The truth comes to light: "This time, I'm here."

Is it a comeback?

Qin Weixi couldn't help but murmur to himself.

She took a handkerchief and wiped Chu Yening's blood-stained hands, recalling what Jiuqu had said about poisoning. Chu Yening, however, grasped her hand in return.

It was no longer a cold, lifeless expanse.

A smile played on his lips as he said slowly, "I'm here this time."

Seeing this, Yao Zizhu, who was behind him, quietly retreated.

The next day at dawn, Chen Guiyi had already left the palace. Emperor Kang Le skipped the morning court session, and Empress Tao took over his "duty," serving the emperor's daily needs in the Hall of Mental Cultivation without taking off her clothes.

The doors to the hall were tightly shut, leaving only a strong medicinal aroma lingering before the young couple.

Empress Tao held a spoon in one hand and a medicine bowl in the other, and slowly fed it to Emperor Kang Le.

"Where is the Crown Prince..." Emperor Kang Le asked.

Empress Tao, without looking up, said, "I came last night."

Emperor Kang Le gazed at the bright yellow canopy overhead for a moment, then asked with a composed expression, "Where is Xi'er?"

Empress Tao suddenly smiled, stirring the soup in her bowl with a spoon in one hand: "Your Majesty, we have all been deceived by a little girl. You are the emperor, the supreme ruler. Now I must ask, Your Majesty, how should you punish the Luo family?"

Upon hearing this, Emperor Kang Le roared in a low voice, then knocked over the medicine bowl in Empress Tao's hand, spilling the medicine all over her skirt.

“That’s my old friend, Yun Chuan!”

Empress Tao rose and looked at the emperor, whose hair had suddenly turned white overnight and whose pupils were lifeless. She suddenly sneered, "Old friend... I thought you didn't know! You and I were husband and wife when we were young, we share the same fate. Your Majesty should make a decision about that little girl and General Chengji's child as soon as possible."

"Tao Ning!" Emperor Kang Le roared, grabbing a jade pillow from beside him and throwing it at her.

"I am the Emperor. The evidence in the case of the Duke of Dingguo is conclusive. Those who deserved to die are dead, and those who didn't deserve to die are dead. No one can change that. Let them do whatever they want..."

*

As soon as Chen Guiyi entered the courtyard, the steward handed him a letter with a seal still attached.

Chen Guiyi hesitated for a moment before returning to the courtyard and opening the letter. A moment later, his pupils suddenly contracted.

Meanwhile, inside the Jingning Marquis's residence, Songyang and Jiuqu took Sun Shaopu, who now looked like an old man, to the desolate dense forest south of the city.

Standing before the empty grave, Sun Shaopu looked around blankly. When he saw the people he had met in the secret prison that day—the son of General Chu Lanzhe, the youngest daughter of Duke Qin Heng, and the grandson of the old Earl of Chengyi—he suddenly let out a wail. The capital was really about to change.

Sun Shaopu's chapped lips moved silently. Just as he was about to look up at the Prince of Jingning, who had imprisoned him in that dark and sunless dungeon and nearly driven him to the brink of collapse, he caught a glimpse of a figure slowly emerging from behind the dense forest.

Sun Shaopu brushed aside the messy hair that was obscuring his eyes and looked again.

Sun Xing!

As Chen Guiyi gradually emerged from the dense forest, he rushed over to his disheveled, blood-stained brother, who was blind in one eye.

Chen Guiyi trembled slightly, knelt down and grabbed Sun Shaopu's shoulder, saying in a trembling voice, "Brother, you...you are still alive."

The group of people standing in front of the empty grave suddenly smiled.

A moment later, Chen Guiyi turned his head and met those clear, bright eyes and a face that resembled that of the Duke of Dingguo.

Qin Weixi asked, "Eunuch Chen, is there anything you wish to say?"

Chen Guiyi stared at her brother, who was in tears but unable to utter a word, his eyes suddenly reddening as he shouted sharply, "Brother, who poisoned you and made you mute? Who harmed you..."

Chen Guiyi subconsciously looked at the people in front of him.

Sun Shaopu pursed his lips and shook his head desperately.

Chu Yening chuckled upon seeing this, kicked him in the chest, and said coldly, "Still being stubborn even when you're about to die! If you don't tell the truth, even a celestial being couldn't save you two brothers today!"

Sun Shaopu, wincing in pain from the sudden onset of pain, was helped to sit up by Chen Guiyi.

Chu Yening said again, "Songyang, bring me paper and pen! I want to see what this eunuch has to say."

