While the soldiers were on the city wall covering the scumbag emperor and the vicious woman with clothes…
Shen Qingyao woke up inside her space. She sat down at her computer and quickly wrote a short story about the Emperor, the Empress, and the Prime Minister’s eldest daughter.
In simple, straightforward language, she described everything the Emperor, the Empress, and the Prime Minister’s family had done to the original owner.
She didn’t avoid using any names.
The Emperor, the Empress, and the Prime Minister were all identified by their real names throughout the story.
She printed more than a thousand copies.
Then she teleported to Qianceng Pavilion, the tallest building in Yunjing.
Although it was called “Qianceng Pavilion”—the Pavilion of a Thousand Stories—it actually had only twelve floors.
Looking down from the top floor, Shen Qingyao was relieved that she wasn’t afraid of heights.
Otherwise, she would have been dizzy just standing there.
She took out all one thousand printed pages and scattered them into the air.
The papers floated downward like countless snowflakes, drifting gently through the sky.
Because the sheets were so light, they didn’t fall very quickly.
Instead, the wind carried them throughout the city.
“Quick! Look! What’s that?” a sharp-eyed man shouted when he noticed the countless white objects floating down.
“What?”
Everyone who heard him looked up.
Sure enough, they saw countless white sheets slowly drifting toward the ground.
When the papers landed, everyone finally saw what they were.
They were actually sheets of paper.
“Holy crap! It’s paper! How can paper be this white and this smooth?” a scholar exclaimed excitedly as he bent down to pick one up.
His fingers unconsciously tightened around it.
This was the whitest paper he had ever seen.
His heart pounded with excitement.
He gently rubbed the paper between his fingers and discovered it was incredibly smooth and delicate.
It was the finest paper he had ever seen.
The paper they normally used was slightly yellow and extremely expensive.
For an ordinary family, being able to support even one scholar was already considered impressive.
That was why children from poor families rarely rose to prominence.
One after another, people picked up the scattered papers.
Those who could read stared at the words with expressions of utter shock.
Was what was written here actually true?
If it was…
Then the Emperor and the Empress truly weren’t human.
And the Prime Minister and his wife were even worse.
No matter what, Shen Qingyao had still been their daughter.
Those who couldn’t read stared at the paper for a long time without understanding a single word.
The more they looked, the more anxious they became.
“Can anyone read? Read it for me!” an older woman asked eagerly, unable to suppress her curiosity.
Those who could read remained silent.
None of them knew what to say.
This was a royal secret.
Could they really say it out loud?
Wouldn’t they lose their heads?
Not one of them dared speak.
They could only stare silently at the words on the paper.
The illiterate people around them grew increasingly puzzled.
What exactly was written on the paper?
Why had all these scholars suddenly gone silent?
Because of their silence, the people who couldn’t read became even more curious.
They desperately wanted to know what was written.
“Hey! Why aren’t you saying anything? What’s written on it?”
“That’s right! Can’t you scholars read it to us?”
“What? Looking down on us because we can’t read?”
The commoners who couldn’t read immediately began scolding the scholars.
“No, no! That’s not it!” one scholar hurriedly explained.
“The contents… they’re difficult to talk about.”
They were truly in a difficult position.
The other scholars nodded in agreement.
It really wasn’t something they could casually discuss.
It involved the imperial family.
None of them could bring themselves to say it.
Actually, they wanted to tell everyone.
After all, sharing gossip was human nature.
“That’s right. It’s a royal secret. I’m afraid I’ll lose my head if I say it.”
They were genuinely afraid of being executed.
For the first time in their lives, they almost regretted being literate.
Heavens!
Someone save us scholars!
The illiterate crowd exchanged confused looks.
What was wrong with these scholars?
Just what was written on that paper?
Seeing how troubled they all looked only made everyone even more curious.
“You people are so timid!” an older woman said with her hands on her hips, pointing at the useless scholars.
“Don’t you know the law can’t punish everyone? Even if it’s a royal secret, they’re not going to execute all of us, are they?”
These bookworms couldn’t even compare to an ignorant old woman like her.
What was the point of reading so many books?
“Exactly! You’re way too scared. There are so many of us. The imperial family can’t possibly kill everyone,” the crowd echoed.
They weren’t wrong.
There were so many people gathered here that executing them all was impossible.
More than anything, they simply wanted to know what the paper said.
Matters involving the imperial family were things ordinary commoners never had the chance to learn.
Now that they had such an opportunity, of course they wanted to seize it.
“Come on! Read it! We want to hear it!” everyone shouted together.
The scholars fell silent for a while and carefully considered what everyone had said.
To their surprise…
It actually made sense.
Surely the imperial family couldn’t kill all of them.
The gossip-loving side of the scholars immediately took over.
They couldn’t wait to share the secret with those who couldn’t read.
So they read out the contents.
After hearing it, every illiterate listener’s eyes widened in disbelief.
Good heavens!
Are they even human?
Even if the Prime Minister’s eldest daughter was ugly, did they really have to treat her like that?
The eldest daughter of the Prime Minister’s Residence was simply too pitiful.
Because she was ugly, she had been locked away in a courtyard since childhood.
She had lived a life worse than that of a servant.
As the saying went, even a tiger wouldn’t eat its own cubs.
For her to have parents like that…
She must have suffered terrible misfortune in eight lifetimes.
And those young masters and young ladies of the Prime Minister’s Residence weren’t any better.
They had actually helped outsiders deceive their own eldest sister.
These people simply weren’t human.
Her life had already been miserable enough.
