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

Inside the live broadcast room, Zhu Dijun's roar resonated with listeners across time and space.

He revealed the dirtiest and bloodiest side of the Ming Dynasty's imperial harem.

The comments on the screen had completely spiraled out of control.

Netizens were so angry at this historical truth that it overturned their understanding that they started cursing.

"Kill them! They must be killed! If these old women aren't eliminated, the Martial Sect will never have a peaceful life!"

"So the drowning case wasn't just the work of civil officials; even the Empress Dowager and the Grand Empress Dowager were involved! This is a conspiracy!"

"But how can we kill her? She's the Empress Dowager, the Grand Empress Dowager, the Emperor's legal mother and grandmother. If we behead her directly, the civil officials will immediately overthrow Emperor Wuzong's throne!"

It's not just modern netizens who are worried.

Emperors of all dynasties were also pondering this extremely difficult dead end.

During the Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang paced back and forth in the hall, a fierce glint in his old eyes.

"Send the Imperial Guards directly to assassinate him?"

"No, if an empress dowager dies in the palace and the murderer cannot be found, it means the emperor is incompetent; if he is found, the emperor is guilty of treason."

"Poisoning?"

"The people in the Imperial Medical Academy have long been infiltrated by civil officials, so the medicine simply cannot be delivered."

During the Chongzhen era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Youjian knelt on the ground, his forehead covered in sweat.

He realized that although he was very angry, if he were in Zhu Houzhao's position, he would be completely helpless in the face of this vicious woman who was so tightly protected by morality and etiquette.

Above the sky, Zhu Dijun drank the water in his glass in one gulp.

He looked at the camera, a chillingly cruel smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

"I know what you're thinking."

"Do you think that, out of filial piety and for the sake of his reputation, Emperor Wuzong cannot touch these women?"

"This is a typical example of feudal and outdated thinking."

Judy Jun suddenly tapped the large screen with her folding fan.

The screen showed the towering fires that had raged through the Yongle, Zhengtong, and Hongzhi reigns.

That was a "fire dragon burning the granary" created by local civil officials to destroy account books.

Why were the civil service officials able to manipulate the Ming Dynasty so easily?

"Because they're shameless, they have no bottom line!"

"When they investigated the accounts and found a fatal flaw, they set a fire and burned everything to the ground! They then claimed it was a fire dragon burning the granary, from the time of the war god Zhu Qizhen to the second year of the Zhengde reign of Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao."

Judy Jun's voice carried a madness that seemed to have seen through everything.

"Since their civil officials can play with fire."

"Then why can't you, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, play?"

"The emperors of the Zhu family were jokingly referred to by later generations as the reincarnations of the Fire God."

"Then you, Zhu Houzhao, might as well solidify your title of 'Fire Virtue Star Lord' today!"

Zhu Dijun gave the ultimate solution, word by word.

"Don't care about this bullshit filial piety!"

"Choose a dark and windy night."

"Have Eight Tigers lead the assassins from the Inner Factory to sneak into those palaces."

"Pour hot oil and sprinkle sulfur."

"Let's have an unexpected fire!"

"Burn Cining Palace and Qingning Palace to the ground!"

The myriad realms and timelines were so quiet that only the sound of the wind could be heard.

All the emperors were shocked by this extremely outrageous idea.

They burned the two empress dowagers to death.

This is absolutely outrageous.

But it was also incredibly exhilarating!

In the Yongle era, Zhu Di slammed his hand on the tea table in front of him, shattering it, and laughed wildly to the sky.

"Great! What a wonderful accidental fire!"

"This method is even more swift than when I executed ten generations of a family back then!"

"Burn it completely clean, so there's no way to prove anything!"

"Zhu Dijun truly lives up to his reputation as a descendant of Emperor Zhongzu of Ming in that AI simulation; his methods are ruthless enough, I like it!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's scheme was not yet over.

He typed two lines of highly ironic text on the screen.

[Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness.]

[The only thing missing is loyalty.]

"Family members, now that we've taken care of the physical needs, the next step is to address the issue of reputation."

"Weren't the scholars of the Ming Dynasty the most devoted to the Cheng-Zhu school of Neo-Confucianism?"

"After you, Zhu Houzhao, have burned the paper offerings, don't panic."

"Send the Imperial Guards to Qufu, Shandong!"

A hint of extreme disdain for the Kong family flashed in Zhu Dijun's eyes.

"Go find the Yansheng Duke's family, who have always been extremely good at reading the political winds and whose knees are as soft as noodles."

"Put the embroidered spring knife to that Kong family member's neck."

