When the red light was flashing rapidly.

The water surface suddenly erupted with continuous splashing sounds, and the riverbed violently shook.

It seemed many people had jumped in.

Tie Ci’s heart lurched.

Coming in at this time would only get more people killed!

Suddenly a blue-green light flashed in the water. An Abyssal Iron short sword that had been embedded in the riverbed’s sand seemed to be gently pulled up by someone, suddenly flying up, then carried by the current to strike the river wall.

If anyone had seen this scene, they would have thought it looked like someone at the riverbed was lightly moving the sword body, gracefully performing a sword dance, causing the flying sword’s flowing light to pierce the wall.

How sharp was Abyssal Iron—with a hiss, the river wall built of blue stone suddenly exploded, countless fragments flying in all directions.

Those stones of various sizes were instantly carried in all directions by the turbulent, agitated current.

Like gray-white fireworks shot off underwater.

From somewhere came the faint grinding sound of friction.

The next instant, the red light that had been flashing rapidly to its final flash suddenly went out.

…

Rui, who had smoked half his cigarette, slowly turned around to look at the screen, preparing to finish the other half while enjoying the victorious scene.

However, his precious cigarette suddenly dropped onto the control panel.

…

Tie Ci, who had prepared herself once again, still didn’t hear any sound for a long time.

She instinctively turned back, and in the midst of chaos, she saw the chaos had gone out.

The next moment, with a splash, Pingzong pulled her up out of the water regardless of everything.

The somewhat dazed Tie Ci instantly reacted—she wasn’t in bone-shrinking state, and she couldn’t shrink her bones again now. The enemies were still in the sky above, and she would be locked onto as soon as she surfaced!

But before the third life-and-death crisis, she didn’t even have a chance to reminisce or feel fear—suddenly countless figures dove down from above, forcibly pressing both her and Pingzong back down to the riverbed.

Tie Ci: “…”

She was stunned for quite a while, looking up to see only countless frantically kicking feet.

There were so many people it was like dumplings being dropped into boiling water.

When had there been so many people in the moat?

She turned in several directions before finding a gap, but didn’t immediately surface. Instead, she suddenly struck herself hard under the ribs.

A subtle bone-cracking sound occurred, and her face instantly turned white.

She had just broken her already stress-fractured rib herself.

Pingzong floated across from her, so shocked she choked on a mouthful of water and nearly got kicked in the head by a big foot from above.

She thought little aunt must have had her brains scrambled by the whirlpool.

The next moment, Tie Ci surfaced through the gap.

Just like before, countless people immediately pounced on her, wanting to use their thick chests to press her back down.

Tie Ci shouted, “It’s fine, let Zhen come up!”

With just this one shout, everyone stopped their movements.

With a splash, Tie Ci surfaced, and the next moment she emerged completely from the water, leaping onto a piece of floating wood on the surface.

At this moment, everyone made the same movement—all looked up at the sky together.

Looking at the countless buzzing monsters high above, lights flashing chaotically, covering this water area.

Everyone held their breath. Some instinctively straightened their bodies, some forgot to tread water and sank down with an “ouch,” then frantically surfaced again.

For a moment, heaven and earth were as quiet as a vacuum.

Only the buzzing sounds of those machines remained, and those white lights, under people’s watchful gaze, quickly swept over Tie Ci’s body.

In the almost suffocating silence, everyone saw those white lights seem to pause slightly.

As if some confusion had arisen.

The tension filling heaven and earth at this moment, if it became substantial, could probably have collapsed the capital’s city walls.

After a pause, the white light slid past Tie Ci’s body.

A moment of silence.

Then, the cheering on the water’s surface was deafening!

…

In the command center, Rui stared at the screen with an incredulous expression.

They had scanned Tie Ci but failed to lock on—why!

He suddenly remembered something and quickly called up Tie Ci’s data. A 3D full-body skeletal diagram slowly rotated on the screen, identical to the data input into the drones, with no problems whatsoever.

