Sky Curtain: The opening scene explains the four major cases of the Ming Dynasty plus the early Ming

That mouthful of scarlet blood, like the most poignant ink stain, was splashed onto the mirror-like golden bricks of the Fengtian Hall.

Yu Qian's tall body could no longer support him, and he fell straight backward!

"Young Master Yu!"

"For the public good!"

The officials closest to him were shocked and rushed over to help him up.

The entire hall was in complete chaos.

Wang Wen and Chen Xun stood there dumbfounded, their faces ashen.

They looked at Yu Qian, who was lying unconscious on the ground, and then at the emperor on the dragon throne, whose expression was extremely cold. A chill ran from the soles of their feet to the top of their heads.

Lost.

We lost completely.

Everything they had meticulously constructed, their proud moral high ground of "serving the country and the people," crumbled and vanished in an instant under the other party's piercing question, "Do you take me for Ji Chang and Liu Heng, those two beasts?"

yes……

Who would use their own recently deceased son to set up a trap?

This is a father's most grief-stricken, most frantic, yet most ethically sound act after losing his son!

Their previous questions seemed so pale, so ridiculous, so... disloyal, unjust, and utterly inhuman in the face of this one sentence!

At that moment, the way the officials looked at them changed.

From doubt, it turned into contempt, and then into disgust!

They actually questioned a father who had just lost his son, asking if he was using his son's death to scheme against them!

Is this something a human being could do?!

On the dragon throne, Zhu Dijun's icy gaze swept across the entire audience.

He looked at Yu Qian, who had fallen into a coma, and at Wang Wen and Chen Xun, who were in a daze, without a trace of pity.

He slowly stood up, looking down at the world like a god judging humanity.

"I am tired."

His voice was hoarse, yet carried an undeniable authority.

"The matter of reinstating the Crown Prince shall be handled by the Ministry of Rites and the Cabinet."

"Who agrees with my decree, and who opposes it?"

Dead silence.

The entire Fengtian Hall was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

No one dared to utter a word.

Oppose?

What grounds do you have to object?

Should we use the argument that "Your Majesty cannot use your recently deceased son as a pretext for opposition"?

Whoever dares to say it will be the next Yu Qian! The next beast to be nailed to the pillar of shame and infamous for eternity!

Zhu Dijun looked at the silent officials below and a cruel smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

He said no more, turned around, and dragged his "grief-stricken" body, which seemed to be on the verge of falling apart, slowly back to the side hall.

All that remained were the court officials and an era utterly defeated.

……

The Great Han Dynasty, Weiyang Palace.

Above the sky, when the words "Emperor Wen of Han, Liu Heng, a beast who killed his wife and four children for the throne" were uttered.

Liu Heng, who was chatting casually with his family, suddenly froze with a gentle smile!

"Bang!"

He crushed the jade wine vessel in front of him into pieces!

"presumptuous!"

A roar, suppressed to the extreme, burst forth from his throat!

A terrifying imperial aura instantly enveloped the entire palace!

The surrounding palace maids and eunuchs were terrified and knelt down in unison, their heads buried lower than the floor tiles, trembling with fear.

"Heng'er..." Empress Dowager Bo was also startled and looked at her son with concern.

Liu Heng's chest heaved violently, his eyes were bloodshot, and he stared intently at the emperor of the future on the sky!

brute?

He actually called me a beast?!

What gives him the right?!

This incident is the greatest hidden pain of his life and the most criticized stain on his reputation!

Back then, when he came to the capital from Dai to inherit the throne, his power base was not yet stable.

His queen and her four sons became a sword hanging over his head!

Because the Queen of Dai was a member of the Lü clan!

At a time when the Lü clan was being purged and everyone was living in fear, how could meritorious officials and veterans like Zhou Bo and Chen Ping possibly allow a child with Lü clan blood to become the future emperor of the Han Dynasty?!

Therefore, his queen and his four biological sons had to "die of illness"!

He had no choice!

In order to secure his throne and for the peace of the Han Dynasty, he had no choice but to sacrifice them!

