When Jing Mu led his troops to the gates of Zhaojing City, the city gates were actually slowly opened from the inside.
Jing Mu reined in his horse and saw that the commander guarding the city was none other than one of his own subordinates from the Ministry of War.
“Jiang Zhao, commander of Zhaojing City’s defenses, willingly submits to His Highness the Second Prince. I respectfully invite His Highness to enter the city!”
The commander shouted from atop the city wall.
Jing Mu curled his lips into a smile. Without saying anything more, he ordered twelve thousand troops to remain behind and surround Zhaojing City completely, while he led the remaining thirty thousand troops into the capital and headed straight for the imperial palace.
His proclamation had already spread throughout Zhaojing, and nearly everyone knew its contents. Taking advantage of the sparse crowds in the city at dawn, they rode straight toward the imperial palace.
The people of Zhaojing hid inside their houses, peering through their windows at the warhorses thundering across the bluestone streets outside.
It seemed the heavens were about to change.
Ever since Emperor Qian Ning’s death and Jing Shao’s openly taking possession of the imperial palace, he had transferred all of the original palace garrison troops away, sending them to guard Zhaojing City.
He knew that those men had all come from under the command of Shu Changyu’s close friend, Dai Wenliang. He did not trust them, so he insisted on using his own people.
He replaced all of them with his privately raised soldiers—more than a thousand men in all.
When these men were finally brought into the open, the court was thrown into another great upheaval.
No one had probably expected that the Third Prince, whom the Empress had protected so carefully and who had always seemed gentle as jade, had secretly been making such preparations.
Those whose loyalties were already wavering were even less daring to say anything at this point.
Jing Mu had traveled halfway when he suddenly saw a carriage hurriedly passing along the main street ahead.
He frowned, then urged his horse forward and caught up with the carriage within a few strides.
“Where are you going?” he asked the coachman with a frown.
Straight ahead was the imperial palace.
Although the carriage looked plain and unremarkable, upon closer inspection, its construction and materials were quite exquisite.
Seeing Jing Mu dressed in military armor, with a large troop of soldiers behind him, the coachman looked somewhat flustered. He quickly composed himself and smiled ingratiatingly.
“I’m taking my wife home. I suppose I’ve blocked the military officer’s way. I’ll move aside for you right away.”
“Move aside,” Jing Mu said.
The coachman froze, then smiled awkwardly. “Military officer, you—”
Seeing his reaction, Jing Mu became even more certain that something was wrong.
He simply raised his hand and knocked the coachman off the carriage with his whip. Then he used the whip to lift the carriage curtain—
Inside was Li Shi, bound hand and foot and gagged.
Jing Mu froze.
“…Madam Shu?”
At that moment, the coachman he had knocked to the ground suddenly leaped back up.
A flash of greenish silver emerged from his sleeve as he lunged straight toward Jing Mu.
Li Shi’s eyes widened inside the carriage, while the surrounding soldiers had no time to react.
But Jing Mu merely raised his hand.
The whip wrapped around the attacker and sent the man crashing to the ground. The poisoned dagger in his hand clattered onto the ground.
Jing Mu raised his hand, and the Mo Saber in his grasp went straight for the man’s throat.
One stroke.
He was dead.
Jing Mu calmly put away his bloodstained Mo Saber and ordered the deputy general beside him, “Send a troop to escort Madam Shu safely back to the General’s Residence. Until matters in the palace are settled, the General’s Residence must be heavily guarded. There must not be the slightest mishap.”
Then he cupped his hands toward Li Shi.
“Senior Imperial Tutor is waiting outside the city. Madam Shu need not worry. Before noon today, you will be reunited with your mother and son.”
With that, he led the soldiers behind him around the carriage and sped away.
He did not detour even slightly, heading straight for the main gate of the imperial palace.
The incident on the road had presumably already been reported to the palace. By the time Jing Mu reached the palace gates with his troops, an official from the Empress’s faction was already waiting there nervously.
“His Majesty knows that His Highness the Second Prince has returned to the capital after receiving the imperial decree, and has specifically ordered this humble official to come and welcome His Highness,” the official said loudly, standing more than one arrow’s length away from Jing Mu. “I respectfully ask His Highness to lay down his weapons and enter the palace with this humble official to pay his respects to His Majesty.”
Jing Mu curled his lips into a smile.
Jing Shao really was the type who would refuse to believe the coffin was real until he saw it.
Even now, when he had already reached the end of the road, he still wanted to put up one last struggle.
Jing Mu did not give the official any face at all. Raising an eyebrow, he smiled.
“You’ve got it wrong, Lord. I didn’t come today to assist the new sovereign. I came to purge the ruler’s side and take the lives of that demon Empress and her wicked son.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he raised the Mo Saber in his hand.
Instantly, thousands upon thousands of soldiers surged forward.
The official hurriedly dodged, but a general had already speared him and lifted him into the air.
He died on the spot.
The private soldiers raised by Jing Shao were already guarding the palace gates, but they were ultimately outnumbered.
Moreover, these thirty thousand soldiers had all been painstakingly trained by Jing Mu over the past three years.
Jing Mu stood in the plaza before the palace and watched as the private soldiers guarding the imperial palace gradually collapsed into disarray.
Then his own troops swept through them like a breaking dam, smashing through the palace gates and charging straight inside.
Only then did Jing Mu leisurely tap his horse and ride through the center of the gates.
His soldiers soon occupied the entire imperial palace.
