Since ancient times, the Central Plains have governed the world with “filial piety.” For him to commit patricide and kill his own relatives was one thing, but now, in such a time of crisis, he was actually forcing the imperial mother and son to kill each other! The ethical principles and moral order of the world were completely trampled beneath his feet!

Some conservative officials were already flushed red with anger.

Voices of rebuke were endless.

However, Xie Wei remained unmoved, as if he hadn’t heard a thing.

He had always done what he wanted to do, without needing to explain to anyone, and completely without needing others to understand the reasons behind it.

Even if everyone saw him as a demon.

Watching him from afar in the crowd, Jiang Xuening actually felt a faint aching pain in her heart.

Xie Wei looked at them and only gently urged: “Is it difficult to choose?”

Those who didn’t know the details from back then called him deranged and mad. However, those who had some understanding or some speculation vaguely realized that behind this action of his, the secrets from back then must be hidden!

Had there been such a choice placed before Xie Wei over twenty years ago?

No one could confirm it.

Ever since being dragged here, Empress Dowager Xiao had suffered one shock after another.

Hearing these words now, she finally reacted.

She clearly didn’t think Xie Wei resembled Xiao Yuan or Yan Min from back then very much. However, thinking of the location of the secret chamber that shouldn’t have been known by others, and this familiar impossible choice before her eyes, that terrible conjecture in her mind that she originally hadn’t dared believe surfaced.

Empress Dowager Xiao’s eyes nearly split with rage.

As if seeing an evil ghost, she trembled as she pointed at him, her voice tearing and ferocious: “It’s you! So it’s you!!!”

However, her emotions were truly too agitated. Almost all her attention was focused on Xie Wei, so much so that she didn’t see at all that less than five steps away from her, the disheveled Shen Lang, with a sinister gaze, had already picked up that blade Xie Wei had thrown on the ground earlier.

A trace of mocking pity flashed through Xie Wei’s eyes.

Xiao Shu from behind let out a cry of alarm.

That blade was tightly gripped by one hand and easily pierced through Empress Dowager Xiao’s body, penetrating from her back to her chest. When she lowered her head to look, she could even see on that blood-stained blade surface the reflection of her own face bearing some confusion.

The court officials who had been continuously berating suddenly seemed to have been slapped across the face. All words came to an abrupt halt, without another sound!

In the Hall of Supreme Harmony, only the sound of the blade slowly withdrawing from a body could be heard.

Empress Dowager Xiao staggered two steps.

The blood from her chest and back couldn’t be stanched at all, flowing outward like a spring. She finally turned around and saw clearly what was behind her—

What a familiar face it was!

It was the legitimate eldest son she had personally raised, for whom she had fought against many favored consorts in the palace, for whom she had forced the then not-yet-seven-year-old Prince Dingfei to substitute for him and go to his death, and for whom she had even agreed to send her own daughter far away to marry into the Tatars…

“Lang’er…”

Empress Dowager Xiao saw him holding the blade, standing there silently, yet didn’t dare believe what had just happened. However, the pain of her body was so clear and obvious that she couldn’t comfort herself that this was only a nightmare.

A moment of reluctance flashed through Shen Lang’s eyes, but in an instant it became that kind of coldness and ruthlessness unique to emperors. All people under heaven were nothing but grass and trees in his eyes!

Even if this was his birth mother!

He held the blade and said sternly: “The nation is in peril—I must impose upon Mother this once. However, the matter from back then truly had nothing to do with this son. It was Mother who acted on her own authority, forcibly using the Yan family’s lives as a threat to compel the still-young Prince Dingfei to take my place! I didn’t understand worldly affairs back then, but over these years, whenever I recall it, I toss and turn, constantly reflecting on my faults! Now that he has returned, it should be time for Mother to repent and realize her wrongs!”

Xie Wei himself hadn’t mentioned it, but with Shen Lang and several others speaking one after another, they successively revealed seventy to eighty percent of what happened back then.

The court officials could already deduce from this the truth from over twenty years ago—

There had never been any loyal service to save the monarch. Back then, the young Prince Dingfei hadn’t gone willingly, but rather, for the safety of the Yan family, had been coerced by Empress Dowager Xiao to substitute and go to his death in the rebel army!

