Chapter 53: Full Power, Every Word Pierces The Heart! Seeking Monthly Tickets
In the “Guang Ya – Shi Qin” from the Three Kingdoms period, it is recorded: ‘Mother, is the female parent.’
“Grass! Mud! Horse!”
Zhang Biao’s three words were like a thunderclap.
Like thunder, carrying the rawness and extreme grief and indignation of the bottom of society, it smashed hard into the dead silence of the bedroom in Huagai Hall.
The voice carried a brute force that tore apart all false propriety, shaking the dust from the beams to fall like rain.
“You!”
Old Zhu felt his head buzz, everything went blank.
His eyes were full of disbelieving shock and indescribable, enormous anger.
He was seen to swallow hard, his voice hoarse like a bellows, his chest heaving violently, as if it would explode the next second.
“Madman!!”
Liu Sanwu was the first to step forward and angrily curse Zhang Biao.
He was seen with his hair and beard bristling, his old face turning a liver color, trembling like a sieve, pointing at Zhang Biao, his voice so sharp it almost cracked:
“You scoundrel! Treasonous! Utterly wicked! You deserve to be dismembered a thousand times!!”
His lifelong cultivation of citing classics was completely shattered by these naked, vulgar words from the marketplace.
Mei Yin’s eyes were about to burst, his dignity as an Imperial Son-in-Law and a general in command of troops vanished, leaving only the ferocity of being utterly enraged.
He roared, “Take your life—!”
Immediately after, he lunged, empty-handed, intending to kill Zhang Biao on the spot.
“Stop—!”
Jiang Huan, guarding the doorway, moved faster than Mei Yin.
The moment Mei Yin lunged to kill, his Xiuchun Saber had already, like a swift wind cutting grass, arrived after the fact but before the action.
It was not aimed at Zhang Biao, but precisely at Mei Yin.
“Swish!”
Just 0.01 centimeters away, Mei Yin’s arm would have been severed by Jiang Huan’s saber.
Fortunately, he instinctively retracted his hand in time.
“Jiang Huan! You dare to stop me?!”
Mei Yin, both shocked and angry, staggered back a step, glaring at Jiang Huan, who had almost cut off his arm.
“Marquis Mei! Before His Majesty! Do not be presumptuous!”
Jiang Huan’s voice was icy, brooking no argument.
Although he also wanted to kill Zhang Biao, this madman, he had to prevent Mei Yin from killing someone in front of the Emperor.
Especially while Old Zhu had not yet recovered from his shock.
He added, “His Majesty’s health is paramount!”
“Scoundrel! You are a jackal in human skin! A beast in human clothing!”
Seeing that Mei Yin’s attack had failed, Liu Sanwu could not help but curse Zhang Biao again: “The righteousness of the Spring and Autumn Annals emphasizes respecting the king and repelling barbarians! How dare you use such vulgar marketplace language to defile the sacred hearing and blaspheme the sovereign!”
“This is a malevolent energy that destroys moral principles, corrupts human relations, and severs heaven and earth! Everyone has the right to punish you!”
“You deserve the punishment of being roasted alive, of lingchi, and your head displayed on the city gates, to warn against future offenses!”
He cited classics, every word and sentence wishing to nail Zhang Biao to the pillar of historical shame and grind his bones to ashes.
Mei Yin, who had been prevented from venting his rage and had nowhere to direct it, immediately shifted his actions to his words, cursing loudly:
“Zhang Biao! You unsavory wretch! Do you know that when the sovereign is humiliated, the subject dies?! How dare you insult His Majesty with words fit only for excrement and dirt!”
“If I do not dismember this beast, worse than pigs and dogs, who knows neither heaven nor earth, and chop him into meat paste to feed the dogs today, I swear I am no man!!”
“Hahahaha!”
Faced with this barrage of vicious curses, Zhang Biao was not only unafraid but burst into hearty laughter.
The laughter was full of extreme mockery and grief and indignation, which actually overshadowed Liu Sanwu’s citations of classics and Mei Yin’s killing intent.
“A fine ‘righteousness’ of the Spring and Autumn Annals! A fine ‘when the sovereign is humiliated, the subject dies’!”
Zhang Biao suppressed his laughter, his brows sternly facing them: “Liu Sanwu! Put away your hypocritical, pedantic classics! Open your nearsighted, dog-like eyes and look!”
