When Xie Zhao first saw the video appear on the screen, he was shocked, and even allowed himself a moment of hope.
Could this video have come from the same place he was from?
If so, was there a chance he could go back?
Then he saw the Dayan imperial palace in the video, and realized it had been sent from Dayan's future world. It had nothing to do with him at all.
So going back was out of the question.
Fortunately, Xie Zhao had no particular attachment to his past life. He felt only a brief pang of regret before letting it go, continuing to eat his crab and crack his melon seeds, using everyone's shocked expressions as entertainment to go with his meal.
After all, this was something from the future. Even if it was just a video explaining historical figures, it revealed plenty of advanced things—enough to make the monarchs and ministers of Dayan's jaws drop.
But Xie Zhao hadn't expected that just a few opening shots of the palace would set them off into endless discussion.
Watching them guess and fail to arrive at the correct answer, Xie Zhao couldn't help but mutter quietly, "Because it was recorded by people from later generations. Who knows how many years from now—it'd be strange if it weren't in ruins."
Xie Zhao thought his voice was quite low, at most audible to the Tenth Prince.
From their brief time together, Xie Zhao had already noticed that this Tenth Brother of his was quite the laid-back type—cared about nothing, and should be easy to fool.
But who could have guessed that right before he spoke, the hall suddenly fell silent, making Xie Zhao's voice extremely conspicuous. The moment he finished speaking, everyone turned their gazes toward him.
Especially the Seventh and Eighth Princes sitting in front of him, who directly turned around, faces practically pressed against his in curiosity.
Xie Zhao: "…"
You two are insane!
Xie Zhao quietly put away his melon seeds, and the Tenth Prince did the same, promptly moving away from Xie Zhao's side.
Xie Zhao felt disgusted. No brotherly loyalty at all.
The Emperor seemed not to have heard clearly and asked Xie Zhao, "What did you just say?"
Xie Zhao had no choice but to stand and answer: "Your son meant that since this spirit creature said Yanwudi is a future emperor, the palace in the screen should also be the palace of the future. It has no bearing on us here and now."
"That's also why, even though Shengping Lou was packed with people, the Shengping Lou in the screen was empty—because the two exist in different times."
The concept of time dimensions had been overused in modern literature, but the monarchs and ministers of the Yan Dynasty were hearing this idea for the first time.
The Duke of Yue followed Xie Zhao's reasoning and felt immediately enlightened, as if a whole new door had opened.
He said to the Emperor, "Your Majesty, your subject believes he can roughly understand what the Eleventh Prince means."
"There are folk legends about immortals—'a day in the cave, a thousand years in the world.' These gods and spirit creatures possess boundless powers. Since they can make time pass quickly, they can naturally also reverse it. That's how we're able to see this scene from the future."
The Emperor showed a look of sudden realization. "Ah, I see. Changming, now that you put it that way, I understand."
Then he pointed at Xie Zhao. "Learn from him. Can't even speak clearly."
Xie Zhao pointed at himself in return. "Me?"
The Emperor: "Who else? Am I talking about myself?"
"No, I—" Didn't I explain clearly enough? It's your comprehension that's the problem!
Xie Zhao really wanted to talk back, but under the Emperor's intimidating gaze, he silently caved.
Fine. You're the Emperor, you're right.
Xie Zhao lowered his head. "Your son will do better next time."
The Emperor waved his hand. "Alright, sit down." His tone even carried a hint of disdain.
What a piece of work. No wonder you ended up with a tyrant for a son.
Once everyone attributed this to time-manipulation magic performed by gods and spirits, the people in the hall felt much more at ease. Earlier, they'd thought the spirit creature was watching them from the shadows, and it had made their skin crawl.
Meanwhile, Mumu in the video had no idea what was happening inside Shengping Lou, and continued narrating Yanwudi's glorious "achievements."
[As everyone knows, in the final years of the Liang Dynasty, the various princes fought for the throne. Emperor Yuan of Liang successfully secured the top spot, but unfortunately died just three years into his reign. The throne passed to his four-year-old son, Emperor Chong of Liang. Anyone with eyes could see it—Liang was doomed.]
[Originally, Emperor Yuan had dozens of brothers, and they'd beaten each other bloody over the throne. Ministers and nobles who backed the wrong side were slaughtered wave after wave. The court had been battered so badly that barely anyone was left doing actual work. When a victor finally emerged, the ministers thought, 'Finally, we can have some peace.']
[But then this useless Emperor Yuan went and died at just 28! Does that make any sense?!]
[The ministers thought: 'If you were going to die young, you should've said so earlier! We wouldn't have backed you—anyone else would've done! Now we're stuck with an emperor who isn't even as tall as our knees.']
The Liang Dynasty was the dynasty that preceded the Yan Dynasty. When the princes were fighting for the throne, some of those present had held office at court, while others had been studying at home—but all of them had heard about it, and remembered vividly the dire state of the capital back then.
Because there were too many princes, and every single one was ambitious, the court ministers were forced to pick sides, or else be ostracized from officialdom.
They had no choice but to compromise.
But taking sides didn't mean they were safe. With multiple factions fighting, how could there be no casualties?
As a result, in the area where officials lived, every few days some household would hang out white funeral banners, with family members weeping as they escorted the coffins back to their hometowns. This caused everyone in the court to feel endangered.
