The kingdom falling apart makes Yichen sacrificing two imperial shangtian (Ruo's parents) an even dumber decision than I initially believed, seven hells even his first son who he despised could've been of use as more than a cause for war, reading Yichen's POV is pure comedy especially with the foreknowledge that near the entire empire is against him, near every member of the great nine stands against him, two of the three heavenly sects stand against him--lord (Niki) only knows just how much of each sect is pro rogue--and ofcourse the men of the hour the rogues, they're bringing forth enough power to challenge the full forth of the empire and now Yichen has to fight them with less than half of his total forces (the specifics are far more depressing for pro empire players) and his clan only has one shangtian and the imperial heir is a houtian--a talented houtian yes but a houtian nonetheless. And to make it all better, if he somehow wins he still loses, if LB doesn't destroy his empire the Yue will, if the Yue don't one of the infinite number of forces who'd benefit from possessing a god grave will and if someway somehow he escapes even that with his empire intact the dragon mother will make sure there won't even be insects to survive him by, not a speck of dust of the empire he's spent millennia maintaining.
I almost forgot, their grandchild is an antisocial sword addict with all the charisma of a punch to the gut, Ruo is only tolerated because of their backing and now that the empire is about to be in open war Yichen's heir might genuinely be a detriment towards getting allies, seven hells look at what she did to Jing Guo's elder brother, if the Jing weren't already rogues they surely would be after that, Yichen the man you are, your empire is going to be ruined within your lifetime, your fight with death has made sure of that and your many ingenious plans have made double sure of that
Ashes to ashes dust to dust her lies yet another puppet of the heavens