With that, he abruptly flipped the Blood and Tears Salary Demand Record in his hand to the page where Wang Zhong starved to death and shoved it fiercely in front of Liu Sanwu:
“Look! Look at what this depicts? An old censor who worked like an ox and horse for the Great Ming Dynasty for twenty years!”
“He starved to death on a cold earthen kang!”
“In his arms, he clutched three receipts for grain rations!”
“His five-year-old grandson was licking the pot ash!”
“Is this your talk of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom? Your Great Ming Dynasty that restrains itself and restores propriety?! Is this your ‘high righteousness’ that Scholar Liu speaks of every day?! That a scholar would rather die than be humiliated?!”
“I think it’s that scholars would rather starve to death than disturb your pure dreams?!”
“You!”
Liu Sanwu was choked speechless.
But Zhang Biao’s attack did not stop.
He then said with a mocking smile, “Your five brothers were officials in the Yuan court back then. As Han Chinese, you acted as traitors to your own people! In the end, two were killed by the bandits. When you were hiding in Guangxi, eating chaff and weeds and barely surviving, why didn’t you uphold your ‘righteousness’ of the Spring and Autumn Annals?”
“Now that you wear this official robe of the Great Ming, have you forgotten that you were once a dog’s servant of the Yuan Dynasty? Have you forgotten that you once ate shit? No wonder you spew feces from your mouth!”
“Your books of the sages have been read into a dog’s stomach!!”
“You, you… You are slandering me! How dare you smear me!!”
Liu Sanwu, struck by his old wound, trembled all over with anger.
His old face turned from red to white, pointing at Zhang Biao, his lips trembling, but he could no longer utter any words from the Sages, only weak and pale accusations remained.
Zhang Biao ignored him and turned his blade again, directly at Mei Yin: “And you! Marquis Mei!”
“What great might! What great killing intent!”
“What nonsense about ‘when the sovereign is humiliated, the subject dies’? I curse your mother!!”
His spittle almost flew onto Mei Yin’s face, his voice thundered:
“Who was insulted by the Emperor? Was it me, Zhang Biao, for drawing a pig’s head? Or by this ironclad fact?!”
“Or was it by the censors and pure stream officials under his command, who starved to death on the land of the Great Ming, a so-called flourishing era, that he was insulted?!”
“You, Mei Yin, are in charge of the Military Commission, holding military power in the capital region. The soldiers long for a wise ruler and for peace!”
“But have the wages of the soldiers under your command been paid in full? Are their armor bright? Do they have cotton-padded clothes in winter?”
“The fertile land you seized in your mansion’s backyard, the military households you encroached upon, the servants you employed, and the snowflake silver you obtained by colluding with salt smugglers to traffic salt and iron, are piled so high they are almost overflowing, aren’t they?”
“The soldiers gnaw on stale rice mixed with sand, wear rusted armor, and yet you, Marquis Mei, are here spouting ‘when the sovereign is humiliated, the subject dies’?!”
“Hahaha!”
He laughed again, his eyes full of disdain: “I think you are the well-fed not knowing the hunger of the starving, speaking with your feet not hurting!”
“In my eyes, you are the biggest worm, clinging to the Emperor, sucking the blood of the soldiers and the marrow of the nation!”
“What right do you have to order me around here? You should chop off those dog paws of yours and feed them to maggots first!”
Boom!
These words, like peeling skin and scraping bones, tore apart Mei Yin’s shiny facade of a loyal official.
Each word pierced the heart, each sentence drew blood!
Mei Yin’s face turned purple and red, the veins on his forehead bulging like earthworms.
He prided himself on his loyalty and hated being accused of corruption the most.
Zhang Biao’s words were like vipers drilling into his ears, piercing the most hidden filth in his heart.
Shame, rage, and a hint of panic from being exposed in public made him completely lose his reason.
“Ah—! You little beast! I’ll kill you!!”
He roared, no longer caring about court etiquette, his fists clenched, with the madness of mutual destruction, he unhesitatingly smashed down towards Zhang Biao.
This punch, condensed with his lifelong martial arts and countless resentments, was meant to smash the head of this madman who had exposed his past to pieces.
“Enough!!”
Old Zhu finally recovered from his shock and let out an roar of uncontrollable anger.
The roar was like an enraged lion, carrying endless wrath and infinite killing intent.
