The low-key prince summons trainees from the Imperial Household Department at the start of the game.

The atmosphere at the palace gate was already tense even before the morning court session had begun.

As dawn broke, the stone steps outside Qianyuan Gate were already crowded with people. In the past, when the officials of the Six Ministries were waiting for the court, they would always exchange a few words and whisper about the political climate. But today, they all kept their voices down.

Some people looked down at the tips of their boots, while others tucked their hands into their sleeves and gazed at the distant palace walls in a daze.

Occasionally, someone would lean in and whisper something, then immediately back away, as if afraid that the words would stick to the hem of their clothes and be carried into the palace.

News travels fast in the capital.

Last night, the residence of Minister of Works Su Yuanyi was robbed. Two of his servants died, but Minister Su was unharmed.

However, a senior physician in the Ministry of Revenue was not so lucky.

That doctor surnamed Zheng had worked in the Ministry of Revenue for twenty years, in charge of the allocation of military pay in the northern border. He was very popular and would always send his colleagues homemade pickled vegetables during festivals. Every December, he would hang a string of sausages he made himself at the door of his duty room.

Last night he died on an old chair in his study. A sword pierced his chest, accurate and ruthless, through his heart. Blood soaked through half of the old cotton robe draped over the back of the chair.

What was most chilling was what the doctor's son said.

Before the killer attacked, he told him not to be afraid, speaking very softly, as if coaxing a child, saying, "It will be over in a moment."

When the news reached the palace gates, several officials from the Ministry of Revenue turned pale and were speechless.

The people from the Ministry of Rites stood on the other side, and no one dared to go over and speak to them.

The six groups of soldiers were separated by a much wider gap than usual, as if an invisible river flowed through them, and no one wanted to get their shoes wet.

Zhou Qian sat down in the Golden Palace.

Just as the eunuch was about to begin his aria, he raised his hand and pressed it down, speaking first before the words "I have something to report" could even be uttered.

His voice wasn't loud, but the moment he spoke, the air in the entire hall seemed to tighten as if gripped by an invisible hand: "I already know about what happened last night."

He paused, his gaze sweeping across the faces of the officials in the hall one by one.

Some faces were drooping, some were tense, some remained expressionless, and some had a thin layer of sweat on their foreheads.

Zhou Qian didn't linger on the sweaty face, nor did he look at the expressionless one. He simply glanced around and then fixed his gaze on the man at the very front of the civil official line, dressed in the robes of a second-rank official, whose face was as white as snow: "Su Yuanyi, you speak."

Su Yuanyi stepped forward.

His official robes were exceptionally neat today, with not a single wrinkle on the collar or cuffs, but the body beneath the robes walked out with slower steps than usual, as if he had to check with his knees to make sure the ground was still there before taking each step.

He knelt down in the center of the hall, the hem of his official robe spreading out on the cold gold bricks, kowtowed, and then spoke.

His voice wasn't loud, but everyone in the hall could hear it clearly.

From the smell of blood last night, to the detail of the blood lines on the throats of the two servants when he opened the door, to the burning heat of the official seal and the suppression of his righteous spirit by an invisible net.

From the orderly formation of the men in black, to the soft armor specifically designed to dissipate the power of Wen Xiu's palm strikes, to the tall, thin man who stepped out from behind the crowd and said in a voice as dull as a knife scraping sandpaper, "You've crossed the line."

He didn't add a single bit of his own speculation, nor did he say "I believe it was done by so-and-so," nor did he say "Your Majesty, please make the decision for me." He simply recounted the events as they were, as clean, accurate, and without any unnecessary embellishment as an official document from the Ministry of Works.

After he finished speaking, he prostrated himself on the ground, his forehead pressed against the bricks of the palace, his shoulders and back rising and falling slightly, as if he had finally released the breath he had been holding in all night while kowtowing.

The main hall remained silent for a long time.

It was so quiet that you could hear the wind passing through the iron gates of the eaves outside the hall. The faint, tinkling sound of the iron plates clattering against each other was particularly clear in the silence, one beat after another, like counting down an invisible countdown.

Zhou Qian tapped his finger on the armrest of the dragon throne.

I knocked again.

He stopped on the third time, his fingers tightening as he gripped the edge of the armrest.

He suddenly chuckled.

