Consort Zhang Shu, who ranked just below the Empress and Qin Chang Ge as one of the Four Imperial Consorts, wore a gentle, radiant smile as she said: “Whatever orders the Consort may have, we dare not disobey. However, the word ‘enlighten’ is truly too weighty for us to bear. If His Majesty were to hear of it, we sisters would likely incur blame again.”

Qin Chang Ge glanced at Consort Shu. Zhang Yuluan was the daughter of Zhang Ting, the current Grand Marshal who commanded a hundred thousand troops—a descendant of meritorious ministers who had achieved distinction by supporting the dragon’s ascension. Not only she, but all the consorts here had been taken by Xiao Jue to consolidate his regime and balance various factional powers. Countless times, Xiao Jue had sworn before her that once his imperial position was secure, he would surely dismiss his three thousand beauties and devote his life exclusively to her alone.

Qin Chang Ge merely smiled at this.

An emperor’s love is universal love—love for the realm, love for his subjects, love for power and position. Only at the very end comes love for women.

“One life, one world, one pair of lovers” was nothing more than an unreachable, beautiful dream that would shatter at the slightest touch.

She, Qin Chang Ge, had never been one to dream.

In those years, the previous dynasty’s Emperor Yuan Jing had become obsessed with alchemy and the pursuit of immortality, neglecting state affairs for many years. Court politics fell under the control of treacherous officials who acted perversely. Regional military governors with sufficient strength gradually developed rebellious hearts, refusing to obey court commands or pay tribute taxes, governing their territories independently. The momentum of warlord division gradually emerged. To seize territory, soldiers fought incessantly year after year, constantly plundering the grain that common people had painstakingly cultivated and abducting all able-bodied laborers. This led to battlefields everywhere and barren wastelands stretching for thousands of miles. The people suffered unbearably. In several states where warfare was most intense, local populations fled completely. During their refugee journey, when food ran short, they resorted to exchanging children for food. Blood and tears marked their path with continuous mournful weeping.

From Youzhou through Pingzhou to the capital, spanning a thousand miles, bleached bones lay scattered along the dark roads with no one to bury them.

At that time, the Thousand Absolutes Sect—which had always held a revered position among both court and common people, known as “Children of Heavenly Secrets, Gate of Hidden Traces—gain one disciple and gain the realm”—could no longer bear the tragic sight of chaotic times with starving people and scattered bones. They reopened their mountain gates that had been sealed for sixty years.

On the day the gates opened, countless emaciated refugees prostrated themselves in distant worship, their cries of anguished pleading rising straight to the heavens…

Meanwhile, knowledgeable individuals from court and countryside also disguised themselves in simple attire and drove carriages to come. They dismounted and abandoned their vehicles far outside the mountain gates, running up the mountainside while murmuring prayers.

While the world still craned their necks and gazed upward, speculating about which brilliantly talented disciple would emerge from those slowly opening mysterious gates shrouded in mist and clouds—one destined to stir up tremendous waves upon entering the mortal world, overturn and confound the court structure, and rescue the people from dire straits…

Qin Chang Ge, the youngest sister disciple of the Thousand Absolutes Sect, had already left the sect a day early, commanded to walk the martial world and seek a sovereign for the common people struggling in the bitter sea of chaotic times.

Following her sect’s guidance, she traveled only westward. One day, when passing by the residence of the idle Prince of Huainan, she stopped and smiled.

She gazed deeply at that youth who had been expelled from his family for his passionate love of martial arts and mocked by his brothers, startled by the blazing, soaring brilliant light in his eyes.

That youth carried his sword in the street, facing the vermillion-lacquered main gate that his brothers had heavily shut before him. Though angry, he showed no sorrow—only stepped forward boldly and struck twice with swift blade work!

He split the main gate, two deep gashes like gaping black holes, laughing at the world’s blindness.

The youth’s black hair flew in the wind as he held his blade horizontally and shouted loudly: “You are not worthy to expel me! Today I split this gate to leave of my own accord! One day, I will make you open the middle gate wide and prostrate yourselves on the ground, kneeling in eternal welcome!”

Mocking laughter came from behind the courtyard gates.

The youth stood on the desolate long street. Though his gaze remained resolute, his shoulders had already borne a lifetime of desolation.

After all, he was still young. With aspirations no one understood, standing alone on the long street in complete isolation, he inevitably felt melancholy. Thus this autumn wind, whistling coldly, lightly touched his brows with frost.

Yet a woman laughed softly behind him.

“Your ambitions are far too modest.”

He turned around abruptly.

“Merely having them open the middle gate and prostrate in welcome? Why don’t you demand they approach with one kowtow per step, traveling a thousand miles to pay court?”

His gaze suddenly ignited, brightening in the autumn wind like two blazing wildfires.

He heard her lazy, soft smile.

“I will help you.”

Though her expression was so languid, her smile so cunning, her figure so slender, her words so vague…

Yet he felt inexplicably at peace.

Like in childhood, when stumbling and falling while learning to walk, being lifted by someone behind him who gave him a reassuring smile that everything would be fine.

He also smiled, bright as fire.

That promise, that first meeting on the long street—a youth and maiden, one harboring still-vague dreams of the future, the other having already outlined the map of imperial conquest in her heart.

The subsequent turbulent struggles and bloody battles to achieve success—in the blink of an eye, time had transformed everything. Crowns were donned and battlefields changed.

Silent yet filled with killing intent, beautiful yet with razor-sharp teeth.

Days of using tongue as blade and lips as sword were so… wearisome.

Not as satisfying as commanding troops on battlefields, dyeing yellow sand with blood, sword energy reaching the clouds, composing poetry while holding halberds—yet more sinister, more vicious, more bloody and devastating in invisible ways than direct blade warfare.

Qin Chang Ge smiled slightly, pulling back that flash of retrospective memory in an instant.

No matter—she could treat it as a game.

She smiled even more gently than Consort Zhang Shu.

“Sister, your words sound strange… The simple phrase about enlightenment is merely ordinary speech. How do you conclude that His Majesty would become angry because of it? Are you perhaps suggesting that our brilliant and divinely gifted Majesty is someone who easily determines right and wrong based on others’ single words—a… mediocre ruler?”

The final two words were held between her teeth and uttered so softly as to be nearly inaudible, yet they immediately drained the color from Consort Shu’s face.