Chapter 47

The Empress had not expected him to question her like that. One look told her Ruan Tang had something to say to her and was merely putting on an act here.

"Child, why would you ask such a thing?" But she did not expose him, only asking with the deepest concern on her face: "His Majesty has already promised me that any child you and Auston have in the future will be the Crown Prince. How could your situation possibly not improve?"

Ruan Tang also knew the Empress was performing, yet he simply played along: "Even if I have a child, that child will be a Crown Prince jointly supported by the Ruan Family and Your Majesty, and will only be connected to me by blood. As for His Grace... he is the way he is, and my father has more children than can be counted. How could my situation possibly improve?"

He laid out his current predicament directly. The Empress and Ruan Ming had only ever treated him as a breeding tool to be sweet-talked, and if any benefits ever came his way in the future, they would belong to the Empress Family and the Ruan Family — none of it had anything to do with him.

If he were truly taken in by their coaxing and bore the so-called 'Crown Prince' —

Let alone being able to claim the title of the Crown Prince's birth-father and become one of the most honored people in Dias, he likely wouldn't even be allowed to lay eyes on the child once it was born, let alone raise the future Crown Prince himself and nurture any deep affection in the child toward him.

If he were obedient and compliant, Ruan Ming and the Empress could at least guarantee him a life of comfort and luxury. But if he stirred up even the slightest trouble, if he defied their wishes, they would probably quietly come up with some respectable reason for him to 'die of illness.'

A tool like himself was, in their eyes, most valuable and most useful only before it had fulfilled its purpose for the user. Once the goal was achieved, he would be worth nothing at all.

Ruan Tang understood this well. He knew that right now, in this moment, was when his treatment and his words carried the most weight with the Empress.

And Auston's apparent deep favor and infatuation with him, in the eyes of others, had also become a card in his hand — a card to declare to the Empress that at present, this particular tool was indispensable.

It was precisely this that gave Ruan Tang the confidence and the standing to negotiate with the Empress —

"I didn't expect you, child, to be so lacking in a sense of security?" The Empress had not anticipated Ruan Tang would have the audacity to speak this way, and she looked up at him in surprise.

Ruan Tang simply kept his head lowered and said nothing.

But the Empress's gaze on him gradually deepened. When she had first met Ruan Tang, although she had thought this OMEGA from the Ruan Family was good-looking, she had actually never truly taken him seriously. She had only thought Ruan Tang was a puppet on strings controlled by Ruan Ming — as long as she offered a few benefits and a little sweet talk, he would do whatever she wanted. Foolish and stupid, pretty to look at but utterly without a soul of his own.

When she had decided to make him a breeding tool and the Duchess to Auston, the Empress had never even considered putting in the effort to make him submit to her.

It was only after she discovered that beneath Ruan Tang's obedient and gentle exterior toward her, he was actually paying lip service while doing the opposite — and had somehow won the affections of her madman of a son — that the Empress began to pay him a little more attention.

And it was only when Ruan Tang said these things, revealing a mind set on negotiating for something from her, that the Empress truly looked at him properly for the first time.

She wondered if perhaps she had underestimated this Ruan Tang all along.

Then again, an OMEGA who could even manage to handle her own hideous madman of a son could hardly be any simple character. That old fox Ruan Ming truly did not have a single truly foolish child under his knee.

This Ruan Tang had been playing the block of wood all along, pretending not to understand her hints — and it turned out he had been waiting right here for her.

Although she was somewhat displeased, the Empress still wore a perfectly benevolent smile on her face: "I wonder what it would take to give you some sense of security? Just say it. Once you marry Auston, you'll be my child too. As long as you ask, anything this mother can do for you, I will do my utmost."

She did want to know what Ruan Tang had been holding back all this time, what he had so deliberately been plotting to demand from her.

"Imperial Mother, I want the entire Ruan Family." Ruan Tang raised his eyes to look at the Empress, making no attempt to hide his ambition.

