The day Jun Huailang died, Chang’an was drenched in rain all night.
By noon, deep puddles had already formed across the bluestone ground, yet the rain still had not stopped.
Cold rain came down hard, driven by the autumn wind.
All three hundred and fifty-six members of the Jun family, from top to bottom, knelt densely outside Xuanwu Gate, awaiting execution that day.
Jun Huailang’s clothes and hair were completely soaked, his lips pale as he knelt at the very front of the execution ground. The cold rain fell upon his face, yet he seemed not to notice. His ears were filled with the cries of the female members of his family and the discussions of the onlooking commoners.
He did not need to hear them clearly to know what they were saying.
The Jun family was a founding meritorious family of Dayong. Two hundred years ago, the Jun family’s ancestor followed the founding Emperor Taizu of Dayong in campaigns across the east and west. After the country was established, he was granted the title of Duke Yongning, and the title had been inherited by his descendants from generation to generation.
Taizu had been suspicious by nature. Most of the meritorious founding officials had eventually been discarded once their usefulness was exhausted, meeting miserable ends. Only the Jun family had remained prominent for more than two hundred years, right up until today.
The entire Jun family being executed was something that would have been impossible in any dynasty. But for it to happen today was not particularly strange.
After all, ever since a month ago, when the Prince of Yunnan rebelled and his troops marched to the gates of Chang’an, all of Dayong had been thoroughly thrown into chaos by one person.
That person was not the rebel Prince of Yunnan, but Prince Qin, Xue Yan, who had exterminated the rebels.
When the Prince of Yunnan raised his army, Xue Yan had been in the north confronting the invading Turks. In barely more than a month, he had effortlessly crushed the two-hundred-thousand-strong Turkic army and even reclaimed the Yan region, which had been occupied for years.
After defeating the Turks, he immediately led his troops south and arrived just as the Prince of Yunnan’s army was surrounding Chang’an.
The Prince of Yunnan, who had been victorious in every battle for months, was actually slaughtered with ease by Xue Yan’s iron cavalry. And the Prince of Yunnan, who had already taken half a step onto the imperial throne, had his head severed with a single sword stroke by Xue Yan and hung before Xuanwu Gate.
The Prince of Yunnan’s neck blood stained the bluestone bricks of Xuanwu Gate red.
Everyone had thought that Chang’an would finally return to peace.
No one had expected that from that day onward, Chang’an would know no peace at all.
After killing the Prince of Yunnan, Prince Qin Xue Yan unexpectedly marched straight into the imperial palace and stabbed the Emperor to death upon the Dragon Throne.
Immediately afterward, he personally killed all of his brothers.
The only one he left alive was the three-year-old Eighth Prince, whom he wrapped in an imperial robe and pushed onto the throne.
And he himself became the Regent, acting as the ruler and holding all authority in his hands.
The court and the public were thrown into an uproar.
Naturally, many officials stood up in opposition to him, either because he had killed his father and murdered the Emperor, or because their own interests had been harmed. They attempted to use the laws, institutions, and ancestral rites to drive this illegitimate ruler from power.
They clearly did not understand Xue Yan very well.
Thus, his sword once again turned from the imperial palace toward the court.
The previous Emperor had been killed and the new Emperor was still a child. With nothing more than a glance or a single word from Xue Yan, countless court officials were suddenly dragged from their homes by the Imperial Guards and Eunuch Bureau, without even being assigned a crime, and brought to Xuanwu Gate for execution.
Within a month, the entire court had been washed in blood.
No one dared to voice opposition to him anymore.
But this tyrannical Regent suddenly issued another order—to confiscate the Jun family’s estate.
The Jun family had never provoked him, yet the entire family was to be executed.
Not a single one would be left alive, except for that person.
The very person Jun Huailang was most worried about.
His father had been convicted and executed several years ago. His mother had followed him to the grave only a few days later.
A month ago, his younger brother, Jun Xiaowu, had died while leading troops to defend Chang’an against the invading Prince of Yunnan.
Of Jun Huailang’s immediate family, only one person remained.
His younger sister, Jun Linghuan.
When the Prince of Yunnan rebelled, the Turks happened to invade from the north. At the same time, the previous Emperor suddenly fell seriously ill, leaving Dayong beset by troubles both within and without.
The Imperial Astronomical Bureau invited some Taoist who seemed to have come from nowhere to perform a divination for the court.
He declared that Dayong was on the verge of collapse and that only a daughter of the Jun family could stabilize the realm.
At that time, Jun Huailang’s aunt, who had originally entered the palace as a consort, had already died a year earlier.
Throughout the entire Jun family, the only unmarried woman left was Jun Linghuan.