Until Rui focused his gaze on Tie Ci on the river surface.

He retrieved the footage and magnified it.

He saw Tie Ci’s three fingers hanging limply, and there was also a strange depression in her chest and abdomen area.

Rui drew in a sharp breath.

The data was formed from a full-body skeletal scan of Tie Ci after she reached adulthood—there could be no error.

Unless… the skeleton had changed.

She… had broken her own bones!

…

The dumpling-like crowd in the river let out cheers that could almost overturn the river water.

Many people swam toward Tie Ci in competition, some even kowtowing to Tie Ci while still in the water. “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

“Your Majesty, we heard that the Grand Tutor betrayed you and is hunting you!”

“We heard the Grand Tutor brought many monsters, and we didn’t believe it… Heaven, this time I saw it with my own eyes—there really are things that can fly in the sky!”

“Your Majesty, are you injured?”

“Your Majesty, don’t be afraid. Even if those monsters are watching you, we’re not afraid—we’ll shield you!”

Someone shouted toward the shore, “Old woman, quickly throw some clothes over!”

Immediately countless pieces of clothing were thrown into the river.

Tie Ci turned around and was again submerged in a sea of clothes. With one hand pressed against her ribs and the other sweeping in a beautiful arc, she gathered all the clothes in her hand.

The women on shore cheered again and waved frantically.

Tie Ci stood on the floating wood and waved back at them. Only now could she see clearly the people in the water—old and young, dressed ordinarily, most likely common people living near the city walls.

On shore, Jingxu stood with arms crossed, lifting his chin toward her in a gesture of taking credit, though his eyes held some complexity.

The Great Qian Emperor was very popular with the people.

He had only shouted once that the Emperor was in danger, and these common people had jumped into the water without a second thought.

When he said the monsters overhead were targeting the Emperor’s life, these common people had all rushed forward together when the Emperor surfaced, wanting to use their own bodies to shield the Emperor from deadly attacks.

This made Jingxu almost incredulous.

Tie Ci was also somewhat surprised to see Jingxu, thinking this selfish, lazy, and greedy old man would surely have run away in the chaos. After all, their relationship wasn’t good enough for him to actively help.

She hadn’t expected him to actually shout for help to save her.

She looked down at the common people—countless faces in the water, wet and gleaming, looking at her with the most simple and moving smiles.

Above, enemies surrounded them; beside her, the people gathered around her.

In this moment, she suddenly felt a slight fullness in her chest.

For the first time, she felt the true meaning of being a ruler.

Throughout all these past years, she had fulfilled the duties of Crown Princess, and later worked diligently day and night to be a qualified Emperor.

But deep in her heart, she had never gained any pleasure or satisfaction from this “profession.”

A great hole had formed early in her heart, and ruling over all under heaven, supreme power, the masses of people, armies like the sea—none of it could fill that void.

It was merely a burden of tremendous weight that she was born to bear, ordained by heaven’s mandate, and could never set down even in death.

Until this moment.

Until she had been pressed down beneath the water’s surface again and again by countless chests.

Until she leaped out of the moat and saw those wet, smiling faces, receiving an armful of common cloth.

Until this moment when Great Qian’s late autumn wind passed through the city gate that should have been closed long ago, accompanied by the people’s shouts, striking her chest.

She slightly pursed her lips and hugged those pieces of clothing tight. For the first time in four years, she bloomed with a smile carrying warmth.

…

Rui stared at the screen, his brow furrowing, almost punching the control panel.

Why were the Great Qian Emperor and the Great Qian people so different from his understanding of ancient people accumulated over so many years?

In such a society, shouldn’t it be filled with exploitation, class divisions, possession, injustice, supreme imperial power, and all the backward and corrupt elements where common people were like grass?

Wasn’t it said that in such societies class opposition was severe, that commoners only cared about their own little plots of land? It would be good enough if they didn’t have deep grudges against the nobility—yet here they were risking their lives to rescue her?

