Tie Ci didn’t turn back or answer. Her long white cloak swept across the snow, her retreating figure looking desolate and forlorn.

Before getting into the carriage, she glanced at Xia Houchun.

Xia Houchun understood and proclaimed loudly, “His Majesty decrees: All personnel operating Wanqian Manor and its subsidiary enterprises must immediately leave the capital within the day, escorted by the Baize Guard. Military and civilians along the route shall not harass them. By imperial decree!”

With a “thud,” the squad leader finally couldn’t bear it and collapsed kneeling in the snow.

Behind him, the shopkeeper cried out in a long wail, “Your Majesty, we are wronged!”

This cry was like thunder, striking everyone frozen in the snow. After a moment, waves of kneeling people swept across.

After the capital incident, the new emperor’s heroic deeds in turning the tide had spread throughout the capital and the entire realm. It could be said that Tie Ci was the emperor with the highest prestige and greatest popular support upon ascending the throne since the founding of the Great Qian Dynasty.

This was due to the prestige built through two years of arduous struggle, the merit of remaining calm in crisis and commanding the palace during the incident, and more importantly, the act of dismissing guards and opening the palace gates on that snowy night in the capital to lead thieves in saving the people, which won the love of ten thousand citizens and the hearts of all under heaven.

The carriage rumbled away. Tie Ci was no longer as approachable and kind as during her Crown Princess period, when she would stop to chat with the common people.

She didn’t turn back or look down, yet more people tearfully praised the sage with surging hearts. Countless people came upon hearing the news, continuously kowtowing toward the direction where Tie Ci had long departed. Countless people crawled on their knees through the snow, chasing the carriage’s fading shadow.

In the corners, there were also people crying.

But not from excitement.

Those were some well-dressed young ladies gathered in their sisters’ carriages. Some bit handkerchiefs, others had tears in their eyes.

“It’s over, they’ve truly broken apart.”

“I heard His Majesty had been bedridden since the Chongming Palace incident, yet today personally appeared here just to personally expel his shops, his properties, his people!”

“Clearly there was no real wrongdoing, yet they were whipped and personally escorted out of Great Qian by palace guards. How much hatred must there be…”

“Previously there were always rumors that His Majesty still had lingering feelings for Murong Yi, never saying a word of hatred. I still held hope, but who knew… coming here today, I witnessed such a heart-wrenching scene. If I had known, I would have…”

“My beloved couple has broken up, my heart has died too, wuu wuu wuu…”

The young ladies wept. Someone inadvertently lifted the carriage curtain and saw someone across the street holding an umbrella, seemingly having stood there for a long time, as both shoulders were covered with a thin layer of snow.

The umbrella concealed his features, showing only a refined, smooth jawline and a tall, slender figure.

That young lady looked at the person standing long in the snow holding an umbrella, and suddenly felt inexplicably melancholy, becoming entranced.

At the street corner.

Rong Pu sensed the gaze, slowly moved his umbrella down a bit, and turned to leave.

He too had heard the crying from the carriage across the street.

He didn’t look back. The paper umbrella in his hand trailed behind him, leaving shallow marks in the snow.

A faint smile appeared at the corner of his lips.

Rupture, hatred, revenge…

Really?

…

The light snow in the capital was only a thin layer, but when winter came to Liaodong, the snow always fell continuously and endlessly.

Liaodong under heavy snow was like having layer upon layer of burial shrouds covering heaven and earth—oppressive, depressing, cold, and suffocating.

Ruzhou had also entered the most oppressive, depressing, and suffocating days since the city’s founding.

On the sixth day of the first month in the first year of Xiansheng, the Grand Marshal’s second daughter married, wedding the new Palace Guard Commander Qiu Ling.

Qiu Ling was the adopted son of Liaodong’s former Grand Chancellor Qiu Wujiu. Qiu Wujiu died in Great Qian and received great posthumous honors. The emperor posthumously granted him the title of Duke with the posthumous name “Wuzhen”—a beautiful posthumous title second only to the character “Zheng.”

Qiu Ling was also granted the title of Marquis Wu’an, young and influential.

His wedding was attended by gathered nobility and power. That day, unknown assassins broke into the wedding banquet, slaughtering extensively. The wedding hall was splattered with blood, red everywhere. The indiscriminate attack caused massive casualties, mostly court civil and military officials.

The Third, Sixth, and Tenth Princes all died in the Grand Marshal’s residence. Even the crippled Second Prince, who was out for the first time to relax, was also killed on the spot due to his inconvenient legs.

Qiu Ling first had both legs severed. He wailed as he crawled across the three-zhang wedding hall, with assassins coldly pursuing behind him, striking down blade after blade, leaving a long trail of blood.

They kept cutting until he died.

That same day, the Grand Marshal was found dead, lying across an inconspicuous alley. Behind him, in a courtyard that looked simple outside but was luxuriously decorated inside, there was the same scene of corpses piled like mountains and blood like seas.

That day, in Ruzhou’s Yunlai Ward where officials and nobility lived, almost every household held funerals, every door hung white mourning cloths.

That night the emperor received urgent reports. It was said he immediately vomited blood, but the news was sealed and kept secret.

The emperor ordered a city-wide search to capture the murderers as quickly as possible and execute them according to law.

The Ruzhou Governor was startled three times daily. The city-wide search yielded nothing, and even if one or two people were caught, they committed suicide on the spot, showing complete death-warrior behavior.

