Chapter 893 Power Struggle?

Chapter 893 Power Struggle?

Chapter 893 Power Struggle?

The old Heavenly Venerable Wen Zhong openly contradicted the Jade Emperor in the Lingxiao Palace, while the young Heavenly Venerable Wen Rui was ready to make a move. This was the first time that the father and son of the Wen family, the two leaders of the Wen Party, joined forces in the court.

Ever since the first day Wen Rui ascended to heaven and was deified, this father and son had left the impression among the immortals that they were not getting along. In the court, they had few opportunities to even meet, let alone join forces.

Occasionally, when someone mentioned Wen Rui in front of Wen Zhong, the old Lord would look disgusted, as if he wished he had given birth to a barbecued pork instead of him.

However, now the gods suddenly realized that when it comes to cunning, this father and son, who once controlled the Shang Dynasty's court for decades, are unfathomable. It turns out that the appearance of estrangement between father and son for so many years was all performed for the Jade Emperor and the gods.

Now the father and son are fighting together in the battle, and their momentum is astonishing for the first time. One is positive and the other is strange, and they support each other, so much that the Jade Emperor, the supreme ruler of heaven and the god of all gods, can hardly hold up his proud head.

The Jade Emperor said nothing as he confronted Wen Zhong silently. The stalemate lasted for a long time. The atmosphere in Lingxiao Palace was extremely anxious and depressing.

"Since Wen Tianzun is willing to take the initiative to share my worries, I will entrust this matter to you, my beloved minister."

In the end, the Jade Emperor chose to give in, pretending to be indifferent and said, "It's just that the investigation of corrupt officials is related to the recovery of stolen money, and the recovery of stolen money is related to the reconstruction of the Heavenly Protection Array. If something goes wrong and delays the construction of the Array, the devil will take advantage of the opportunity and cause a disaster. Wen Tianzun must take responsibility."

"It is my duty and obligation. I will not let your majesty down, and I will give a fair explanation to the gods!"

The Jade Emperor narrowed his eyes, and said solemnly with a smile, "Okay, the Heaven Protection Array needs to be repaired as soon as possible, and there is no room for delay. I will give Wen Tianzun one month to try all the corruption cases in the Heavenly Court and recover all the stolen money. Can Wen Tianzun do it?"

This is really making things difficult for Wen Zhong. The Heavenly Court has had a long history of problems, and the old accounts can be traced back tens of thousands of years. There must be at least a thousand, eight hundred problematic immortal officials, whether big or small, if not tens of thousands.

A month may seem short, and in fact it is very short. Even in the mortal world, it is not a reasonable investigation period.

This is like asking the Independent Commission Against Corruption to investigate and conclude all corruption cases across the country within one month, which is simply not something that can be done by humans.

Even if immortals are asked to handle the case, they are still immortals. Each immortal official has served in one position for a period of time ranging from a hundred to eighty years to several thousand years. Even if it is an exit audit, it would be very easy to find a group of professional auditors to conduct an audit for a year or two and make a list of all the official duties performed by the immortal official who has been in office for a thousand years.

What's more, the concept of time for the gods in heaven is different from that of mortals. For the gods who "live day by day like a year", a month is just an hour.

This is like the emperor ordering the Minister of Justice to try all the cases in the country within one hour. It is even more excessive than the Nine-headed Insect ordering Benboerba to capture the scripture team.

The Jade Emperor is deliberately making things difficult for the immortals. His methods of punishing the immortals are indeed simple and crude, but there is a reason for this. If he had to dig up old accounts, sort out files, collect evidence, and make a solid case for every immortal who committed a crime, then he wouldn't have anything else to do all year round and he wouldn't be able to handle all the trials even if he worked around the clock.

