Goddess Atlas, Starting from the Queen

Upon hearing Lu Ming's words, Mu Yunyan quickly replied, "Your Majesty, my abilities are limited, and this matter is beyond my ability to intervene."

"Besides, the evil spirit that massacred the village has already been killed by the King, and the case is closed. There is no need for our Zhenling Guard to continue investigating."

Lu Ming did not respond to Mu Yunyan's words, but looked at Yang Shaojie and said, "Tell me, what does that evil spirit that your commander released look like?"

Yang Shaojie replied, "It has a wolf's head, but a human body."

Lu Ming then looked at Mu Yunyan and said, "What I killed was just an evil spirit that could possess a human body, not some wolf-headed, human-bodied evil spirit. This means that the evil spirit is definitely still alive."

Hearing Lu Ming's words, Mu Yunyan frowned even more. What did the Prince of Xiaoyao mean? Did he really want her to investigate? Did he want to kill the Mu family?
Seeing that Mu Yunyan's face had become even paler, Lu Ming did not intend to continue teasing her. Instead, he said, "Now that you know about this, your Mu family has no way out. Chief Mu, go back and think it over carefully."

Lu Ming looked up at the red glow on the horizon and then said, "It's getting late, we should head back."

At this point, Lu Ming and Su Wanyun returned to the carriage.

Mu Yunyan silently mounted her horse, and the group then returned to the capital.

Throughout the journey, Mu Yunyan's mind was in a bit of a mess, and the secret she heard today really frightened her.

Who would have thought the emperor would do such a thing...?

Although the lives of ordinary people are nothing to emperors, such as during years of famine when the number of dead civilians is just a number to them, an emperor should not actively slaughter his own people.

Moreover, the emperor used the power of evil spirits to slaughter his own people, which is tantamount to the emperor betraying his people.

Mu Yunyan now only hopes that this matter was just the commander of the Xuanlin Army acting on his own initiative. After all, the emperor has already gone into seclusion, and perhaps the commander of the Xuanlin Army took advantage of the emperor's seclusion to do these things.

Perhaps none of this has anything to do with the emperor.

Of course, whether or not it's related isn't up to her to decide. She plans to go back and tell her father about it to see what he does.

As soon as Mu Yunyan returned to the Mu residence, looking utterly dejected, a servant told her, "Miss, Master wants you to go to his study to see him as soon as you return."

Upon hearing this, Mu Yunyan went straight to the study. She had planned to tell her father about what had happened that day, as it involved the emperor and was beyond her ability to handle.

When Mu Yunyan arrived at Mu Yongfeng's study, the door was open and two maids were standing at the door. Mu Yunyan said directly to the maids, "Go and guard the courtyard gate."

"Yes, ma'am."

After the maidservant reached the courtyard gate, Mu Yunyan went directly into the study and closed the door.

Upon seeing Mu Yunyan return, Mu Yongfeng took the initiative to speak, saying, "The Supervisor came out of seclusion this afternoon. After he came out, he immediately reinstated me to my original position, and I will go to Zhenling Guard tomorrow."

Hearing this, Mu Yunyan was slightly taken aback. Originally, it was a good thing that her father had been reinstated, but when she thought about what she had heard that afternoon, Mu Yunyan couldn't be happy at all.

Seeing Mu Yunyan's worried expression, Mu Yongfeng immediately realized she was troubled and asked, "Why do you look so troubled? What happened?"

Mu Yunyan didn't speak. She walked directly to Mu Yongfeng's desk, picked up a brush, took out a piece of paper from the side, and began to write on it.

Seeing that his daughter didn't answer his question directly but instead chose to write, Mu Yongfeng immediately realized that what Mu Yunyan was about to say must be something extremely important. He didn't ask any further questions, but simply waited quietly for Mu Yunyan to write.

Soon, Mu Yunyan wrote down the events that had happened outside the city that day on a piece of paper and handed it to Mu Yongfeng.

Mu Yongfeng took the paper and glanced at its contents. Upon reading it, Mu Yongfeng was stunned, his mind reeling.

Mu Yunyan only wrote on the paper that the commander of the Xuanlin Army released evil spirits to massacre villagers, and that the Xuanlin Army was the Imperial Guard, without writing down the specific process of the discovery.

However, Mu Yongfeng believed his daughter wouldn't talk nonsense. After a long while, Mu Yongfeng took a deep breath and then asked, "How did you find out?"

The contents on paper cannot be spoken aloud, but the specific details can be described orally.

Mu Yunyan said, "This afternoon, the Prince of Xiaoyao said he wanted to investigate this matter, so he asked me to take him to those villages."

"He would use a method of summoning spirits to bring out the vengeful spirits of the two victims in the village. One of the vengeful spirits was a soldier from that army, and we learned all this from that soldier."

After Mu Yunyan finished speaking, Mu Yongfeng fell into a long silence, unsure of what to do.

He naturally suspected that this might be a conspiracy by the Prince of Xiaoyao, since it was the Prince of Xiaoyao who handed Mu Yunyan over, and those two vengeful spirits might actually be evil spirits cultivated by the Prince of Xiaoyao.

But this involves the Imperial Guard, what if it's true...?

Seeing that her father hadn't spoken for a long time, Mu Yunyan asked, "Father, should we tell the supervisor about this?"

Mu Yongfeng snapped out of his daze and said, "We can't tell him."

This matter is far too complicated. He now hopes it's a conspiracy by the Prince of Xiaoyao. If it involves the emperor and the Mu family finds out, they could be wiped out if the emperor finds out.

Although he was considered a capable subordinate of the Director of the Observatory, no one could say for sure whether the Director would choose to help the Emperor eliminate future troubles after hearing about this matter.

Mu Yongfeng continued, "What we need to do now is act as if this never happened, and that we know nothing about it."

Mu Yunyan said, "But the Prince of Xiaoyao already knows about this. If he spreads this news..."

Mu Yongfeng frowned. He could sense that the Prince of Xiaoyao was interested in the emperor's position. After all, the Prince of Xiaoyao was so powerful and knew how to be patient. Now he was even eyeing the Zhenling Guard. He didn't believe for a second that the Prince of Xiaoyao wasn't interested in that position.

If the Prince of Xiaoyao truly wanted to become emperor, then the Xuanlin Army's act of releasing evil spirits to massacre villages would definitely be a sharp sword for him, a sword that could shake the rule of the Zhou royal family.

If the people of the world knew that the emperor's imperial guards had released evil spirits to slaughter civilians, they would surely rise up in rebellion. Even if the people did not want to rebel, those restless forces would coerce them into rebellion. When chaos descends, the carefree king's opportunity will arrive.

Therefore, Mu Yongfeng could not be sure whether the Prince of Xiaoyao would spread the news.

Mu Yongfeng was feeling incredibly troubled; how did his Mu family end up like this?

After a moment of contemplation, Mu Yongfeng sighed deeply, "Now we can only take it one step at a time and see if the Prince of Xiaoyao will spread this news." (End of Chapter)