Gui Chen appeared to be a man of his word, but Wang Daozhong did not buy it.0

He firmly believed that if the tide had been in his favor, Gui Chen might not have honored the agreement he had made with Zhao Changhe after all. What use was some old agreement when the Four Idols Cult had already claimed the position of the state religion? Gui Chen could not establish his own Taiyi Sect as the state religion, so why bother honoring some old agreement? But when your enemy has smashed through your defenses from the Yellow River to your doorstep in a matter of days, it was not surprising that their allies abandoned them. After all, the wise adapt to the times—why would Gui Chen risk everything for the Wang Clan?0

This was the harsh reality.0

Of course, whether Gui Chen acted out of loyalty to his promise or due to pragmatism was something no one could definitively know. Different minds operated in different ways, forever incomprehensible to one another.0

For his part, Wang Daozhong was reminded of a warning from his late elder brother: “Keep an eye on Zhao Changhe. He is the true dragon of this era, not Xia Longyuan.”0

Recalling those words, Wang Daozhong felt an unexpected sense of peace. He burst into laughter, his voice ringing out above the chaos. “So it’s no surprise for me to have been outplayed by him time and time again these past two years, right?”0

The surrounding...0