The Old Madam of the Prime Minister’s Residence had been hiding in her room, too ashamed to go outside because the paint on her face still wouldn’t come off.
Even when her personal nanny brought her meals, she only left them outside the door. The Old Madam ate, drank, and relieved herself in her room every day.
She refused to see anyone. It was simply too humiliating.
Her room was constantly filled with the smell of urine. At first, she found it disgusting, but over time she gradually got used to it.
Now, she couldn’t even fall asleep without that smell.
These days, everyone in the Prime Minister’s Residence had been living on steamed coarse-grain buns and pickled vegetables.
After Shen Shuyan returned home that day, she had taken over a thousand taels of silver from several shops.
She used the money to buy jewelry and clothes before returning to the palace.
There was less than a hundred taels left.
The members of the Prime Minister’s Residence still needed new clothes, and the household had to feed dozens of people.
Every single coin had to be spent carefully.
Life at the Prime Minister’s Residence had become miserable. Even the masters could only eat steamed buns and pickled vegetables, so it went without saying that the servants fared even worse, never getting enough to eat.
After Shen Shuyan returned to the palace, she had no interest in visiting His Majesty.
Instead, she went straight back to her palace residence and immediately asked the palace maids whether they had found Nanny Zhang.
“Have you found Nanny Zhang?”
“Replying to Your Majesty, we haven’t found her. We’ve searched the entire Imperial Palace, but there’s still no sign of Nanny Zhang,” the palace maid answered respectfully.
They had searched the palace for a long time and questioned countless people.
Everyone said they had never seen Nanny Zhang.
Shen Shuyan frowned, her eyes full of irritation.
“How could such a big person simply disappear? Did we fail to search properly?”
The palace maid immediately knelt on the ground and cried out in protest.
“Your Majesty, we didn’t slack off. Not only us—even the Imperial Guards couldn’t find Nanny Zhang.”
How were they supposed to know where she had gone?
They were innocent.
“Then where could she have gone? Could something have happened to her?” Shen Shuyan asked anxiously.
After all, Nanny Zhang had raised her since childhood and had always treated her like her own daughter.
Nanny Zhang had never married or had children, and she had never left Shen Shuyan’s side.
Shen Shuyan entrusted everything to her because she knew Nanny Zhang would never betray her.
“Go find out who was the last person to see Nanny Zhang,” Shen Shuyan ordered with a stern expression.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The palace maid withdrew.
Meanwhile, Xiao Jingyu finally began to regain consciousness.
The first thing he said after opening his eyes was, “Li Deli, have you found out who emptied out My Imperial Palace?”
Li Deli shook his head, speaking in a very low voice.
“Reporting to Your Majesty, we’ve found nothing. It’s as though that person appeared out of thin air… and vanished into thin air.”
The Imperial Guards hadn’t heard a single sound.
They hadn’t seen a single shadow.
There wasn’t even the slightest clue.
There was simply no place to begin investigating.
The newly awakened Xiao Jingyu nearly fainted from anger all over again.
“Useless! You’re all useless!”
He repeatedly slapped the bed in a fit of rage, completely losing the composure expected of an emperor.
Damn it!
How was he supposed to rule the empire like this?
He had only just ascended the throne, and such an incident had already occurred.
His reputation among the common people must have become terrible.
On top of that, everything inside the Imperial Palace had disappeared.
With so many people in the palace needing to eat every day, what were they supposed to do?
What he didn’t know was that there were even more headaches waiting for him.
For the sake of Xiao Jingyu’s health, Li Deli hadn’t told him that everyone already knew he had deceived the eldest daughter of the Prime Minister’s Residence.
Throughout Yunjing, the common people were privately saying that their emperor had tricked an innocent young woman just to seize the throne.
Li Deli planned to wait until His Majesty’s Imperial Health had improved before telling him.
Although Shen Shuyan had returned to the Prime Minister’s Residence once, she had come and gone in such a hurry that she hadn’t heard the rumors spreading throughout the city.
She had no idea that both the Emperor and the Empress had already fallen to the very bottom of the people’s opinion.
In the eyes of the common people, the Emperor was nothing more than a scumbag who had deceived an innocent young woman.
As for the Empress, she possessed only a beautiful face while hiding the heart of a venomous snake.
In short, the public’s opinion of them had completely hit rock bottom.
The atmosphere inside the Duke’s Residence was heavy with gloom.
The servants didn’t even dare breathe too loudly.
The Duke and the Duchess’s beloved youngest son had been crippled.
And he had been crippled completely.
It was easy to imagine just how terrible the couple’s mood was.
If anyone accidentally provoked them, they might not even know how they died.
The Duchess had cried until her eyes were swollen.
As she looked at her still-unconscious youngest son lying on the bed, every breath made her heart ache.
“My precious baby! How did you end up like this? Who did this? Which damned bastard dared hurt my son like this?”
She cried as she repeatedly slapped her own thigh.
The sharp smacking sounds echoed throughout the room.
It was almost as if she couldn’t feel any pain.
The Duke sat beside the bed with a face as dark as ink.
He didn’t say a single word.
It felt as though an invisible hand were tightly squeezing his heart.
Whenever he thought about the bloody words and bloody handprints in his son’s room, his heart grew unbearably heavy.
Could it really be…
Had his son ended up like this because the ghosts of those girls he had killed had come back for revenge?
The Duke desperately didn’t want to believe it.
But when he thought about his son’s horrific condition and the bloody handprints covering the room…
It seemed frighteningly possible.
There was another reason as well.
Ever since the Duke’s Residence had been robbed, they had doubled the number of guards patrolling the estate.
