Cheng Liang still finds it hard to believe everything he has seen and heard tonight.

Standing before him now, this gentle, dignified, intelligent, and noble young lady was being used as a tool to kill someone else.

He couldn't even imagine that, besides the raging fire eight years ago, there was such a shocking secret hidden behind it.

Therefore, on the day the late emperor passed away 17 years ago, his young master and his mother, who were only five or six years old at the time, were forced to leave the Imperial Ancestral Temple to return to the palace to see him one last time. On their way, they were nearly killed by masked robbers in black. It wasn't really for robbery, but rather...

Although the owner had suspected all these years that the robbers were likely guards from the Imperial Ancestral Temple who were trying to stop them from escaping, he had to give up on the matter because of numerous suspicious points and the lack of any further clues.

The master felt that if the people from the ancestral temple were only there to stop them from escaping, they had a legitimate reason to come and there was no need to bother disguising themselves as masked. However, if the robbers were after money, they would not care about gold and silver at all. Furthermore, the master was too young at the time and could not remember where he had seen the masked man who seemed to have appeared somewhere before but had only flashed before his eyes once.

That makes sense now; so that's how it all happened. The Empress Dowager really went to great lengths for that position…

This is terrifying, truly terrifying. It turns out that for the past 17 years, that mother and son in the palace have been eyeing the Prince of Qin's residence with such covetous intent and wolfish ambition.

Now, they have obtained everything they desired: the Empress Dowager's position, the Emperor's authority—they have it all. Why then are they still unwilling to let go of the Prince of Qin's residence? And why are they only targeting the Imperial Concubine Dowager? What is the Emperor's plan? What exactly is his plan…?

After a long while, Cheng Liang slowly said, "Miss Lu, I really didn't expect this. Today's drama of 'luring the enemy into the trap and using their own methods against them' has truly been a 'catch the turtle in the jar,' yielding a very fruitful result!"

Unexpectedly, Lu Tianjiao suddenly shed his fear and chuckled with a pleasant expression. He immediately denied it, saying, "Yes, I wonder what General Cheng thinks of Tianjiao's acting skills compared to those actors in the opera troupe?"

Upon hearing this, Cheng Liang immediately glared at him, his face full of surprise.

"You vile woman, stop spouting nonsense and distorting the truth! Quickly kneel down and kowtow to the Empress Dowager to confess your sins!" Suddenly, a stern rebuke came from outside the hall from Zhang Mama.

Upon hearing this, everyone in the hall turned their gaze toward him simultaneously.

With a deathly pale face, carrying a green lantern, and dressed in the same crimson palace gown she had just worn, Zhang Mama slowly stepped into the main hall. Her every word and action was just like the real Empress Dowager. It was no wonder that she had served the Empress Dowager with all her heart; she could imitate the Empress Dowager's voice and appearance so realistically.

"Why aren't you kneeling down? When are you going to do it?" Granny Zhang said angrily to Lu Tianjiao as soon as she entered and stood still.

“What do you mean by that, Granny Zhang? Although you are an old nanny in the Prince of Qin’s mansion and the closest person to the late Empress Dowager, it is still not my place, Lu Tianjiao, to kneel down before you!” Lu Tianjiao said righteously.

“Miss Lu, don’t think that just because your father, Lu Xian, is loyal to His Highness Prince Qin and deeply respected by him, you can act arrogantly and recklessly in Prince Qin’s mansion, even harming people. Shouldn’t you bow down and admit your mistakes to the Dowager Consort after causing trouble in Prince Qin’s mansion like this?” said Zhang Mama.

Lu Tianjiao raised a hand to smooth the stray hairs at her temples, chuckled softly, and slowly said, "A fox borrowing the tiger's power, acting recklessly, and harming people? Stirring up trouble in the Qin Prince's mansion... It seems that Granny Zhang really overestimates Tianjiao. Although Tianjiao was born without a mother's supervision, she was fortunate to be born into a scholarly family and received strict education from her father from a young age. How could she dare to act so recklessly and wantonly?"

As expected, she is indeed an extremely tenacious white lotus flower. Lu Tianjiao is indeed Lu Tianjiao. Today, she was exposed on the spot by the entire Qin Prince's Mansion, who had gone to such lengths to "catch her like a turtle in a jar." Yet, she turned around and recovered so quickly, acting as if nothing had happened.

Hearing this, Granny Zhang suppressed her anger, smiled at her, blew out the green lantern in her hand, and placed it in a corner. She then instructed the two guards beside her, "Go and light all the lights in the main hall, the brighter the better. Tonight, the entire Prince Qin's mansion will probably be in an uproar, and His Highness will likely have a sleepless night. I never imagined that this Miss Lu would possess such hidden talent as a performer. Let His Highness, on his sickbed, listen carefully and see how Miss Lu will perform tonight. That would be good."

The guards looked at each other for a moment, then looked at Cheng Liang. Cheng Liang nodded to him, and the guards then separated and went to light the lanterns one by one.