How had this young female emperor of Great Qian made her subjects wholeheartedly maintain her rule?

Incredible!

…

On the river surface, Pingzong put her hands on her hips and let out a great laugh at the bewildered drone swarm in the sky.

Then she dove back into the water with a splash.

A moment later she surfaced again, holding the Abyssal Iron short sword in one hand and grasping the white machine in the other, shouting loudly, “I want to see what kind of monster with three heads and six arms this thing that almost killed us really is!”

She swam over and handed the Abyssal Iron short sword to Tie Ci.

Tie Ci looked at the short sword, thinking of the flash of blue-green light she had seen underwater earlier.

Then she saw that half of the white machine’s outer shell was slightly askew, revealing a small gap with a few small stones wedged between.

It looked like it had been jammed by stones. Once precision instruments get jammed, they naturally break down.

Before the machine self-destructed, the common people had leaped into the water one after another, causing water turbulence that lifted the Abyssal Iron short sword originally embedded in the riverbed, striking the river wall, splitting the stones, and the scattered fragments wedged into the cracks of the machine about to self-destruct.

Thus preventing a disaster of blood and carnage that could have destroyed Great Qian.

This sounded simply incredible.

What kind of amazing series of coincidences could achieve such a result?

In that most desperate moment.

If any detail had been off by the slightest margin, it wouldn’t have been this outcome.

As if supernatural forces had provided mysterious protection.

Wind blew from the river surface, gently brushing past Tie Ci’s temples.

She turned back on the water waves, looking toward the depths of the tranquil river.

Wenliu, is that you?

…

In front of the display screen, Rui stared at Tie Ci’s figure as she went ashore surrounded by everyone, with a long convoy of carriages racing toward them in the distance.

Because the monsters were still in the sky, the common people feared they would harm the Emperor. No matter how Tie Ci tried to persuade them, they insisted on surrounding and protecting her, crowding around her so tightly that not even water could leak through. As they walked, they vigilantly and fearfully looked up at the sky.

This look and these movements made Rui’s heart burn with anger, as if invisible slaps were striking his face one after another.

The drones circled bewilderedly in the sky, scanning the crowd over and over but unable to find their target, only passively waiting for the next command.

Rui felt his heart burning with rage.

The Great Qian people were too bold and too strange.

Why didn’t they feel fear when seeing these weapons that surpassed their era?

Weren’t people most likely to develop timid hearts toward the unknown?

He actually didn’t know that success could also lead to failure. Yun Buci’s Gui Qizhai had indeed accumulated wealth for her, won popular support, attracted scholars, and consolidated her position, but at the same time it had blown fresh winds into Great Qian, prematurely opening the Great Qian people’s horizons.

And Tie Ci, educated by her, was also enlightened differently from emperors of past dynasties—otherwise the Great Qian Academy wouldn’t have risen so quickly.

Having been exposed to too many new things, so even when seeing these strange weapons for the first time, the Great Qian people’s shock still carried three parts boldness and curiosity.

Rui couldn’t understand this principle and suddenly remembered what Yun Buci had said earlier.

They needed to intimidate them immediately, frighten them, make them not dare to act rashly.

Not dare to keep rushing forward one after another to protect the Emperor and oppose them.

A series of setbacks would always make people temporarily lose their reason.

Rui’s finger fell on a red button.

A subordinate beside him saw this and tried to stop him, but it was too late.

Above the moat, the drones suddenly trembled in unison, then began changing formation.

Originally they had been aimlessly searching while following the crowd, but now they suddenly scattered in all directions.

At first the common people thought these flying monsters had finally left and were about to cheer.

Tie Ci looked up, staring at those machines. She watched them slowly patrol above the crowd, their formation corresponding to positions similar to the distribution pattern of the people below.

She suddenly said, “Scatter!”

The common people surrounding her hadn’t reacted yet, and being too tightly packed, they couldn’t run away immediately. They all looked at her in confusion.

