Chapter 47: A Meeting After the Palace Collapse? No, it's a Massive Exposure of Identity!

Yun Zhan's decree to "retreat as appropriate" had an immediate effect.

Originally, the garrison troops in various places had been following this emperor, who was "formerly a foolish ruler but is now a wise one," for the past six months and thought that the emperor was more reliable. They had just received some new equipment and were ready to make a big splash when the emperor directly ordered a "deliberate retreat."

What's the point of fighting this war?!

Adding to Yan Linye's side, it was practically a living advertisement of "destiny's will." His battles were like having a full-map cheat code and MAX luck buff—even when both sides were deadlocked, a sudden downpour would only wet the Dayin army camp, causing the enemy's crossbows to become damp and their supplies to be soaked; even when a city was clearly strong and difficult to attack, the defending general would suddenly "relapse into an old illness" and become bedridden, and the deputy general would simply open the gates and surrender the city; there was even an instance where the Yan army got lost and circled around to the enemy's rear, just in time to find the enemy's main force bathing in the river, and wiped them out in one fell swoop.

Not to mention Yun Zhan's previous "strokes of genius" that aided the enemy, which were now showing tremendous "power." The curved plow and the water-powered waterwheel ensured that Yan Linye's rear was well-supplied with provisions, and the people's morale was as stable as an iron barrel. Meanwhile, news of Yun Zhan eliminating treacherous officials and inventing all sorts of novel gadgets in the capital reached Hejian Prefecture, which only strengthened Yan Linye and his men's belief that the tyrannical emperor had kidnapped their young master Yun, and they had to rescue him! Although the target of their rescue was wrong from the beginning, their determination was unwavering.

With the balance of power shifting, the Yan army advanced triumphantly, unstoppable, encountering almost no significant resistance, and its advance pointed directly at the capital.

"System, did you see that?" Yun Zhan looked at the city markers on the military map changing color at an alarming speed, his tone eerily calm, even tinged with absurd self-mockery. "This is what they call destiny being unchangeable. I've worked so hard for half a year, eliminating traitors and developing inventions, and what's the result? Not only did it not change the outcome, it seems it even accelerated it? Would you say I'm some kind of unconventional... best wingman?"

From an objective results-oriented perspective, certain behaviors of the host have indeed significantly reduced the difficulty and time cost for the target to achieve their ultimate goal. System Xiaoqi remained objective as always.

Yun Zhan tugged at the corners of his mouth, wanting to laugh, but felt that the muscles on his face were as stiff as stone, and in the end he could only show an expression that was uglier than crying.

The capital was quickly surrounded. Outside the city walls, the Yan army was a dense, dark mass, banners waving, their killing intent palpable. Inside the city, panic gripped the city, and rumors spread like wildfire. Some said His Majesty had secretly fled, others said he was preparing to die for his country, and still others said the Prince of Yan was actually a god descended from heaven to clean up the mess.

Li Muyan, Zhao Polu, Wang Tiezhu, and others, who had once been promoted by Yun Zhan and still harbored a sliver of hope, tried to organize a final resistance with red eyes. Li Muyan even knelt outside Yun Zhan's palace, holding the "Ten Strategies for the Defense of the Capital" that he had written overnight, and pleaded desperately.

"Your Majesty! The capital is well-fortified and its food supplies can last for another month! As long as Your Majesty is in command and inspires the soldiers, we may still have a fighting chance! We are willing to live and die with the capital!" Li Muyan's voice was choked with sobs and his last bit of stubbornness.

Through the palace gates, Yun Zhan listened to the sorrowful and resentful voices of the young men outside, and his heart ached as if being pricked by needles. He knew they were good men, and it was he, the "abandoned pawn of this world," who had dragged them down.

He took a deep breath and said in as calm a voice as possible, "Mu Yan, Po Lu, Tie Zhu... and all of you, I know your intentions. But... there is no need for pointless sacrifices. Issue my decree... open the city gates... surrender."

A deathly silence fell outside the palace gates, followed by suppressed whimpers from Li Muyan and the others, like wounded animals, and the heavy footsteps of the others as they departed.

Yun Zhan completely locked himself in his empty palace, refusing to see anyone. He dismissed all the palace servants, even forcibly ordering Eunuch Gao to leave.

