Throne Steps

Before the New Year's holiday, the last court meeting of the year was held.

At this time in previous years, everyone was absent-minded, just listening to those clichés, thinking about finishing it and going home.This year, however, a lingering tension pervades the Palace.Every courtier who got off the carriage and walked to the palace seemed to be going to the battlefield. They adjusted their clothes like soldiers checking their armor.

When they passed by each other, they met each other's eyes, and a silent language conveyed each other's thoughts in the blink of an eye.

There are two people who are not here, but they seem to exist in every corner of this place.No one mentioned their names, but their names kept turning in their hearts.

The first half of the Great Court Meeting is the usual practice in the past.

The year's concluding statement was as lengthy as in previous years, those familiar words came in from one ear and out from the other as in previous years, and the courtiers standing under the throne were all thoughtful as in previous years.

But this year, they were thinking the same thing.

When I entered the door, I was still on the surface happy and harmonious, but now I look around, how many of them are my "companions"?

Finally, the yearly summary that no one cares about is finally over.Last year, the courtiers at this time were all ready to leave, but now, their attention has been concentrated.

The king seemed to deliberately brew the atmosphere, and after a few seconds of silence, he said: "Today, there is another important matter that needs to be decided by everyone - that is whether to give Saenz Vaguecheno Saenli I wish to issue the title order of the Patriarch of the Saenlich Clan."

coming!

The king's words seemed to turn on some kind of switch, which made the courtiers, who were a little out of state due to the boring report, suddenly lifted their spirits.

What is rare is that the king did not take this opportunity to say a few more words.He made a short speech on what happened next, which sounded rich in content, but when he thought about it carefully, he felt that there was no substantive information. It can be said that he played the role of "neutrality" to the extreme.

Then, an official stepped forward, saluted the king, and then turned around to show the courtiers a half-sized piece of paper: "Now I will explain to you how to use the ballot..."

While he was talking, someone from the back carried two tables to the king's seat, along with a partition in the middle and two ballot boxes.To put it simply, this voting adopts a real-name system. Everyone goes to the table in front of the king to fill in their names and voting goals on the spot, show it to the king after completion, and then put the ballot into the box.

This is equivalent to the king himself overseeing the voting process, which shows the status of pure white in the alliance.And after everyone has finished voting, the votes will be counted and counted immediately on the spot.The results will be announced immediately, and even official documents can be directly filled with names, and then published outside the palace gate.

Regardless of the number of people waiting for news outside the palace, when the votes were counted at the meeting, only the voting target was announced, and the names of the voters were not mentioned.

Of course, it is said that the information of the voters is kept confidential, but the names are all written on it. How can there be an airtight wall in the world?

It's clear at a glance who voted for whom.

Voting begins soon.Everything was very quiet, the courtiers looked at each other, and then staggered, without even making a slight gesture.By this time, there is no need for any communication.

The first to vote was the prince, then the ten ministers, and then the remaining 38 people.

After the prince finished voting, he sat back under the king's seat, glanced at the courtiers standing and walking below, and suddenly felt a little emotional.

If it weren't for the past, maybe the two princesses are also present and can vote now.

It can only be said that time is also fate.

One by one ballot papers were shown in front of the king and put into the ballot box, and fewer and fewer people did not vote.In fact, who is ahead and who is behind, the king, as the only person who read the votes, was also the first person to know.But his expression didn't change, and he didn't look at anyone more, which made it difficult for everyone to guess the result in advance.

There were only 48 people in total, almost equivalent to a group of two, so the voting was completed in less than half an hour.

The waiter brought up two easels, and two people stood back to back in front of the king with left and right hands, responsible for counting votes independently.The method of counting votes is to draw a vertical line for each vote, and draw a slash in front of the first four vertical lines for every five votes.Four people stood at the table in twos and counted the votes. One was responsible for taking the votes out of the box and reading the results aloud, and the other was responsible for checking and putting away the votes.

In order to clearly count the votes, the full names of the two voters are no longer read, just read "Saenz", "Vagecheno" or "abstain".