The laughter was short and cold, like the biting wind of winter blowing down from the roof ridge, carrying a thin layer of sharp, icy fragments: "Crossing the line?"

He chewed those two words in his mouth, very slowly, each syllable seemingly crushed on the tip of his tongue before spitting them out: "When did it become anyone else's place to draw boundaries for the capital of this Great Zhou? My Minister of Works is being forced to listen to lectures in his residence, and my Vice Minister of Revenue is being executed without warning. Very well."

He paused for a moment.

The word "good" swirled around in the hall, like a pebble thrown into a deep pool, its ripples spreading outwards, causing varying degrees of change on the faces of everyone it touched.

Someone swallowed hard, their Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

Someone quietly moved their hands, which were originally behind their back, to their sides.

Someone looked up at the direction of the throne, then quickly looked down again.

"Very good." Zhou Qian's voice slowed down as he said the last three words.

That slowness is not hesitation, but rather immersing a piece of iron little by little in cold water, making it harder, more brittle, and less prone to breakage as it cools down.

He was still sitting on the dragon throne when he spoke, but all the civil and military officials in the hall felt as if he had already stood up, standing much taller than them, looking down at each of them.

Zhao Gao stood by his side, his eyes fixed on his nose and his mind, not even changing the frequency of his breathing.

The whisk in his hand hung straight down, like a frozen waterline.

All the civil and military officials in the hall knelt down in unison, shouting, "Your Majesty, please calm your anger!"

The sound echoed in the hall for a few breaths before dissipating, like the aftershocks slowly receding after a huge drum has been struck.

But Zhou Qian wouldn't listen.

He suddenly stood up, the hem of his dragon robe sweeping across the edge of the imperial desk, causing the inkstone at the corner of the desk to tilt by half an inch.

He didn't offer to help, nor did he care that the ink spilled from the inkstone had left a small black stain on the table. Instead, he pointed at the kneeling officials in the hall, his voice suddenly rising: "How many of you knew last night who did these things!"

His words were like a whip, lashing down from the throne and striking everyone's eardrums.

The senior officials kneeling at the front all hunched their shoulders, some lowering their heads even further, almost touching the ground.

"You're all impeccably dressed, but you know the truth better than anyone! If I don't ask you, you pretend to be mute; if I don't ask, you just assume this is a feud between江湖 (jianghu, the martial arts world) members, a personal grudge!"

He took two steps forward, stopped at the edge of the imperial steps, and looked down at the officials in the hall.

His shadow, stretched long by the candlelight behind him, fell on the palace bricks, covering the backs of at least seven or eight officials.

"But I tell you, anyone who dares to kill one of my officials in my capital is not acting out of personal grudge."

He emphasized the last two words heavily, as if biting into something hard, his teeth grinding together with a slight grinding sound: "It's rebellion."

When the word "rebellion" was uttered, there was a moment of absolute silence in the hall.

Even the sound of breathing stopped, and even the rustling of fabric rubbing together disappeared.

Then something made a soft sound.

It was the knee of a young official kneeling in the back row that accidentally bumped against the bricks of the palace.

The sound was extremely faint, yet in the deathly silence it was as clear as a pebble falling into a deep well.

Several veteran officials were drenched in cold sweat, and lowered their heads even further.

An elderly physician from the Ministry of Rites almost pressed his forehead to the back of his hand, his entire back bent like a bow.

The eldest prince, Zhou Cong, knelt at the very front of the civil officials' line. He clenched his sleeve slightly with his right hand, then relaxed it.

He was about to step forward and say something; his lips had already moved, but Zhou Qian waved his hand, preventing him from speaking.

The gesture wasn't forceful, but it was clear enough to leave no room for argument.

"Don't move. Now is not the time for you to speak."

Zhou Cong saw the gesture, swallowed the words he was about to say, and knelt up straight again. However, he kept his head up and his gaze followed his father's face without looking away.

Zhou Qian shifted his gaze from the civil officials' column to the military officers' column.

His voice regained its previous low, deep rhythm, like the slow, rhythmic hammer blows of a blacksmith before quenching a fire: "Where is Qin Wu of the Zhenwu Division?"

Qin Wu stepped out from the ranks of military officers.

He was a robust general in his early forties, with a broad face and thick eyebrows. He had been in charge of maintaining order in the capital for many years and had witnessed at least a hundred murder cases.