Even minor local officials were silenced into fear, their minds scattered, and they handled disaster relief without enthusiasm. This led to widespread resentment among the people, and peasant uprisings broke out one after another across the land, like duckweeds floating up one after another when pressed down—until the Yan Dynasty was established and things were temporarily pacified.
Under this hellish mode, Emperor Liang Yuan fought his way through the encirclement through sheer personal ability—he was absolutely the most ruthless of the ruthless.
Unfortunately, his brothers were no pushovers either, each striking harder than the last. Emperor Liang Yuan was caught off guard in the struggle, and only three years into his reign, his body was already broken and frail. Helplessly, he passed away.
Once the ruthless Emperor Liang Yuan died, the princes who hadn't been completely wiped out—now the Princes of the First Rank—rose from the ashes and began fighting again.
[The young emperor couldn't control his imperial uncles. Rebellions broke out one after another in the princes' fiefdoms. No one cared about the common people's lives anymore. Even wealthy landlords found it hard to get by. The world fell into complete chaos, uprisings erupted everywhere, and the Liang Dynasty finally reached its end.]
When Mumu narrated this section, her tone was filled with lament. The ruler and ministers inside Shengping Lou nodded, somewhat wistful.
The Emperor sighed and said, "Back then, when Emperor Taizu of Liang ended the era of chaos, how magnificent he was. Who would have thought his descendants would bring about another era of chaos?"
The ministers all sighed in agreement, following the same line of thought as the Emperor—mourning Emperor Taizu of Liang's bravery and lamenting how the princes of the late Liang Dynasty only knew how to fight for power and profit, showing no sense of the bigger picture.
They were all sighing, yet not a single person could grasp that Mumu was lamenting for the innocent suffering common people, not for the Liang imperial house.
Only Xie Zhao sensed this. He fell into thoughtful contemplation.
It seemed that in this world's later age, just like in his previous life, it had ultimately taken the path of socialism. How familiar.
[Perhaps having learned from the lessons of the past, Xie Boting was extremely wary of princes contending for power. He repeatedly admonished his sons not to repeat the mistakes of the Liang Dynasty, lest they ruin the Yan Dynasty too.]
When everyone present heard Mumu pronounce "Xie Boting" with clear, resonant enunciation, they sprayed water and coughed, their faces turning red from holding it in.
"What did she say?" The Emperor doubted his own ears—how could he have heard this spirit creature call his name?
"Uh, well…" The ministers hemmed and hawed, not daring to answer.
They hadn't expected this spirit creature to be so bold as to directly speak the Emperor's given name.
Ever since those who had once vied for the realm together had either died or fled far away, and Xie Boting had become Emperor, no one in the world had dared to speak his name again.
Even Xie Boting's own biological parents—the late Emperor Renzu and Empress, who had already passed away—called him "Emperor."
This spirit creature actually dared to call him by his full name right in front of the Emperor. How was that any different from a direct provocation?
If not for knowing that this spirit creature couldn't hear them and wasn't actually inside the palace, the Emperor would have wanted to charge her with a crime of disrespect.
However, upon thinking about the implications of what the spirit creature had said, the Emperor suddenly lost interest in whether she was respectful or not.
She had started from the princes' struggles in the previous dynasty, then mentioned him. Clearly, a struggle for the succession had also broken out among his own sons—and it seemed to be on a considerable scale, or else the spirit creature wouldn't have specifically brought it up.
Thinking of the tragic scenes at the end of the previous dynasty, the Emperor couldn't help but see black before his eyes.
If his sons also committed these sins… then what was the meaning of his clearing away the chaos and establishing the Yan Dynasty?
[Power struggles inevitably lead to the people suffering. Xie Boting saw this clearly, but unfortunately his sons were all blockheads—not a single one could take their old father's advice to heart. It went in one ear and out the other. On the surface, they agreed nicely, acting like brothers who loved each other, but in reality, they tripped each other up and pulled each other's hair, making the late Chongde era not much better than the Shouguang years.]
[Originally, Xie Boting's reputation in historical evaluation was quite high. But because of these troublesome sons, his legacy became mixed—many people said Xie Boting had gone senile in his old age, letting his sons run wild.]
[Princes contending for the succession was bad enough, but what was even more deadly was that the Liang Dynasty princes could only rely on themselves when fighting. Not so with Xie Boting's sons! Behind them were their maternal grandfathers and fathers-in-law—all founding heroes who held military power. When they fought, the destructive power was a hundred times greater than that of the Liang Dynasty princes!]
Mumu's tone was full of mockery. She even raised both hands and clapped, positively gloating.
[Let us congratulate Mr. Xie Boting—his sons took the cause of succession struggle, made it bigger and stronger, reached new heights, and directly set a new historical record!]
The Emperor's vision went even darker.
The succession struggle at the end of the Liang Dynasty had already been brutal enough, and now this spirit creature was saying what? "Made it bigger and stronger, reached new heights"?
Wasn't that saying the Yan Dynasty would end up even worse than the Liang Dynasty?!
Thinking about how the struggle for the succession among the Liang dynasty's princes led to the fall of Liang—could it be that… his Dayan, established only seventeen years ago, was about to meet its end?
The Emperor pointed from the First Prince to the Fifteenth Prince, and asked, "Speak up, which blundering fool is capable enough to have done this?"
The fourteen blundering fools hung their heads in shame.
Author's note:
None.