Zongzheng Shen and the reincarnation of Bai Li in his eyes—a mountain spirit giving birth to a strange creature—would they think this was a warning from heaven, a punishment from heaven? What Lu Qingyan wanted to do was to use this psychology to create distance between Zongzheng Shen and Bai Li.
But now Jun Jiuxian and the others are getting anxious, and so is the Lu family. Recently, Zongzheng Shen's methods have become increasingly ruthless, probably because he's already feeling his own limitations. The Gu worms have been inside him for over half a year; no matter how profound his internal energy is, it should have been almost completely drained by now. Zongzheng Shen, already in his early forties, is now without martial arts, and his army has been replaced by his own men by Jun Jiuxian. He's like a tiger with its claws removed—nothing to fear. Are they keeping him around just to get in the way?
The Prime Minister, who had not been able to eat meat for a long time, was very resentful and went to Chang Le Palace more and more frequently.
But when he met Lu Qingyan's smiling, malicious eyes, Jun Jiuxian decided to wait. At worst, he could secretly rescue some people.
“Okay, I’ll wait.” Jun Jiuxian agreed decisively, without asking how she was so sure that Bai Li would give birth to a child with problems. He just smiled, glanced at Lu Qingyan, hugged her in his arms and whispered sweet nothings for a while before reluctantly leaving.
Perhaps Bai Li's body had been nourished too much, and the time for her seed to mature was shortened all at once. Before the time was even right, just a month and a half later, Bai Li went into labor. Zongzheng Shen went to great lengths to hire female physicians and midwives for her, hoping to give birth to the child safely. But now the secret could no longer be kept, and everyone in the harem naturally knew about it.
As Lu Qingyan had predicted, after Bai Li had been in labor for half the night, she gave birth to a "monster" around dawn: a creature with the upper body of a tree trunk and the lower body of a fish tail.
It had no head, no feet, no hands. On the dry, earthy green tree trunk, a pair of bright, round eyes shone with an eerie, ghostly blue light. The forked branches were stained with crimson blood vessels, and the dark fish tail below had no scales, drooping with a sticky, grayish-brown liquid.
"Ah! A ghost—" The midwife screamed and fainted upon seeing this, and the female doctor was also frightened and scattered in all directions.
Hearing the midwife's cry, Zongzheng Shen, who was guarding outside the door, rushed in and fainted from fright. As the emperor, Zongzheng Shen was naturally not so timid, but the plump Gu worm had already drained him of his strength, and he couldn't withstand any more shocks.
Zongzheng Shen was in a daze and naturally had no time to care about those important court affairs and rumors.
The rumor of a monster quickly spread throughout the harem!
The nails that Lu Qingyan planted stole this mature "monster seed" and, after dawn, it was hung on the palace wall on a bamboo pole for people to admire.
"Now that a divine revelation has descended, a demon has appeared in the palace. The current emperor, Zongzheng Shen, is unrighteous, unfilial, cruel, and tyrannical..." Jun Jiuxian, dressed in full armor, led a large army to block the palace gate, reciting Zongzheng Shen's ten deadly sins.
The people were filled with rage and cursed the tyrannical emperor, wishing him a terrible death. They went to temples to burn incense and pray to Buddha for forgiveness from Heaven.
Everyone in the palace was on edge. Zongzheng Shen, who had already woken up, had bloodshot eyes. The palace guards, whom he had always disregarded and considered as worthless as ants, were now completely different people, and he could no longer summon them.
"Summon the Empress! How has she managed the harem? They all deserve to be killed!" Zongzheng Shen had been extremely irritable lately. Inside the room, Bai Li had been crying and fainting ever since she learned that she had given birth to a monster, and she had not yet woken up. Everything going wrong made Zongzheng Shen even more furious.
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