Tie Ci’s hand pressed against her ribs suddenly sprang away. Between her sleeves, strong winds stirred as if a whirlwind had formed on flat ground. With her as the center, the crowd fell and tumbled in all directions, knocking down countless people.

At the same time, Tie Ci shouted, “Pingzong, blast the crowd apart!”

Pingzong followed orders immediately. Her form spun once, and the fierce wind from her garments threw the surrounding crowd into a tangled heap.

Almost simultaneously, white lights flashed continuously in the sky. Countless straight lines shot into the ground. Around Tie Ci, dust and smoke rose in the blink of an eye. Whistling sounds continued without cease—each one sharp, powerful, and forceful. With each sound, another fist-sized hole of unfathomable depth appeared in the ground.

Screams rang out. There were too many people—Tie Ci and the others could only push away those immediately around them. More people were instantly pierced by white light where they stood. The moment the white light touched their bodies, blood sprayed skyward. After countless white lights passed, blood rainbows burst forth. The hissing sounds continued as heaven and earth seemed to be sliced by sharp knives, cut open with bloody gashes.

Tie Ci rolled once, and white light hissed behind her, stirring up yellow dust as another hole appeared in the ground.

Ahead, carriages raced toward them. The small figure of the driver bounced up and down from the jolting, his glasses jumping wildly.

Archers beside the carriages drew their bows while galloping, aiming at the monsters that had already flown low.

Some arrows were dodged. The speeding drones evaded while returning fire. An archer on horseback flipped to hide under the horse’s belly. White light struck the horse’s body, passing through from the left abdomen to the right abdomen—a penetrating small hole that sprayed half a carriage with fresh blood, revealing the horse’s bones and internal organs.

Some arrows hit their targets, but either slid off the smooth machine bodies or were directly deflected.

Fortunately, the arrival of the carriages and guards somewhat relieved the slaughter of the common people. Pingzong kept shouting, “Scatter! Run!”

Survivors stumbled and ran through the blood and corpses, constantly tripping and getting up again.

Some no longer dared to run and lay crying in their relatives’ pools of blood.

Screams and weeping echoed before the city gate, with corpses piling higher and higher—like hell itself.

Tie Ci rolled again, feeling something soft beneath her—she didn’t know whose corpse it was. She heard a thud behind her as something still warm splashed onto her back—presumably that corpse had been shot through once more.

She didn’t look back or pause. At this moment she couldn’t even feel pain, only ran straight toward the carriages, shouting as she ran, “Shoot those rotating wings! Above! Concentrate fire! You must shoot down several for Zhen at the fastest speed!”

The most elite archers from Xi Rong followed orders and began concentrated volleys. With several whooshing sounds, several arrows hit the propellers of the lowest-flying drone, and immediately that machine plummeted from high altitude.

Pingzong rushed over and crushed the machine with one kick.

The surrounding common people saw this scene—saw this terrible demon fall and be destroyed so easily—and their spirits lifted.

“Swoosh, swoosh,” came the continuous sounds. The Xi Rong archers, ignoring their aching arms, shot arrows like a string of pearls, consecutively hitting drone propellers. One machine after another fell.

A machine wobbled and fell in front of Pingzong. She kicked it up with one foot, sending it to collide with another machine in the sky. Both crashed down.

The remaining drones sensed danger and began ascending. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the common people frantically ran back toward the city.

In the command center, Yun Buci strode in, glanced at the screen, and dumped her unfinished instant noodles over Rui’s head.

“What are you doing!” Rui’s face was livid with shock.

“Screwing your mother,” Yun Buci pointed at the screen. “You’ve lost your mind!”

“Wasn’t it you who said to intimidate them immediately!”

“I said intimidate, not massacre! I said demonstrate the power and precision of modern weapons, and when necessary don’t worry about causing casualties, but I never said to commit genocide! If everyone’s dead and everyone’s enraged, who’s going to give you a clean slate!”

