In the prison cell, Cui Xun listened to Jin Ni’s confession; the sachet clutched in his sleeve seemed to grow cold, and a bone-chilling chill surged toward his heart. He gripped the sachet tightly and asked indifferently, “So what did my uncle plan to do?”

Jin Ni said, “Prime Minister Cui said this was an opportunity that comes once in a thousand years. Since Zheng Yun wanted to harm Princess Yong’an, we shouldn’t stop him. If he truly killed Princess Yong’an, then the Late Emperor could legitimately move against the aristocratic families. The people wouldn’t understand an emperor killing for abstract new policies, but they would certainly understand an emperor killing to avenge his tragically murdered beloved daughter. After all, who doesn’t have children? And whose children, if killed, would not provoke a desire for revenge?”

Jin Ni recalled how Cui Songqing had spoken the most cruel words with the calmest tone that day, and he still shuddered. He had considered himself the head of spies to be heartless enough, but he never expected that Cui Songqing, a legitimate son raised by a top aristocratic family, would be even more heartless.

Cui Xun asked coldly, “Did the Late Emperor agree?”

Jin Ni shook his head. “Not only did he not agree, but he flew into a rage and drove Prime Minister Cui away. The Late Emperor even said that if he spoke such nonsense again, he would have him flayed alive.”

“And after that?”

“After that? Prime Minister Cui was not afraid of death. He sought audience with the Late Emperor every day, advising him for seven consecutive days. On the seventh day, he asked, ‘Is Your Majesty the father of all people under heaven, or just the father of one princess?'”

Cui Xun frowned.

Jin Ni continued, “After hearing this, His Majesty remained silent for a long time. Prime Minister Cui then pressed his advantage, saying, ‘Recently, Your Majesty ordered academies to be established in every prefecture, allowing even children from humble families to study. But I’ve learned that not a single commoner’s child has been admitted. This is already the mildest reform, yet it cannot be implemented beyond Chang’an, let alone reforms to the military system or the establishment of imperial examinations, which would be far more disruptive. Currently, the Turks are strong in arms and horses, and the Khagan’s sons Nidu and Sutai are particularly ambitious. If either of them ascends to the throne, the border will erupt in war again, and at that time, the world will be plunged into catastrophe.”

Jin Ni clearly remembered Emperor Taichang’s extremely pained expression at that time. Cui Songqing had continued, “Your Majesty cherishes your daughter, but the common people also cherish their daughters. As the father of the nation, can you bear to let the people’s daughters suffer in poverty and cold, only to become slaves and servants under the Turkic men in the future?”

Finally, Cui Songqing had knelt and kowtowed, saying, “The Turkic Khagan is aging, and the implementation of new policies cannot be delayed. There will never be a better opportunity than this. The people all regard Your Majesty as their father. I beg Your Majesty to sacrifice one child to save thousands upon thousands.”

Emperor Taichang closed his eyes, two clear tears sliding down his face. After a long while, he finally opened his eyes slowly and said with difficulty, “I… am the sovereign father, and also the father of tens of millions of people.”

With these words, he had tacitly agreed to Cui Songqing’s proposal.

After Jin Ni finished speaking, Cui Xun’s knuckles had turned white from his grip. He asked through gritted teeth, “So after the Late Emperor’s tacit approval, you and my uncle conspired to kill Princess Yong’an?”

“After the Late Emperor agreed that day, he fell ill from exhaustion and distress. He entrusted the matter entirely to Prime Minister Cui and ordered me to follow Prime Minister Cui’s commands. Although I was resentful, I dared not disobey the Emperor’s decree. Afterward, the Hundred Riders discovered Zheng Yun’s entire plan. It turned out that he had secretly pledged marriage to his cousin Wang Ranxi and had bribed a palace maid named Wang Tuan’er. On the evening of the sixth day of the tenth month, Zheng Yun would invite Princess Yong’an to the palace’s lotus pond, and then Wang Tuan’er would push the Princess into the pond to drown. I informed Prime Minister Cui of this, and he said that the Late Emperor was now consumed by internal grief and didn’t want to plan how to kill his daughter. So we didn’t need to report Zheng Yun’s plan to the Late Emperor; the two of us could handle it ourselves.”