The Empress stared at Ruan Tang in disbelief, hardly able to believe it. This unassuming OMEGA actually had such immense ambition and such a voracious appetite. She fixed her gaze on Ruan Tang for quite a while, then laughed: “What are you talking about, child? Let's not even mention that your father has so many children, and among them more than one Alpha — the position of the next head of the Ruan Family could never fall to an OMEGA who has married out...”

"Even if you truly wanted the Ruan Family, shouldn't you be going to your father for it? The Ruan Family is not mine — what could I possibly do to help you? How could I give you the entire Ruan Family?" She truly hadn't expected that this Ruan Tang was a ruthless character daring enough to open his mouth so wide — in one breath, demanding one of the empire's ten great families in its entirety.

Ruan Tang did not care how she perceived him. He spoke unhurriedly: "Gu Xuan, the head of the Gu Family, one of the ten great families, is also an OMEGA. Why then could I not be the head of the Ruan Family?"

"Besides, I am not asking Imperial Mother to do anything to simply hand the Ruan Family to me. I only hope Imperial Mother can give me the chance to take it for myself."

From the very moment he had entered the game, Ruan Tang had already set his goal.

In the past, it had always been other people making choices for him — what to give him, or what to take from him. He could only passively choose to accept it obediently or find ways to escape.

But from this moment on, he would choose to take his own destiny into his own hands.

And this opportunity had been handed to him by Ruan Ming...

"But Gu Xuan is the only son of the former head of the Gu Family." The Empress stared at him darkly for a long while, then said coldly: "Child, you are an OMEGA. I truly don't know where you get such a grand scheme."

Great ambition without the virtue to match it was destined to invite a terrible backlash.

"But Gu Xuan is an OMEGA — an OMEGA who defeated all his cousins to rise to the top. And Your Majesty is also an OMEGA... The Blood-Robed War God of those years was also an OMEGA." Ruan Tang answered calmly, his gaze level as he looked at the Empress.

The Empress of Dias, like the Emperor, was honored with the title 'Your Majesty.' This was because the empire's territory had been carved out by Dias's founding Emperor and founding Empress together, and the founding Empress had even been called the empire's Blood-Robed War God. When they founded the nation, the two sovereigns held court side by side, governing the empire together.

From then on, the Empress of Dias was also addressed as 'Your Majesty,' wielding tremendous power throughout the entire empire and holding half of its rule.

Although no Empress after her ever surpassed that Blood-Robed War God, every OMEGA in the entire empire, and every successive Empress of Dias, had taken that Blood-Robed War God as their goal, as their idol.

In the middle period of the empire, there had even been an Empress who, when the Emperor passed away and the Crown Prince was still young, had for a time 'a hen crowing at dawn' — taking the crown herself as Empress Regnant and becoming the sole sovereign of the entire empire.

There had even been a stretch of time when the empire saw no few incompetent and useless Emperors, all of whom had relied on the Empress's ability and governance to pull the empire's glory back from the brink.

Although by now, the struggle for power between Emperor and Empress had greatly diminished the force the Empress controlled, countless OMEGAs across the entire empire still yearned for another Empress like the Blood-Robed War God.

The Empress before him now shared that very aspiration...

Ruan Tang felt that although he could not comprehend her ruthlessness toward her own flesh and blood, he could understand her ambition.

And so, he hoped she could understand his as well.

The Empress gazed at him deeply and said nothing.

“Your Majesty, a straightforward person doesn't speak in riddles. We are both OMEGAs — why must you deny that OMEGAs, too, can have ambition?” Ruan Tang spoke neither arrogantly nor meekly, with perfect candor: “My mother was especially gentle and kind — the kind of OMEGA any Alpha would hope for. But she ended up a fool. My eldest sister was radiant and noble, once the first beauty of the empire, yet she went mad...”

