Chapter 162: Progress Bar for Official Promotion 52/100

“Little girl, you think that if it weren’t for my master’s prophecy, none of this would have happened.”

Noticing Su Zhenzhen's surprised gaze, Li Xuanji smiled with pleasure, "I told you, I know what you're thinking."

"Mind reading?" Knowing that her thoughts could be read by the other party, Su Zhenzhen simply asked.

"You can understand it that way, but let's get back to the main topic. As for who is responsible for Jiang Chao's current predicament, that's a matter of opinion."

Li Xuanji suddenly looked desolate, even showing a hint of Buddhist nature. "This prophecy existed long ago, but the emperor of the Jiang Dynasty didn't take it seriously. Why did Emperor Chang take it to heart? Because at that time, the Jiang Dynasty was in turmoil, and Emperor Chang himself lacked the ability, so he pinned his hopes on external forces to save the dynasty. It can be said that regardless of whether that prophecy existed or not, and regardless of whether Emperor Chang took any subsequent actions, the demise of the Jiang Dynasty was inevitable. It's laughable that some ignorant people tried to forcibly prolong the life of this dynasty."

Su Zhenzhen suddenly had many thoughts flash through her mind, but the inspiration was fleeting and too fast to grasp.

"This Jiang Dynasty kid doesn't understand what I mean. Don't you know, little girl? The Jiang Dynasty has lasted for thousands of years, thousands of years!"

boom!

Something collapsed at that moment, making a terrifying sound that resonated deep within the soul.

What dynasty could last for thousands of years?

In the ancient history course of the 906th century, in a historical period similar to the Jiang Dynasty, the entire time frame was only a little over two thousand years.

The general trend of the world is that after a long period of division, there will be unity; after a long period of unity, there will be division; and eventually, the world will tend towards unification.

However, the Jiang Dynasty never divided its territory from the very beginning! This is completely inconsistent with the cyclical changes in social development.

However, it had aristocratic families and an imperial examination system, and products from various eras were mixed together in this long dynasty.

If history is a long river, then the dynasties that rise and fall along it are like the topography of the riverbed, determining the course of the water. And the ever-flowing river is like the millions of ordinary people who have lived along it for generations.

As the sun rises and sets, and the stars shift, the riverbed's topography is constantly and subtly changing. The water flow changes accordingly, sometimes forming giant waves, sometimes turning into shallows; no two sections have the same water level.

Guided by the riverbed, water flows, erodes, and changes shape when it encounters obstacles. It is precisely in this constant flow, change, and even collision and conflict that wisdom, like silt, slowly settles down.

But the riverbed of the Jiang Dynasty has remained stagnant for thousands of years, and the water it carries has become a dead pool. The people here are as if they are being pulled by invisible threads, unable to think for themselves. When natural disasters occur, chaos arises; when chaos arises, it is suppressed, and then chaos arises again, endlessly, like a vicious cycle from which they cannot escape, with no end in sight.

The natural laws of history have been forcibly altered, at least within this world.

Su Zhenzhen was covered in a fine layer of cold sweat. She had always been a person who dared to think and act, but the thought that had just popped into her mind was immediately suppressed.

"Why not keep thinking?" Li Xuanji's voice carried a hint of coldness. "Perhaps the right answer is just a lucky guess?"

Seemingly just to scare Su Zhenzhen, Li Xuanji's expression relaxed considerably after saying those words, and his magnanimous and unrestrained features gained a touch of wild and unrestrained elegance.

"Let's continue talking about that prophecy. Emperor Chang wanted to find a noblewoman destined by heaven to give birth to a benevolent ruler for all time and change the situation of the weakening imperial power. Crown Prince Jiang Yichun was ordered to search for noblewomen among the common people. Are you aware of these things?"

Su Zhenzhen nodded, and to save time, she quickly reviewed what she already knew about Jiang Yichun in her mind.

Li Xuanji's lips curled into a slight smile, giving him the air of a reclusive master who had glimpsed the secrets of heaven.

"You probably don't know this, do you?" Though she said this, her tone was extremely certain. "The noblewoman that Jiang Yichun found is a peasant girl."

Su Zhenzhen suddenly had an even worse premonition, "Isn't Empress Song, Jiang Yichun's wife, just a peasant girl?"

"No, no, Jiang Yichun and that Song woman are quite different in age. Before that, he found another noblewoman, who later entered the palace and became a concubine."

Hensheng was naturally intelligent, and although he still had some naivety about the ways of the world, it did not mean that he was unable to understand the hints of others.

Which of Emperor Chang's concubines came from the countryside, and who was involved with Jiang Yichun?

There is only one answer: Jiang Sijin's biological mother.

Hensheng felt as if something called faith had collapsed, and asked in a trembling voice, "Could you tell me everything about the matter between Crown Prince Jiang Yichun and the noblewoman from the peasant family?"

As mentioned earlier, Jiang Yichun had a brief affair with that peasant girl, and the peasant girl became pregnant after entering the palace, and even the imperial physicians couldn't say whose child it was.

"As expected of a child born to a woman of destiny, it was worth it for me to set up this fortune-changing array for your birth mother. You are smarter than the previous ones, understanding things immediately."

Li Xuanji laughed wickedly, as if he had accomplished some incredible prank. "These twelve people were all gathered up one by one by Jiang Yichun under the guise of disaster relief. Before they died, they all thought that His Highness the Crown Prince of Jiang Dynasty was a good person, but who knew that even a good person could have selfish desires?"

[Ding, progress bar for official appointment is 52/100]

Su Zhenzhen looked up and saw that after Li Xuanji finished speaking, all twelve ghosts fell into the cycle of reincarnation. At the same time, the system notification sounded in her sea of ​​consciousness.

So the injustice of these twelve ghosts lies in the fact that they were killed by people they genuinely believed to be good, and after death their souls had to suffer hellish torment as the core of the formation. But the world is unaware of their plight and still thinks that the evil people who harmed them were great benefactors.

Su Zhenzhen vaguely remembered that the souls used to make the Zodiac Fortune-Changing Array could not escape being scattered. During this period, the souls would be gradually devoured by the array. In order to maintain the effectiveness of the array, the person who set up the array would first drive soul-suppressing nails into the souls. The pain of the soul-suppressing nails could be described as worse than death.

Su Zhenzhen looked at Li Xuanji with suspicion, "Did you set up this formation for Jiang Yichun?"

The Zodiac Fortune-Turning Array is extremely insidious, affecting both the dead and the living. Su Zhenzhen felt it was too cruel and inhumane, and she had no idea how to use it. This was the main reason why she had only glanced at it briefly.

Li Xuanji was a person with incredibly low moral standards.

"Don't think of me like that. I had no choice. The knife was right at my throat. You wouldn't have had the right to refuse either." Li Xuanji looked innocent. Anyone who didn't know better would think he had been turned into a luck-changing spell. "Besides, look at me, I've also suffered retribution. I've lived in this world for so long, neither human nor ghost."