Who said the eldest daughter is crazy? She's clearly a woman of high rank and influence in the

After saying that, she didn't say anything more. She just stood in the sunlight, the shoulders of her plain white dress bathed in a warm golden light from the light streaming in through the high window.

The air inside the hall seemed to have been tightened by hand, and those who had been gasping for air just moments before now even breathed softly.

At this moment, the emperor on his throne finally moved. As he stood up, the hem of his dragon robe swept across the table, knocking over the teacup. His voice came down from above, but it carried something that had been suppressed for too long.

"Guards—seize the Empress!"

Two rows of black-armored guards silently emerged from behind the brocade curtains on either side of the palace gate. Their armor was impeccable and their steps were orderly. They pressed into the palace from behind the curtains and surrounded the Empress in a fan-shaped formation, three steps in front of the phoenix throne.

The Empress's back straightened in that instant. She turned her head to look at the Xuanjia Guards, her gaze sweeping from their armor to the hilts of their swords with the Tian Shu pattern. These people were not the Imperial Guards she had dispatched last night; they were from the Tian Shu Division.

The entire palace was rearranged while she diverted the attention of the Tian Shu Division. The guards outside the central palace gate were replaced by people from the Tian Shu Division, the channel for delivering letters from the Imperial Household Department was blocked, and even the lock on the side gate for delivering food to the kitchen was replaced with an iron lock made by the Tian Shu Division.

All the cards in her hand—the sorcerer family, the grey-robed underworld, and her old allies outside the palace—were gone.

Two Xuanjia guards stepped forward and grabbed the Empress's elbows from the left and right. As her phoenix robe sleeves were grabbed, they flipped up, revealing her slender wrists underneath.

She stood there, her gaze passing over the shoulders of the two rows of armored guards, and fixed directly on Xi Yueli's face.

Xi Yueli met her gaze and said calmly, "Xiao Shi, you've lost."

Those four words fell in the empty hall like a stone thrown into deep water, ripples spreading outward from the center, spreading in circles over the bowed faces of the court officials.

As the Empress was being helped back toward the palace gate, the hem of her dark red phoenix robe brushed against the gold brick floor. Her foot was tripped at the threshold, and she stumbled half a step before being steadied.

She turned her head and looked at Xi Yueli one last time. The things churning in that look were indistinguishable, whether it was hatred, fear, or something else. Then the palace doors closed in front of her, the dark red doors shutting her out of the sunlight outside.

The Empress's case lasted for seven days. The secret correspondence between Beishuo and Xirong, the draft of the forged imperial edict, and the sacrificial records of the sorcerer family were all compiled into a file, which was stacked half a person high on the table in the Qinzheng Hall.

The emperor personally presided over the trial, with the Tian Shu Si (the Imperial Household Department) serving as witnesses throughout, and all the civil and military officials in attendance.

With each unearthed old case, the silence in the palace deepened, as the bloodstains buried by the Empress for nearly twenty years were repeatedly unearthed under the sunlight.

On the seventh day, before the court session ended, Xi Yueli stepped out from the ranks and presented a booklet thicker than all the other case files.

The booklet's cover bore a wolf's head emblem from the Dark Pavilion and a black iron seal from the Heavenly Pivot Bureau, and inside were over forty pages of densely packed plans.

The agreement on the mutual access of grain routes in the northern border, the detailed rules for opening the trade routes of the Western Rong, the joint patrol mechanism of the border troops of the three countries, and the reserve standards for mutual grain relief in years of disaster.

Each entry is accompanied by Fu Yuan's original annotations from back then, He Qingshuang's trade route calculations, Ye Lan's investigation of border troop deployment data, and Hua Jianzui's collection of civilian records from the border regions of the Three Kingdoms.

When she placed it on the imperial desk, the sunlight was just coming in through the high window, making the edges of the forty-odd pages of paper shine slightly.

"Your Majesty, I have contacted the Northern Northern Court and the Western Rong Elders' Council, and the three parties have reached a preliminary agreement on the framework for an alliance. All that is needed is for the court to send a representative with full authority to tour the northern border and implement the plan."

She took a half step back, her voice neither too loud nor too soft, "This humble woman requests permission to travel on behalf of Heaven to the northern border to sign the official document of the alliance."

The emperor on his throne looked down at the thick book. When he finished reading the last page, he looked up and his gaze fell on Xi Yueli's face. A very faint smile curved his lips.

"The late emperor's eldest daughter is also my eldest daughter. I grant permission."

As soon as those two words were uttered, some of the civil officials began to whisper among themselves, while others among the military officers exchanged glances.

The imperial inspector is a person personally dispatched by the emperor, carrying the emperor's sword and issuing the emperor's orders. He has the same authority as an imperial envoy and can choose his own entourage.