“These ignorant primitives from a low-level civilization only know primitive reproduction and causing us trouble. A few more deaths would save us the trouble of cleaning up later!”

“Have you been driven crazy by the reality of repeated defeats? Do you want to count how many drones we’ve lost, how many weapons have been destroyed in this pursuit? If you want to lose even more, go ahead.”

Rui turned to look at the constantly disappearing light dots on the screen, his expression indescribable.

With such losses, even if he could blame Yun Buci for leaking intelligence, he himself would inevitably face investigation by the Management Division afterward.

Just the unauthorized massacre and the resulting weapon damage were inexcusable.

If such serious consequences could be exchanged for Tie Ci’s death, it might be worth it. The problem now was that they couldn’t lock onto Tie Ci. To kill her they would have to kill everyone present. Setting aside whether they could kill them all, even if they did, they might not necessarily kill Tie Ci.

But if they couldn’t solve the Tie Ci problem, the consequences he needed to bear would only grow heavier.

Rui looked at the scene on the screen. He could see Tie Ci’s figure and could theoretically manually lock onto the target remotely and command the drones to execute, but Tie Ci moved too fast—his hand speed simply couldn’t keep up.

For the first time, coldness arose in his heart.

The Great Qian Emperor was too ruthless.

She broke her own bones to prevent the drones from automatically locking on, then despite being seriously injured, she could still dart around like a rabbit.

Rui’s expression changed repeatedly. Finally, after another light dot disappeared, he fiercely struck the button.

Above the city gate.

The drones hiding in high altitude stared down coldly at the crowd below like pairs of demonic eyes.

Suddenly they all paused, then continued ascending, stopping their white light firing.

The common people stopped and looked fearfully at those black dots in the sky that had stopped moving but hadn’t left either.

Tie Ci stepped onto the edge of a carriage and turned to look behind her.

The common people stood among pools of blood and corpses, faces blank with post-disaster bewilderment, also looking at her.

Someone suddenly began crying, sobbing sounds swirling among the crowd. The morning sunlight seemed to retreat because of this, and wind swept up blood-stained dust.

Tie Ci stood on the carriage shaft and made a gesture for the people to return.

She was covered in gray earth and bloodstains, her hair disheveled, but on her blood-stained face, her eyes remained calm and undisturbed, making everyone who looked at her involuntarily quiet down.

She said, “Go back and live well.”

She said, “Zhen believes you can definitely protect yourselves.”

She said, “Please also believe that Zhen will definitely live well until the day Zhen returns to the capital.”

She said, “So please also cherish your capital.”

She looked one last time at the common people watching her with tears, then looked up at those cold, dark contraptions in the sky and gave them the middle finger.

She said, “Idiots, come on.”

She turned around, lifted the carriage curtain, and entered.

A’kou the driver’s tiger roared once, and the fine horses turned around.

The carriage rolled forward without hesitation.

In the sky, the drone swarm immediately moved, following after them.

The second carriage also moved, heading west.

The third carriage also moved, heading south.

The fourth carriage…

The carriages gradually departed in different directions, some even taking small roads.

The drone swarm circled bewilderedly in the sky for a while.

Unable to lock onto targets but receiving orders to follow the carriages, even the machines were at a loss. But according to their built-in programs, in such situations, they would divide forces.

In front of the display screen, Rui watched helplessly as the drone swarm scattered, with one or two chasing after each carriage.

His fists were itching to move again.

One or two drones against well-prepared carriages would probably just be delivering themselves as meals.

The first batch of weapons approved by the Management Division was already exhausted. These were currently the last drones. When the application was originally submitted, the director of the Management Division’s weapons department had clicked his tongue in amazement, saying that to deal with a low-level civilization, one pulse rifle would be enough—why need so many advanced weapons, even using nanobots.

The director had joked that this batch was enough to take down the entire continent, and in three days he would eat three sets of duck at the capital’s largest restaurant. He wanted the Great Qian Emperor to dance for him—he’d heard she was a beauty.