In an instant, the dimly lit hall was illuminated again, revealing the various expressions—joy, anger, fear, relief, surprise, and more—that still lingered on everyone's faces, leaving nothing hidden.

The man on the sickbed, whose face was always sharp, cold, dignified, and incomparably noble, was as ethereal as a celestial being. His eyes were still closed, but the deathly paleness on his face seemed to have recovered considerably.

Granny Zhang gazed at it from afar for a moment, and only then did she seem somewhat relieved. So, she slowly walked to the window where she had just stood outside, to a copper candlestick that was always burning.

She stood there, silently watching the red candle wax on the candlestick slowly slide down the copper frame, solidifying before it went far. Layer upon layer, though it was still a delicate new candle flower, it looked ferocious, just like the woman in front of her now, so young yet so worldly-wise.

The true master of the Qin Prince's Mansion, the only bloodline of the deceased Dowager Consort, is now unconscious. Lu Tianjiao clearly wants to use this to his advantage, claiming that everything he said and did just now was merely a convincing performance to cooperate with them.

Will Xuanyuan Han really believe what she, Physician Yue, or even Cheng Liang, whom he trusts most, say, do, or hear?

Her father, however, was Lu Xian, a strategist whom every country on the Lingkong Continent sought after.

Do their masters really believe what these servants say, that Lu Xian's daughter is the indirect culprit who personally poisoned his mother, leaving her unable to move or escape after someone deliberately set the fire?

Although Zhang Mama had some reservations about this before, she was still taken aback by the awkward situation she was in.

All she wanted was to uncover the truth behind that fire before she died, to resolve the knot in her heart that had remained untied for so many years. She didn't want to meet her mistress, the Dowager Consort, in another world in the near future, only to find herself just as confused as her mistress. Then she would feel that her lingering existence had been meaningless; she might as well have died alongside her mistress back then…

Years ago, she had already made a mistake; she shouldn't have so easily trusted the young maid who served her master, letting her eat that deadly bowl of lotus seed soup to fall asleep. Why, then, had she herself slept so soundly that night, as if under a spell, that she hadn't even noticed the commotion in her master's room across the courtyard? When she slowly awoke to cries for help from the temple, she felt a splitting headache, her whole body trembled, and she could barely stand; her legs were weak and shaky.

Finally, she scrambled to the doorway, only to see, illuminated by the firelight, a dense crowd of people, a raging inferno.

At that time, she lay prostrate on the threshold, dragging her heavy body, crying until her voice was hoarse, and finally fainted.

No one in this world will ever know how helpless she was back then, how utterly helpless she was…

But now that we know the whole truth, it seems to make us feel even more heartbroken and powerless.

What should she do with this girl? What could she possibly do with her?

"Your Highness, for your mother's sake, please wake up quickly! Heaven has eyes, the gods have spirits, please let our Highness wake up quickly and open his eyes to see this girl's ugly face!" Zhang Mama cried out in her heart again and again.

Suddenly, her eyes lit up as she caught sight of the yellow talisman she had inadvertently given to Physician Le that afternoon when they were plotting in the backyard. It had been soaked in holy water and used for his painting. She couldn't help but think of the old Taoist priest who had inexplicably knocked on the back door of the Prince of Qin's mansion earlier that day and handed her this blank talisman.

The Prince's residence was a place of great importance, where strangers were usually forbidden to approach. But today, an old Taoist priest, dressed in a blue robe, carrying a fortune-telling banner in one hand and slowly shaking a copper bell in the other, appeared out of nowhere. He was nearly sixty years old and had a full white beard. As he swayed slowly, he kept chanting, "Fortune-telling, fortune-telling..."

Seeing that she and the guard had been arguing at the gate for a long time and still refused to leave, and that there was no result, Zhang Mama went out.

As soon as the old Taoist priest saw Zhang Mama come out, he asked her if there was a noble person in the mansion who had been unconscious for several days. He acted as if he were a sage who could see things with uncanny accuracy, which piqued Zhang Mama's interest.

Afterwards, the old Taoist gave Zhang Mama this wordless talisman and taught her how to use it. Zhang Mama held it in her hand and examined it for a long time. At that time, she laughed at the old Taoist and said, "Other people's talismans are full of all kinds of strange patterns. Are you an illiterate Taoist priest? Surely your Taoist skills are still shallow."

However, the old Taoist priest didn't seem angry at all. Instead, he turned and left with a smile on his face, muttering to himself as he went, "A mountain is not famous because of its height, but because of the immortals who dwell there. Water is not sacred because of its depth, but because of the dragons that inhabit it. Everything is predestined. Flowers bloom and wither, and contracts last for a hundred lifetimes. If you believe, it exists; if you don't believe, it doesn't."

With this thought in mind, Granny Zhang quickly picked up the basin of water and walked towards Xuan Yuanhan, who was lying on the sickbed...