After a moment, under the watchful eyes of several people, Sun Shaopu tremblingly grasped the pen and began to write.

Before long, Jiuqu took the paper with Sun Shaopu's messy handwriting.

Before the others could examine it closely, Chen Guiyi spoke up, "I'll explain..."

"Before General Chu Lanzhe went to war, His Majesty asked my elder brother to take that secret letter he wrote in his own hand, but it was forged in the handwriting of the Duke of Dingguo. This letter of treason was given to Li Mou, who was then coerced into doing this by threatening Li Mou's wife and daughters. However, my elder brother had served His Majesty in court for many years and knew that His Majesty was very cunning. Fearing that the truth would be exposed in the future, he thought of sending his adopted son."

"Wh...what?" Qin Weixi suddenly opened her eyes wide and looked at him. She suddenly felt the world in front of her spinning, and then her ears rang.

She assumed it was the Liang family, the Marquis of Wuding's mansion, or even the Empress in the inner palace who was taking advantage of the Emperor's influence.

I never imagined that the secret letter was from Jiang Sinian, the man my father trusted most, who was like a limb, a brother, and a close friend!

The wrongful death of my father and the tragic death of Uncle Chu in a foreign land were both thanks to Jiang Sinian!

Chu Yening suddenly reached out a hand and firmly supported her.

Chen Guiyi suddenly smiled bitterly: "As for who that adopted son is, you probably know by now. Back then, Feng Gongxing was the adopted son of a tea merchant. He was born skin and bones and was congenitally weak, so the tea merchant didn't always let him go out. But this adopted son always wanted to see the outside world and ran away, almost dying outside. The tea merchant beat him severely for this, and the adopted son took the opportunity to escape."

"It was at this moment that my elder brother passed by and rescued Feng Gongxing."

At this point, Chen Guiyi suddenly let out a cold laugh: "That very night, Feng Gongxing gave his brother a great gift, murdering his adoptive father and taking control of the Woxue Pavilion. In reality, that Third Master Fang was just a steward for a tea merchant."

"Feng Gongxing arranged for Bai Sheng to remain in Woxue Pavilion under that identity, and his elder brother also impersonated someone who was about to enter the palace for him. His elder brother clearly told him that the emperor wanted to destroy the Qin family because of some unpleasant things that happened with the old Duke of Dingguo back then, but because the late emperor was still alive, the emperor had no other choice but to use the cause from back then to eliminate the effect after the late emperor passed away."

"Then, to prevent General Chu Lanze from becoming too powerful and overshadowing the emperor, the emperor decided to eliminate him as well..."

Chu Yening suddenly drew his sword and pointed it at Chen Guiyi, shouting sternly, "What a fine example of someone whose merits overshadow the emperor! A bunch of eunuchs who serve the dog emperor and commit all sorts of evil deeds!"

Chen Guiyi smiled faintly and then closed his eyes: "...My brother clearly told Feng Gongxing that the emperor was suspicious by nature and only allowed him to handle this matter, and that he must not entrust it to anyone else. Feng Gongxing risked his life to meet Li Mou alone without the emperor's knowledge, in gratitude for being saved years ago."

"Then my brother disappeared. I suspected that the emperor wanted to get rid of the person who knew about my brother. At that time, I felt very scared. The Four Swordsmen..." Chen Guiyi chuckled: "If they can be so ruthless as to eliminate their close friends, what else can't they do? My brother's adopted son and I have been living in fear for the past ten years, until that day when Lord Hou and Lord Tao suddenly appeared at Woxue Pavilion."

"When Feng Gongxing learned that it was the Chu and Tao families, he panicked and thought that the victim back then was clearly the Chu family. Now, they suddenly came to Woxue Pavilion and ordered the song that Li Mousheng used to listen to at the theater. Feng Gongxing felt that the real culprit who killed his brother had not yet been found, or that the Marquis of Jingning had learned the truth back then, or that the Marquis of Jingning was the one who killed his brother. So he sent someone to assassinate you."

"But I knew it was too late by then, and all I could do was try my best to make amends."

This led to him taking over the Ministry of Justice's duties, persuading the old emperor, and personally leading a group to Woxue Pavilion.

At this moment, Sun Shaopu began to tremble and weep silently.

That day...

On the day the case of the Duke of Dingguo was concluded, Song Xiu, the eunuch in charge of writing reports for the Directorate of Ceremonial, suddenly invited him to a banquet, and his words to him were full of flattery.

