After Rowan entered the Imperial Palace, his experience could be described in only one sentence—
he moved through it as though no one were there.
Not only did none of the palace guards stop him along the way, but many even saluted him respectfully.
These guards had actually been stationed inside the palace by the Prime Minister to monitor the young emperor.
In other words, they were all Honest's men.
However, now that Rowan had replaced Prime Minister Honest, these people naturally became his subordinates instead.
Before long, Rowan met the young emperor.
In the original story, the young emperor trusted Prime Minister Honest completely. He regarded the Prime Minister as his most dependable subject.
He even treated Honest like a father.
Unfortunately, all that trust had been wasted.
In Honest's eyes, the young emperor was nothing more than a useful chess piece.
He felt no genuine affection for the boy whatsoever. The only reason he had chosen to place the young emperor on the throne was because the child was easy to control.
Honest did not care about the young emperor's feelings in the slightest.
"Who are you?"
When the morning court assembly began, the young emperor stared in astonishment at the unfamiliar man openly standing in the Prime Minister's position.
The surrounding officials, however, exchanged confused glances when they saw the emperor's reaction.
What was going on?
Why did the young emperor no longer recognize the Prime Minister?
Had the emperor lost his memory, or had some conflict arisen between him and the Prime Minister?
In reality, Rowan simply found the situation amusing, so he had deliberately left the young emperor's memories untouched.
However, his action gave the small number of conscientious officials within the imperial court a glimmer of hope.
They believed the young emperor was sending them a signal that he intended to move against Prime Minister Honest.
Every one of them became as excited as though they had been injected with chicken blood.
They stepped forward one after another and began impeaching the Prime Minister before the emperor.
Prime Minister Honest had behaved tyrannically for years, and the number of terrible and corrupt deeds he had committed was beyond counting.
Any random handful of them would have been enough in earlier times to warrant the extermination of his entire family.
Therefore, these conscientious officials did not even need to search for charges against him.
Honest's crimes rolled effortlessly from their tongues.
Unfortunately, the young emperor's attention was not focused on those accusations at all.
He was focused entirely on the identity of the Prime Minister.
He did not recognize Rowan, yet judging by everyone else's behavior, they clearly regarded this unfamiliar man as Honest.
That was extremely strange.
"Who exactly are you?"
The young emperor questioned Rowan again.
He wanted to confirm who this man was, why he stood in the Prime Minister's place, and where his Prime Minister Honest had gone.
Rowan replied with a cheerful smile,
"Your Majesty, I am Prime Minister Honest. Has Your Majesty become confused? Could it be that you no longer recognize even me?"
The young emperor shook his head.
"I don't know you. You are not my Prime Minister Honest."
The conscientious officials became even more excited upon seeing this.
In their opinion, it was impossible for the young emperor not to recognize Honest.
The reason he said such a thing had to be because he intended to publicly distance himself from the Prime Minister.
What did that mean?
It meant the young emperor could no longer tolerate Honest's control.
He wanted to reclaim his authority and become a true emperor instead of Honest's puppet.
Therefore, now was their opportunity to overthrow Prime Minister Honest and cleanse the entire imperial court.
The conscientious officials launched another attack against Rowan.
Of course, by "attack," it did not mean they intended to rush forward, beat Rowan, and throw him into prison.
They intended to defeat the Prime Minister through political struggle, strip him of every official title, and then imprison him.
Their accusations became increasingly fierce and even fatal.
Had their target been anyone else, even ten lives would not have been enough to survive them.
Unfortunately, they had severely underestimated Honest's position in the young emperor's heart.
They had also underestimated the young emperor's incompetence.
The emperor paid no attention whatsoever to their accusations.
He treated everything they said like wind passing by his ears.
Instead, he repeatedly questioned Rowan's identity, insisting that he was not the real Prime Minister.
Rowan casually said,
"It appears that something is wrong with His Majesty's mind. Guards, escort His Majesty back to his chambers and allow him to rest."
Several palace guards immediately arrived and forcibly escorted the young emperor away.
"What are you doing, Honest?!"
"You dare imprison His Majesty? This is an unforgivable crime!"
"Release the emperor immediately!"
The conscientious officials flew into a rage, believing that Rowan was deceiving the sovereign and defying imperial authority.
Rowan freely admitted that this was indeed what he was doing.
However, he did not care.
After all, two-thirds—
no, perhaps three-quarters of the imperial court already consisted of Prime Minister Honest's followers.
Now that Rowan was playing the role of Honest, the small conscientious faction could not create even the slightest disturbance.
He suppressed them effortlessly.