But as he straightened up from his kneeling position, a very thin vein throbbed on his forehead, as if even he himself had not expected that this decree would be so weighty.

He took half a step forward, knelt on one knee, and the metal plates of his armor made a dull thud as he knelt: "Your subject is here."

Zhou Qian looked at him, his gaze devoid of any extraneous emotion, only a calm that had cooled after being provoked to the extreme: "I'll give you three days to investigate last night's events thoroughly. If you can't find out who was behind it within three days..."

He paused for a moment, then said, "You shall no longer be in charge of your Zhenwu Division."

Qin Wu kowtowed heavily, his forehead striking the palace bricks with a dull thud: "Your subject obeys the decree."

When he straightened up, the expression on his face was different from before. It was as if he had been whipped on the back by those words, and his whole body was tense from the inside out.

Zhou Qian then looked at the ranks of civil officials.

This time, his gaze lingered for a moment in each direction, first on Pei Du for half a breath, then swept over Kong Yan, and finally landed on Su Yuanyi's back as he lay prone on the ground.

His tone softened somewhat, still not loud, but the suppressed anger had subsided, replaced by a colder, more subdued tone: "Su Yuanyi will continue his administration as usual, and the Ministry of Rites will handle the funeral arrangements for the Vice Minister of Revenue with due courtesy."

He paused, glancing in the direction of the Ministry of Revenue officials in the hall: "Tell his family that the court will avenge him."

After saying this, he slowly walked back to the dragon throne and sat down.

He sat down more slowly than usual, as if the few words he had just spoken had taken a lot of his energy, and he needed to catch his breath by sitting down.

After he sat down, he placed his hands on the armrests and scanned each person kneeling in the hall from left to right.

"I will only say this once today." Zhou Qian's voice was lower, almost in a normal tone, but the underlying tension made everyone afraid to move. "No matter who stands behind you, no matter how many prefectures their clan emblems can suppress..."

He leaned forward slightly, as if to make every word heard by everyone present: "This world belongs to the Great Zhou, to the Emperor of the Great Zhou. Anyone who dares to lay their hands in my court will have their hands chopped off."

"Dismiss the court." After saying these two words, he stood up, his dragon robe sweeping across the imperial desk, and walked towards the back of the hall without looking back.

Zhao Gao quickly followed, his whisk fluttering slightly in the wind behind him before falling back down.

Only after the kneeling officials in the hall had completely emptied the area in front of the throne did they gradually straighten up.

Some people's legs buckled as they stood up, and they had to grab onto their colleagues' arms to steady themselves. When others looked up, the cold sweat on their faces was still damp, glistening in the morning light streaming in from the palace entrance.

Several officials from the Ministry of Revenue were the first to stand up. They didn't speak, exchanged glances, and then lowered their heads and walked quickly out of the hall.

Su Yuanyi was the last to get up.

When he stood up, his knees bent slightly and then straightened. His official robes were damp with the cool air from the palace bricks, which he brushed off slowly. Then he walked towards the palace entrance, his steps a little more steady than when he came, but the pallor on his face had not faded.

After leaving the palace, Zhou Cong stood under the corridor for a while.

He gazed in the direction his father had left, his hand clenching and unclenching repeatedly within his sleeve.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

It was Pei Du.

Pei Du had walked up to him at some point. The old man was walking slower than usual today, and his breathing was somewhat heavy, but his eyes were still clear.

He whispered, "Your Highness, His Majesty is about to lift the lid."

Zhou Cong's Adam's apple bobbed: "I had intended to stand up and say something..."

"The time for you to step forward is not today," Pei Du said in a low voice, his tone carrying the shrewdness of someone who had honed his skills in the court for decades. "Today, His Majesty wants everyone to see the fire on the dragon throne, not the gentle words of the princes. If you step forward to persuade him to calm down, you will only dissipate His Majesty's anger. This fire must burn thoroughly before there are ashes to be cleaned up."

Zhou Cong was silent for a moment, then nodded.

He glanced at Pei Du, then suddenly asked in a low voice, "Lord Pei, did you know something bad would happen last night?"

Pei Du glanced at him.