"I only recently learned that my mother didn't go mad because she was traumatized by what happened to my brother. Someone poisoned her with a toxin... it wasn't lethal, but it could make her dim-witted and deranged." Ruan Tang immediately pushed all the blame onto Ruan Ming: "And the one who did it was none other than my father, her husband. At the time, my mother might have asked him for a divorce, and Ruan Ming was afraid she would take half his assets, so he made a move against her. And the successive misfortunes that befell my brother and sister weren't accidents either — I was just too young then and didn't know much, which is why I was spared and managed to cling to life..."

He did not actually know who was truly behind the accidents that had befallen his mother, brother, and sister. But Ruan Ming was indeed the one truly responsible for all of it.

The Empress was visibly startled at this and knit her brow slightly. She had not expected that such a hidden story lay behind the successive misfortunes of Ruan Tang's mother, brother, and sister.

But judging from Ruan Tang's account, given Ruan Ming's cold and indifferent nature, it was not impossible...

After all, the fact that Ruan Tang's mother, brother, and sister had all run into trouble within the same stretch of time was simply too much of a coincidence.

"Your Majesty, isn't it laughable? An OMEGA without power is this wretched — she only wanted to take back what was rightfully hers, yet she 'held jade that invited disaster' and met with such an end." Every word from Ruan Tang was like blood and tears: "My mother stood by Ruan Ming's side as he built everything from nothing. My brother fought on the battlefield for the Ruan Family Army, giving his life as the stakes. My sister was married off twice, traded away for the Ruan Family's power and interests... Three-quarters of everything the Ruan Family now has — at the very least — is thanks to their contributions. Yet in the end, all of it only went to making a wedding dress for someone else, letting others seize everything."

The Empress looked at his agitated state and could not help but sigh inwardly. This person, indeed, had been forged by pressure.

Given his origins, it was no wonder Ruan Tang had grown into who he was...

"I'm unwilling. So utterly unwilling. Ever since I learned the truth of what happened to my mother, my brother, and my sister, I have sworn in my heart that I will make Ruan Ming — make every single person in the Ruan Family — pay the price, and take back everything my family is owed." Ruan Xi had always been one to play the victim in the past, but in truth, it was Ruan Tang who truly understood how to play the victim in a way that resonated with others, that drew the most sympathy. It was simply that he had never deigned to do so before.

And unlike Ruan Xi, whose act crumbled the moment you poked it, his suffering was all real, all hard-won blood and tears...

He fixed his gaze on the Empress, his emotions running high: "Your Majesty, I know what it is your heart desires, and I won't hide what mine is either... I am willing to serve you, to help you achieve what you long for. All I ask is that you give me a chance — let me take back everything my mother, my brother, and my sister were owed."

"Besides, a man like my father — do you truly believe that once he has reached an agreement with you, he won't make deals with others and betray you, won't disobey your orders?" Ruan Tang raised his eyes to look at the Empress, and said word by word: "But I am different. If I become the head of the Ruan Family, and I bear Your Majesty a royal grandchild, then the entire Ruan Family will naturally stand on the side of you and that grandchild..."

His words struck straight at the heart of the Empress's concerns, but the Empress only tapped a finger lightly on the table and still did not speak.

Ruan Tang immediately pressed harder, pledging his loyalty: "Furthermore, I swear that after the Crown Prince is born, I will never see him again. I will let him be raised by you, and recognize only you as his blood relation. It won't affect him in the slightest in the future..."

He looked every inch a man driven to the wall, with no path left to turn.

"Good, good child. If you truly bear the Crown Prince, how could I possibly have the heart to keep father and son apart?" The Empress finally furrowed her brow slightly. Although she had never intended to let her future grandchild have any contact with Ruan Tang, she still took Ruan Tang's hand and said: "Since you are begging me like this, I am naturally willing to give you this chance."

"From now on, you will stay by my side and work for me. As for whether you can obtain what you want — that will depend entirely on you."

Ruan Tang was brimming with gratitude: "Thank you, Your Majesty."

After spending so many years in this circle, it was only now that he had his first real chance to approach the core of power.