In order to win the favor and trust of the late emperor, the Empress Dowager "coincidentally" provided him with clues about the man in black on several occasions, which enabled Zhao Qinglian to find the man in black's whereabouts.
Knowing that Zhao Qinglian was going to have a showdown with the men in black, the Empress Dowager, in the name of the Empress's sister, contacted all the concubines in the harem and incited the power of the concubines' various clans to go and "catch the adulterers."
(Rabbit Science: This treachery is the treachery of a villain)
When everyone arrived, Zhao Qinglian and the man in black were pointing to the sky and making a wedge.
They were too far away to know the specifics of what Zhao Qinglian and the man in black were saying, but they knew that they had reached a consensus.
The realization that the demoness and the villain were in cahoots instantly enraged everyone!
That night, Zhao Qinglian and the late emperor led their men straight into the underground passage of the Cold Palace;
The henchmen of the men in black in the palace launched a fierce counterattack.
The Empress Dowager used the henchmen in black to severely injure her sister and kill most of the concubines in the harem who knew her true identity.
Not long after.
Shang Xiye and the other surviving children were rescued from the tunnel;
The enraged citizens of the capital, civil and military officials, and concubines of the imperial harem all knelt around the palace, begging the late emperor to order the execution of Zhao Qinglian and Shang Xiye.
The late emperor remained in Tusitai for several days, resulting in a stalemate.
Left with no other choice, he had to agree to Zhao Qinglian's request to leave.
When Zhao Qinglian left, the Empress Dowager, wearing mourning clothes, even pretended to cry and beg her not to leave, saying, "My sister is dead. The country cannot be without an heir for a day. Please, Sister Qinglian, stay. In this world, only Sister Qinglian is worthy to be the mother of the Great Zhao Kingdom."
This play was the one the Empress Dowager was most proud of in her entire life.
It moved Zhao Qinglian, and even more so the late emperor.
So Zhao Qinglian followed her words and said, "You and your sister are twins with the same appearance. You are kind-hearted and can also be the empress. Since the news of the empress's death has not spread, the emperor can make the best of a bad situation and make her empress. To the outside world, it can be said that she is the one who died. This can also avoid a lot of disputes inside and outside the court and prevent the situation in the capital from becoming more turbulent."
The late emperor wept without uttering a word.
Thus, the Empress Dowager became Empress without anyone knowing.
Later, the late emperor ordered the empress dowager to send all the people who knew the truth to distant places.
On the surface, the Empress Dowager paid these people a large sum of money to send them away, but secretly ordered them to be intercepted and killed halfway.
Those who returned said they had all been killed.
But she never dared to fully believe it, always worried that there might be lingering evil deeds.
Later, she went to look for the man in black who had disappeared, hoping to secretly cultivate her own power again, but she was unable to find any trace of him. Instead, she found the mute woman who had served the man in black in a dry well in the cold palace.
The mute woman told the Empress Dowager that the man in black had cultivated blood cicadas inside several girls' bodies;
It was because of this that the Empress Dowager learned of the existence and wonders of the Blood Cicada.
Coincidentally, at that time, Lord Sun learned from a maidservant serving the Empress Dowager's sister that the Empress Dowager had killed her sister and thus seized the throne.
The upright and outspoken Lord Sun entered the palace and angrily rebuked the Empress Dowager, accusing her of being unworthy to be Empress.
Lord Sun even threatened to submit a memorial to the Emperor to plead guilty, and to expose the Empress Dowager's vicious nature by putting righteousness before family.
At that time, the Empress Dowager was troubled by her inability to deal with Shang Xiye, while Lord Sun and the late Emperor had the idea of forming a marriage alliance. The Empress Dowager then had a flash of inspiration, bribed a group of assassins, pretended to be remnants of the Black-Clad Men, and wiped out her maternal family.
It turns out that she wanted the assassins to bring out the real Sun Mengxi and raise her by her side, as a pawn to control Shang Xiye in the future.
However, Lord Sun saw through her intentions and preferred to burn himself to death with Sun Mengxi rather than let his granddaughter live alone, become the Empress Dowager's pawn, and become a source of trouble.
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