Beauty she was, but a peony with steel thorns—appearing graceful, noble, gentle and soft, but with molten lava flowing in her bones. Whoever touched her died.

After pursuing her for a day and night, the first batch of weapons was almost depleted, the laboratory was destroyed, and then he had to watch her speed out of the capital.

Rui gritted his teeth and issued orders to the drones—no more attacks, only high-altitude tracking. First ensure they maintained grasp of the Great Qian Emperor’s escape route.

Later he would have to report to the Management Division and request allocation of a second batch of weapons.

Thinking of the faces of those people in the Management Division’s weapons department, Rui’s teeth ground audibly.

Before the city gate, the common people watched Tie Ci’s carriage speed away without attachment, unable to react for a moment.

The Emperor had run away right in front of them, abandoning the capital?

This was like a bolt from the blue.

For an instant, many people recalled past dynasties’ emperors who had fled the capital before national crises, abandoning their people to suffer the flames of war.

Before despair could take root, many people saw those terrible high-altitude demons take off again, chasing in the direction of the carriages.

In the blink of an eye, they had all left cleanly in pursuit of the carriages.

At the same time, screams and huge roaring sounds came from within the city gate. The common people turned back to see a squadron of extremely tall knights in strange armor, riding massive beasts that roared ferociously—pitch black and gleaming, with smoke coming from their rear ends—racing through the city gate in an instant, also chasing after the carriages, leaving behind straight trails of smoke penetrating the gate tunnel.

The city guards couldn’t stop or catch up with them at all, and were even knocked down by those rampaging iron contraptions, groaning on the ground.

People were hit by waves of smoke and dust, watching those beasts move at lightning speed, disappearing in all directions in an instant.

Peace returned before the city gate.

Sunlight poured down from the clouds again, and the sky seemed several degrees brighter.

The sound of hoofbeats arose. People turned like startled birds to see a group of men and women arriving.

Some recognized the current Grand Tutor He, some recognized various Grand Academicians from the Cabinet, some recognized that one of the women was a Second-Rank female official beside His Majesty.

Some recognized more of the full court’s civil and military officials.

Chi Xue looked at the city gate with its lingering smoke and pools of blood, tears immediately filling her eyes.

“I came too late…”

He Zi led the civil and military officials in dismounting and prostrating toward the direction where the carriages had disappeared at the end of the official road, bowing down in the blood-stained dust.

“This minister, carrying the civil and military officials, respectfully sends off Our Emperor here.”

“In the twenty-second year of Shun’an, when you were trapped, you dispatched palace guards, opened the palace gates, used yourself as bait to lure the enemy into your trap. This act was to save the people.”

“In the fourth year of Zhiming, you broke into Great Qian Academy at night, destroyed buildings to trap people, crossed the city river at night, left the city alone to draw enemy forces away from the city. This act was still to save the people.”

“We ministers are incompetent, unable to attend Your Majesty’s side, unable to share Your Majesty’s worries. We solemnly swear here: with Heaven above and Earth below, we ministers will not fail Your Majesty’s trust, will protect the people, defend the capital to the death. While we live, the city lives; when we die, the city dies.”

Behind him, the civil and military officials bowed their heads in unison.

“While we live, the city lives; when we die, the city dies!”

Further away, the common people who had finally understood all fell to their knees in the dust.

Gazing at those black dots on the horizon, the smoke on the ground, those demons capable of taking lives in an instant but personally drawn away from the capital by His Majesty.

Gazing toward the direction where the Emperor who had always placed Great Qian, the capital, and the people before herself had departed.

Gazing toward that Emperor who was historically the first to leave the national capital while in office, not abandoning the city but protecting it.

Tears gathered in their eyes, but their voices of calling shot up to the clouds.

“Sworn to die in loyalty to Our Emperor!”

“Sworn to die defending the capital!”

“Your Majesty, we await your return!”