Chapter 892: Deceiving the Emperor
Chapter 892: Deceiving the Emperor
The Jade Emperor stood up with a stern face and said in a cold voice: "I have given you the opportunity to reflect on yourselves, but you still hope for the best, thinking that I can't bear to punish you!"
"Have I been too lenient with you in the past, or do you think that possessing the status of one of the Eight Divisions of Heaven means you have the amulet to protect yourself?"
"If you refuse to behave yourself, then I will help you behave yourself. Taibai Jinxing, continue to announce the decree!"
At this moment, the Jade Emperor's majesty reached its peak, and he looked like a wise ruler who stood up for the people and angrily rebuked his ministers.
"The eight departments of heaven are in charge of the three realms. They should abide by the laws of heaven and benefit all living beings. However, Su Zhen, Lin Yao and other twenty immortal officials are obsessed with greed and are corrupt and pervert the law. Some of them privately change the time of rainfall, causing famine on earth; some of them reverse the punishment of right and wrong, indulge evil and bully good; some of them even hide immortal prescriptions and intercept rewards. Their various evil deeds are too numerous to list!"
As if influenced by the Jade Emperor's attitude, Taibai Jinxing's tone also became stern, and he read out loudly: "This decree is hereby issued: Su Zhen and twenty other immortal officials shall be stripped of their titles and positions, and they shall never be allowed to join the ranks of immortals; all their gains from corruption shall be confiscated; and they shall be punished by thunder for a thousand days as a warning to others."
After the imperial edict was issued, the divine guards of Lingxiao Palace did not delay at all. They dragged the convicted immortal official out of the palace.
The Jade Emperor stood on the jade steps, looking down at the immortals below again, and said: "The donation box is right there. I will give you one more chance. Next time, I will not catch only 20 criminals, but double the number! You are still hoping for luck, think about it yourself, will I punish you next time?"
This time, the gods of heaven and stars among the eight righteous gods no longer looked to the Wen father and son for help.
Among the immortal officials who were captured this time, many had close relations with Wen Zhong and Wen Rui, but they did not protect them at all. Obviously, even if all the eight chief officials were captured next time, there would be no possibility of escaping or being pardoned.
"Why, why didn't the old and young Tianzun do anything? The one who was captured by the Thunder Department was clearly innocent. The old Tianzun is very strict with his subordinates, and his eyes can clearly distinguish between loyalty and treachery. How could he allow his subordinates to do evil behind his back?"
"It's fine that the old Tianzun is a man of integrity, but the young Tianzun is obviously a greedy and lustful person. Why is he unwilling to come forward to protect him?"
"Alas, I guess it's because the arm is no match for the thigh. After all, the Jade Emperor is the Jade Emperor..."
"You haven't figured it out yet? The Little Heavenly Venerable is in charge of the repair project of the Heavenly Protection Array. He quoted a budget of 170 billion immortal jades. How much of it will go into his own pocket? If he jumps out now and goes against the Jade Emperor who helped him raise money, wouldn't he be making things difficult for himself?"
"That makes sense! It seems that this disaster cannot be avoided. Let's spend money to avoid disaster. The little celestial master is too heartless. He only cares about money and not people..."
"You just realized it? There is no business without fraud, there is no army with kindness, and there is no wealth with justice. He is the ancestor of all businessmen in the world, and the most treacherous and unjust."
……
The immortals discussed in low voices, and although they all used the techniques of secret voice transmission and spiritual communication, they were eavesdropped on by the backdoor electronic products sold by Wen Rui, and all of their discussions were recorded by Jarvis without any concealment and secretly fed back to Wen Rui.
Although it is difficult to eavesdrop on spiritual communication, Wen Rui has also developed brain wave monitoring equipment, which can verify and decrypt the collected brain waves, perform reverse translation, and crack the brain wave frequency code used to transmit information through spiritual communication.