Reached into the ballot box, took out a piece of paper, opened it, and read: "Saenz."

The people in front of the two drawing boards both drew a vertical line under the name "Saenz" on the paper.

—The calling has begun.

The two ballot boxes alternated, ballots were taken out one after another, and the marks under the two names on the drawing board increased one by one.The courtiers stretched their heads grandly to look at it, and some turned their eyes calmly. Every time the votes were sung, it seemed that something was pushed up from the airway, making it difficult for people to take a deep breath.

The king and the old god were watching everything that was happening.

Under everyone's attention, Saenz's votes began to show a leading trend.

Although it is anonymous, everyone can estimate who voted for the current vote.After thinking about it in their hearts, an idea suddenly popped up in some people's minds.

They looked at each other—

Something is wrong!

In a mansion near the capital, Saenz and several of his cronies are sitting in the reception room.The snow outside the window seemed to have calmed down the whole world, but the people inside were a little restless.

At odds with this restlessness is Saenz.He sat on the sofa, drinking his tea slowly, calmly.With blond hair and handsome face, the pure white color at any time is as beautiful as a painting.

Li Chen stood in front of them, next to his hand was a standing easel, a piece of paper had been fixed on the board of the easel, and Li Chen wrote on it.Coincidentally, the three words on the first line of this paper are similar to the words written on the two drawing boards in the palace.

"Your Highness", "Your Majesty", "abstain".

If so many of Saenz's confidantes were not here, Li Chen probably would have dared to write "Saenz" and "Vagchenau" directly.

"According to the relationship, the number of people who would have voted for Your Highness is about 13." Li Chen wrote "Thirteen" under the word "Your Highness", and then wrote "Twelve" next to it, " Your Majesty's words...about twelve votes."

"I estimated thirteen votes under the crown." A confidant interjected, "Did you forget to count..."

"Whether it's twelve or thirteen, that's not the point." Li Chen interrupted, "These numbers are our guesses. Generally speaking, the two must be evenly matched at the beginning."

"But……"

"Janes." This time it was Saenz who interrupted his aide, "Listen to him."

The confidant fell silent.

Li Chen smiled and continued: "Before we were talking about the range of ten people... Oh, and when the prince was voting with 11 people, we discussed the winning rate within this range. Because at that time it was assumed that the prince would vote for His Highness, and The justice will be biased towards us, so 11 votes are added. The concept that His Highness can win within the range of [-] people also comes from here."

The eyes of the cronies did not fluctuate, as if they felt that these were all nonsense.

Li Chen knew what they were thinking, and smiled lightly: "However, is this really the case?"

The confidant James frowned: "What do you mean?"

"Although the prince is indeed biased toward us, he is a prince after all, and he still cannot escape the king's control." Li Chen replied, "The king is a neutral faction."

"You want to say that the prince will not actually choose His Highness?"

"correct."

Li Chen drew a vertical line under "Abstain", followed by another vertical line: "As for the chief judge, this person is very cunning, and he is more likely to abstain than to explicitly vote for Your Highness."

The cronies looked at the symbols on the paper, thought for a while, and asked: "You mean, if you vote within the range of 11 people, the result may not be as optimistic as we think?"

Li Chen just likes to talk to this group of people who spend all day in the camp, because it is easy to match their ideas.

"It's really not as optimistic as we thought." Li Chen nodded, "Or, this seemingly optimistic situation is actually something we deliberately created for others to see."

"Deliberately..." The cronies were stunned for a second, and then suddenly realized, "Is it planned to push the voting range to 48 people?!"

Li Chen laughed, and the cronies looked at Saenz in surprise, who also nodded with a smile.

"But, what's the point?" The cronies didn't quite understand, "Why do you want to do this?"

"This is divided into two levels." Li Chen replied, "One is why we have to push to the range of 48 people, and the other is why we have to use the hands of the crown to achieve this."

