My cultivation disguise has been exposed by Xiao Sizi.

Thousands of miles away.

The pavilion in the Qin Prince's Mansion in Chang'an City.

"Good! Good! Good!"

Li Shimin was so excited that he overturned the teacup in front of him, jumped up from his chair, and let out a hearty, exhilarating laugh that shook the world.

"Hahahaha! This is my son! This is the Crown Prince of the Tang Dynasty! A reincarnation of the Hegemon! Unparalleled in the world!"

Li Shimin's face was flushed, and a tear of excitement even welled up in the corner of his eye.

The worries and anger from before have long been thrown to the winds, replaced by unparalleled pride!

Empress Zhangsun clutched her chest, looking at her eldest son in the water mirror—a figure covered in blood yet standing proudly—and tears streamed down her face; they were tears of joy.

"He survived... Chengqian is alright, that's great..."

Princess Chang Le and Princess Gao Yang were so excited that they hugged each other.

Li Chen, however, remained seated firmly in his chair.

He used a slotted spoon to scoop a few cooked mushrooms from the clear broth, dipped them in the sauce dish, and put them in his mouth.

"It's just basic operation."

While chewing on mushrooms, Li Chen nonchalantly complained, "He's wasted half a month of my miraculous medicine. If he can't even handle these mortals who haven't slept for days and are so sick with diarrhea that their legs are weak, he might as well find a block of tofu and kill himself."

……

Time flies, and more than half a month has passed in the blink of an eye.

News of the great victory at Shuofang City spread like wildfire, carried by express couriers on horseback.

Taiji Palace, Taiji Hall.

The civil and military officials stood on both sides, but the atmosphere was strangely awkward.

A eunuch stood below the dragon throne, holding a battle report sent back from the front lines, and read it aloud in a passionate voice.

"...His Highness the Crown Prince was a brilliant strategist, using a strategy of exhaustion to demoralize the enemy. Then, His Highness personally donned his armor and charged into battle, leaping from the walls of Shuofang City and charging into the enemy lines alone!"

"His Highness, amidst a vast army, single-handedly killed over a hundred enemy generals and guards, and captured the enemy commander alive! Three hundred thousand Xueyantuo and Turkic allied troops surrendered on the spot! Great Tang, a resounding victory!"

"boom!"

As soon as the eunuch finished speaking, the entire court erupted into chaos, like a pot exploding in a fire.

All the civil officials stared wide-eyed, their faces filled with disbelief. On the military side, Cheng Yaojin, Yuchi Jingde, and others wore expressions of joy, but their eyes also held deep shock.

"Absurd! This is utterly ridiculous!"

An imperial censor from the Cui clan of Qinghe suddenly stepped forward, holding his imperial tablet, and loudly rebuked him.

"Your Majesty! This battle report is clearly exaggerated and a fabrication of military intelligence! How could His Highness the Crown Prince, a person of such noble birth, possibly have jumped from the city wall unharmed?"

"Not to mention his solo charge into enemy lines and capturing the commander-in-chief amidst a sea of ​​soldiers! This is simply attributing the merits of the frontline soldiers to the Crown Prince to gain empty fame!"

The censor's words immediately drew echoes from many aristocratic officials.

"Yes, Your Majesty, falsifying battle reports is a crime of deceiving the emperor!"

"Your Majesty, I humbly request that you dispatch an imperial envoy to Shuofang to thoroughly investigate this matter!"

On the dragon throne, Li Shimin sat upright like a bell.

He looked at the group of aristocratic officials jumping around, a disdainful sneer curling at the corner of his mouth.

He watched the entire live broadcast with his own eyes through the water mirror, so the battle report was not exaggerated at all; in fact, it was written in a slightly conservative manner.

Just as Li Shimin was about to reprimand him.

Suddenly, a series of heavy, metallic footsteps echoed outside the thick, vermilion gate of the Taiji Hall.

"Tap...tap...tap..."

The footsteps weren't fast, but each one seemed to strike right at everyone's heart.

The arguing inside the hall gradually subsided. Everyone instinctively turned to look towards the main entrance.

Sunlight streamed in from outside the hall, casting a tall, imposing shadow on the threshold.

Immediately afterwards, a figure strode across the threshold of the Taiji Hall.

The person who arrived was none other than Crown Prince Li Chengqian, who had traveled day and night from the front lines and rushed back to Chang'an at top speed!

His jet-black armor was covered with deep marks from cuts and axe blows. Dark red, dried bloodstains, impossible to wash off, even lingered in the gaps of the armor.

As he entered, an intense, nauseating stench of blood, mixed with a terrifying killing intent that seemed almost tangible, instantly swept across the entire Taiji Hall!

The temperature inside the main hall seemed to plummet to freezing point at that moment.

Those pampered civil officials felt their breath catch in their throats, as if a huge boulder was pressing on their chests, and even their legs began to tremble.

Even veteran generals like Cheng Yaojin and Li Jing, who stood at the forefront of the military ranks, changed their expressions drastically and their pupils contracted sharply when they sensed this murderous aura.

"What terrifying malevolent energy! How many people must have been killed to create this tangible, bloody smell!" Cheng Yaojin exclaimed inwardly, a cold sweat breaking out on his back.

Li Chengqian strode along the imperial road.

He ignored the horrified stares around him and walked straight to the center of the hall.

He stopped and turned his head slightly.

Those bloodshot eyes, etched with the weariness of days of travel, cast a cold, indifferent glance at the Imperial Censor Cui who had just jumped out to question them.

Li Chengqian didn't even turn his head, but just stared at him out of the corner of his eye, his voice low and hoarse, like a demon crawling out of the deepest hell.

"Oh?"

"Are you doubting me?"

boom!

That single, casual glance, coupled with those words, instantly concentrated all the terrifying pressure emanating from Li Chengqian, a pressure that seemed to have been forged amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood, onto the imperial censor.

The imperial censor was a weak scholar who couldn't even kill a chicken.

When Li Chengqian's deathly gaze, filled with endless killing intent, swept over him, he felt as if a sea of ​​blood had appeared before him, and countless headless, wronged souls were demanding his life.

"ah--!"

The censor let out a sharp and short cry of alarm.

Immediately afterwards, his eyes rolled back, and his whole body slumped down like a noodle onto the cold gold bricks of the main hall.

He was so frightened by a single glance from Li Chengqian that he fainted on the spot!

"hiss--"

A collective gasp filled the hall. Several aristocratic officials nearby retreated hastily, fearing they might be tainted by this ominous star's bad luck.

Li Chengqian withdrew his gaze and never looked at the unconscious censor again.

He turned around and faced Li Shimin on the dragon throne.

His knees bent, and with a loud thud, he knelt heavily on the ground. The sound was resounding, like a great bell, echoing in everyone's ears.

"Your subject, Li Chengqian, has fortunately fulfilled his mission!"

"The 300,000 barbarians in the northern frontier have been pacified! I have come to report to my father, the Emperor!"