However, these words were all a fog to Shen Jie as he listened.

He had no idea what Shen Lang was talking about.

When he witnessed Shen Lang’s blade pierce through Empress Dowager Xiao’s body, his head had already “buzzed,” almost unable to believe what was happening.

Shen Jie had always known that he and his imperial brother, and his mother, were not the same kind of people. But he had thought that blood kinship ties meant that no matter what, they wouldn’t commit fratricide!

Even when Xie Wei had just spoken those words, he didn’t believe what he said would actually happen.

But now…

He only felt that the imperial brother standing before him had become a bloodthirsty beast. For a moment, it actually stirred up the little courage in his chest. He stepped forward and pushed him away: “What are you doing?!”

Empress Dowager Xiao was already on her last breath.

Shen Lang’s high-sounding words simply made her feel a tremendous irony!

Shen Jie half-knelt and gathered her into his arms, calling again and again: “Mother, Mother!”

Two lines of tears fell from Empress Dowager Xiao’s eyes.

At the moment of death, she actually laughed out loud miserably, not knowing whether she was laughing at this absurd heaven, or at the so-called affection of the imperial family, or at her own pitiful and tragic self: “Hahaha, retribution, retribution—no one can escape it! No one can escape—”

That voice, at its most shrill and high-pitched, suddenly stopped.

Warm blood from her throat gushed from her mouth. She struggled feebly twice before finally collapsing limply.

Shen Jie cried out: “Mother, Mother—”

But he was only a weak person.

He had neither the courage to question his imperial brother who had killed their mother, nor the courage to take revenge on Xie Wei who was the instigator. He could only hold Empress Dowager Xiao’s corpse and weep bitterly.

Who could have imagined that in less than half a moment, Shen Lang had already made his choice!

The court officials only felt their hearts palpitating with fear.

Even the Heavenly Teaching righteous army who had killed their way here found it unbearable to watch.

Wan Xiuzi stood stunned for a long while, but then immediately clapped his hands and laughed loudly. Not even minding the wound on his abdomen, he raised his hand pointing at the pool of blood spreading before the Hall of Supreme Harmony, saying excitedly: “Did you see? Imperial nobility! This is the imperial nobility sitting high in the Forbidden City! Even marketplace rats might not commit such inhuman atrocities! Imperial nobility? Bah! More like worse than pigs and dogs! Hahaha…”

As he spoke, he actually spat on the ground.

His contemptuous attitude overflowed beyond words.

Only Xie Wei sighed softly, as if with some regret: “She died too easily…”

After the silence, quite a bit of discussion arose.

Almost everyone’s gaze fell on Shen Lang’s face.

He still held the blood-stained blade in his hand and could roughly guess what everyone was discussing about him. However, the temperament of this former Imperial Tutor had already been displayed thoroughly just now!

If he didn’t make a choice, two people would die!

Since that was the case, he might as well give Empress Dowager Xiao a quick end first.

Shen Lang looked toward Xie Wei: “As for the matter from back then, you know it was all Mother acting on her own authority. You were originally my companion reader, yet over these years I actually didn’t know. Why did you need to hide it from me? If you had informed me earlier, I would certainly have issued an edict of self-reproach to the world and sought justice for you.”

Truly the manner of one who acts as an emperor.

Xie Wei looked at him. A trace of a smile appeared at the corner of his lips, but he actually didn’t answer. He only raised his hand and pointed: “What about her?”

Wherever his hand pointed, everyone’s hearts filled with terror.

But in the end, most people experienced only a false alarm.

That slender finger ultimately pointed toward Xiao Shu in her splendid palace attire but with a deathly pale face at the rear!

On the ground already lay her father, her younger brother, her aunt…

Now, it was finally her turn!

At this moment, without saying another word, everyone already understood: Xie Wei clearly intended to completely exterminate the Xiao clan, leaving no room for mercy! All who bore this surname would be killed!

Xiao Shu was different from Empress Dowager Xiao. Empress Dowager Xiao was the Emperor’s birth mother, but she was merely the Emperor’s favored consort.

To Shen Lang, she was only a tool for venting desires and scheming.

