“I’ve heard”, Fang interjected impatiently, before pausing suddenly as if he had immediately regretted his tone. “We will begin the next phase of our plan shortly.” “Toyonari Hikawa has agreed to initiate Operation Asura III”, said the Emissary, still looking out of the window. Both of the door guards, like all the other Paladins Fang saw around Vientiane as he was driven from his house over to the Prime Minister’s Office, were of exactly the same height and build. They bore no insignia, and their faces were covered completely by black plexiglass. These were not the Paladins of the Han’s armed forces the style of their armour and the make of their weapons indicated that they belonged to some other organisation, one that Fang did not know. A pair of Paladins stood guard at the door, one on each side, but these were not the same ones Fang was used to seeing. Unnerved by the deep silence of the office, Fang glanced over the back of his shoulder. The Emissary turned his chair around, pointing his back at Fang Zi-an and looking out the window. “Good evening, Lord Emissary.” That was all Fang Zi-an could manage, as he bowed his head, dressed in a dishevelled and ill-fitting suit, and took his seat as he had been instructed. Here was a man who had just told him to grovel.
Here was a man who held him in the palm of his hand. But here, seated at the desk in the dark office, was a man he could not read at all. Those beneath him could be easily put in place with carrots and sticks. Empress Gao Guan-yin was easily manipulated, so lacking was she in emotional maturity and critical faculties. And yet, when he was summoned in front of the man seated in the Prime Minister’s Office in Vientiane, Fang Zi-an felt, for the first time in his life, truly powerless. He was content to let them bask in their ignorant self-satisfaction. They did not know of the true genius of Fang Zi-an. However much grovelling he needed to do was of no concern the fools on the receiving end of that grovelling knew nothing.
There could have been no other path for a man of his talents and calibre. From the moment he was born, he knew that he was destined for greatness. Please have a seat.”įang Zi-an hated being told what to do.
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