hearing this, rage instantly painted the Empress Dowager's face.

She had never expected Ning Chen to actually succeed, nor had she anticipated that he would dare to interrupt her speech at this moment, let alone use his words to back her into a corner!

With a cold glare, she swept her eyes across the civil and military officials standing behind her!

At that instant, Minister of War Zhao Boli and Junior Vice Minister of Revenue Gao Xiu stepped forward almost simultaneously, dropping to their knees. "Your Majesty, over the years, Lord Zhao has worked himself to the bone; if nothing else, he deserves credit for his enduring diligence. We beg Your Majesty to spare Zhao Siwen this once, out of consideration for his decades of unwavering loyalty?"

Prompted by this, nearly all the ministers present fell to their knees in unison, chiming in one after another: "Your Majesty, please spare Lord Zhao this once for the sake of his faithful service!"

"Besides, who knows where the陛下 obtained all this silver in the first place? Can we even be sure its origin is legitimate?"

"Matters like this must be thoroughly investigated before anyone can definitively claim that Lord Zhao has lost the wager!"

"Furthermore, our Great Ning dynasty simply cannot function without Lord Zhao! Without him managing the Ministry of Revenue, I fear the state treasury's revenues would collapse entirely..."

"Your Majesty, the Emperor is merely a child, prone to youthful impulsiveness. The wager he made with Lord Zhao cannot possibly be taken seriously..."

Ning Chen frowned, his gaze turning pitch-black and chillingly dark.

He was well aware that these ministers were merely echoing the Empress Dowager's intentions and pleading on Zhao Siwen's behalf.

Yet, come what may, unless he were dead today, he would never allow the meticulously planned death trap he had laid for Zhao Siwen to fall through.

Surveying the gathered officials, he suddenly let out a furious, thunderous shout: "Good! Very good!"

"You pillars of the court, dressed in your fine robes and official caps, have you completely lost even the dignity of your own faces today?"

"The wager was proposed by Zhao Siwen himself, and it was Zhao Siwen himself who declared he refused to invalidate it!"

"That losers must honor their bets was something Zhao Siwen repeatedly emphasized, and even the Empress Dowager herself gave her word to act as witness to this wager!"

"How do you still have the audacity to stand here and plead for Zhao Siwen?"

"Do you intend to let the entire world know that the officials of Great Ning, and the Empress Dowager herself, are nothing more than faithless hypocrites who constantly break their promises?"

"I should very much like to know—it happens to be Zhao Siwen who has lost today, but had I been the one to lose, would you parasites of the nation still be showing such leniency?"

"Let me tell you this: today, before your very eyes and before the entire world, Zhao Siwen must honor his wager and commit suicide to appease the realm!"

"Do not forget, tens of thousands of our Great Ning subjects are watching this very moment..."

As these words rang out, the crowd froze in utter astonishment, momentarily struck dumb and utterly incapable of finding a single word in response!

Even the countless commoners gathered around to watch stood rooted to the spot in stunned silence.

At that moment,

Acting as though he had received a hidden signal, Zhao Siwen scrambled frantically across the floor toward Ning Chen, throwing himself onto his knees and wrapping his arms tightly around Ning Chen's boots.

He wept with such heart-wrenching, earth-shattering grief that it was a pitiful sight to behold: "Your Majesty, it was all this old servant's momentary foolishness! I beg Your Majesty, please spare this old servant..."

"This old servant will never dare show disrespect to you ever again, never again!"

"This old servant has elderly parents above and young children below; my entire family depends entirely upon me for survival. I beg you, Your Majesty, please spare this old servant this once, I beg of you..."

Sensing the situation slipping away, the Empress Dowager adopted a gentle, persuasive tone, playing the part of a virtuous and wise mother figure as she attempted to intervene: "Chen'er, Zhao Siwen has indeed lost this wager!"

"However, he is, after all, the Minister of Revenue for our Great Ning dynasty, and he has rendered great and exhausting services to the state!"

"Now that all the civil and military officials are pleading for his life, even if you refuse to acknowledge his years of toil, you must at least consider human sentiment. After all, he is a man of advanced age!"

"If you insist on driving him to his death, the people of the world will only view you as an unfeeling, cold-blooded monarch, and that would not be proper..."

Ning Chen furrowed his brows deeply!

He knew full well that neither the Empress Dowager nor these so-called civil and military officials had any intention of letting Zhao Siwen go; they were determined to protect him at all costs today!

Failing to win the argument on reason, they had simply discarded any lingering pretense of shame, attempting to use emotional appeals and human sentiment to bail Zhao Siwen out.

What a ridiculous joke!

Human sentiment was meant to be extended to human beings, not to a pack of heartless beasts like these!

When these very same beasts had jointly conspired to depose him, the rightful emperor, why hadn't they talked about human sentiment then?

When the Empress Dowager forced a lethal poison down his throat when he was only nine years old, why hadn't they spoken of human sentiment?

When his maternal grandfather, Zhou Xianzu, was torn apart by five chariots on the Empress Dowager's orders, why hadn't a single person stepped forward to talk about human sentiment?

When they treated the common people as less than dirt and slaughtered them ruthlessly, why hadn't they ever mentioned human sentiment?

To eliminate the Empress Dowager's greatest pillar of support, Zhao Siwen, he had plotted and schemed painstakingly for so long, even exposing his own commercial networks in the process.

And now they expected him to just drop the matter and spare Zhao Siwen? In their dreams!

With this thought flashing through his mind, he suddenly snatched up another guard's ceremonial blade from his side.

Raising it high into the air, he brought it down fiercely toward Zhao Siwen's neck!

"Stop right there!"

The Empress Dowager shrieked in sudden terror!

The expressions of the civil and military officials shifted dramatically in sheer horror!

Gasps of shock echoed simultaneously from the surrounding crowd of onlookers...