Inside Xi Linghao's bedchamber, a heavy smell of medicine and a suffocating silence filled the air. This once majestic emperor now lay on his dragon bed, his face ashen, his eyes sunken, as if all his energy had been drained away. Only in his cloudy eyes burned a raging rage and a deep-seated sorrow and weariness from being repeatedly betrayed by his closest loved ones.

Before the dragon throne knelt Zhao Zheng, the commander of the imperial guards, stripped of his armor and bound hand and foot, and Lianxing, pale-faced and trembling like a leaf. The atmosphere in the hall was as oppressive as solidified lead.

"Speak!" Xi Linghao's voice was hoarse, yet carried an overwhelming pressure, each word like a knife chilled to the bone. "Tell me everything about how you colluded with the Lin family... how you plotted against me... how you schemed against Che'er... how you defiled the palace... tell me every single word! If there is even a single falsehood... your entire family will be executed!"

Zhao Zheng's face was ashen. Faced with Tie Shan's testimony, he knew his fate was sealed. For the sake of his family, he could only tremble as he confessed in detail how Empress Lin had coerced and lured him, how she had arranged for Lianxing to enter the palace and seduce the emperor, and how she had instructed Lianxing to seduce the Second Prince to frame him. He especially emphasized that the child in Empress Lin's womb was a shocking deception set up by the Lin family to consolidate their power and obscure the royal bloodline!

Lianxing was already terrified; Zhao Zheng's confession was like a final death knell. She collapsed to the ground, tears streaming down her face, sobbing incoherently, "Your Majesty, spare me! It was the Empress who forced me! She made me seduce the Second Prince... she made me use sleeping potion... she said that as long as the Second Prince was ruined, and His Majesty despised him... the child in her womb would... Waaah... I dared not disobey, Your Majesty!" At this moment, to save her own life, she betrayed the Empress completely.

"Your Majesty, Xing'er... loves you. It was all their... they framed me, Your Majesty..."

As Xi Linghao listened to these nauseating confessions and looked at the adulterous couple before him, a metallic taste rose in his throat! He coughed up a mouthful of dark red blood, staining the bright yellow brocade quilt crimson!

"Poisonous woman! Bitch!" he growled like a wild beast, his eyes filled with earth-shattering rage and heartache. "Issue the decree! Drag Zhao Zheng and Lian Xing... away! Immediately... execute them by slow slicing! Expose their corpses for three days! As a warning to others!" Every word was soaked with the bloodthirsty killing intent of an emperor.

"Your Majesty, spare our lives!" Lianxing and Zhao Zheng's pitiful cries were choked by the fierce guards, who dragged them away like dead dogs.

"And the Lin family!!" Xi Linghao gasped, his chest heaving. "Give it to me...give it to me..."

"Father, please calm your anger!" an urgent cry came from outside the hall. Xi Lingche broke free of the palace servants who were trying to stop him and rushed in, kneeling down with a thud before the dragon bed and kowtowing heavily: "Father! I beg you, Father, have mercy! Spare Mother's life!"

Xi Linghao looked at his son kneeling on the ground, his eyes filled with complex emotions—pain, disappointment, and a lingering trace of fatherly affection. His voice was icy: "She framed you, confused the royal bloodline, she deserves to die! And you... you're still pleading for her?"

Xi Lingche raised his head, tears streaming down his face, but his eyes held an unprecedented firmness and sorrow: "Father! Mother's sins are grave, she deserves to die! But she... is still my birth mother! She is now six months pregnant, her mind is clouded... I beg you, Father, to consider... to consider my meager filial piety, and spare her life! I am willing to leave the palace and take Mother to a secluded villa in the suburbs of the capital! I will never return to the capital! I will never set foot in the court again! I only ask... I only ask that Mother have a small place to live, to eke out a living... I am willing to spend the rest of my life serving you, to atone for her sins!" He kowtowed heavily, his forehead hitting the cold floor tiles with a dull thud.