Princess Pingzhao timidly helped the weeping peasant girl to her feet, and at the same time, scenes from "The Tale of the White Crane" flashed in the background.
"—The Fifth Prince was furious and strangled the three palace maids who burned his crane cloak to death!" This was the voice of a palace servant and eunuch.
"Fifth Prince, you should rein in your unruly nature. Confine yourself for a month, copy a copy of the 'Rebirth Sutra,' and pray for the three palace women who died unjustly. Now, get out of here." This was the old emperor's nonchalant voice.
The scene shifts, and Princess Pingzhao nervously accepts the Juanying Brocade Box sent by the Hong family, the maternal grandfather of the Eighth Prince.
"The trivial matters of a lowly commoner should not be used to trouble His Majesty..."
"Those three lowly maids are nothing but three servants. Just take them to the mass grave. If this gets back to Father Emperor, you'll be in big trouble!"
Princess Pingzhao knelt at the lower end and respectfully presented the emperor with a brocade box.
The emperor opened the brocade box and saw that it was filled with brocade as beautiful as the morning glow.
"The Princess did not present His Majesty with that lowly commoner's petition, Your Highness, please rest assured!"
"Nansang presented two bolts of Azalea Shadow Brocade as tribute this year, and they look quite fitting on you..."
The scene flashed across the treasury of the Eighth Prince's maternal grandfather's family, where half the brocade shone brightly in the firelight, like a sky full of evening clouds.
—"The entire Hong clan was exterminated."
"Even if the whole world were to die, would this man still not be a ruler?"
The Hong family, the maternal grandparents of the Eighth Prince, flashed quickly across the screen, the setting sun like blood, then faded into a box of bright and beautiful brocade.
The scenes shift rapidly. A severed head in a box, an old eunuch brushing past the princess, Wu Zhi, the only old minister who bows to the princess…
The background music gradually slowed down.
"The Princess heard that His Majesty was worried day and night about matters of state, so she specially cooked a bowl of calming soup and sent it to him."
"Your Majesty, this soup was personally prepared by the Princess last night. To prevent it from getting cold, she instructed us to keep it warm on the fire."
The emperor drank the calming soup that the princess had personally prepared, spoonful by spoonful.
The background music finally slowed down completely the moment the emperor lay down. An aged voice began to play slowly:
"Who will be ennobled after a hundred battles in the yellow sands? The old tree bears crows year after year."
This sentence is accompanied by a picture of the emperor's princes living in luxury, with fine clothes, fine horses, and luxurious carriages.
"Those in red gates feast on meat and wine while those in the streets eat bones; those who would die for their sovereigns would wield jade dragons."
The generals who fought alongside the emperor gradually grew old, and the scene of them being exterminated, their families wiped out, and exiled by the emperor flashed through the mind.
"The weather is cold and the snow is biting, the mat is torn, just as I receive the Emperor's new favor."
The scenes of the concubines' favor and their deaths are interspersed.
"..."
"..."
In the very end.
The scene is divided into two panels. In one panel, the old emperor is shown being strangled to death by palace servants; in the other panel, Princess Pingzhao is shown ascending the throne on the high platform.
"Long live the Emperor! I've heard that even gods die!"
All images disappeared.
The screen lit up again, and Emperor Pingzhao wielded his brush and wrote the character "朕" (zhen, meaning "I" or "the Emperor") on the imperial edict.
At the same time, the last line of dialogue accompanying the video played. However, it was not a line from "Yun Qing Ji," but rather a line from Zheng Bohan's older work "Xi Yuan," written many years ago.
“He is a tyrant, a traitor to the people, and the one who usurps the throne is an emperor.”
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