The Emperor complained bitterly all night long.
He was full of unfulfilled ambitions. After ascending the throne and ruling for several years, he'd thought his greatest obstacle and enemy would be his elder brother, Xielou. But Xielou had decisively washed his hands of politics, feigning incompetence and staying far from the court's strife. It was the ministers, instead, who refused to serve him, constraining him at every turn.
This was easy enough to understand.
A group of senior ministers, all interconnected by marriage, had been a unified bloc since the late Emperor's reign. It wasn't that they truly wanted the Emperor dead; they just wanted to reduce him to a figurehead and expand their own power.