"Let him, this exemplary scholar of the world, write a petition in the name of a descendant of Confucius!"

Several large, glaring characters appeared on the screen.

[There were two scourges in the Zhengde Emperor's harem: Empress Dowager Wang and Empress Dowager Zhang!]

"Let the Kong family determine the nature of it themselves!"

"This fire is said to be a divine punishment sent down by God."

"It was Heaven's will that couldn't tolerate these two wicked women interfering in politics and plotting against the imperial heirs, so it sent down lightning to take their lives!"

Zhu Dijun clapped his hands and laughed.

Even the descendants of Confucius say it's divine punishment.

"What can those scholars say? They can't very well slap the face of the contemporary descendants of Confucius, can they? This would affect their promotions and wealth. Two spies have died, but there will be plenty more in the future. The civil service is not short of these well-trained women chosen for the imperial examinations who betray the royal family for the benefit of their own families. On the contrary, they will applaud them."

"This blame won't be pinned on you, Zhu Houzhao; in fact, it will earn you the reputation of a sage ruler who is in accordance with Heaven's will!"

"This is using Confucianism to defeat Confucianism!"

In the modern live streaming room, the comments section has gone completely crazy.

"Holy crap! Jun-ge's move was the perfect finishing blow!"

"Physical exorcism combined with Confucian characterization—who can withstand that?!"

[“Kong family: Listen to me, thank you! You're using me as a shield, aren't you!”]

"That's too ruthless! This is what you call completely overturning the table! You civil officials may be shameless, but I, the emperor, am even more shameless!"

Zhengde Era.

The capital region of the Ming Dynasty.

In the main hall of the Leopard Room.

Fifteen-year-old Zhu Houzhao stared blankly at the sky in mid-air.

It felt as if ten thousand thunderbolts were exploding in my mind at the same time.

He originally thought that his method of breaking the deadlock was ingenious enough.

He endured hardship, built the Leopard House, and used eunuchs to control civil officials.

Yet he still lived in constant fear.

But now, Zhu Dijun's words, spoken by the descendants of his third great-uncle, were like a giant axe that split open all the fog before his eyes.

Screw filial piety!

To hell with ancestral laws!

Those were the shackles that bound his hands and feet, the bloodless knife these intellectuals used to kill.

His father died under this shackle.

His future self also died under this shackle.

"A fire dragon burns down the granary...a fire dragon burns down the palace..."

Zhu Houzhao muttered to himself.

He suddenly raised his head, and a chillingly unrestrained laugh erupted from his young, arrogant face.

That was the madness of a trapped beast after it finally broke its chains.

He strode to the center of the hall and kicked over the desk in front of him.

"Excellent! What a fine Fire God!"

"Since the rules of the Ming Dynasty are so cannibalistic."

"Then today, I will burn these rules, along with the entire Forbidden City, to the ground!"

Zhu Houzhao suddenly drew the Embroidered Spring Knife from his waist.

The blade points to the sky, its murderous aura soaring to the heavens.

"Liu Jin!"

"Zhang Yong!"

The eight eunuchs guarding outside the hall trembled and scrambled into the hall, kneeling heavily on the ground.

"Yes, sir!"

Zhu Houzhao looked down at his most loyal and vicious dogs.

His eyes were bloodshot in the flickering candlelight.

"It is said that the insider is a suicide squad."

"Go to the Ministry of War's warehouse and bring me ten cartloads of flammable oil and thirty cartloads of sulfur."

Liu Jin raised her head, and although she had already guessed what it was, she still couldn't help but feel her voice tremble.

"Your Majesty...where are we taking him?"

Zhu Houzhao gently wiped the blood-dripping blade on Liu Jin's shoulder.

The icy touch sent a chill down the spine of even the most ruthless eunuch in the Ming Dynasty.

"Bring it into the Forbidden City."

"Surround the Cining Palace, surround the Qingning Palace."

"It's windy tonight."

"I want those two palaces so that not even a single live fly can fly out!"

Zhu Houzhao turned around and looked towards the distant Shandong region.

"Gu Dayong!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Take three hundred elite guards and leave the capital immediately, heading straight for Qufu."

"Did you see what my third great-uncle Zhu Dijun said on the screen? Before dawn, I want to see the Duke of Yansheng's 'Theory of Two Evils in the Harem' on my imperial desk!"

"If he dares to misspell a single word, you can smash up the Confucius Temple for me and throw all those pedantic scholars into the latrine!"

Zhu Houzhao burst into laughter.

The laughter pierced through the brick walls of the Leopard House and echoed in the night sky of the capital.

The sky of this great Ming Dynasty will be completely reddened by the firelight tonight.