"Borrowing the hand of the crown is because the king is unwilling to enter the range of 48 people. Let's take this opportunity to 'injure people with a knife'." James said, "We all understand this issue, and we can only explain the previous incident."

Li Chen said happily: "Then there is no need to explain the previous question. We may not win within the range of 11 people, so we have to push it to the Grand Court Meeting. Doesn't Your Majesty think the same way?"

"It seems that you have the confidence to win in the Great Court."

"Of course, don't you have confidence in His Highness?" Li Chen said mockingly, and was satisfied to see that the other party was choked for a while, before continuing, "After all, our public opinion control and 'canvassing' activities are more important than Your Majesty started much earlier."

"If the canvassing activity you're talking about is to give theater tickets to the Literature Association..." Zhan Shide was already a little anxious, but when Li Chen scolded him, he became angry a little bit, "Then I can only say that this is just a drop in the bucket."

Li Chen was not provoked by him, but just smiled: "Then what if I say that we have received a secret report that our rival decided to make trouble?"

"what……"

"The great lord has joined forces with several of his allies to add some fun to this voting event." Li Chen lowered his eyes, "The specific operation method is very simple, that is, according to the 'election survey' he received, at the last moment 'Help' the weaker side to make the spark between His Highness and His Majesty more intense."

Zhan Shide was silent for two seconds, and suddenly his eyes glared: "You just said public opinion control, did you mean to control the 'election investigation' shown to the great lord?!"

Li Chen smiled slightly: "Congratulations, you got the answer right again. Moreover, His Majesty's canvassing actions are more obvious than ours. Isn't it normal that the pre-election investigation is biased towards him?"

James Dee murmured: "So His Royal Highness will get votes belonging to the faction controlled by the great lord..."

"Not all. According to the information, the great lord has released some people to vote for His Highness, and the news that some people don't know how to vote is for His Highness and His Majesty to think of a way to 'fight'." Li Li Chen smiled, "But because of luck, those who can vote freely also have people who need to fulfill their promises to us."

"Fulfilling the promise..." James said, "That is to say, this plan was actually carried out a long time ago..."

"He said to fulfill his promise to 'us', and this 'us' does not include me." Saenz said, "It was he and his companions who got the plan to push the voting range to 48 people. This was born out of an opportunity. I won’t tell you in detail because there must be no loopholes in the information sent to the great lord, and I didn’t deliberately hide it from you. Not only you, but even the election information I received a while ago was false.”

With a few words, Saenz put the credit for the plan on Li Chen, but he himself took the responsibility of "hiding the truth from his confidants".

He said so, what else can others do?As a confidant, it is indeed sad to be "guarded" by those who are loyal to you, but it is not yourself who was the first to get the votes of the opponent's forces, and the first to propose and implement the plan, so I can only admit it.

Zhan Shide looked at Li Chen and said, "It seems that we should be able to hear good news today?"

Li Chen shrugged: "I can only say that I have tried my best, but I am only the one who proposes ideas, and the one who really controls everything is Your Highness."

Since he proposed the plan nearly two years ago, Saenz has been in control of everything.Find a way to pull the nails of the major intelligence organizations to the election investigation team, weave a set of coherent and reasonable false information, and let the big lord and Vagchenau step into the trap by themselves.Even Li Chen himself, who proposed the plan, had to be emotional when faced with the progress of this journey.

No one can do better than Saenz.

The people he placed in the major forces exceeded Li Chen's imagination. On the surface, he promised his father that he would not covet the throne, but everything he did secretly made him gradually become a person who can call the wind and rain in the alliance.Li Chen's plan sounds a bit whimsical, but he can realize it.

Those who admire the strong will feel that Saenz is really worthy of victory.

dong dong!

There was a knock on the door in the living room, and Saenz called in.

The butler opened the door, and there was a letter on the tray in his hand.Even though the old man has seen many storms and waves, at this moment, he still can't hide the shake in his heart.

He handed the letter sealed with wax to Saenz.

"Your Highness, a message from the team on standby in front of the palace."

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