DLERB -Chapter 59 The First Emperor Admits He Was Wrong? The Officials: The Sky Is About to Collapse!

“Father Emperor… did I do something wrong?”

The words were very soft.

Thick with a nasal tone.

Like an invisible needle, stabbing fiercely into the heart of Qin Shi Huang.

His arms tightened abruptly.

So tightly that even Ying Ziye felt a little pain.

But he didn’t move.

He just curled up in the Emperor’s embrace, his small face buried in the black dragon robe, smearing the expensive silk with tears and snot.

“Who said that?” the Emperor asked.

His voice was hoarse.

As if sand were stuck in his throat.

“No one said you were wrong.”

He lifted a hand, trying to wipe the child’s face.

But his hand was shaking badly.

It was fear.

Just moments ago, that dagger had been less than half an inch from Ying Ziye’s forehead.

If Qinglong had been even a fraction of a second slower—

Just a fraction.

He would have lost this son forever.

Ying Ziye sniffled.

He raised his head, his red, swollen eyes looking at the Emperor.

“But… but Uncle Zhao Gao said I was wrong.”

He gestured with his small hands.

“I killed people.”

“I killed that bad man Yan Le, and I also had Uncle Qinglong kill many, many people.”

“I also tied Grandpa Chunyu Yue to a wooden frame and made him stand in the sun.”

“I also privately mobilized the army without asking Father Emperor.”

As he spoke, his voice grew smaller and smaller.

Then he lowered his head again, like a student waiting to be punished.

“They all said… only tyrants do such things.”

“They said Father Emperor hates people who don’t obey… hates those who hold military power.”

“When Father Emperor returns, he will definitely be angry.”

“He will definitely… kill me.”

At the last sentence, his body trembled again.

Silence—dead silence.

Li Si knelt to the side, his forehead pressed tightly against the ground, cold sweat soaking his back.

These words were too piercing.

Kill Yan Le? He deserved it.

Bind Chunyu Yue? It was the Confucians pushing rebellion.

Mobilize troops? It was to save the Qin Empire’s future.

But now, in the mouth of this eight-year-old child, all of it had become the source of his fear.

Because he was afraid of his father.

He was afraid of the authoritative, supreme First Emperor.

Qin Shi Huang felt as if his heart had been seized by a giant hand.

So tightly it hurt—pain so sharp he could barely breathe.

He thought back to everything along the way.

The secret reports he had received.

The rumors he had heard.

He had been angry.

He had doubted.

He had even wondered whether this son truly harbored rebellion in his heart—whether he truly intended to seize the throne.

And even when he saw the “Divine Strategist Army,” he had still been testing him.

“If I don’t give them food, will they rebel?”

He had been testing an eight-year-old child.

He had been testing a son who, just to ensure his father could eat hot sweet potatoes, had willingly taken on the reputation of being “cruel.”

Damn it.

Truly damn it!

The Emperor’s eyes turned red.

In decades of imperial rule, this had never happened.

He loosened his grip and cupped Ying Ziye’s small face in his hands.

He did not mind the dust or tears.

With his thumbs, he clumsily wiped them away, bit by bit.

“Ziye,” he said.

“You did nothing wrong.”

“Yan Le was killed because he defied the Emperor and deserved it.”

“The Confucian scholars were punished because they were rigid and harmed the state—they deserved it.”

“You mobilized the army because you wanted to protect the grain, to protect the foundation of Qin!”

The Emperor’s voice grew louder with each sentence.

Every word struck the ground like forged gold and stone.

“If even this is called wrong,” he said, “then what of me?”

“I unified the Six Kingdoms, destroyed the Seven States, and caused mountains of corpses and rivers of blood—would that not be an even greater wrong?”

Ying Ziye blinked his large eyes.

“Really?”

“Father Emperor… you’re not going to blame me?”

“I won’t.”

He said it without hesitation.

“Then… will Father Emperor still kill me?”

The child asked the most crucial question in a small, careful voice.

