The Guogongfu in the early morning was eerily quiet.
The sandalwood box containing the black peony sat on the table in the main hall, like a small coffin, emanating an ominous aura.
The Duchess had already fainted from weeping twice and had been helped back to the inner courtyard.
As for Gu Yuanlei, this Duke whose reputation thundered across the northern battlefields, his eyes were now bloodshot, his entire body seething with murderous intent, like a lion thoroughly enraged.
“Rebellion! This is outright rebellion!”
He yanked the sword from the wall, its sharp, piercing ring echoing through the hall.
“I will lead my troops into the palace right now! I want to ask her—can my Gu family’s daughter be bullied and humiliated by a mere woman from the deep palace?”
“Father!”
A clear shout halted Gu Yuanlei’s movement.
Wen Yan walked in from outside the door, her face showing no trace of panic, her gaze frighteningly calm.
“If you charge in now, you’ll be falling right into her trap.
Without evidence, relying only on a box of unknown origin, how will you confront her?
Accuse the Empress Dowager of threatening us?
She will only smile and say you’ve grown old and senile, disrespectful in your age, and then charge you with the grave crime of ‘threatening the sovereign and violating imperial authority.'”
She walked to the table and, with two fingers, gently pushed the sandalwood box to the center.
“This is intimidation, but it is also her flaw.
It is evidence of her crime, written by her own hand.”
An hour later, in the study.
Mo Xingchuan had also arrived.
He and Gu Yuanlei—one civil, one military, the two most powerful men in Dazhao—
now both looked gravely at Wen Yan.
Wen Yan placed the completely blackened peony, the account book marked with the character “Yong,” and the jade pendant fragments found in Lin Shuyao’s coffin side by side on the table.
“Everyone, let’s play a puzzle game.”
Her voice was as precise and cold as a scalpel.
“First piece of the puzzle: the method of intimidation.
A secret palace poison mixing mandrake and aconitine, palace shears specifically used for gardening, a wooden box from the ‘Ruyi Workshop’ exclusively supplied to the former dynasty’s royal family.
Each of these points to one identity—a woman familiar with the former dynasty, long-residing in the palace, of extremely high status, with access to these forbidden items.”
“Second piece of the puzzle: the commonality of the cases. From Lin Shuyao ten years ago to Qiu Chan and Bai Wanyin now, all the victims are ‘puppets.’
And the ‘Puppet Seal’ and ‘Blood Butterfly Curse’ controlling them originate from the evil arts of the former dynasty’s State Preceptor.
This indicates that the mastermind behind the scenes has deep ties to the former dynasty’s State Preceptor.”
“Third piece of the puzzle: clues to the motive.
The character ‘Yong’ on the Jishi Tang account book, the jade pendant fragments from Lin Shuyao and Bai Wanyin that can be pieced together to form ‘Princess Yongning.’
All clues point to a person long ‘dead’ in the history books—the last princess of the former dynasty, Yongning.”
Wen Yan picked up the two jade pendant fragments and gently fitted them together before everyone.
With a soft click, they joined seamlessly.
“Now, put all the puzzle pieces together.”
“A former dynasty princess, bearing a blood debt of a fallen nation and ruined family, conceals her identity, enters the new dynasty’s harem, advances step by step, and ascends to the throne of Empress Dowager.
She inherits the evil arts of the former dynasty’s State Preceptor and weaves a vast puppet network within the palace.
Using drugs and mental control, she turns court officials, palace attendants, even princes, into her marionettes.”
“Her goal has never been wealth and glory.
What she wants is to restore her dynasty.”
She would make this Great Zhao Dynasty crumble in her hands, in the most tragic and chaotic way possible.”
These words exploded like thunder in the study.
Gu Yuanlei and Mo Xingchuan’s backs were instantly drenched in cold sweat.
They had thought they were investigating a poisoning case,
only to realize now
that they had uncovered a shocking conspiracy capable of overthrowing the entire dynasty!
“But… all of this is just speculation.”
Mo Xingchuan’s voice was hoarse and dry.
“We have no direct evidence to prove that the Empress Dowager is Princess Yongning.”
“Exactly.”
Wen Yan nodded. “That’s why I need evidence.
Evidence… that I will create myself.”
She pointed to the roll of untouched Chengxin Hall Paper on the table.
“What I’m going to write is not an indictment.
What I’m going to write is a story.”
“A story about how a princess of the fallen dynasty overthrew an empire.”
…
Meanwhile, deep within the palace, in Ci’an Palace.
Before a massive bronze mirror, wisps of incense smoke curled from a burner, blurring the reflection of an aged face.
Bai Wanyin’s puppet, like a soulless wooden doll,
knelt on the ground, mechanically recounting everything that had happened in the Guogongfu.
When the words “Princess Yongning” were uttered, the figure in the mirror paused slightly.
A moment later, a soft chuckle echoed through the hall.
The laughter began with amusement,
then shifted into an uncontrollable, almost frenzied tremor.
“How interesting… truly fascinating…”
The aged voice carried a strange excitement, as if she had found a long-lost treasure.
“Pass down the order: cease all petty maneuvers against the Gu family.”
“Let her write, let her investigate, let her tear a hole in the heavens.”
The voice from the mirror suddenly turned icy, like a venomous snake hissing.
“She thinks the Thousand Elders Banquet is her stage?”
“Hah, how could ants like her ever glimpse the board on which I play.”
The curling incense smoke swallowed the final whisper, leaving only a room filled with coldness and deathly silence.
…
Four days remained until the Thousand Elders Banquet.
Wen Yan locked herself completely inside the study.
The three-zhang-long white silk of Chengxin Hall Paper covered the entire floor like a silent snowfield.
She did not start writing immediately.
First, on a small piece of paper, she drew an enormous “criminal network diagram.” The Empress Dowager was the spider at the very center of this web—the victims of the nine unsolved cases, Prince Jing, Bai Wanyin, Qiu Chan, Wang Fu, Shopkeeper Qian… all were tightly connected to her by invisible threads.
Then, she began to write.
She no longer confined herself to the rigor of a forensic examiner but instead employed the imagination of a novelist. She depicted the sinister art of the “Puppet Seal” as a lost secret technique from the fallen dynasty called “Silken Thread Guidance.” She fictionalized the invisible interference of the “Plot Correction Force” as a formation known as the “Seven Stars Life-Extending Lantern,” capable of altering the nation’s fate and defying the heavens.
Using the most terrifying and treasonous language that people of this era could understand, she described how the female demon lurking deep within the palace had, in her madness, dragged the entire Great Zhao toward the abyss of destruction.
This was not an indictment.
It was a horror story that would keep any emperor awake at night.
It was a declaration of war, written to destiny itself.
The elderly calligraphy master from the fallen dynasty, with his white hair and beard, who had been invited to assist, trembled like a leaf in the autumn wind as he held the brush, looking at Wen Yan’s first draft.
He thought he was only here to transcribe a petition, but he never expected that what was written on this paper was a seditious manifesto capable of overthrowing an entire dynasty!
“Miss… Miss…” The old scholar’s voice trembled. “Is what is written here… all true?”
Wen Yan looked up from the mountain-like stacks of books and scrolls. In her bloodshot eyes burned a calm, yet maddening flame.
“Sir, the truth no longer matters.”
“What matters is whether, five days from now, His Majesty believes it, whether the entire court believes it, and whether the people of the world… believe it.”
She solemnly pushed the heavily annotated draft toward the old scholar.
“I must trouble you with this.”
“Please use gold-dusted tribute ink, and do not make a single mistake.”
“I want this ten-thousand-word petition to become a death warrant. Not for me, but for her.”