Chapter 61: My Habit Is to Take Sides, Not to Reason

Looking at the furious Emperor Li Er, Fang Jun was dumbfounded.

He had merely knelt down and uttered the words "May you live for ten thousand years," doing so solely to save his backside from getting thrashed by the imperial cane. Had it not been for that, would he have willingly done so? A real man's knees carry gold; they only kneel to heaven, earth, and parents. Kneeling to you, for crying out loud, was essentially wishing you a shorter lifespan, wasn't it?

How on earth did that suddenly make him a sycophant? Was that really necessary?

Fang Jun had no idea what to say, yet deep down, he couldn't help but feel a lingering sense of respect for Emperor Li Er.

Vanity is human nature, something everyone possesses, and Emperor Li Er could hardly be an exception.

Yet, Emperor Li Er clearly understood that when a person's legs are forced to kneel, their heart does not necessarily submit; while their mouth might be shouting wishes for ten thousand years, their mind might secretly be cursing him to drop dead soon...

The man did not care for such empty gestures. What he wanted, relying on his own brilliance, martial prowess, and strategic mind, was for millions of proud and fierce generals to genuinely harbor a sense of submission in their hearts—making them look east when he said east, and daring them not to chase a chicken if he told them to catch a dog!

Yes, that was the aura!

The magnificent aura of the great Tang!

Now that was true dominance!

That was what you called an emperor through the ages!

As for certain other emperors who relied on shaving people's heads and cruel suppression to enslave a bunch of spineless lackeys,呵呵呵...

At that moment, Fang Jun was utterly convinced.

Why was the Great Tang able to command awe across the four seas and roam freely through the world?

It wasn't because the Tang had more powerful soldiers, sturdier armor, or sharper spears, but because they possessed an emperor with an open mind and peerless dominance!

Magnificent, Emperor Li Er!

With his chest heaving with emotion, Fang Jun raised his head and locked eyes with Emperor Li Er in unperturbed defiance!

Twitching the corner of his mouth, he said, "Fang Jun acknowledges his crime!"

Uh...

The enraged Emperor Li Er was slightly stunned. This Fang Jun actually wasn't afraid of him?

The wrath of the Son of Heaven, leaving fields of bodies and drifting pestles, was definitely no exaggeration!

As the sovereign who held the cosmos in his hands and decided life and death, one could easily imagine just how formidable the aura of such a ruler would be when his fury erupted!

Look at Li Siwen and Cheng Chubi standing nearby—two reckless scoundrels who usually feared neither heaven nor earth, yet right now, under the terrifying might of Li Er, they were as silent as cicadas in winter, trembling and shrinking into tight little balls.

Yet this Fang Jun actually dared to lock eyes with him?

Could one even confess their guilt with such an open and untroubled demeanor?

Furthermore, that wasn't all.

Emperor Li Er discovered that Fang Jun's gaze was crystal clear, and he could even distinctly perceive the admiration, reverence, and adoration flowing within those limpid eyes!

It was like a son looking at his majestic father, or a soldier gazing at an invincible commander, or even a child looking up at a towering, heroic giant!

That unmasked filial devotion and adoration radiated naturally from him.

Emperor Li Er felt a jolt in his chest, and his blazing fury vanished in a puff of smoke.

This single look was more effective than kowtowing a million times, shouting a million praises of "Long live the Emperor," or offering a million pieces of flattery. Facing a younger generation who admired and revered him this way, no amount of lingering anger could possibly be unleashed!

When all was said and done, Emperor Li Er was still human; he kept his vanity well in check, but it existed nonetheless...

Although Emperor Li Er had no idea why a simple angry rebuke of slanderous talk could earn him such an attitude from Fang Jun, his experience told him that this fellow was definitely not putting on an act.

His heart felt even more refreshed than if he had just drunk a cup of tea brewed by a master in the palace...

With his anger gone, the fire naturally couldn't be stoked any further.

Yet, Li Er had no intention of letting Fang Jun off the hook so easily either. This fellow was simply too lawless and desperately needed a harsh lesson.

"Tell me, what crimes have you committed?"

Emperor Li Er glared at Fang Jun and demanded.

What kind of person was Fang Jun? In his past life, he had climbed the official ranks starting from a commoner background; his ability to read people was top-notch, and he naturally sensed the subtle shift in Emperor Li Er's tone.

To be honest, that gaze of his was both a genuine expression of his inner feelings and, to some extent, a bit of acting mixed in. If it had been entirely fake, someone as shrewd as Emperor Li Er would never have failed to notice. It seemed the effect was quite good...

Fang Jun pondered for a moment and tentatively offered, "Is the crime trespassing in the Prince's Mansion?"

Li Er stared at him with an unkind look in his eyes.

Fang Jun glanced at his two quail-like brothers standing beside him and tried again, "Is the crime smashing Lady Cao's boudoir?"

Emperor Li Er felt the anger he had just dispelled beginning to gather once more.

Damn it, this brat was utterly preposterous! He kept beating around the bush with trivial details and stubbornly refused to mention his greatest offense.