He was the emperor's favorite and confidant. Looking at the Directorate of Ceremonial and the powerful Eastern Depot, Sun Shaopu was once incredibly influential and could command the winds and rains. However, given the turbulent times, he was cautious and didn't drink much. While chatting animatedly with Song Bingbi, he collapsed. But it was that small amount of alcohol that poisoned his once beautiful voice, capable of pleasing the emperor, and rendered it mute.

At that moment, the image of the saint in his mind had overshadowed the fear brought on by the poisoned wine.

Sun Shaopu suddenly felt numbness in his limbs, followed by weakness all over his body. However, he still quickly grabbed the sharp blade he had entrusted to his adopted son Feng Gongxing to buy after the death of the Duke of Dingguo, which he had hidden under his seat, and began to fight with Song Bingbi. But Song Bingbi showed no mercy and stabbed the blade back into his chest.

He used to call him "godfather" all the time, but now he's going to die at the hands of this guy who has no connections like him.

With one hand clutching the knife that was now deeply embedded in his flesh and blood, Sun Shaopu, relying on the strength to survive, ran step by step through the snowy night to the mass grave.

The smell of the hundreds of Qin family soldiers' bodies burned under their blades rushed into the depths of his nostrils at that moment.

He thought of his younger brother, the brother he had relied on since childhood. He had just brought him to this luxurious home, and the two brothers hadn't even had a proper conversation yet…

However, Song Bingbi at the time clearly thought he was dead, or perhaps he was afraid of the Qin family's dead souls piled up like a mountain, and later did not confirm his death.

In the winter of the third year of Kang Le, he went to the streets to rob for food, ate and slept with the beggars he disliked the most, and was saved by the common people he looked down upon, allowing him to survive.

Later, he wondered why Song Bingbi was so determined to poison him, to kill him. But then he understood—it was the Emperor…

Sun Shaopu, as the emperor's confidant, knew far too much.

Tao Qingyun glanced at the few hastily written characters and said with difficulty, "So your elder brother was harmed by the Grand Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial after the Dingguo Case?" He looked at Chen Guiyi, suddenly took a deep breath, and asked, "I ask you, was Her Majesty the Empress involved in this matter?"

Chen Guiyi moved her lips, and after a long while, she suddenly laughed self-deprecatingly and said: "Because my brother died under mysterious circumstances and there was no body to be found, I thought it would be better to sit in my brother's seat and investigate the cause of his death step by step. However, because of the precedent of that secret letter given to Li Mou back then, I vaguely guessed that it might have been done by that dog emperor, but there was no real evidence until half a year after the case was closed. One day, I met with Feng Gongxing in private and saw Empress Tao with the young Princess Zhenhui and her confidant, the Grand Eunuch of Kunning Palace, having a secret talk behind the lotus pond behind the artificial hill."

"Her Majesty said that she and His Majesty share both glory and ruin. Back when Chu Lanzhe was fighting on the border, the remnants of the Yu Dynasty hid on the yellow earth slope and told the General that someone had infiltrated the capital and spread rumors that Ye Jiuyi, the wife of the former Duke of Dingguo, had been humiliated to death. But General Chu entrusted His Majesty with a secret letter sent back to the capital by fast horse, so that the Duke of Dingguo could make plans in advance. However, His Majesty intercepted it."

"The Empress said that the remnants of the Yu Dynasty were all killed by General Chu. However, it is hard to say whether there were people who actually sneaked into the city to humiliate the Four Swordsmen of that year and incite public criticism."

"Therefore, this matter must not be known to the Empress Dowager, who was on Xiaguang Peak at the time. If trouble arises on the mountain, it may be necessary to send the female officials from the Empress Dowager's side down the mountain to meet Qingpai."

“Aunt Bao… Aunt Baozhu?” Tao Qingyun suddenly turned pale and let out a sad laugh.

When Qin Weixi suddenly heard about his grandmother Ye Jiuyi from Chen Guiyi, he was reminded of his first meeting with Chu Yening at the Qin family's old house, a meeting that Chu Yening had also mentioned. However, Chu Yening didn't know what was written in that letter at the time, and his uncle Chu was intentionally keeping it from him.

So all of this was a giant net that had already been woven and stretched out towards them in the winter of the third year of Kang Le, and the one who wove this net was none other than Jiang Sinian! They had come full circle within those myriad gates!

The abyss of the Heavenly Realm is unfathomable!

Her grandfather's advice to her back then was actually a reflection of his long-standing understanding of everyone who, behind those many doors, wore a fine exterior but did despicable things!

Everyone is just a pawn in his game!