“And how did you handle it?”

“Prime Minister Cui ordered me to stand by and simply wait for Wang Tuan’er to kill the Princess. However, Zheng Yun’s plan was full of flaws, and Wang Tuan’er, a teenage palace maid, might not have had the courage to kill. She might have fled at the critical moment. So Prime Minister Cui said that if necessary, we could give Wang Tuan’er a helping hand.”

“By ‘helping hand,’ do you mean you killed the Princess?”

“Of course not,” Jin Ni said. “I’m not stupid. If I had personally killed the Princess, the Late Emperor would certainly have hated me. How could I have survived? I found a trusted subordinate and told him to watch the Princess on the evening of the sixth day of the tenth month. When the Princess arrived at the lotus pond, if Wang Tuan’er didn’t act, he was to kill the Princess.”

Cui Xun mocked, “You treated your trusted subordinate quite well.”

Jin Ni showed not the slightest hint of shame. “Although I was already involved, I still wanted to keep myself as clean as possible.”

Cui Xun already knew that Wang Tuan’er had indeed fled at the critical moment. He asked, “Did your subordinate kill Princess Yong’an?”

Jin Ni nodded. “Wang Tuan’er didn’t dare act, so my subordinate took her place and pushed Princess Yong’an into the water. After it was done, I killed him, as if avenging the Princess.”

Cui Xun looked at Jin Ni with disgust. “At most, he was just a tool. If we’re talking about guilt, it’s not his turn yet.”

Jin Ni laughed hoarsely. “Yes, if we’re talking about guilt, it’s not his turn. But speaking of guilt, who ranks first? Junior Minister Cui, do you dare say it?”

Cui Xun’s jaw gradually tightened. Jin Ni continued, “You don’t dare say it because without that person’s permission, no matter how much courage Cui Songqing and I had, we wouldn’t have dared to act on our own!”

Seeing Cui Xun’s silence, he felt even more pleased, and even the horrific wounds on his body seemed to stop hurting. He smiled, “Junior Minister Cui, do you regret it now? But even if you know it was the Late Emperor who ordered it, what can you do? The Empress Dowager is the Late Emperor’s wife, and His Majesty is the Late Emperor’s son. Would a wife expose her husband? Would a son expose his father? Moreover, Princess Yong’an’s death was beneficial to everyone. The Late Emperor successfully implemented his new policies, the Empress Dowager successfully became the Empress, and His Majesty, as the legitimate son of the Emperor and Empress, inherited the throne without dispute. The Great Zhou was also rejuvenated, giving commoners a chance to rise. You see, with the death of just one person, Princess Yong’an, thousands upon thousands benefited. If you now bring up Princess Yong’an’s case and say a father shouldn’t kill his daughter, whom can you threaten? Ha, you can’t threaten anyone. And do you believe that even if you made this public, you wouldn’t gain anything? If this were attributed to the Empress Dowager, people might condemn her as a poisonous woman, but if attributed to the Late Emperor, people would say he shed tears while killing his daughter for the greater good, truly worthy of being the father of all under heaven!”

Cui Xun suddenly shouted, “Silence!”

He rarely showed such anger, and a faint flush of rage appeared on his face. Jin Ni was startled, suddenly remembering that his life was in Cui Xun’s hands. He fearfully fell silent. After his chest heaved with anger for a moment, Cui Xun asked through gritted teeth, “After you killed the Princess, you blamed it all on Zheng Yun?”