Over the years, he has been diligent in governing and caring for the people, reducing taxes, abolishing corporal punishment, and creating the prosperous era of "the reign of Emperors Wen and Jing"!

He believed that his achievements were enough to cover up his disgraceful past!

He believed that future historical records would embellish his image and praise him as a wise and benevolent ruler!

But he never expected this!

More than a thousand years later, an emperor of the Ming Dynasty, in full view of everyone, tore off his most filthy fig leaf, threw it on the ground, and repeatedly trampled on it with the most vicious words!

"brute……"

Liu Heng muttered to himself, a trace of pain flashing in his eyes, but more so, boundless resentment and coldness.

He clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug deep into his palms.

He hates!

He didn't hate the insults from that later emperor!

What he resented was that the "whitewashing" he had personally arranged back then, the "benevolent and virtuous" reputation that historians had written about with their elegant and subtle writings, had been so easily exposed a thousand years later!

Sky curtain!

It's all because of this damned sky!

It exposed all the secrets that emperors most wanted to hide to the light of day!

……

Let's go back in time.

The capital of the Shang Dynasty was Chaoge.

In a simple prison.

An old man with white hair and beard, dressed in prison clothes, yet still exuding an air of profound wisdom and steadfastness, sat cross-legged, silently deducing the meaning of the yarrow stalks in his hands.

He was Ji Chang, the Marquis of Xibo.

On the sky, when the future king named Judith Jun let out that deafening roar.

"Do you take me for Ji Chang, that beast who ate his own eldest son, Boyi Kao?!"

With a "snap," all the yarrow stalks in Ji Chang's hand broke in two.

He was struck dumb, frozen in place.

In his cloudy old eyes, endless sorrow and pain welled up instantly.

Bo Yi Kao...

My son...

That filial son who traveled thousands of miles to Chaoge to save his father, offering him a fine horse, beautiful women, and rare treasures.

The eldest son of Xiqi, who played the zither beautifully, was gentle and refined, and was hailed as the future wise ruler of Xiqi.

he died.

The cruel King Zhou of Shang chopped him into mincemeat and made him into meat patties.

Then, in order to test whether he could really divine and whether he was truly "wise," King Zhou of Shang gave him the meat pie.

He knew what it was.

The moment he began to interpret the Eight Trigrams, he had already foreseen his son's impending death!

But he still ate it.

In front of everyone, with a smile on his face, he swallowed the flesh and blood of his own son, bite by bite.

Just to... survive.

All this was to deceive King Zhou of Shang in exchange for the chance to return to Xiqi.

From then on, the entire Chaoge, and even the whole world, secretly mocked him.

What kind of saint is the Marquis of Xibo? He couldn't even taste his own son's flesh!

He endured.

He didn't say anything.

In the dead of night, when no one was around, he would silently vomit up the indigestible flesh and blood, and weep silently in the direction of Xiqi.

He believed that as long as he could destroy the Shang Dynasty and establish a new dynasty, this humiliating history would be covered up.

Later generations will only remember King Wen of Zhou, Ji Chang, for his "sagehood" and "benevolence".

But he was wrong.

A thousand years later, in the court of a "Ming Dynasty" he knew nothing about.

His name is forever linked to the word "beast".

When a father becomes a father, the most extreme, negative example he can think of to prove his innocence is this.

"Oh……"

Ji Chang let out a laugh that sounded even worse than crying.

He slowly raised his head and looked at the empty sky. Two lines of bloody tears flowed from his turbid eyes.

So, this is the price of being a saint?

It turns out that some debts, even those that span a thousand years, must eventually be repaid.

At this moment, both Emperor Wen of Han, Liu Heng, who held absolute power, and Ji Chang, the Marquis of Xibo, imprisoned in a cage, felt a profound connection to the "mad" emperor of later generations reflected in the sky...

fear.

This man not only killed people, he also destroyed their spirits!

He not only shattered the hearts of his contemporaries, but also the hearts of sages throughout the ages!

He tore apart more than just Yu Qian's reputation.

Rather, it is the fig leaf, inscribed with "benevolence, righteousness, and morality," that all emperors and generals have relied on for survival throughout the ages!