There was something deep in those old eyes, something that had been smoothed out by the years, like a stone at the bottom of a river, revealed after the water recedes, quiet and still, yet heavy and weighty: "I guessed that someone would make a move, but I didn't expect them to do it so soon and so ruthlessly. Su Yuanyi is a second-rank official, and that secretary in the Ministry of Revenue is in charge of military pay accounts. The aristocratic families didn't just pick these two heads randomly; they calculated it out."

One message tells everyone in the court that the Ministry of Works' river engineering line is untouchable, and the other message tells everyone in the Ministry of Revenue that the military pay line is also untouchable.

He paused, his gaze shifting to the unmelted snow on the distant palace walls. "They think they're intimidating His Majesty."

"What are they doing?"

"He's writing his own obituary." After saying this, Pei Du said no more, cupped his hands in a gesture of respect to Zhou Cong, and turned to walk away.

He didn't walk fast, but every step he took was steady and firm, like an old tree shifting its roots.

Wang Anshi walked over from the other side, his steps quicker than usual. He stopped only one step in front of Zhou Cong and said in a low voice, "Your Highness, after the court session today, the Zhenwu Division personnel should have already arrived at several residences. Qin Wu is the kind of person who doesn't like to drag things out overnight."

He paused, then added, "However, Your Highness would also do well to inform the Wenhua Teahouse to keep the scholars indoors these next few days. Nighttime is not a time for them to be out and about."

Zhou Cong glanced at him, but Wang Anshi had already turned and left.

His figure disappeared into the morning light in the direction of the palace gate, like a leaf blown out of line by the wind, but the direction that leaf fell was exactly the location of the Censorate's duty room.

When the news reached the side hall, Zhou Xing was holding a bowl of hot tea.

"That Zheng, the magistrate of the Ministry of Revenue, is dead. He was stabbed in the chest. In his study, the murderer even told his son, 'Don't be afraid, it will be over soon.'"

Zhou Xing's fingers, which were holding the teacup, did not move.

He looked down at the few tea leaves floating in the bowl, their emerald green color slowly unfurling in the hot water, as if they were slowly coming to life.

He listened to the entire conversation, from Su Yuanyi's attack to Zheng Langzhong's death, from Zhou Qian's fury in the court to Qin Wu receiving the imperial decree to give him three days to speak.

After a while, he placed the teacup on the table, the bottom of the bowl making a very soft and crisp sound as it tapped on the surface.

He lowered his head and blew on the tea bowl, which had mostly lost its heat, as if waiting for a conclusion to emerge from the information.

Then he raised his head and said to Granny Liu, his tone calm, but deep in his eyes there was a bottomless chill that even he himself might not be able to fully see: "This time, Father is truly furious."

Granny Liu stood by the door, looking at him, but did not reply.

Having followed His Highness for so many years, she knew that when His Highness said "It's really popular," he wasn't saying it to others, but to confirm something for himself.

It has been confirmed that this turmoil has escalated from a court dispute into a bloody confrontation.

Meanwhile, the powerful families who had taken action were probably waiting for news in their brightly lit halls.

Let's wait and see how far the emperor's anger will burn, who it will reach, and what will be left after it's all gone.

They must also understand that the emperor they have angered also rose to power through bloodshed.

Zhou Xing picked up the bowl of tea again and finally took a sip.

The tea was already warm; the warmth slid down his throat as he drank it, turning into a small but pleasant heat in his stomach.

He put down his teacup, stood up, and walked to the window.

The sky outside the window was already bright, and the morning light made the window paper of the side hall translucent, revealing the fine lines on the paper.

He gazed at the rooftops of the Zhenwu Division in the distance, slightly bleached by the sunlight, and suddenly murmured, "Qinwu will probably have to rip off several tiles in the next three days."

He paused, then added in an even lower voice, "But what's under those roof tiles is what really needs to be brought out and aired."

He closed the window, turned around, walked back to his desk, sat down, spread out a new sheet of paper, and picked up his pen.

The brush tip was fully dipped in ink in the inkstone, hovering above the paper without falling.

He looked down at the blank space, as if waiting for the ink to linger on the tip of the pen a little longer, waiting for it to brew the word that was meant to be written.

Outside the window, the outline of the palace walls in the distance became clearer inch by inch in the morning light, slowly lifting the entire capital city out of the night, like an old painting that had been washed and repainted.