This crown is a major decree no matter who it falls on, let alone someone who has only been back in her position as "eldest daughter of the emperor" for less than ten days. However, before the discussion could fully begin, another voice had already taken the lead.

When Helian Jing stepped forward, all eyes in the hall turned to him.

Today he was not wearing the dark blue outfit, nor was he carrying the iron plaque of the Tian Shu Division. He was wearing an ordinary plain white long robe with neatly gathered cuffs, and no swords or knives were worn at his waist.

He walked to the center of the hall, bowed, and then straightened up, his voice neither loud nor soft, as if he were doing something he had been thinking about for a long time.

"Your subject requests to resign from the position of Director of the Heavenly Pivot Office."

The hall was quiet for a moment, then a sudden uproar erupted.

Among the civil officials, some nearly dropped their ceremonial tablets, while among the military officers, one took a half-step forward but then abruptly stopped.

The power of the Tian Shu Division had been accumulating in the shadows for twenty years, and Helian Jing had been in charge of it for seven years. During those seven years, he was decisive and ruthless without hesitation. Now that the Empress had just fallen and the court was about to stabilize, the power of the Tian Shu Division was at its peak, and he resigned from his post.

The emperor sat on his throne, looking at him, then at the figure in a plain white dress standing to his side, and the smile on his lips deepened.

"What do you plan to do after resigning from the Tian Shu Division?"

Helian Jing stood in the center of the hall, the sleeves of his plain white robe hanging down at his sides. "Your subject wishes to accompany the eldest princess."

The hall felt as if something was pressing down on it from all sides, and even the sound of breathing became slightly softer.

The head of the Heavenly Pivot Bureau, the man whom even the emperor treated with deference in the court, resigned from his seven years of power and declared in front of the entire court that he would follow a woman who had just received an imperial decree to tour the northern border as her attendant.

The emperor leaned back in his chair, his fingers lightly tapping the armrest. His gaze swept back and forth between Helian Jing and Xi Yueli, then he chuckled, a hint of amusement in his voice: "What are you two up to?"

Helian Jing stood in the center of the hall, the hem of his plain white robe motionless. He tilted his head slightly and said, "I am her attendant."

Xi Yueli was standing perfectly still in the center of the hall, her white dress sleeves neatly gathered, her posture dignified and composed. But after Helian Jing's words fell into the hall, she couldn't suppress the teeth marks on the inside of her lower lip.

She lowered her head, trying to cover herself with the back of her hand, but her shoulders had already begun to tremble slightly. She turned her head away, but the laughter that escaped her lips still clearly reached the ears of all the court officials in the hall.

The emperor looked at her, her head bowed and shoulders trembling, and then at Helian Jing standing in the hall with an air of "I'm telling the truth." He waved his hand, as if shooing away two cats he was too lazy to bother with anymore.

"Go ahead as you please. The affairs of the Tian Shu Division will be temporarily managed by the Deputy Commander. You can come back whenever you want."

Helian Jing bowed and said, "Thank you, Your Majesty."

As he straightened up, his gaze shifted from the direction of the throne to the figure to his side who was straightening his shoulders.

The expressions on the faces of the court officials were quite varied. The eunuch from the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs lowered his head, and his lips twitched suspiciously before he quickly suppressed it.

After the court session ended, Xi Yueli walked out of the palace gate with a slightly faster pace than usual.

Sunlight bathed the stone steps. She walked down the last step, stopped at the edge of the stone platform, and turned around to wait for the figure in the plain white robe to catch up.

When Helian Jing walked up to her, she kicked his shin lightly, with a gentle kick that revealed a kind of annoyance that had been suppressed for most of the day and was finally released.

"Who told you to resign?"

Helian Jing didn't dodge her kick. He bent down and grabbed her ankle. Even through her clothes, he didn't let go as he straightened up, his thumb slowly rubbing above her ankle bone. In a voice only the two of them could hear, he said, "How can I rightfully follow you without resigning from my official post?"

Xi Yueli jerked her foot back, "Is it even questionable whether His Highness Prince Chen's previous salary at the Tian Shu Division was enough to support the eldest princess?"

Helian Jing stood up straight and looked at her, the sunlight falling into his eyes. "I have saved up my salary for seven years. It's enough for you to eat your way from the Northern Border to the Western Rong, and then back to the capital."

Xi Yueli turned her head away and took a step forward. "Let's go. Go back and pack our bags. We'll set off in three days. First, we'll go to Beishuo to sign the original alliance document, and then we'll make a detour to Mufeng Cliff."

She paused for a moment, her gaze falling on his face. "Ye Lan's poison hasn't completely healed yet. Shi Xuanji said it would take half a year to treat him. We might as well go and see him on the way."

Helian Jing walked up and stood beside her, the cuffs of his white robe brushing against the hem of her white dress, the sunlight casting their shadows together.