Being able to look through the merit book and draw lucky viewers from the bottom 100 of the merit rankings already means that the Jade Emperor is handling cases seriously and has adopted effective measures to significantly reduce the rate of false and wrongful convictions. However, Wen Zhong stood up and pointed out in public that he had wronged a good person. In the eyes of the Jade Emperor, this is not the pursuit of fairness and justice at all, but an embarrassment to him and a weakening of his prestige.

"In compliance with your majesty's order, I will resolve all the corruption cases that have been piled up in the Heavenly Court for ten thousand years within one month!"

Facing the Jade Emperor's challenge, Wen Zhong remained calm and responded calmly: "This is exactly what I wish for! Since the day I ascended to heaven and was conferred the title of God, I have intended to rectify the administration of the heavenly court, but due to the bad weather, I was powerless. Today, I finally won your Majesty's approval, and I would like to thank your Majesty for your help!"

The Jade Emperor looked confused. For a moment, he couldn't figure out what the purpose of the Wen father and son's joint efforts to force the emperor to abdicate was.

At first, the Jade Emperor thought that Wen Zhong wanted to protect his clique. By directly admonishing Wen Zhong for his unfair judgment, he exonerated the immortal officials who were caught and punished for being in Wen's party. In this way, he further won the hearts of the people and brought in more immortal officials from the Heavenly Court to form a clique around Wen father and son for personal gain.

However, judging from the attitude shown by Wen Zhong, the previous judgment seemed to be completely wrong. Wen Zhong really wanted to clean up the chaos in the Heavenly Court.

But now that things have come to this, no matter what the ultimate goal of Wen's father and son is, the Jade Emperor cannot change it. He can only weakly announce: "Recently, the administration of the Heavenly Court has been gradually lax, and corruption and fraud have frequently occurred, which is against the justice of Heaven. Wen Zhong, the Thunder God of the Nine Heavens, is appointed as the imperial envoy to take charge of rectifying affairs and thoroughly investigate the corruption of the immortals. All those involved, regardless of their immortal rank, will be investigated impartially."

After the announcement, a pair of divine eyes looked at Taibai Jinxing. The latter received the Jade Emperor's eye signal and quickly put away the golden scroll. He said loudly: "The immortal officials who were found guilty in this court meeting will be taken back for retrial. An extraordinary court meeting will be held again in one month. The court is adjourned!"

The Jade Emperor then walked down the jade steps with a gloomy face, accompanied by a group of fairy children, fairy maidens, and fairy kings, and left the Lingxiao Palace quickly without looking back.

The Jade Emperor's figure gradually walked away, and the tense atmosphere among the immortals in the hall relaxed. Some of them even smiled with joy, looking relieved that they had just escaped a great disaster.

In the eyes of some gods, the biggest traitors in heaven, the father and son of the Wen family, have finally shown their fangs to the Jade Emperor. They have joined hands to seize the Jade Emperor's divine power just like they did with King Zhou.

From today on, the days when the Jade Emperor could make laws as he pleases in the Lingxiao Palace and hang anyone he wants on the Execution Platform are gone forever.

The Heavenly Palace is about to usher in an era where the Supreme Emperor of Heaven and the Supreme Minister of Power will stand side by side.

Many immortals are still somewhat confused about the future, wondering whether this supreme confrontation will be another fight between immortals that will affect innocent people. No matter which side they join, they may become cannon fodder in the power struggle.

However, judging from the current situation, a pattern of a weak monarch and strong ministers has been formed. Wen Rui has become a powerful figure, and his father Wen Zhong has openly supported him. There is also Dou Mu Yuanjun's secret support behind the scenes. The Jade Emperor alone is already difficult to confront, and there is still room for checks and balances if the Four Imperial Gods join forces.

The immortal officials who came from Jiejiao and Shang Dynasty were secretly delighted. There was no problem of taking sides for them. With two new backers out of nowhere to openly confront the Jade Emperor, they could be considered a turnaround. The situation in which they were excluded, suppressed and marginalized because of their origins had been changed. It would be easier for them to do things in the future now that they had someone in the court.

(End of this chapter)