The Ruzhou Governor was continuously summoned to the palace for reprimands by the emperor. Once, urgently summoned after nightfall, he had to take a shortcut through small alleys and was blocked at a shrine with flourishing incense, then assassinated. Those present that night were frightened, and subsequently rumors spread that “the Ruzhou Governor was taken by the Earth God for his perverse actions.” After spreading for two days, due to the Grand Marshal’s wedding case and the Ruzhou Governor case, it became “the emperor has lost virtue, heaven sends punishment.”

Rumors spread wildly, and incidents continued.

On the thirteenth of the first month, an explosion occurred at Wanshan Garden, a famous artificial mountain garden in Ruzhou. There were no casualties, but it destroyed the largest and most famous artificial mountain in the garden. After the mountain exploded, people saw many boxes inside. Broken boxes revealed some scrolls. Some people secretly took them to look and found they were privacy files, including case files from Liaodong’s Embroidered Uniform Guard, private matters of some ministers’ residences, and even some unspeakable affairs involving the royal family, such as Consort Jin having an affair with a Palace Guard Captain, and the Eleventh Prince being born prematurely at seven months.

Crowds gathered at the time. By the time Ruzhou troops arrived breathlessly to disperse the crowd and seal the scene, what should be spread and what shouldn’t had already spread.

The people talked extensively. Some secretly criticized His Majesty’s secretive actions, some cursed the Embroidered Uniform Guard for treating human life lightly and fabricating charges, some mocked that the royal family was indeed the dirtiest in the world, and some snickered that His Majesty had long been cuckolded—of eighteen sons, how many were actually his own?

That day, Consort Jin committed suicide in her own palace.

That night, many ministers’ residences received thrown letters. When they opened them, the contents made their scalps tingle.

During the day, when Wanshan Garden’s artificial mountain was destroyed and secret files leaked to the people, the ministers were shocked but not nervous.

Because what involved them in those secret files wasn’t real.

No need to worry about their secrets being exposed; they even felt somewhat fortunate. Of course, their public reputation suffered, but for their official positions, this wasn’t really a problem.

But this relief from escaping disaster turned into real collapse by night—the secrets that exploded out weren’t secrets, but the contents thrown into their residences were all privacy they had hidden for years!

Now the ministers panicked.

Besides the secret files, the thrown letters also contained a drawing of a small person with their mouth sealed.

At the subsequent great court assembly, the ministers were unusually quiet as chickens. The ministers who had been clamoring days before to solve the Grand Marshal’s wedding massacre, to avenge the many princes and colleagues, actively offering suggestions and strategies, even pointing fingers at the new Crown Prince who never attended court, unanimously played dumb in subsequent court sessions.

This caused the emperor, who was governing while ill, to storm out more than once.

But clearly someone’s revenge hadn’t stopped yet.

Multiple poisoning incidents suddenly occurred in the imperial palace. Of course, all the poisoned were palace servants and eunuchs. The palace’s food and drink were first handled by palace servants, so naturally they were the first to suffer. The poison wasn’t deadly, but too many people were poisoned, creating enormous panic. Imperial physicians were exhausted, and all palace quarters lived in constant fear.

The emperor suspended court sessions and stayed in the rear palace personally handling and comforting the imperial family.

Post-incident investigation revealed that various recently purchased items for the palace were all poisoned. The quantity and variety were so great they filled the emperor’s bedchamber. Most were low-grade poisons applied through simple, crude methods—the most brazen poisoning in history.

The attitude clearly stated: I’m not trying to poison you to death, I’m just trying to scare you to death.

The empress fell ill from fright.

The emperor ordered the Crown Prince’s mother, Precious Consort Bao, to take full charge of palace affairs.

He also ordered thorough investigation of all imperial merchants, then unsurprisingly discovered all imperial merchants had long since disappeared.

This incident gave everyone who knew about it goosebumps—it meant the entire imperial palace’s food and utensil safety had always been in others’ hands. As long as the other party was willing to sacrifice one hand, they could destroy the entire palace.

This was simply too terrifying.

But what was even more terrifying came later.

The imperial palace underwent a major cleanup, smashing and burning many items and vegetables. For a time, all necessities were scarce. Precious Consort Bao presided over reselecting imperial merchants, and Ruzhou’s wealthy merchants flocked over.

Then on the day before the merchant recruitment meeting, they met with successive accidents.

Some fell from sedan chairs, some fell from horses, some drowned, some had their residences burned.

On the day of the merchant meeting, the vast hall was empty. Eunuch Chang, who came out of the palace personally to preside over selecting imperial merchants, faced the completely silent room and felt a chill rising from his feet to his skull.

The Imperial Supply Bureau eunuchs responsible for palace purchasing had their own connections. Precious Consort Bao ordered them to contact wealthy merchants from outside Ruzhou to bring supplies into the palace overnight.

Some directly refused, claiming they had no goods. Others delivered them, but upon inspection, they were still poisoned.

Now, they dared not eat or use things from inside, nor dared to casually let things be delivered from outside. The imperial palace actually began experiencing material shortages.

Consorts couldn’t eat their fill or sleep well. Every day they watched the heavy guard outside and tense atmosphere. Many people lost control from excessive suppression and fear.

This terrifying atmosphere spread from the palace to ministers’ residences, to the entire court.

No one knew what would happen next, whether someone would be poisoned, whether someone would die, whether there would be another bloody case with corpses everywhere.

All this, just because someone wanted revenge.

He came with rage, hanging a dripping, bloody sword over everyone’s heads.

For all the suffering he had endured, he would only accept blood as repayment.

…