Qin Shi Huang froze.

He looked at those eyes—pure, without the slightest impurity.

At that moment.

All imperial calculations and schemes…

All the weighing of pros and cons.

All the suspicion and guard.

All of it—gone to hell.

This was his son.

The prodigy of Great Qin.

“Foolish child.”

Qin Shi Huang suddenly laughed.

It was an ugly smile, but more genuine than anything he had shown in years.

He pulled Ying Ziye back into his arms, resting his chin on the child’s soft head.

“How could I possibly kill you?”

“It was your father… who was wrong.”

Boom!

The moment those five words were spoken—

Wang Jian almost dropped the sword in his hand.

Li Si suddenly lifted his head, wearing an expression as if he had seen a ghost.

Wrong?

The First Emperor admitting he was wrong?

The very Dragon Ancestor who swept across the Six Kingdoms, ruled with absolute authority, and had never once bowed his head to anyone—was actually, in front of all civil and military officials, apologizing to an eight-year-old child?

Was the sky about to collapse?

Yet Qin Shi Huang did not care in the slightest about the gazes around him.

He only cared about the little one in his arms.

“Your father listened to that eunuch dog’s slander.”

“Your father should not have tested you.”

“From now on, anyone who dares say you are rebelling— I will exterminate their entire clan!”

“This empire of Qin is yours.”

“The armies of Qin are also yours.”

“As long as you are happy, even if you want to turn Xianyang upside down, your father will support you!”

This was favoritism.

This was unconditional indulgence with no limits.

The deeper the earlier suspicion had been, the more extreme the compensation became now.

In Ying Ziye’s arms, his small face rubbed against the dragon robe.

No one noticed.

That tear-streaked face flashed a hint of cunning.

Got it.

From now on, even if he walked sideways through Xianyang, no one would dare complain.

This crying session was worth it!

Sniff—

Ying Ziye sniffed one last time.

Then he pushed out of the Emperor’s embrace.

The pitiful, near-breathless expression from moments ago vanished instantly without a trace.

Replacing it was…

It was a smile as bright as a sunflower.

A face-changing speed worthy of flipping a book.

“Great!”

He cheered and bounced in place.

“Father Emperor won’t kill me anymore!”

“Then I’m relieved!”

Qin Shi Huang was momentarily stunned by this sudden transformation.

Wasn’t he just crying as if his world had collapsed a moment ago?

How did he recover in the blink of an eye?

“Father Emperor, Father Emperor!”

Ying Ziye didn’t even give him time to react.

He reached out with both small hands and grabbed the Emperor’s large hand, pulling him forward along the field ridge.

“Since Father Emperor isn’t angry anymore,” he said brightly, “then I still have a lot of good things to show you!”

“Potatoes and sweet potatoes are just food.”

“In the ‘Heavenly Workshop,’ I’ve prepared an even bigger gift for Father Emperor!”

“A gift a hundred times more powerful than that chili water!”

The Emperor was nearly pulled off balance.

But he didn’t get angry.

Instead, he let the little child drag him forward, stumbling through the muddy ground step by step.

Watching his son’s bouncing back, Qin Shi Huang shook his head, a face full of helpless indulgence.

“Slow down.”

“Father will feel heartache if you fall.”

The two of them—one large, one small—walked toward the distance like this.

Leaving behind a field of stunned civil and military officials.

Li Si slowly got up from the ground.

He brushed the dirt off his knees and glanced at Wang Jian beside him.

Wang Jian was also looking at him.

The two old foxes, both over a hundred years of combined experience, saw the same emotion in each other’s eyes.

Awe.

Awe toward that eight-year-old child.

“Old Wang,” Li Si said quietly with a sigh.

“Our little prince… is truly extraordinary.”

Wang Jian sheathed his sword, staring at Ying Ziye’s back, and nodded heavily.

“To manipulate His Majesty’s emotions to this extent…”

“The sky of Great Qin…”

“…may truly be about to change.”