My brother entrusted his child to me, and I livestreamed raising the baby, making the Empress cry wi

Zhuque Avenue was deathly silent at this moment, so quiet that you could hear the wind passing through the bare branches of the locust trees.

Traces of the snowfall from a few days ago still lingered on the streets, with icy water seeping into the cracks of the blue bricks, gleaming coldly in the sunlight.

Then--

With a "thump".

Someone knelt down.

Then, the second, the third, the hundredth, the thousandth...

From the Great Flame Kingdom, the Western Regions, the South China Sea, and the Northern Lands, one after another.

The dull thuds of knees hitting the brick surface echoed one after another, as if invisible hands were slapping people to the ground.

"This...this is definitely not a path that could exist in the human world..."

"It's the road to heaven...it's the road to the heavens..."

The envoy from the North lay prostrate on the ground, completely subdued.

His forehead was pressed against the blue bricks of Zhuque Street. The blue bricks were cold, and the coolness seeped into his skin and into his bones, but he was completely unaware of it.

He stretched out his arms and pressed them against the brick surface, bowing deeply in reverence.

Then he looked up, his gaze burning as he stared at the winding road in the sky, his pupils reflecting the arcs.

"Tengri..." he murmured in the language of the grasslands, his lips moving, tiny bloodstains clinging to his chapped lips. "This must be the path Tengri walked... The Eternal Heaven... The Eternal Heaven descended to the mortal realm..."

The South China Sea traveler went even further, kowtowing forcefully towards the sky.

His forehead hit the blue brick with a "thud," breaking his skin and causing blood to seep out, staining the gray brick surface and spreading into a small patch of dark red.

He seemed oblivious, and banged his head a second and a third time, each time landing solidly.

A drop of blood trickled down the bridge of his nose, past the corner of his mouth, and onto the blue brick.

"Gods! Gods!" His voice was hoarse, torn, and choked with sobs.

"May the gods bless our South China Sea with calm waters! May the gods bless our fishermen with safe voyages! We don't have such a road in the South China Sea, please, gods, build one for us! We beg you, gods! We beg you!"

In the live chat, words of awe and shock appeared one after another, densely packed and layered.

[Commoner Zhu Dachang: Gods! That's a path built by gods! Quickly kowtow! Quickly kowtow!]

[A commoner's blessing: Heaven has opened its eyes! Heaven has shown its power!]

[Commoner Liu Adou: I pray to the gods for protection! I pray to the gods for my family to be safe and sound!]

……

Inside the carriage, Yao Jingyuan gripped the curtain tightly, his knuckles white, and the veins bulging from the back of his hand to his wrist, like several green earthworms wriggling under his skin.

His lips were trembling.

He lowered his head and glanced at the blue brick road beneath the carriage.

Suzaku Avenue.

The best road in the Great Flame Kingdom.

The road was paved with blue bricks, and it was so smooth that the carriage could hardly feel any bumps as it traveled on it.

Each brick was carefully fired by the Ministry of Works, with consistent size and uniform thickness, and the gaps between the bricks were filled tightly with lime mortar and fine sand.

He previously thought this was the best road in the world, a symbol of the prosperity of the Great Flame Kingdom!

But at this moment, the blue bricks still look the same.

But in his eyes, it seemed to have suddenly changed.

It became rough and grayish, with large and obvious gaps between the bricks, like ugly scars, extremely unsightly.

Broken rock!

He cursed inwardly.

Then I looked up and continued to look at the gray, flat road in the sky, with white lines drawn on it, flowers and grass growing in the middle, crisscrossing between heaven and earth.

He tried to move his lips, but no sound came out.

My throat felt like it was sewn shut, with something stuck inside that I couldn't swallow or spit out.

He heard the sounds of kowtowing, crying, and praying rising and falling in the street, each one louder and sharper than the last, like countless needles piercing his eardrums.

Everywhere you looked, there was a sea of ​​people kneeling down.

They all knelt on the Zhuque Avenue, paved with blue bricks.

He knelt down beneath the bare locust trees that Ye Fan and his men had planted years ago.

The withered branches of the locust tree swayed gently in the wind, making a "creaking" sound, as if mocking him.

Inside the palace, beside the palace wall.

Du Mingyi did not speak again.

He just sat there.

He sat on cold stone slabs, the shadow of the palace walls looming over him, completely obscuring his face.

He tilted his head back, chin held high, the skin on his neck taut, his eyes fixed on the sky.

He looked at the bridge piers—each one identical, straight, smooth, without the slightest deviation. Their surfaces had a pale, uniform grayish-white hue, a gray he had never seen before.

Looking at those roads—each one was perfectly flat, without a single undulation or wrinkle, as if they had been carefully ironed by a large iron.

Looking at those winding ramps—each arc was so perfect, so uniform.

Looking at those flowers and plants—under the road, beside the bridge piers, in every corner, blooming quietly, their vibrant colors are particularly striking in this deep winter season.

He suddenly realized that the roads he had built over the past few decades—those roads he had personally supervised and inspected—were now a source of great concern.

And then there are those trees that countless officials of their Great Flame Kingdom painstakingly planted, one by one, only to become bare in winter.

They all looked like mud that children played with—

It's nothing!

At the entrance of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

Shu Jingwei stood at the top of the white marble steps, and she hadn't moved since the sky brightened.

A breeze blew from the end of the square, lifting the hem of her dragon robe. The twelve tassels on her crown gently collided in the wind, producing a soft, continuous, crisp sound.

She didn't lower her head, didn't blink, and it even seemed like she wasn't breathing anymore.

Her eyes were fixed on the gray, smooth road in the sky, without a single gap, on the bright green strip of flowers and grass in the middle of the road, and on the winding, crisscrossing roads suspended in mid-air...

Her fingers gripped the cuffs of her sleeves, her knuckles turning white, her nails digging into the fabric as if she were about to tear it apart.

The brocade embroidered with golden dragons twisted and deformed at her fingertips, emitting a faint hissing sound, as if it were screaming in agony.

"Someone come here!"

She spoke, her voice hoarse and unpleasant.

It sounded so bad that even she herself felt unfamiliar with it.

The chief eunuch behind him immediately trotted forward, bowed deeply, his chin almost touching his chest, and respectfully said, "Your Majesty."

"Issue my decree," Shu Jingwei's voice was sinister, like a ghost crawling up from the ground, "All court officials in the capital are to be summoned to the palace immediately! I have important matters to discuss with them!"

"Your servant obeys!"

The chief eunuch quickly bowed and retreated, then hurried off to announce the news.

However, at this moment—

The light in the sky suddenly dimmed in an instant.

It didn't disappear; it was as if something was blocking it from the inside.

A huge, blurry outline emerged faintly from the end of that gray road.

I can't see it clearly...

Yet it instilled fear in everyone who saw it...