“Someone come quickly! Summon the imperial physician!” Lu Zigang didn’t come to his senses for quite a while. That feeling was too real—so real he almost doubted whether he had truly been murdered by Wu Zetian. But when he opened his eyes again, his vision was blurry. Only after a while did he realize he was looking down at a meat pie, with droplets of water falling into the plate. He stared for a moment before realizing the woman he had possessed was eating while crying.

Looking up, Lu Zigang saw a vague reflection in the bronze mirror on the dressing table by the wall—a girl only in her teens who resembled young Wu Zetian, especially that temperament between her brows.

Lu Zigang guessed this girl’s identity: Wu Zetian’s niece, Miss Helan. Due to Tang Gaozong Li Zhi’s special attention, Wu Zetian considered her a potential threat to the harem, so at a banquet she ended her flower-like life with a poisoned meat pie. Obviously, this pie should have been personally handed to her by Wu Zetian, so he had now possessed this girl.

Lu Zigang inconspicuously searched for Wu Zetian’s figure in this hidden room but found nothing.

Could Wu Zetian not be here? Lu Zigang was disappointed.

Miss Helan only ate two bites of the meat pie before putting it down. Obviously with this girl’s ice-like intelligence, she naturally knew she had no way out today. Wu Zetian was already the current empress, not only holding absolute power in the harem but also having considerable influence in court politics. It could be said that whoever she wanted dead would die—they didn’t even have the right to struggle.

“Helan has a few final words. I wonder if Aunt would be willing to listen.” Miss Helan lowered her head to wipe away tears, speaking coolly.

“Child, speak.” A familiar voice came from behind Miss Helan. Only then did Lu Zigang know Wu Zetian had been there all along, perhaps out of guilt not standing before her own niece.

“Why…” Miss Helan’s words stopped halfway, not knowing why she didn’t continue. Lu Zigang suddenly felt he could control this girl’s fingers. With experience from possessing the small baby before, Lu Zigang tried continuing where Miss Helan left off: “Why… kill me?”

Wu Zetian didn’t notice the suspicious pause, always having the best patience for those about to die. “Child, you are innocent. If you must blame someone, blame yourself for being so beautiful—beautiful enough that even your uncle thinks of you. You may think your aunt is cruel and ruthless, but you don’t understand. Men all prefer novelty—the more they can’t have, the more they want it. Though this palace is already honored as the nation’s mother, everything depends on your uncle. One word from him could place this palace in eternal damnation. So this palace can only send you to the Western Heaven Buddha, to ascend early to bliss.”

Lu Zigang fell silent. He knew Wu Zetian spoke correctly. How glorious Empress Wang had been back then, how powerful her family connections—hadn’t Wu Zetian still replaced her? Lu Zigang waited nervously for a moment, finding that Miss Helan in this body had lost consciousness and wasn’t speaking anymore. He boldly borrowed Miss Helan’s voice to ask his own question: “What is it you seek? To personally kill even your closest relatives.”

Wu Zetian noticed Miss Helan had dropped all honorifics in addressing her but didn’t mind much. Standing behind Miss Helan, looking at this young lady’s graceful silhouette, she couldn’t help feeling melancholy. Her child—if she had lived back then, she would probably be this age now…

“What this palace seeks… In youth, it was so this palace’s mother would no longer be bullied. When older, it was to not die lonely in this palace. Later, it was to be his wife, his empress. But now, this palace is aging while he is in his prime. The ancients said: ‘Wife means equal.’ This palace can possess supreme power, manage the harem for the emperor, even handle court affairs. It seems glorious, but it’s merely a tool in the emperor’s hands. When displeased, it can be easily discarded. This palace can only possess more power to ensure its position remains secure.”

Lu Zigang could feel Wu Zetian’s hand stroking Miss Helan’s hair, as if reminiscing about something. He subtly sensed that Wu Zetian was actually remembering the small baby she had personally killed. It was still different—though Wu Zetian would later force her own son to death, that was because he became an obstacle on her path to the throne. Plus the elder Li Hong’s political views conflicted with hers, their mother-son relationship grew increasingly distant until Wu Zetian could no longer see him as her son but as an opponent.

But that small baby in the cradle back then was innocent. No wonder Wu Zetian later showered infinite love on Princess Taiping—to some degree this carried psychology of redemption and compensation for that baby.

“Is it worth it?” Lu Zigang heard Miss Helan’s voice drift out sadly—this was the question he had always wanted to ask.