She had been only fourteen then, not yet old enough for her coming-of-age ceremony.
Naturally, Jun Huailang fought the imperial decree with all his strength, even submitting a death petition to the previous Emperor in protest.
He was not only the hereditary Duke Yongning but also the palace Examination’s Third-Ranked Scholar, a newly prominent official whom the previous Emperor greatly relied upon.
The previous Emperor had no choice but to agree to his demands.
Jun Linghuan would merely occupy the empty position of Empress. He absolutely would not touch her. Once the court stabilized, she would be allowed to return home and marry whomever she wished.
That was what he said.
But who would dare marry a woman who had been married to the Emperor?
Still, Jun Huailang knew that this was the best possible outcome.
He hated himself for being unable to protect his younger sister and had been unable to sleep peacefully for three months.
Yet he had never imagined that this absurd decree from the previous Emperor would ultimately save his sister’s life.
But whenever he thought of the Regent who was about to wipe out the entire Jun family, Jun Huailang’s heart turned cold.
He had seen the Regent once.
It was precisely when he had knelt outside the Yonghe Palace gates for so long that he refused to rise, protesting the imperial decree appointing Jun Linghuan as Empress.
At that time, Xue Yan had been preparing to lead his army into battle and had come to bid farewell to the previous Emperor.
He wore heavy black armor. His tall, upright figure moved through the solemn and magnificent palace halls. His scarlet cloak remained spotless as it swept past Jun Huailang with a rustling sound, stirring up a gust of wind.
Jun Huailang looked up.
At precisely that moment, Xue Yan casually glanced over and looked down at him.
Xue Yan was exceptionally handsome.
His birth mother had been a beauty sent by the Turks for a marriage alliance that year, and he therefore carried half barbarian blood in his veins.
His features were somewhat deeper than those of ordinary Han Chinese. His straight nose resembled a drawn blade. The contours of his face were sharp and pronounced, while beneath his thick eyelashes were a pair of pale amber eyes.
This made his sinister, cold gaze carry a trace of bloodlust.
With only one glance, Jun Huailang felt cold from head to toe.
For someone as dangerous and brutal as this, someone who decided life and death according to his own mood, Jun Huailang was not surprised at all.
He also knew that the more prominent a noble family like the Jun family was, the more it stood at the center of danger.
When a new ruler could not firmly establish his position, slaughtering an old aristocratic clan to establish his authority was a common occurrence.
But if he died, then Jun Linghuan would lose her last remaining relative.
She was now alone in the imperial palace.
The new Emperor was still young, and she had become the Empress Dowager.
She would inevitably have to face the Regent day and night.
Jun Huailang raised his head.
From the gloomy sky, countless drops of cold rain came crashing down.
She isn’t even fifteen yet, Jun Huailang thought.
At that moment, the execution official gave the order to carry out the sentence.
The command could barely be heard over the sound of the rain, but the executioner’s blade had already been raised high.
Raindrops splashed across the sharp blade.
A brilliant streak of silver light slashed downward, as though cleaving an opening through the endless gray gloom, suddenly allowing light to spill through.
Hot blood fell into the cold rainwater.
——
The sound of rain seemed to be covered by a layer of mist, distant as though from the edge of the heavens, sometimes there and sometimes not.
Jun Huailang opened his eyes, only to discover that he was actually standing in an endless void.
There was nothing around him.
Only the rainwater on his body continued to drip down in miserable disarray.
Could this be the world after death?
Jun Huailang looked around.
Just then, a faint sound came from beside his feet.
He lowered his head and saw a strangely bound book lying at his feet.
Cold rainwater dripped from his robes onto the cover.
The Evil and Charming Regent’s Seven Nights of Cruel Petting.
The characters on the cover looked somewhat strange.
They were clearly Chinese characters, yet many of the strokes were missing.
Jun Huailang struggled to make out the words on the cover before bending down and picking up the book.
He opened the first page.
The next moment, his pupils contracted sharply, and his fingers unconsciously tightened.
The book was written from a third-person perspective.
The protagonist was called Jun Linghuan.
And the opening of the book was precisely the day the entire Jun family was executed.
He struggled to read the strange characters, which were missing numerous strokes, as he watched Jun Linghuan in the book being confined alone inside the magnificent Empress Dowager’s palace.
Facing the torrential autumn rain outside the window, she wept uncontrollably, her entire body trembling with grief.
Although it was separated from him by nothing more than written words, it still awakened the familiar feeling between Jun Huailang and his sister, bound together by blood.
The veins on the back of Jun Huailang’s hand became faintly visible.
There was only one daughter in his family, Jun Linghuan.
She had been cherished in the palms of the entire family since childhood.