Who would have thought she would also be tricked by that scumbag emperor into falling in love with him, only to lose her life in the end?
Pitiful.
Far too pitiful.
Weren’t those people afraid of divine punishment?
Wasn’t it said that the Prime Minister’s eldest daughter had been born with the fate of a phoenix?
Weren’t they afraid of retribution for treating her this way?
The crowd whispered among themselves, filled with contempt for the Prime Minister’s family and the imperial family.
Although everyone sympathized with Shen Qingyao and felt sorry that she had been deceived and betrayed…
They were only ordinary commoners.
There was nothing they could do.
All they could do was pity her in their hearts.
Even if they couldn’t help her, they could spread the story throughout the entire country.
They would let everyone know just how disgusting the Prime Minister’s family and the imperial family truly were.
As for whether the contents of the paper were true…
Every one of them believed they were.
Why?
Because they firmly believed these papers had been sent down by Heaven itself.
Their purpose was to expose the evil deeds of the Prime Minister’s family and the imperial family.
The commoners eagerly picked up the papers from the ground and tucked them into their clothes.
They planned to spread the news throughout the country wherever they went.
…
Inside the Imperial Palace, the Chief Eunuch discovered that the Emperor, the Empress, and the Empress Dowager had all disappeared.
The entire palace immediately descended into chaos.
When the servants prepared breakfast for the imperial family, they discovered that the Imperial Kitchen was completely empty.
They decided to collect supplies from the Imperial Household Department instead.
Only to discover that it, too, had been emptied.
Then one piece of terrible news after another arrived.
The national treasury.
The Emperor’s private treasury.
The Empress’s private treasury.
The Empress Dowager’s private treasury.
Every valuable item in the Imperial Palace had disappeared.
The palace became even more chaotic.
Li Deli felt as though the sky had fallen.
But the most urgent task was finding the Emperor, the Empress, and the Empress Dowager.
Everything else could wait until the three of them returned.
“Go find His Majesty, Her Majesty, and the Empress Dowager immediately!” Li Deli ordered.
“Even if you have to turn all of Yunjing upside down, bring them back to me!”
The Imperial Guards answered in unison.
“Yes!”
They first searched the palace.
When they found nothing, they expanded the search to the entire city of Yunjing.
It wasn’t long before they discovered the exact location of the three.
However, they didn’t dare make a public scene.
It was simply too humiliating.
The Emperor, the Empress, and the Empress Dowager had all been hung naked upside down from the city gate.
Who would believe such a thing if they heard it?
In the end, while the five people were still unconscious, the Chief Eunuch had no choice but to bring over a carriage and secretly transport the three royals back to the palace.
The commoners watched as the three were thrown into the carriage.
As for the two men dressed as eunuchs…
The Chief Eunuch immediately ordered them silenced forever.
Whether they knew anything or not didn’t matter.
They couldn’t be allowed to live.
After all, they were fake eunuchs.
As the Chief Eunuch, allowing two men who weren’t actually eunuchs into the palace was his failure.
Li Deli frowned deeply as he looked at the paper in his hand.
What should he do now?
How had this secret gotten out?
Who was bold enough to spread the imperial family’s secrets among the common people? (#－.－)
When His Majesty woke up…
Wouldn’t he go completely insane?
The carefully maintained image of the Emperor…
Had it already collapsed in the eyes of the people?
The Emperor, the Empress, and the Empress Dowager all remained unconscious.
None of them had awakened.
The imperial physicians said there was nothing seriously wrong with them.
They had simply been knocked unconscious.
Li Deli could only wait helplessly for the Emperor to wake up.
After all, only the Emperor could decide how to handle everything.
As for all the people who had read the papers…
He had no idea what to do.
There were simply too many of them.
He couldn’t kill them all…
There were far too many.
And he didn’t dare.
After all…
The law couldn’t punish everyone.
Surely they couldn’t execute every single person.
…
It wasn’t until noon that Xiao Jingyu finally opened his eyes.
His entire head throbbed painfully.
He reached up and touched the spot that hurt the most.
Immediately, he felt a huge lump.
What had happened to him?
He was the Emperor.
Had someone actually hit him?
His thick brows furrowed tightly.
He stared blankly at the ceiling for a while before slowly sitting up.
Li Deli, who had been sitting nearby fighting off sleep, instantly became alert when he saw the Emperor awaken.
His shrill voice was full of concern.
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty! You’re finally awake! You nearly scared this servant to death!”
Li Deli let out a long sigh of relief.
Thank goodness the Emperor had awakened.
Otherwise, the entire Yunyang Kingdom would have fallen into chaos.
The sharp voice made Xiao Jingyu frown even more deeply.
Speaking in a hoarse voice, he asked,
“Why is there such a huge lump on my head? Who dared strike me? If I find out who it was, I’ll exterminate all nine generations of his family!”
Damn it.
His head hurt so much.
Which fool with a death wish had attacked him?
Keeping his head lowered, Li Deli stammered,
“Your… Your Majesty… This servant… this servant truly doesn’t know.”
“If you don’t know, then investigate! What do I keep all of you people around for?” Xiao Jingyu roared.
The moment he finished shouting, a wave of dizziness hit him.
With a loud thud, he collapsed back onto the bed.
Li Deli jumped in fright.
He immediately dropped to his knees beside the bed, crying out anxiously,
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Don’t scare this servant! What’s wrong with you?”
Then he turned toward the doorway and shouted,
“Imperial Physician! Hurry! Summon the Imperial Physician!”