Noticing the look on Emperor Li Er's face, Fang Jun could only sigh, "The crime of disobeying the imperial edict and returning to the city without permission..." It seemed Emperor Li Er still didn't plan to let him go. How wretched...

Li Er was simply left speechless. Why hadn't he noticed before that Fang Jun was such a slippery character? His tongue had become a lot sharper too. Disobeying the imperial edict? You clearly openly defied the imperial edict, didn't you!

Though they sounded similar, the nature of the offenses was completely different!

"Not following the imperial edict" carried a slight implication of "special circumstances preventing compliance."

But "defying the imperial edict" made the matter severely grave—it was contempt for imperial authority! During the Ming and Qing dynasties, losing your head would have been a guaranteed certainty! Even in the Tang Dynasty, the lightest punishment would have been exile three thousand miles away to the frontier!

Cheng Chubi and Li Siwen kept their heads lowered, not daring to utter a single sound, yet mountainous waves were crashing inside their hearts, and their admiration flowed endlessly like a mighty river...

Damn it, Fang Er actually dared to stand before His Majesty chatting smoothly and playing slippery tricks. What kind of sheer audacity was that?

Among all the aristocratic scions of Chang'an, which one wasn't trembling with shriveled courage in front of His Majesty?

Just this single display of nerve made him worthy of being called the number one scion among the aristocracy!

That is simply too formidable, my good brother...

Emperor Li Er gnashed his teeth, realizing that he couldn't actually do anything too severe to Fang Jun. Execution was completely out of the question. Exile? Imagining Fang Xuanling's graying hair and increasingly withered spirit, that wouldn't do either.

That left only beating him with the imperial cane, though he couldn't beat him to death or cripple him.

Yet this fellow had thick skin and flesh—would he even fear a mere beating with a cane?

Emperor Li Er felt rather annoyed. Since physical coercion wouldn't work, he would simply switch tactics; he was going to conquer him through virtue!

"Fang Er, you know very well that I treat your father with absolute sincerity and view him as my right-hand man, which is why you've grown so utterly uninhibited, isn't that right?"

Emperor Li Er's tone had softened considerably, but he still stood before Fang Jun with his hands behind his back, towering over him and continuously radiating pressure.

Fang Jun felt a bit intimidated inside as well, but after a moment's thought, he replied, "This commoner wouldn't dare, but there were extenuating circumstances..."

Emperor Li Er snorted. "I know. You harbored resentment toward the Prince of Han because of your eldest sister's affair. I won't lecture you about superiors and subordinates, but everything has a cause and effect. Did you ever bother to investigate the details of the matter thoroughly? Do you know that the Prince of Han rebuking your eldest sister was also a way of upholding his dignity as an imperial prince?"

Fang Jun retorted, "I don't care about any of that."

Emperor Li Er raged, "Do you have no sense of right and wrong, no discernment of reason?"

Fang Jun blinked, looked straight at Emperor Li Er with perfect composure, and said in a ringing voice, "I am a simple-minded person and don't care about all those complex matters. My personal principle for handling things has always been to side with my own flesh and blood over abstract reason! Whoever bullies my family—regardless of their excuses—gets beaten up first, and we can talk later!"

Li Siwen and Cheng Chubi were awestruck to the point of prostration. Good grief, he actually dared to say that...

Emperor Li Er was practically choked with fury. He raised his foot and delivered a vicious kick straight to Fang Jun's shoulder, cursing loudly, "Nonsense! Utterly unscholarly! How can there be siding with family over reason? Where did you ever hear such absurd logic as favoring relations over righteousness?"

Having taken a kick—though it didn't hurt too much—Fang Jun didn't mind it overly much. Even if he were foolish, he wasn't foolish enough to kick Emperor Li Er back just because he got kicked...

Fang Jun rubbed his shoulder, stuck out his neck, and argued stubbornly, "What is a close relative? A close relative is the person who still stands by your side when you are at your wit's end and have reached a dead end! Toward your own family, you naturally must offer unconditional support and help! When abstract principles and family affection come into conflict, I couldn't care less about their so-called principles!"

Emperor Li Er glared with wide eyes at the righteous-looking Fang Jun, completely at a loss for words.

Siding with family over reason?

No one had ever spoken such words before, but in this era where clan lineage outweighed everything else, it was absolute human nature.

Put that way, was Fang Jun's rampage at the Prince of Han's estate actually justified?

Emperor Li Er was left speechless, feeling extremely vexed. With his heart hardening, he simply threw all reason to the wind and commanded arbitrarily, "Drag them all out! Give each of them fifty heavy cane strikes right outside the hall so I can hear the commotion!"

Since you, Fang Jun, refuse to be reasonable yet still manage to argue with eloquence, I won't reason with you anymore either—I'm simply going to beat you, and what of it?

Now it was Fang Jun's turn to be dumbfounded. When the emperor stops reasoning with you, what on earth is left to say?

Unless he wanted to reenact some shadowy palace coup right here in the Dragon Ascension Hall, his only choice was to quietly submit to the beating...