Even after the Jun family fell into decline, Jun Linghuan had been well protected by him. The greatest grievance she had ever suffered was becoming an Empress in name only.
Just thinking that from this point onward there would be no one left to protect her made Jun Huailang’s heart ache terribly.
The imperial palace was filled with wolves and tigers.
How could a young girl who had not even reached fifteen, alone and without anyone to rely on, possibly survive?
His hand trembled slightly as he could not help turning the pages.
He thought that perhaps an immortal had taken pity on him.
Knowing that the only thing in this mortal world he could not let go of was his sister, the immortal had given him this strange book so that he could see what would happen to her in the future and put his mind at ease.
But immediately afterward, Jun Huailang’s expression froze.
He saw a name that, although unfamiliar, had been deeply engraved into his mind.
Xue Yan.
On the second page, he saw Xue Yan stride into his sister’s sleeping quarters.
His eyes were as cold as thousand-year-old black ice as he mercilessly seized his sister’s chin and forced her, her voice already hoarse from crying, to look outside.
“Xuanwu Gate is over there.”
The corners of Xue Yan’s lips curved into a cold arc.
“It’s just past noon. Your elder brother should already be dead.”
Through the curtain of rain, Jun Linghuan could see nothing but layer upon layer of palace buildings with red walls and green tiles.
Her eyes were filled with despair, and tears continuously rolled down her face.
Jun Huailang’s icy fingertips trembled with rage, crumpling the pages beneath his grip.
Leaving aside the fact that his sister was now the Empress Dowager, and no matter how powerful Xue Yan was, he still had to address her as his imperial mother—just the fact that Jun Huailang was already dead should have settled any hatred Xue Yan had toward the Jun family.
Why would he still bully a helpless young woman like this?
This Xue Yan was simply not human!
Jun Huailang had been educated in refinement and propriety since childhood, but even he could not help gnashing his teeth and cursing Xue Yan with the few insults he knew, repeating them over and over.
What a beast. What a beast!
But soon, even those words failed him.
He watched helplessly as the events continued.
That wretched little bastard Xue Yan actually disregarded all moral boundaries, pressing his sister down onto the couch and, facing in the direction of Xuanwu Gate, brutally violated her.
…
And while doing so, he coldly called her Imperial Mother.
Jun Huailang’s neatly trimmed fingernails dug forcefully into the pages.
In the book, Xue Yan seemed to have some complicated personal grudge with his sister.
In only a few brief sentences, it said that his sister should never have treated him with charity as though he were a stray dog, and that she had later betrayed him.
He continued turning the pages.
In this thick book, most of the story consisted of that beast Xue Yan repeatedly humiliating his sister.
Jun Huailang’s eyes became bloodshot as he read.
He wished he could immediately transform into a vengeful ghost and claim the beast’s life.
What was even more despairing was that around two-thirds of the way through, his sister actually developed an attachment to that beast.
She hated him.
She feared him.
Yet she could no longer leave him.
In the end, Xue Yan actually married her as his Empress.
He allowed the entire world to discuss and ridicule them, making his sister leave behind an eternal disgrace in the history books alongside him.
Jun Huailang’s hands trembled, and his teeth were chattering with rage.
He could no longer control his hands.
With a heavy thud, the thick book fell to the ground beside his feet.
That beast… that beast!
When they had met beneath the corridor of Yonghe Palace, he should have drawn that beast’s sword and stabbed him to death!
Just then, a human voice came from within the void.
“Hm? What was that sound?”
Immediately afterward, the voice of an immortal rang out above Jun Huailang’s head.
“Black and White Impermanence, how could you be so careless? The soul that should have been collected at noon—why is it here?”
Then came hurried, chaotic footsteps, followed by two people anxiously explaining over one another.
“Lord Prefect, please calm your anger! It is truly because the Star of Seven Killings has descended into the mortal world. There have been too many dead souls recently, and the two of us simply couldn’t keep up. We accidentally missed one…”
In an instant, an irresistible force violently dragged Jun Huailang’s soul outward.
He had no time to concern himself with any of this.
He only stared desperately at the book on the ground.
Xue Yan… Xue Yan, you bastard!
As long as I, Jun Huailang, still have even one breath left, I will repay you a hundredfold for what you have done!
Jun Huailang was pulled by that force and disappeared from the void.
Then the immortal known as the Prefect slowly walked out and carefully inspected the surroundings.
“Huh?”
He let out a puzzled sound.
He picked up the book.
“What happened? The Fate Star Lord wrote this fanfiction novel in his spare time. How did it end up here?”
Meanwhile, Black and White Impermanence once again erupted into a flurry of panicked voices.
“Wait! It’s wrong! You summoned the soul in the wrong direction!”