They intercepted Jing Shao and the Empress in a secret passage beneath Yonghe Palace.
When the two were dragged out of the passage, Jing Mu was sitting in the dragon throne at the center of Yonghe Palace with one leg crossed over the other and one hand propping up his chin.
To his left stood Emperor Qian Ning’s coffin.
Outside the doors, the morning light was faint.
Candles still flickered inside the palace.
The candlelight illuminated Jing Mu’s face, giving him an indescribable air of nobility and handsome splendor.
“You didn’t get away,” Jing Mu said with a smile when he saw the two of them. “If you hadn’t tried all those little tricks, you might actually have escaped.”
Jing Shao’s eyes were bloodshot as he struggled in the hands of two soldiers.
But the soldiers’ hands were like iron clamps. There was no way for a frail scholar like him to break free.
“Jing Mu…! It really was you. You calculated everything from the beginning!”
Jing Mu curled his lips.
“What did I arrange? Do I still need to report it to you?”
He slowly rose and walked over, lifting a hand to pat Jing Shao on the shoulder.
“Jing Shao, you simply shouldn’t have gone against me in this life. You weren’t making trouble for me. You were making trouble for yourself.”
Then he could not be bothered to say anything more to the two of them.
“Take these two to the Heavenly Prison. Station heavy troops there. No one is permitted to approach.”
With that, he turned his back and allowed the soldiers to carry out his order, dragging Jing Shao and the Empress away.
In his previous life, Shu Changyu had also ultimately been locked in that same Heavenly Prison.
Jing Mu still remembered how cold that place without sunlight had been when he arrived there.
The only window had been filled with a night sky as cool as water.
And the person in his heart had been lying there, his body cold as well.
Afterward, when Jing Mu had reclaimed his power and settled old scores, he discovered that the Jia family, the Empress’s maternal clan, had been the ones who colluded with the eunuchs.
And Jing Shao, whose whereabouts had been unknown at the time, had been rescued by the Jia family and secretly raised in hiding.
Thus, Jing Mu thought, the way Shu Changyu had died in his previous life should also be something these two people experienced properly.
He lifted his eyes toward the resplendent coffin nearby.
He walked over and gently patted the coffin.
“You saw everything, didn’t you? I’ve avenged you for everything. But don’t thank me. I didn’t do it for you in the slightest.”
Just then, a general entered.
“General.” The man knelt and said, “The person you’re looking for… isn’t anywhere in the entire imperial palace.”
Jing Mu turned around.
Not only had Jing Shao failed to find Zhao Langzhi, but even the army he had brought with him had been unable to locate him.
“Then search the entire city of Zhaojing,” Jing Mu said solemnly. “Once you find him, take his head immediately and bring it to me. If he isn’t in Zhaojing, guard all the city gates first. If this man enters or leaves through any gate, report it immediately.”
The general did not dare delay in the slightest. He accepted the order and turned to leave.
Jing Mu looked around the great hall of Yonghe Palace and slowly exhaled.
“Making me clean up your mess for you? Dream on.”
He spoke softly to the empty air.
“Whoever wants to deal with it can deal with it.”
With that, he stepped outside.
He took the reins of his warhorse from the soldiers guarding the entrance, mounted, and rode away.
There were still plenty of trivial matters in the palace that needed handling, but Jing Mu had already made arrangements beforehand and could not be bothered to stay there even a moment longer.
Shu Changyu was currently waiting outside the city with one hundred and twenty thousand troops.
Jing Mu was anxious.
He did not want to stop anywhere else for even a moment.
He rode out of the imperial palace, followed the central avenue, and left Zhaojing City.
He dismounted before the army camp and went straight toward Shu Changyu’s tent.
“General, a scholar-looking man came to see Lord Shu just now,” the general accompanying Shu Changyu said behind him. “He said he was an old friend of Lord Shu’s and had come to the capital to take the imperial examination. I originally wanted to stop him, but Lord Shu saw him and told me to let him in.”
Jing Mu remembered that Shu Changyu had a friend from Huzhou whom he had met in a brothel back when that man had come to the capital to retake the provincial examination.
Remembering this person, Jing Mu hummed in acknowledgment.
“Is he still inside?”
“Yes.”
“Then you may withdraw for now.”
As he spoke, he lifted the curtain of Shu Changyu’s tent and raised his foot to enter.
Then he froze at the entrance.
The person inside was not Shu Changyu’s friend from Huzhou.
Standing before Shu Changyu was none other than Zhao Langzhi—the man Jing Mu had ordered his people to search for throughout the capital over the past several days, turning the entire city upside down without finding him.
Hearing the movement at the entrance, Zhao Langzhi slowly turned around.
He smiled as gently as a spring breeze.
Jing Mu looked toward Shu Changyu.
Shu Changyu was looking back at him as well.
There was little expression on Shu Changyu’s face.
Yet it was precisely that calm and peaceful appearance that made Jing Mu’s heart turn cold.
He saw it.
Shu Changyu’s face was pale, and even his lips had lost their color.
He was staring straight at Jing Mu.
His eyes were filled with an empty, icy coldness.
“Jing Mu.”
Jing Mu heard Shu Changyu call his name.
He gave a strained hum in response.
“How did I come back?”
Shu Changyu looked at him and asked,
“Tell me. What did I do in my previous life to deserve Heaven’s favor and be given the chance to live a second life?”
“I won’t listen to what he says.”
“I want you to tell me yourself.”