Seeing that the situation was turning against them, the conscientious officials hurriedly summoned Great General Budo.
In their opinion, Budo might have been somewhat foolish, but his loyalty was beyond doubt.
He was devoted to both emperor and empire and would never permit a minister to rebel against his sovereign.
However, to their complete surprise, after hearing what had happened, Budo did not fly into a rage or attack Rowan.
Instead, he said with considerable approval,
"His Majesty does seem to be experiencing a slight problem. The Prime Minister acted only for His Majesty's sake."
The moment he said this, both Honest's faction and the conscientious officials were stunned.
Every one of them stared at Great General Budo with their mouths hanging open.
Good grief.
Rowan's actions had already been so blatant, yet Budo actually believed he had acted for the emperor's benefit.
What was happening?
Had Great General Budo become senile?
That was impossible.
Budo was still in the prime of his life and remained the strongest general in the empire.
There was no possibility that he had become senile.
If that was not the explanation, then only one answer remained.
Great General Budo had also been bought off.
He had become one of the Prime Minister's men—
or rather, one of the Prime Minister's hounds.
Only that explanation could account for Budo's behavior today.
In that instant, Prime Minister Honest's supporters became wildly excited.
Even the traditionally neutral Great General Budo had joined their side.
What force in the empire could possibly stop them now?
Meanwhile, after reaching the same conclusion, the conscientious officials revealed expressions of despair.
In their eyes, even the upright and incorruptible Great General Budo had now sided with Prime Minister Honest.
Could this country still be saved?
As for why Budo had spoken that way, it was naturally because Rowan had modified his memories once again.
In his new memories, Rowan, the Prime Minister, was not some treacherous rebel.
He was a minister personally raised and entrusted by the previous emperor to protect the young sovereign.
He was someone who could be trusted completely.
He was also a loyal and patriotic official who had personally supported the young emperor's ascension to the throne.
Budo even remembered the previous emperor instructing him on his deathbed that he must always listen to the Prime Minister's advice.
That was why Budo had spoken as he did.
To put it bluntly, from this moment onward, Rowan was the true ruler of the Imperial Palace.
Even the emperor's words carried less weight than his.
Thus, Rowan immediately issued his first command.
"Arrest Ogre, captain of the Imperial Capital Guard, and execute him by a thousand cuts."
The order caused everyone present to exchange puzzled glances.
They could not understand why Rowan would personally target a minor captain of the Imperial Capital Guard.
Someone of Ogre's rank was not even qualified to stand inside the imperial court and speak.
For the mighty Prime Minister to personally deal with such a small official was like using a cannon to kill a mosquito.
Nevertheless, no one objected.
In their opinion, the fact that the Prime Minister had publicly issued such an order meant that Ogre must have offended him severely.
Otherwise, the Prime Minister would never have targeted him so viciously.
And just like that, Ogre's fate was decided.
Meanwhile,
inside the headquarters of the Imperial Capital Guard, Ogre was still caring for the injured real Prime Minister Honest.
He hoped to flatter Honest through this act and thereby change his own future.
He had no idea that his fate had already been sealed moments ago.
As for Prime Minister Honest, after awakening from unconsciousness and seeing Ogre constantly attending to him, an expression of disgust almost appeared on his face.
In the past, those serving him had always been beautiful married women or lovely young girls.
Now the person caring for him was a large, rough, ferocious-looking man.
How was he supposed to tolerate that?
However, considering that he was now a fallen man who could not even return home, Honest had no choice but to suppress his disgust and begin making grand promises to Ogre.
To reclaim his position, he needed powerful forces.
Even Great General Budo now stood against him.
Worse still, perhaps even the young emperor had already been brainwashed by the impostor and now regarded that fake as his true Prime Minister.
Therefore, reclaiming his position would by no means be easy.
After losing his identity as Prime Minister, rebuilding his power was nearly as difficult as climbing to the heavens.
Fortunately, the impostor could not alter everyone's memories.
There were still people in the capital who remembered Honest.
Ogre was one of them.
As captain of the Imperial Capital Guard, he commanded a considerable number of men and could serve as a useful ally.
But in Honest's opinion, that was far from enough.
Someone like Ogre was ultimately an insignificant figure in the Imperial Capital.
He could not stand on the grand stage, nor was he any match for Great General Budo.
Honest needed someone else capable of restraining Budo.
As for who that person should be, Honest already had someone in mind.
Within the empire, Great General Budo was known as the strongest.
However, everyone knew that the empire actually possessed two generals who shared the title of strongest.
Budo was merely one of them.
The other was General Esdeath, who was currently commanding troops outside the capital.
~~~
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