Wen Rui heard all the immortals' complaints clearly. There was no doubt that he chose to remain silent in the court this time, which dealt a heavy blow to the confidence of Wen's party's lackeys, and they gradually began to turn away from him.
This is also normal. The treacherous party in the court can get together. The relationship between close friends and relatives is not the main reason. In the end, it is all about interests.
The so-called Wen Party in Heaven would not be of one mind and one heart if they had no interests connected, even if they were from the same Jiejiao. Regarding the collapse of the Wen Party, Wen Rui said that he was emotionally stable. He did not expect this mob to achieve anything, and he did not want to protect them.
"Wait a minute!"
After scolding the immortals, the Jade Emperor was in high spirits, as if he had regained the good feeling he had when he was in charge of the imperial court and his words were final. However, he never expected that a majestic voice came from below.
The Jade Emperor was startled when he heard the loud shout, and looked in the direction of the voice. He was surprised to see that the person who spoke was not the troublemaker Wen Rui, but Wen Zhong, the Nine Heavens Universal Transformation Heavenly Master.
Wen Zhong stood up resolutely, bowed to the Jade Emperor, and said in a deep voice: "Your Majesty, among the twenty immortal officials from the Eight Divisions who were convicted in the imperial edict just now, many of them were wrongly convicted."
"Master Wen, what do you mean by this? I issued the decree of punishment, and it is not groundless. I have already checked the merit book. Those twenty sinners are ranked at the bottom of the merit list among the eight gods. Even if time is tight and I haven't found all the evidence, there won't be a huge deviation."
It has been more than five hundred years since Wen Zhong was canonized as a god, and this is the first time that he has been refuted to his face in the court. The Jade Emperor is still a little uncomfortable with it.
Although he was extremely surprised, the Jade Emperor tried his best to restrain himself and remain friendly, not wanting to easily fall out with this important official of Heaven.
"The merits recorded in the merit book can only be used as a reference and cannot be used as ironclad evidence in handling a case."
Wen Zhong said solemnly: "For example, my wicked son Wen Rui, the merit book records so many great deeds that it can hardly hold a single page. But in my opinion, he is just a treacherous person who is good at disguising himself as loyal. It's not that God is blind, but that this wicked son is too cunning!"
Wen Zhong used Wen Rui as an example, which made the Jade Emperor not only unable to refute, but also felt that it made sense and nodded slowly and unconsciously.
When he realized what was happening, he quickly shook his head and said, "Wen, Elder Heavenly Venerable, severe punishments are needed in troubled times. The situation in Heaven is so serious right now. Even if there are one or two innocent people, as immortal officials with such low merits, they are guilty themselves. Punishing them will not harm the overall situation."
"Your Majesty, the Heavenly Court represents the glorious and righteous way. How can the way of governing the world be so crude?"
Wen Zhong said very seriously: "I have the responsibility to judge the good and evil, the fortune and misfortune of all living beings. I will not let any bad person go, nor can I wrongly accuse any good person. In the past, I neglected my divine duties and failed to rectify the laws of heaven in time, so now the situation is irreversible and chaos is frequent. This is a great sin."
"As your majesty said, in times of chaos, severe punishments are needed. If we don't put order on the chaos and restore the law, even if we catch thousands of immortal officials and flog them as a warning, it will only be a temporary solution. The immortal officials are only afraid of your majesty's harsh measures, not the legal order."
The Jade Emperor opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but no words came out.
He wanted to get angry, but his peripheral vision caught sight of Wen Rui who was sitting below him. Wen Rui was staring at him with ill intent, rubbing his hands together excitedly, as if he was waiting for an opportunity to try.
At this time, the Jade Emperor should have yelled, "Rebellion, deceiving the Heaven! How can you, a mere Heavenly Lord, teach me a lesson? I am the only Heaven in the Three Realms! I have convicted you, who agrees and who disagrees?"
But the words were already on the tip of my tongue, I just lacked the confidence and couldn't say them.
(End of this chapter)