The mute girl tugged at Ai Cao's clothes again. She pointed to the newborn twins, her eyes filled with doubt.

Ai Cao asked her with a grin, "You've never seen anything like this before?"

Ai Cao counted on her fingers and said, "Hmm...you see their bellies are bulging, right?" Seeing the mute girl nod, she continued, "Perhaps you'd be more accepting if I said 'possessed by a demon'?"

The mute girl shook her head.

She picked up a twig, used it as a pen, and the ground as paper. The mute girl wrote: "Not possessed by a demon."

Ai Cao smiled and asked, "So what did you see?"

The mute girl hesitated for a moment, then wrote: "The ghosts linger, harboring grudges and seeking revenge." She paused, then wrote again, "Dreams come true."

She smoothed out the words with the tip of her shoe.

Ai Cao smiled and waved to the twins.

The twins had stripped two relatively intact pieces of clothing from the corpses in the mass grave and were running barefoot to the two of them, hopping and skipping.

Artemisia touched the heads of the sisters one by one.

The two sisters smiled as they rubbed their palms against the mugwort, like two newborn little animals.

The mugwort asked, "Whose dream came true?"

The mute girl shook her head. She put the branch back under the tree and buried it in the soil. She calmly brushed the dirt off her hands and looked at the mugwort again.

Ai Cao had just finished exchanging statements with the two sisters.

Artemisia asked, "Have you remembered everything I just said?"

The two sisters nodded obediently. They had identical faces and were both young girls. Ai Cao stayed by Song Tang's side for a long time, and unconsciously felt a little pity for the little girl.

But when she saw the two children wandering around, their bright black eyes reminding her that they had just become humans from ghosts. They were not good people, nor did they need goodness to survive.

Ai Cao nodded in satisfaction and then ruffled their hair.

She planned to claim that she had found the two little girls in a mass grave; then she would find a way to kill all the men in the military camp and create an army of her own.

She was also very satisfied with the strange phenomenon she had just created.

She's tried it on these two men; now she can try something bigger.

The group returned to the Crown Princess's residence. The Crown Princess and Songtang had still not returned. Only the Eldest Princess was present, so Ai Cao first told her about her plan.

Having just digested the previous shock, the eldest princess is about to start chasing people away again, this time with a chair in hand.

Her grip on the chair back tightened and loosened. If this plan hadn't been so outrageous that no one else could hear it, she would have definitely kicked this whole group out of the Crown Princess's residence.

Or the kind that fires as far as possible.

Ai Cao smiled and advised her, "Your Highness, I saw that the Crown Princess had no intention of getting involved with the military camp, so I came to tell you."

Ai Cao continued to urge, "This mute girl says she can create supernatural phenomena." Taking advantage of the girl's inability to speak, she directly used her as a rallying cry, "Then we'll get rid of all the men in the barracks and replace them with women who are close to us..."

Ai Cao painted a rosy picture for the princess: "Then we'll have soldiers!"

The eldest princess was forced to listen to this big, round pie.

She took a deep breath and said, "Do you think soldiers are so easy to take? Which family's elite soldiers aren't strictly guarded? Even if what you said is true, those... reincarnated women may not necessarily have combat abilities."

She gave the twins a stern look: "I can't take little girls like this to the battlefield."

“But that way we can easily deal with those soldiers,” Ai Cao said with a smile. “Isn’t it a good thing that the enemy doesn’t have a single soldier?”

“Besides, men aren’t born with fighting abilities,” Ai Cao continued. “Can’t you train them too?”

The eldest princess stared at her silently.

Ai Cao pretended not to see her expression and continued, "If you think there's a chance, just tell me whose soldiers you want. I'll get him pregnant first... ah, make his belly swell up, and then he'll naturally have to avoid outsiders."

"Then go and kill him and his soldiers, and replace them with our own people," Ai Cao said. "Repeat this process, and soon the enemy will have no soldiers left."

The eldest princess sneered: "Whose soldiers do you want to be wiped out?"

The mugwort blinked.

"I really can't tell whether you want to support your elder sister or yourself," the eldest princess said sarcastically. "Although there are no external threats now, if such a major event were to occur, how could foreign enemies not take advantage of the situation to invade?"

After she finished speaking, she remembered the word "early death" that the mute girl had just written, snorted coldly, and fell silent.

Ai Cao smiled and touched her short hair, saying, "Because I am a woman."

“Throughout history, strategists and rulers have both been men, and there have been many strategists who plotted to steal wealth and kill people,” the eldest princess retorted sharply.

“That’s because men can’t do it,” Ai Cao said. “If I wanted to be emperor, I would build my own power; I want to help the Crown Princess become emperor, so I’m helping you.”

The eldest princess's expression was icy: "In the inner courtyard, women plot against each other, framing each other's bodies and children, vying for the position of mistress. What can you say in defense of that?"

Ai Cao shrugged: "Isn't this perfect? ​​They are ambitious and resourceful. I want to move their battlefield from the backyard to the imperial court."

"The imperial court..." The princess took a breath and asked, "Do you want to reschedule?"

Although the current emperor is a woman, she is the only woman in the court. After the birth of their younger brother, neither the crown princess nor she were allowed to attend the morning court sessions. All the officials were men, and there was no place for women to study or advance in their careers.

Almost all women had only one path to take: to enter the inner courtyard, that is, to get married.

“If His Majesty cannot change it, then the Crown Princess shall change it,” Ai Cao said. “If even the Crown Princess cannot change it… then I would not be here long ago. The rest of the journey must be walked by the women themselves.”

"...Are you really going to die young?" the princess asked. "I think Songtang is still very young. Are you willing to leave her all alone?"

Ai Cao nodded: "I can't control how long I live."

She wasn't exactly lying. After all, she was essentially dead. If she hadn't died, she wouldn't be in this state of constantly traveling between worlds.

The eldest princess breathed a sigh of relief without showing any emotion. She finally relaxed her body and leaned back in her chair.

A strategist destined to die young is more reassuring than one who lives for three generations.

The princess called to two ragged children: "Come here, let me take a good look at you."

The twin sisters obediently walked up to her. The princess looked at the two identical faces and asked, "Where did you come from?"

One of the twins laughed and said, "A mass grave."

Another person said, "It was this older sister who saw us and picked us up."

The eldest princess suppressed a laugh, glanced at Ai Cao, and said, "You've taught them quite well."

Ai Cao nodded: "They are smart."

Otherwise, she wouldn't have deliberately grabbed her grandfather's foot and tripped him up. If they hadn't tried, Ai Cao would probably have waited for the next opportunity to practice her skills.

The eldest princess thought for a moment, then placed her hand on the armrest of the chair and tapped it lightly.

With her eyelashes lowered, she said, "I'm familiar with my uncle, so let's start with him."