He changed into a black dragon robe embroidered with a ferocious golden dragon, and meticulously combed his hair in front of the crystal-clear glass mirror. The person in the mirror still had a young and handsome face, but his eyes had lost all their luster, leaving only a silent, gray darkness.

He reached out, his icy fingertips gently touching the mirror, as if touching the identity of the soon-to-be-gone "Chu Yin".

"System, can we chat for one last five cents?" He tried to mask his inner desolation with a lighthearted tone. "Do you think... when he comes in later, he might consider our past... uh, our 'shared bed' relationship in Hejian Prefecture, and give me a quick death? Slitting my throat shouldn't hurt too much, right?"

"Host, the sensitivity of pain receptors varies from person to person, and this system cannot predict it accurately," the system replied matter-of-factly.

"Tsk, how boring." Yun Zhan withdrew his hand, touched his smooth neck again, and began to daydream. "Or, if he really were to keep his promise and turn my skull into a wine vessel... what do you think, should it be shaped like a luminous cup, or something more abstract and artistic? It would be best to find a skilled craftsman to polish it smooth, add a gold rim, and inlay a few rubies... Wouldn't that look more luxurious and be more befitting of his future status as emperor?"

[Host, your focus seems to have seriously deviated from the core task of 'self-rescue'. Furthermore, this system does not provide suggestions on the design and processing of bone artworks.] The system attempted to pull the host, who had strayed off course into the Pacific Ocean, back on track, though it was clearly futile.

"Deviate? I'm about to die, can't I even think about what will happen after I die? That's called optimism!" Yun Zhan sighed, walked to the window, and pushed it open a crack. The faint sounds of battle cries from outside the palace, mixed with the smell of gunpowder and blood, rushed in all at once, reminding him that his final moments were approaching.

Unlike many fallen monarchs in history, he did not choose suicide or a hasty escape. On one hand, it was due to his inherent modern laziness and resignation to fate; on the other hand... deep in his heart, perhaps there was a tiny, unadulterated thought he didn't want to acknowledge or delve into—he wanted to see with his own eyes how the man who had once tenderly embraced him and said, "I want both the world and you," the man who had both moved and broken his heart, would ultimately treat him, his "enemy" and "former love," after learning the whole truth.

He calmly walked to the dragon throne that would soon be the end of his life and slowly sat down. His back was ramrod straight, his hands on his knees, trying to maintain the last vestige of his crumbling imperial dignity, even though he knew it would seem utterly ridiculous and futile in the face of the impending victor.

As time passed, the sounds of fighting outside the palace gradually subsided, replaced by the approaching, rhythmic, heavy footsteps.

"Squeak—"

The heavy palace doors were suddenly pushed open from the outside, and a cold wind carrying a strong smell of blood and gunpowder rushed in, blowing the stray hairs on Yun Zhan's forehead and dispelling the last trace of warmth in the hall.

A figure clad in blood-stained black armor, exuding a sharp killing intent and the smell of battlefield smoke, stepped into the room against the chaotic light outside. Crimson blood still dripped from the tip of his longsword, striking the polished gold-brick floor with soft "tap...tap..." sounds, each sound like a tap on the most vulnerable part of one's heart.

It was just as the swallows were approaching the wilderness.

Behind him followed his sharp-eyed personal guards, who swiftly and silently took control of every corner of the hall, isolating it from the outside world. His gaze, like the sharpest blood-quenched blade, carried the accumulated ferocity of his past battles and the imposing aura of someone about to complete their revenge and grand undertaking. In an instant, he precisely locked onto the person on the dragon throne—that blood feud who had usurped the throne, was licentious and tyrannical, and had imprisoned his beloved—Chu Yin!

A surge of overwhelming hatred welled up in his chest, and he was about to open his mouth to judge this tyrant and question him about where he had hidden his Yun Zhan!

However, when his sharp, hawk-like gaze pierced through the dim light of the hall and clearly captured the face on the dragon throne—

Time seemed to be gripped tightly by an invisible hand at this moment, and suddenly froze!

Yan Linye's expression froze instantly! His steps stopped abruptly, his pupils contracted violently to the extreme, as if he had been struck directly by a thunderbolt from the heavens, causing his soul to tremble!

That face...

That face that he had searched for day and night, almost driving him mad!