With so many soldiers on patrol, no one had heard even the slightest sound.
That was simply too abnormal.
If ghosts truly were responsible…
Then there was no way they could avenge their son.
Growing increasingly irritated as his wife continued wailing beside the bed, the Duke finally exploded in anger and shouted at her.
“Stop crying! ｡°(°¯᷄◠¯᷅°)°｡ Look at yourself. Do you still look like the Duchess? Isn’t all of this your fault for failing to educate our son? If you had raised him properly, none of this would have happened,” the Duke said, placing all the blame squarely on his wife.
He said it with complete confidence, as if there were nothing wrong with what he was saying.
In his eyes, he was a busy man who barely had time to stand still every day. How could he possibly have had the time to educate their son?
The youngest son’s current state was absolutely his wife’s fault.
He would not allow anyone to argue otherwise.
The Duchess’s sobbing came to an abrupt stop. She looked like a duck with its neck being squeezed, her bloodshot eyes filled with disbelief.
What had she just heard?
Her husband was actually saying it was all her fault. Was that really something a man should say?
“W-What did you say?” The Duchess had never imagined, even in her dreams, that her husband would say such a thing.
Could this really be blamed on her?
Yes, she had spoiled their son a little.
But he was her youngest child.
What was wrong with loving him a little more?
Was it a crime for a mother to love her son?
“I’m saying that if you hadn’t indulged Wu’er so much, he wouldn’t have turned out like this. There’s an old saying: A doting mother ruins her son. Isn’t this all your fault?” the Duke declared righteously.
He truly believed he hadn’t said anything wrong.
The Duchess was so furious that she nearly couldn’t breathe. Trembling, she pointed a finger at the Duke.
“Bai Aotian, what kind of nonsense are you spouting? Is our son mine alone? You keep talking about how a doting mother ruins her son, but there’s also another saying: If a son isn’t taught, the father is at fault. Haven’t you ever heard that?”
What kind of man had she married?
The moment something happened, he shoved all the blame onto a woman.
He was utterly useless.
How had she ever ended up with him?
Thinking about it carefully, it wasn’t because she had fallen for Bai Aotian. It was only because of the Empress Dowager that she had married him.
But what did that matter now?
“You… What does a woman like you know? Every time he did something wrong, not only did you refuse to discipline him, you always cleaned up his messes for him. That’s why he became more and more arrogant and ended up like this. It’s all your fault!” Bai Aotian snapped in embarrassment and anger, no longer caring what came out of his mouth.
What?
How could he shamelessly say something like that?
She was only a woman. How could she possibly have had the ability to cover up all of their son’s crimes?
Wasn’t it always her husband who handled those matters in the end?
How could he push all the responsibility onto her now?
What a shameless old man.
The Duchess was so angry she could barely breathe. She clutched her chest and kept taking deep breaths, trying to calm herself.
But it was no use.
Her eyes rolled back, and she fainted on the spot.
The hat on her head fell off once again.
Her shiny bald head was revealed, with the vividly painted mangy dog sprawled across the top.
Fortunately, only the husband, wife, and their eldest son were in the room. Everyone else had already left.
The Duke looked at his unconscious wife without the slightest trace of concern.
He picked up the fallen hat, placed it back on her head, and even pressed it down firmly before shouting toward the door.
“Someone! Take Madam back to her room!”
The servant outside immediately came in. He saw the Duchess lying unconscious on the floor while his master stood nearby without even helping her up.
The Duke stood and instructed the servant attending Bai Wu’s courtyard.
“When the Young Master wakes up, don’t let him leave his room. Tell him to stay in his own courtyard and reflect on his mistakes.”
Now that he was crippled, he was of no further use.
He might as well stay quietly at home.
The servant respectfully replied, “Yes, Duke.”
The servant understood that the Duke had given up on the Young Master.
Thinking about it, it made sense.
There was no point investing in a son who had become a cripple.
After his parents left, Bai Yan looked deeply at his younger brother lying pale and lifeless on the bed.
He sighed, shook his head, and turned to leave.
For some reason, he wasn’t particularly surprised that his younger brother had ended up like this.
News that the Duke’s youngest son had been crippled spread through Yunjing as though it had grown wings.
Not a single person sympathized with him.
Everyone thought he deserved it.
Many even felt that simply crippling him was far too lenient.
The incident also frightened countless rich young wastrels.
They suddenly became extremely cautious, guarding themselves carefully.
Each of them feared they might be next.
For a time, the notorious playboys of Yunjing became so well-behaved that they hardly dared step outside.
After all, having their manhood destroyed was no joke.
None of them wanted to end up like Bai Wu.
It was simply too miserable.
When Shen Qingyao heard about all this, she felt like a true heroine.
Just look at the results—they were perfect. (◍•ᴗ•◍)
At the same time, she had intimidated all those other wastrels.
It was killing two birds with one stone.
After staying at the inn for three days, Shen Qingyao prepared to leave Yunjing.
She wanted to travel around the Yunyang Kingdom.
She wanted to experience the local customs and admire the beautiful scenery throughout the land.
In her previous life, ever since the apocalypse began, she had spent almost all of her time inside the Space.
The Space was enormous and contained everything she could possibly need.
But there were no people.
Before setting off, however, Shen Qingyao decided to absorb some crystal cores first to see whether she could awaken an ability.
In her previous life, she had obtained the Space, but none of her other abilities had ever awakened.
She refused to believe she was simply that untalented.
There had to be some missing trigger.
Maybe changing to a different world would make a difference.
Thinking of that, Shen Qingyao smiled happily to herself.