Jin Ni’s voice no longer held its earlier excitement. With his head hanging low, he said, “Yes. Zheng Yun was also weak and incompetent. After being arrested and taken to the Dali Temple, he immediately confessed. The Late Emperor knew full well that he wasn’t the murderer, but still used this to exterminate the Zheng family and depose Empress Zheng, initiating the Taichang Blood Incident, which crushed the aristocratic families that opposed him. Most people sympathized with the Late Emperor, believing that a father losing his reason out of love for his daughter was understandable. As for Wang Tuan’er and Wang Ranxi, who had conspired with Zheng Yun, Wang Tuan’er disappeared, and Wang Ranxi was a daughter of the Wang clan of Taiyuan, one of the few neutral aristocratic families. Prime Minister Cui had a private conversation with her father, telling him about Wang Ranxi’s plot to kill the Princess. Her father was so frightened that his legs went weak, and he quickly declared his support for the Late Emperor. Thus, the Wang clan of Taiyuan became the first aristocratic family to support the new policies. In exchange, Prime Minister Cui promised to protect Wang Ranxi and the Wang clan. He took it upon himself to conceal Wang Ranxi’s involvement from the Late Emperor to prevent the Wang clan from turning against them. In this way, Wang Ranxi escaped for thirty years.”

In truth, even if they hadn’t concealed it from the Late Emperor, would he have chosen to destroy the Wang clan of Taiyuan to vent his anger, or would he have chosen an aristocratic family that supported him? Jin Ni felt the answer was self-evident.

Cui Xun slowly closed his eyes, recalling what Li Ying had once told him.

She had said, “My father was a very good father.”

She had also said, “My lifelong wish was simply for my father and mother to be with me for a long time, for our family to live peacefully and happily.”

But the “very good father” she spoke of had killed her for the sake of the empire. She had hoped to accompany her father for a long time, but her father had personally pushed her into the abyss.

Cui Xun felt the taste of blood in his mouth from biting down so hard. He opened his eyes, still clinging to one last hope, and asked, “Did you defect to the Turks because the Late Emperor blamed you for the Princess’s death, forcing you to flee?”

But Jin Ni said, “No.”

He continued, “The Hundred Riders was a vicious hound raised by the Late Emperor, just as the Investigation Office is a vicious hound raised by the Empress Dowager. When the master wants the hound to bite someone, the hound will bite. But after the hound has bitten too many people and provoked public anger, the master will skin the hound alive to show his wisdom. I wasn’t willing to be skinned alive, and I didn’t want to be a hound anymore. But the Late Emperor had already taken precautions against me. I wasn’t successful, so I had no choice but to flee to the Turks. This had nothing to do with Princess Yong’an.”

After speaking, Jin Ni suddenly smiled. “If it had anything to do with her, how could Cui Songqing still be alive and well?”

Cui Xun’s last hope was completely shattered. He gritted his teeth without saying a word, simply throwing a sheet of white hemp paper in front of Jin Ni. “Write!”

Jin Ni was stunned. “Junior Minister Cui, you still want me to write it down? Are you truly not afraid of death?”

Cui Xun only said coldly, “Will you write it or not?”

Jin Ni was dumbfounded for a moment, then suddenly laughed loudly, “Write? Of course I’ll write!”

He quickly wrote down his confession, then put down the pen. With his disheveled appearance and covered in wounds, he looked at Cui Xun in his crimson official robes and laughed, “I, Jin Ni, once served as Captain of the Hundred Riders, monitoring officials, with everyone fearing me. How glorious that was! Yet I never expected that behind that glory, the fate of being discarded after serving my purpose was already predetermined. No matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t change it. Junior Minister Cui, you serve as Junior Minister of the Investigation Office, and your hands are no cleaner than mine. I advise you to enjoy life while you can, lest you regret it one day. Consider this the final advice from a former Captain of the Hundred Riders to the current Junior Minister of the Investigation Office!”

After Jin Ni finished writing his confession with a hearty laugh, he suddenly seemed to have come to terms with everything. Originally greatly afraid of death because of his many evil deeds and his fear of hell after death, he realized that being in Cui Xun’s hands was no different from being in hell. Better to die early than to suffer alive. As for the confession, he wrote in extreme detail, like a death warrant, and handed it to Cui Xun with malicious intent.

However, Cui Xun did not bring this confession to the palace. He only brought the parts involving Pei Guanyue, along with the confessions of coroner Lin San, Feiyun Relay Station chief Ouyang Yan, and others, presenting them all to the Empress Dowager. After reading them, she said, “With both testimony and evidence in hand, Pei Guanyue can no longer deny it.”