“Not serving my parents at their knees, this palace is not a good daughter. Not protecting my own child, this palace is not a good mother. Not following wifely duties to take concubines for my husband, this palace is not a good wife… This palace… truly is alone and friendless…” Wu Zetian’s hand stroking the hair paused, followed by a long sigh that echoed even more lonely in the deep palace halls. “However, only the person standing in the highest position can be called alone and friendless.”

Lu Zigang was shocked—he hadn’t expected Wu Zetian to already have thoughts of usurping the throne and becoming emperor.

Wu Zetian collected herself, narrowing her eyes as she began sensing something was wrong. Her niece had always been gentle and weak—she would never ask such roundabout questions. If this girl had even a bit of backbone, Wu Zetian couldn’t have so easily forced her to eat the poisoned pie. These doubts that had lingered in her mind for years made her increasingly uneasy. Wu Zetian’s hand moved down, pressing Miss Helan’s shoulder and forcefully turning her body around, demanding sharply: “Who are you?”

But her voice stopped abruptly upon seeing Miss Helan’s face. The young lady collapsed in her arms with black blood at her lips—already clearly dead, yet those eyes washed by tears were incredibly clear, carrying a heart-stopping brightness.

Wu Zetian stood stunned for a moment, full of questions but not knowing whom to ask. She could only extend her hand in bewilderment, slowly closing Miss Helan’s unwilling eyes.

As someone once said, history is like a young lady who appears differently dressed in different people’s eyes.

The written records of history had long been permeated by power’s transformations. Though Chinese characters emphasized being upright and square, history had long been twisted and deformed within these seemingly orderly words.

But some things never change.

Lu Zigang still remembered visiting Luoyang’s Fengxian Temple several years ago. That Vairocana Buddha was sculpted based on Wu Zetian’s image. This Buddha praised for illuminating all with compassion had none of Wu Zetian’s charm and majesty—all transformed into solemnity and mercy. Today when he opened his eyes, he almost had the same impulse to bow and worship as that day.

But this wasn’t the feeling from seeing a seventeen-meter-tall Buddha statue—it was the imperial dignity and presence Wu Zetian herself possessed.

No matter how luxurious her clothing and ceremonial robes, they could no longer catch Lu Zigang’s eye. In his vision, though Wu Zetian’s hair was already gray, she was at the very peak of her life.

Lu Zigang’s mind raced frantically—whose body had he possessed this time? He had thought that opening his eyes again might find him in unlucky Li Hong’s body. But seeing Wu Zetian at this age, she probably cherished her reputation too much to personally send her eldest son to his death. And in all these years, she hadn’t personally killed anyone.

This was actually normal. She was now the most powerful person in the world—the first female emperor in China’s history. If she wanted someone dead, countless people would respond to do it for her. Why dirty her own hands?

So whose unlucky body was he possessing now?

Besides Wu Zetian, there was still no one else in his vision. The dark palace was like the interior of some man-eating monster, emitting a nauseating bloody smell. The flickering candlelight made Wu Zetian’s face appear light and dark—her expression was completely unclear.

Only when Lu Zigang felt the sticky sensation in his hands did he realize the person he possessed had been stabbed in the abdomen, bleeding continuously. The bloody smell permeating the entire palace was emanating from his body. Who had provoked this generation’s empress to such rage? While racking his brains thinking, Lu Zigang suddenly heard Wu Zetian speak first.

“Xue Huaiyi, don’t think I truly need you. I am already seventy-two years old—do I still need someone to share my bed? You’re nothing but a male consort, yet you think you’re really some grand steward or general?” Wu Zetian’s voice was aged but carried unquestionable authority.

Only then did Lu Zigang understand whose body he possessed. Xue Huaiyi—Wu Zetian’s first male consort after ascending the throne. However, many historians believed that Wu Zetian, already over sixty at the time, couldn’t possibly have had such needs. She simply wanted to prove to the world that if men could be emperors with three palaces, six courtyards, and seventy-two consorts, then women could too when they became emperors.

This was an image project of sorts, but Xue Huaiyi had clearly misunderstood.

No matter how favored, concubines at most received additional rewards of gold, silver, jewels, silk, and satin, with family benefits at best. But when men received favor, it was reflected in official positions. Xue Huaiyi was blinded by wealth and honor, embezzling from the state treasury and burning down Mingtang Hall until even Wu Zetian, who had always indulged him, could no longer tolerate it.

Unlike his previous four experiences, for the first time Lu Zigang felt the person he possessed deserved to die. So he couldn’t help raising the corners of his mouth in a light laugh.

Wu Zetian’s eyes sharpened, staring at him intently as she squeezed out words through thin lips: “You… who are you?”

Lu Zigang was stunned—he hadn’t expected Wu Zetian to notice. He didn’t know how to answer. Should he say he was a time-displaced traveler? He wouldn’t believe such words himself!

