At the moment Zhao Yi’s fingers were about to touch Zhao Jingzhan’s collar—
Suddenly, disaster struck!
Zhao Jingzhan’s hand shot out like a phantom, precisely grabbing a brush from the desk.
A flick of the wrist.
“Puchi—!”
A faint yet unmistakable sound of flesh being pierced.
Zhao Yi’s outstretched hand froze midair.
The lecherous grin on his face solidified. He lowered his head in disbelief, staring at the back of his own hand.
The brush had pierced it like a dagger, firmly embedded in his flesh!
Pain, delayed for a moment, surged like a tidal wave.
“Ah—!!!”
A piercing scream shattered the deathly silence of the prison.
Zhao Yi’s other hand frantically tried to pull the brush out, but the pen seemed fused to his bone. Any touch sent searing agony through him.
He looked up in terror, locking eyes with Zhao Jingzhan.
“You… you…” Zhao Yi’s body convulsed, cold sweat soaking through his clothes. “You weren’t supposed to be frozen by the Ice Worm, your inner strength gone! You… you dare harm me! I am the imperial grandson! Guards! Help!”
His cries echoed through the eerie corridor but were muffled by the thick prison doors, sounding weak and pitiful.
Zhao Jingzhan slowly stood.
Even in ragged prison clothes, his posture was impeccable, his innate noble aura untouched by his prisoner’s status.
He nudged a nearby inkstone with his foot.
It rolled and stopped by his side.
Bending, he pinched another slightly better wolf-hair brush from the inkstone with two fingers.
Seeing this, Zhao Yi felt a terror surpassing even the pain, shooting from his tailbone to the crown of his head.
“No… no… Cousin, I was wrong… I was wrong! Please… for the sake of our childhood together, spare me…”
He wailed incoherently, tears streaming, utterly pitiful.
Zhao Jingzhan ignored him completely.
He simply weighed the brush in his hand, then raised it.
A flick of the wrist again.
“Shhh—!”
The black brush traced a shadow in the dim light.
“Puh!”
Another muffled sound.
Zhao Yi’s cries ceased abruptly.
His expression froze, replaced entirely by terror.
The wolf-hair brush had pierced his right ear, emerging slightly from the temple on the other side, drawing a bead of blood.
His body convulsed violently, mouth open, unable to make a sound.
Zhao Jingzhan stepped closer and flicked the brush embedded in Zhao Yi’s hand.
“Vrrm—”
A strange inner force surged through the pen.
“Ah…” Zhao Yi emitted a strangled scream. His pinned arm trembled violently, his body slammed as if by an invisible force!
Blood instantly poured from the other ear and his previously lustful eyes.
He was utterly disabled.
From now on, the proud imperial grandson would be deaf, blind, and mute—a living hell worse than death.
“Cough… cough cough…”
Having done all this, Zhao Jingzhan’s face suddenly went pale. He clutched his chest, coughing violently, a trickle of black blood seeping from his lips.
Forcibly using his inner strength had triggered the internal cold poison.
But looking at Zhao Yi collapsed, breathing out but not in, his icy eyes flickered with a trace of satisfaction.
A deaf, blind, mute imperial grandson…
“Creak—”
The prison door opened. Fang Benzhong poked his head in, still wearing a fawning smile. “Your Highness, you… ah!!!”
Seeing the scene inside, his polite “Your Highness” turned into a scream of horror.
He scrambled inside, witnessing Zhao Yi reduced to a near-unrecognizable state, terrified out of his mind.
Zhao Jingzhan had returned to the corner, eyes closed, as if the ruthless being who had just acted had nothing to do with him.
Fang Benzhong cautiously checked Zhao Yi’s breath. Seeing he still had a faint pulse, he nearly wept.
He didn’t dare question Zhao Jingzhan, nor did he have time to think—he only knew he had to immediately get Zhao Yi out!
Dragging him out of the Quiet Room, a trail of blood marked their path.
The Heavenly Prison returned to its deathly silence.
…
Meanwhile, at the Shen residence.
“Beep beep beep—beep beep beep—”
At three quarters past midnight, the shrill electronic alarm sounded.
Shen Qingzhu snapped awake, her eyes free of sleep, sharp and icy clear.
She turned off the alarm, rose, and tiptoed to her second sister, Shen Qingdai.
Her breathing was steady, fever gone, but her face still pale.
Shen Qingzhu tucked in the blankets, then returned to her room, locking the door.
She retrieved a laptop and two boxes, one black, one white, from her space.
The laptop screen lit up, displaying a complex control interface.
She first opened the white box, revealing a small quadcopter drone, only palm-sized.
Shen Qingzhu expertly piloted it; the drone silently rose, a ghost in the night, heading toward the imperial palace.
On the screen, the sleeping capital sprawled below.
Soon, the massive palace complex appeared.
Shen Qingzhu switched to infrared mode.
The building outlines instantly became a thermal map of different colors.
Most palaces showed low temperatures in blue, but one area blazed bright.
The Qianqing Palace.
Surrounded by three inner and three outer layers of red human-shaped heat points—imperial guards and secret agents.
Inside, the brightest and hottest human heat source lay on the dragon bed.
Found it.
Shen Qingzhu’s gaze remained cold and steady as she calculated wind speed, distance, and trajectory.
Retrieving the reconnaissance drone, she opened the black box.
Inside was a slightly larger attack drone, metallic and menacing.
Under its wings hung two specially made miniature bombs, the size of eggs but with the explosive power of grenades.
Her goal wasn’t to flatten the palace.
She aimed for a precise, inexplicable “divine retribution.”
Launching the drone, Shen Qingzhu’s eyes locked on the computer screen, fingers flying across the keyboard, programming the bomb coordinates.
“First, pierce the roof.”
She whispered, pressing the launch button.
On screen, a small black dot detached from the drone wing, descending precisely toward the glazed tiles of Qianqing Palace.
No deafening explosion.
Only a muffled “boom,” like a subdued thunderclap in the night sky.
The roof was punctured, a hole the size of a basin.
Amidst smoke and dust, Shen Qingzhu’s eyes remained cold and calm.
“Second, enter the hall.”
She pressed the launch button again.
The second dot followed the path of the first bomb like a precise, silent meteor, falling into the palace.
This time, she delayed detonation by three seconds.
Three seconds later—
“Boom—!!!”
A blast far stronger than the first erupted inside Qianqing Palace!
Flames illuminated the dark screen, then were swallowed by thick smoke.
The screen showed the emperor’s heat source violently flung from the blast, hitting the dragon bed’s golden pillar, then dimming, nearly merging with the surrounding cold.
…
Inside Qianqing Palace, chaos reigned.
The old emperor was not killed on the spot, but the explosion’s force hurled him from the dragon bed, his back striking the golden pillar, spine snapping. His body collapsed like a heap of mud, head hitting the floor, blood gushing, unconscious in moments.
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”
Chief eunuch Li Fuan scrambled from the side hall, seeing the hellish scene and the emperor in a pool of blood, screaming in terror.
He lunged, trembling, checking the emperor’s breath. Detecting a faint pulse, he screamed in panic:
“Protect the emperor! Protect the emperor! Send the imperial physician! Quickly, the imperial physician!!”
While yelling, he dragged the barely conscious old emperor from the wreckage.
In the chaos, he suddenly remembered something. Bloodshot eyes flicked with desperate clarity, and he screamed hoarsely to a trusted eunuch:
“Quick! Go to the Observatory! Bring the imperial astrologer here! Hurry!!”