She knew that if Xie Wei wanted her to die today, she absolutely wouldn’t live past tomorrow…

But all she had done in this life was to avoid being manipulated by others.

Why was it that climbing upward step by step in pursuit, what she gained in exchange was not even control over her own life?

As Shen Lang walked toward her step by step holding the blade, tears filled Xiao Shu’s eyes. She raised her head, but neither looked at Shen Lang nor at Xie Wei. Instead, at this moment, she looked toward Jiang Xuening gazing at her from afar!

That sense of absurdity from being toyed with by fate had never been so intense.

The first nineteen years of her brief life had been almost perfect, and she hadn’t even committed any major errors. However, all the changes stemmed from being a companion reader at Yangzhi Studio. She had been wary of Jiang Xuening, framed her in connection with the jade ruyi case, but failed, and from then on formed a deep enmity.

Now, she was Xie Wei’s beloved, while though she had become the Emperor’s favored consort, she was worse than even a prisoner!

One wrong step, every step wrong.

That was all there was to it.

When the blade pierced through her body, Xiao Shu felt endless cold. But she finally withdrew her gaze and looked at this heartless emperor before her. In the end, she no longer had her former docility, and spoke almost like a curse: “Do you think you can escape?”

Shen Lang hadn’t cared about this woman’s life or death to begin with.

Hearing that she actually uttered such malicious words, malevolent energy surged in his heart. He actually pulled out the blade and slashed another cut across her throat, making her unable to make another sound, and she fell.

By now, the most important people of the Xiao clan had almost all died cleanly.

Jiang Xuening remembered that in the previous life it had also been like this. Though not the same manner of death, the outcome seemed not much different.

She had fought with Xiao Shu for so many years.

But actually, neither had prevailed over the other.

Xiao Shu had died first under the rebels’ blade, and the entire Xiao clan had been slaughtered by Xie Wei. Not long after, in her lingering existence, she too had taken her own life in Kunning Palace…

Only in this life, she had given up striving relentlessly, while Xiao Shu had walked a path even more twisted than in the previous life…

Watching Xiao Shu fall, she couldn’t say what she felt in her heart.

She only felt it seemed not wrong either.

Karmic retribution—in the end, it would spare no one.

At this moment, standing before everyone’s eyes was not just Xie Wei as a demon, but the one who more resembled a demon was clearly that emperor who had originally sat high on the golden throne!

Shen Lang said: “I can give the order to raze the Xiao clan completely, without mercy!”

Xie Wei only smiled with his hands behind his back: “No need to be so duplicitous with me. Let’s see whether the person you’re waiting for arrives. The time is almost here, isn’t it?”

Shen Lang had already felt that he knew something. Now hearing him state it so clearly, his heart was already three parts panicked.

Killing Empress Dowager Xiao, killing Xiao Shu—he didn’t feel anything about these.

As long as Xie Wei didn’t immediately act against him, there might not be no chance to turn the tables. So he swallowed his humiliation and shame, and conversely spoke many words trying to win over Xie Wei. But who would have thought Xie Wei also knew his intentions!

At this moment, Shen Lang almost thought the other would immediately act against him.

But it was also at this moment—

The sound that everyone had heard when the Xinzhou Army arrived earlier rang out once again from the distance of the palace grounds, approaching from the Shunzhen Gate in the northeast corner all the way toward the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

There were no banners, and their origin couldn’t be discerned.

Soldier after soldier wore only black armor. The army was well-disciplined and advanced very quickly. Just those visible numbered over ten thousand, not knowing how many more remained outside the palace unable to enter together!

And at the center of this army, surrounded by troops, was clearly a woman.

Deep purple palace attire was worn on her body, but her face bore no powder or rouge. The scar at the corner of her eye was almost the first thing everyone noticed along with her face.

Jiang Xuening suddenly froze.

She called out: “Your Highness!”

However, just as she was about to step forward to meet her, a hand forcefully pulled her back from the side.

Jiang Xuening turned around—it was actually Yan Lin.

He wouldn’t let her go forward. A few traces of dark radiance flowed through his eyes as he asked in a low voice: “Do you still remember what I told you before?”