At this moment, dressed in a dazzling yet well-fitting black dragon robe, he sat on the dragon throne that symbolized the enemy's identity and power, exuding an almost deathly calmness!

How could it be Yun Zhan?

He didn't hesitate to launch an early uprising, and frantically advanced all the way to try and rescue the poor little Yun Zhan from the clutches of the "tyrant"... How could it be Chu Yin?

That usurper and traitor! That person with whom he had slaughtered his own family! That person he had sworn countless times to grind to dust!

The immense absurdity, like a devastating tsunami, instantly shattered all of Yan Linye's logical thinking! His mind went blank, buzzing, leaving only that face—so familiar it was etched into his bones, yet now so strange it chilled him—enlarging and spinning before his eyes!

After the shock came a rage like a volcanic eruption! And the excruciating pain of being utterly deceived and manipulated by the one you loved most!

It turns out... there was no such thing as Consort Li who was forcibly taken to the palace!

So Yun Zhan is actually Chu Yin! And Chu Yin is actually Yun Zhan!

It turns out he'd been a complete fool all along! He was kept in the dark! The person he cherished was being played like a joke!

In Hejian Prefecture, he poured his heart out to this usurper! He gave all his tenderness, all his love, and all his trust to someone with whom he had a blood feud!

And this person, while enjoying his affection and care, calmly watched him suffer and go mad because of "Yun Zhan's disappearance," watched him gather troops and prepare for war for the so-called "salvation" and "revenge"! In the end, he even sat here calmly, watching him fight his way into the palace, looking at him with eyes that seemed to have foreseen everything!

Overwhelming rage and the shame of betrayal instantly consumed Yan Linye's remaining rationality! He felt that all the pain he had endured over the past few months had become an utterly absurd joke!

"It's...you?" Yan Linye's voice was hoarse and broken, filled with disbelief, violent trembling, and suppressed rage. He suddenly raised the tip of the blood-dripping longsword in his hand, its sharp, cold light pointing directly at Yun Zhan on the dragon throne. "Yun Zhan! You...you are actually Chu Yin?!"

Looking at the undisguised anger and the deeply hurt expression on his face, Yun Zhan felt the last spark of expectation in his heart, which he himself had not even clearly perceived, be completely extinguished with a "poof," leaving only cold ashes.

As expected... he only knew that he was Chu Yin. He only remembered those hatreds.

He forced a smile that looked more like a grimace, his tone a strange calm born of despair: "Yes, it is me. The real Emperor of Dayin, Chu Yin. I've disappointed you, Prince Yan."

He even leaned forward slightly, exposing his slender, fragile neck completely to the other's sword, his tone carrying a chilling "ease": "Come on, don't hesitate. Give me a quick death. Didn't you keep saying you wanted to... 'crush my bones and scatter my ashes'? Do it. I... am waiting."

The four words "crush to dust" were like the sharpest and coldest poison thorn, gently spat out by Yun Zhan, yet carrying immense force, piercing Yan Linye's heart!

Crushed to ashes...

He once... right before this man now wearing the dragon robe, filled with deep-seated hatred, uttered those four words with unwavering resolve...

Now, is he really going to deliver those four words to the face he has been longing for day and night?

Seeing Yun Zhan's expression of utter indifference, as if he were about to be executed, Yan Linye's raging anger, along with the love and mad longing that ran deep in his bones and blood, were like two out-of-control dragons, frantically intertwining, tearing, and roaring within his chest!

His hand, gripping the sword, trembled violently from the extreme force he exerted. The veins on the back of his hand bulged, and his knuckles turned white from gripping so tightly. The sword that had accompanied him on the battlefield now seemed to weigh a ton.

He wanted to roar, to question, to tear apart the person who had betrayed his feelings and trust! He wanted to ask him if he had a heart at all? But his throat felt like it was being branded with a hot iron, and he couldn't utter a single syllable.

Inside the hall, a deathly silence fell. Only the breaths of the two trapped beasts and the humming of the longsword, still dripping blood, trembled uncontrollably from its owner.

The scene of their meeting after the palace collapse was completely different from any possibility they had ever imagined.

There was no simple case of enemies meeting with intense hatred, nor was there the expected touching "hero saves the beauty" tale.

Yes, there was the shockwave that followed when the truth was revealed to the world in the most cruel way, and two hearts that were already riddled with holes by the invisible hand of fate.