Chapter 11622 — Quit Your Damned Pretending with Me

Han Jiechen was indeed a thoroughgoing fool—with a single sentence, he had pronounced his own death sentence.

Yet Han Jiechen showed not the slightest sign of coming to his senses; on the contrary, he grew more brazen by the moment.

"Quit your damned pretending with me!"

Han Jiechen kicked the Chief Steward of Han to the ground and jabbed a finger at his nose, cursing: "I see it now—you've been selling us out from the very start. You and Wei Zhao, thick as thieves, scheming all along to hand the Han Princely House over to him, isn't that right?"

The Chief Steward was utterly bewildered. "No, I—"

Han Jiechen would not hear a word of explanation. He turned to Wei Zhao and sneered: "You racked your brains and stirred up all that trouble, all of it just to take my seat as King of Han. Heh. What a hardship it must have been for you, putting on such an act, playing out so many scenes. If I were you, I'd have struck long ago."

Wei Zhao shook his head and laughed, offering no argument.

Wei Baizhan and the others made to seize him, but a look from Wei Zhao held them back.

By now Han Jiechen was a mad dog through and through. The first to refuse him was Han Niansan—there was no need to stick their noses in.

Sure enough, as Han Jiechen prattled on, jabbing a finger at the old man's nose once more and cursing ever more foully, Han Niansan's patience finally ran out.

Bang.

His pressure erupted. Han Jiechen crashed to his knees, both kneecaps shattering on the spot, the marble floor splitting into a web of horrifying cracks.

Han Niansan looked down at him coldly: "I took you for merely unworthy. Now I see you've grown a traitor's bone at the back of your skull. That your father failed to choke you to death in the privy all those years ago was his greatest dereliction."

As he spoke, he pressed a hand upon the crown of Han Jiechen's head.

"On behalf of the ancestral spirits of the Han Princely House, I hereby strike you from the clan registry and sentence you to death."

Feeling the threat of death bearing down from above, Han Jiechen finally sobered, terror flooding his face.

But in the next instant, he turned crazed again.

"What right have you to speak for the ancestral spirits? I am the King of Han of this generation—what right have you to strike me from the registry?"

Han Jiechen bit down hard on his tongue and spat out a mouthful of blood, shouting thickly: "Han Niansan, in the name of the King of Han of this generation, I lodge a complaint against you before our ancestors!"

As that mouthful of blood sprayed forth, a trace of blood-reek settled over the entire ancestral shrine.

The portraits of the ancestors hovering all around seemed to come alive, one after another, each radiating an ancient aura identical to Han Niansan's own.

"Blood sacrifice to summon the ancestors! What infernal gall!"

Watching this, Han Niansan trembled with rage, and regret crept into his heart.

Had he not hesitated just now, had his heart not softened for that one instant, had he simply put Han Jiechen to death, none of this would have come to pass.

But now, it was too late for anything.

Han Changshi and the others were likewise seized with dread.

No one had foreseen that matters would come to such a pass.

Han Jiechen himself might be a thoroughgoing fool, but he occupied the seat of the reigning King of Han, and the blood rite he had just performed to summon the ancestors truly could stir every forebear of the Han Princely House.

The trouble was that the ancestors were the wellspring of the Han Princely House's fundamental vitality.

Every summoning was bound to consume a vast measure of that vitality.

In other words, whatever the outcome, the House as a whole was certain to run a deficit of ancestral vitality this time around.

"You wretch! You wretch! How did the Han Princely House ever produce a cur like you!"

Han Niansan ground his teeth, longing to slap Han Jiechen's skull to a pulp with one blow—but alas, he could not.

The ancestors having been stirred, he owed every forebear of the Han Princely House a clear account; even as the twenty-third-generation patriarch, he could not act on his own authority.

To do otherwise would make Han Niansan himself a deceiver of his own ancestors.

Seeing this, Han Jiechen at once grew smug.

"Han Niansan, you betray your own house, single-mindedly bent on handing the Han Princely House over to outsiders. Now, before all our ancestors, let us see what you have to say for yourself!"

Han Niansan paid him no heed.

By now the portraits of the ancestors had all come vividly to life; though they did not take human form as he had, each radiated a living, breathing presence.

"What is the matter?"

The portrait of the First Ancestor, the most ancient of them all, spoke in a voice of stern majesty.

Han Jiechen at once made to lodge his accusation, only to be met with the ancestors' displeased snorts.

There was an order of seniority; even in bringing a charge, Han Jiechen was in no position to speak first.

Han Niansan thereupon bowed with the utmost deference and reported faithfully all that had just transpired.

Only then did Han Jiechen breathe a little easier.

At this juncture he had feared Han Niansan would embellish and twist right and wrong; fortunately, however, what Han Niansan said was fair enough—before the ancestors, at least, he dared not practice the slightest deception.

In this respect, Han Niansan's reverence for the ancestors far exceeded his own.

But the very next moment, Han Jiechen's expression changed.

For the ancestors all around had begun cursing—and it was not Han Niansan they cursed, but Han Jiechen himself.

As the forebears of the Han Princely House, they took a stance identical to Han Niansan's: even at the cost of surrendering the House to an outsider like Wei Zhao, they would not consent to leave it any longer in the hands of Han Jiechen.

Have these old relics all lost their minds?

"Have you anything left to say?"

The First Ancestor asked in a low, heavy voice.

Han Jiechen hurried to defend himself: "Ancestor, you know my heart—your grandson has devoted himself utterly to the great cause of the Han Princely House. Everything I did was only to keep the ancestral foundation from being stolen by outsiders. I have harbored no other intent!"

Though he sensed that things were going badly, he still clung to a shred of hope.

After all, these were the forebears of the Han Princely House, every one of them.

The First Ancestor was silent for a moment, then declared: "There is among us today an unworthy descendant, Jiechen, who has turned his back on his clan and forsaken his forebears, and whose private greed has ruined the great cause of the Han Princely House. This Ancestor decrees that he be expelled this very moment from the ancestral register, and that every boon and opportunity granted to him be reclaimed!"

"I concur!"

Amid that chorus of concurrence, Han Jiechen's heart sank to the very bottom.

Had Han Niansan alone struck him from the register, the matter might still have left some small room for recovery. But now that nearly every forebear of the Han Princely House had agreed in unison, there was truly no room left to turn.

In other words, from this moment on he was no longer one of the Han Princely House—let alone the reigning King of Han.

It was settled beyond any hope of change.

Wei Zhao and the others watched from first to last with cold indifference.

Li Qinghe grinned with a jeering laugh: "A fine hand of cards played into utter ruin—this fellow is a real talent."

Everyone shared the sentiment.

Had he indulged in one or two fewer clever little schemes, Han Jiechen would never have come to such an end. Even stripped of the title of reigning King of Han, the resources he commanded on every front would still have been a class above the rest of the Han Princely House—his prospects would never have been poor.