“I… have seen you before.” Wu Zetian closed her eyes as if falling into distant memories. “Before Helan died, were you there too?”

Lu Zigang looked down at the blood on his chest, thinking it was fortunate he couldn’t feel pain—otherwise how could he calmly chat with this empress? “Even earlier, I was there. Before you strangled that baby, before you poisoned Shulian… before you caused Zhicong’s death…”

Wu Zetian’s hands trembled. She had personally killed only these few people in her lifetime. Only she knew these details, yet this person recounted them one by one—this made her, who no longer feared anything, feel incomparable panic.

If not divine beings, how could they know so clearly?

“Have you come to judge me?” Wu Zetian reopened her eyes, though their corners drooped with age, they still held sharp light. “Then tell me—am I ultimately a good person or a bad person?”

Lu Zigang smiled bitterly. If only people could be simply evaluated with words like “good” or “bad.”

“No one can judge me,” Wu Zetian stood up from the soft couch, walked before Lu Zigang, and looked down from above. “Not even divine beings, not even myself!”

So after her death, was that why a wordless stele was erected before Qianling?

Because the empress believed no one in this world was qualified to make final judgments about her?

Lu Zigang felt Xue Huaiyi’s body slowly falling backward. He tried to keep his eyes as wide as possible, wanting to imprint the empress’s final voice in his mind.

He knew that after this time, he would probably never see her again.

In his gradually blurring vision, the empress’s towering, upright figure slowly merged with that compassion-spreading Vairocana Buddha at Fengxian Temple…

Opening his eyes again, Lu Zigang stared dazedly at the Tianhuang stone wordless stele carving pieced together in his hands, unable to recover for a long time.

These were his hands, his body. But his soul seemed to still linger in that world from a thousand years ago, like awakening from a great dream he was reluctant to leave.

The tea fragrance by the counter remained, steam still rising from the teacup. To others it was merely the blink of an eye, yet he had already traveled through the empress’s lifetime.

Lu Zigang looked up to see the boss behind the counter still smiling faintly. In those deep, narrow black pupils, he seemed to see through something but never revealed it.

“Mr. Lu, this Tianhuang stone wordless stele should be a grave good placed on Wu Zetian’s memorial tablet in Qianling’s underground palace.” The boss held his teacup and spoke coolly. “Though officials say Qianling was never robbed, throughout history talented people emerge—this Qianling probably suffered vandalism too.”

Lu Zigang nodded with difficulty. Without that miraculous encounter, he might have opposed the boss’s theory.

“Since it’s a grave good, keeping it in Mr. Lu’s hands might bring misfortune. Why not transfer this half to me, letting the wordless stele become complete again?” the boss suggested sincerely.

Lu Zigang hesitated. For him, this wordless stele truly held different meaning, but the boss’s suggestion was irrefutable. The two halves forming a complete whole was the best outcome. He very much wanted to buy the other half from the boss, but without asking he knew it would be astronomically expensive—something he as a mere intern researcher couldn’t afford.

The boss seemed to see through his thoughts, put down his teacup, and timely produced a brocade box from the counter. “Talking money would hurt feelings too much. I’ll exchange it for other antiques.”

Lu Zigang looked unmoved into the brocade box, but after this one glance, he couldn’t tear his gaze away. Inside the box lay a slender black knife with strange wave-like patterns on its blade.

A surge of indescribable familiarity rose from Lu Zigang’s heart, yet he swore he had never seen such a knife in this lifetime.

“Uh… is this a fruit knife?”

“…”

Outside the Mute House door, a man in a hooded sweatshirt stood leaning against shadows in the alley. On his shoulder perched a palm-sized red bird, carefully preening its feathers with its sharp beak.

The man stared unblinkingly at the Mute House, vaguely seeing two figures through the not-very-transparent carved windows.

Soon after, Lu Zigang pushed open the Mute House’s carved door and emerged, standing in sunlight taking deep breaths for a long time before departing with the brocade box.

The hooded man immediately followed from the shadows with urgent movements that caused the red bird to be thrown off.

Fluttering its wings several times, the red bird grabbed onto several strands of long hair flowing from under the man’s hood with its claws, precariously landing back on his shoulder. Tilting its head to look at the silver hair strands exposed outside, the red bird carefully tucked these strands back into the hood bit by bit before chirping satisfactorily.

Master! Praise me!

Unfortunately, his master didn’t pet him as usual.

Ever since master emerged from that tomb with silver light, he seemed to have changed a lot. The red bird drooped its head, feeling it was no longer favored.