She then asked Cui Xun, “Wangshu, what do you wish to do?”

Cui Xun replied, “According to Great Zhou law, those who make false accusations should be subject to the same punishment they sought to inflict. Pei Guanyue accused me of a capital crime, so naturally, he should be punished with death.”

The Empress Dowager nodded. “I will discuss this with His Majesty and the ministers. You may go now.”

After Cui Xun kowtowed and left Penglai Palace, the Empress Dowager watched his thin figure depart with a complex expression.

To be fair, she hadn’t treated him well. As Junior Minister of the Investigation Office, he was in charge of criminal cases and monitoring officials, handling all sorts of dirty and exhausting work. Throughout history, no one in this position had ever met a good end, and he surely knew this. Yet despite this, he had still become the sharpest and swiftest blade in her hand.

If only he weren’t Cui Songqing’s nephew, weren’t the most outstanding scion of the Boling Cui clan…

Thinking of this, she couldn’t help but clutch the hollow gold sachet in her hand, a surge of hatred welling up in her heart.

In a trance, she seemed to return to the thirtieth year of Taichang, the day Emperor Taichang passed away.

That day, she had held Pusa Bao, sitting at Emperor Taichang’s sickbed, listening as he received batch after batch of ministers, leaving his final words. Only after all the important ministers had seen Emperor Taichang did she ask the wet nurse to take Pusa Bao away, while she stayed to accompany Emperor Taichang through the final moments of his life.

Emperor Taichang had already issued a decree in front of all the ministers, allowing Pusa Bao to succeed to the throne with her ruling from behind a curtain, essentially entrusting all affairs of state to her. After everything was arranged, the dying Emperor Taichang looked at her quietly and said, “Empress, you hate me.”

At some point, he had stopped calling her Lingye, and she had stopped calling him Sanlang. Instead, they addressed each other as “Empress” and “Your Majesty.” Suppressing the resentment in her heart, she replied woodenly, “I wouldn’t dare.”

Emperor Taichang looked at her face, devoid of any grief, and murmured, “I know why you hate me, but I am the father of all under heaven.”

She suddenly looked up. This was the first time Emperor Taichang had obliquely acknowledged the truth she had suspected. She glared at Emperor Taichang but remained silent through gritted teeth. She had endured for many years and was about to obtain the highest power in the realm, as well as avenge her daughter. She couldn’t fail at this point.

But Emperor Taichang said, “I ask you to promise me one last thing.”

She instinctively sensed trouble and didn’t want to agree, but Emperor Taichang still said word by word, “After my death, you will certainly kill Cui Songqing. But Cui Songqing is a man of talent who can bring peace and prosperity to the world. In court, he can serve the country with all his heart; outside court, he can be a commoner minister. I cannot stand by and watch you eliminate a talent useful to the new policies out of personal hatred. I want you to swear that for as long as you live, you will not kill Cui Songqing. If you break this oath, Mingyue’s soul will never find peace!”

Hearing Emperor Taichang’s words, she was shocked, her eyes widening. He wanted her to swear by Mingyue? She was silent for a moment, then suddenly cried out with all her strength, “Why must you do this?”

This was the first time she had expressed her resentment toward Emperor Taichang. She glared at him, weeping bitterly, “Mingyue, wasn’t she your most beloved daughter? Why are you doing this to her?”

Emperor Taichang coughed violently, blood slowly seeping from the corners of his mouth, yet he said softly, “I… do not regret.”

He said he didn’t regret, and at that moment, she hated him. Yet he continued to force her to swear. She cried until her body lost all strength. “Why are you forcing me like this? Why…”

Emperor Taichang just looked at her quietly, his eyes filled with profound, impenetrable sorrow. “One day, if you were in my position, you would understand.”

Understand? No, she would never understand.

Under Emperor Taichang’s coercion, she was forced to make this oath, and whenever she thought of it, she felt unbearable pain.

So, how could she not hate Cui Songqing? And how could she not extend that hatred to those related to him?