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

In the modern live broadcast room, as the four bloody words "Burning Leopard House" crashed onto the public screen, the trolls and online trolls who had been suppressed suddenly seemed to receive some unified command and rushed into the barrage like hyenas smelling blood!

["The anchor is talking nonsense! There is absolutely no record of a fire at the Leopard Chamber in March of the eleventh year of the Zhengde reign in the 'Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty'!"]

"Treating unofficial history as official history? Believing folk gossip like the *Wanli Yehuo Bian*? That's utterly ridiculous!"

"They'll fabricate any lie to grab attention and whitewash a tyrannical ruler!"

Faced with this sudden surge of online hype, netizens who had been following the series since the first episode and whose worldviews had been shattered countless times by the truth of the Ming Dynasty's history instantly launched an even fiercer counterattack!

"These trolls are jumping out so eagerly; they must have hit a nerve!"

"Since the attempted fire failed, the revised 'Veritable Records of Emperor Wuzong of Ming' by the civil official group would certainly not record his failed assassination attempt! The fact that unofficial histories dare to record it proves that this particular unofficial history is true!"

"9494, fires often broke out inexplicably in the Ming Dynasty palace. Nobody would believe that Zhu Houzhao's Leopard Chamber wasn't burned down by those treacherous officials!"

"They're panicking! They're panicking! They've stepped on the tail of the feudal scholar-officials!"

In front of the live stream screen, Zhu Dijun casually picked up his water glass and took a sip, coldly ignoring the frantically churning "dirty water" comments on the screen. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at another monitoring host next to the live stream computer. On that screen, intercepted data from a DDoS attack was flashing wildly. Someone had even tried to hack into disconnecting his live stream from the network cable.

"Family, ignore those clowns." Judy Jun put down his water glass, his cold smile growing even more chilling.

"Since the physical fire didn't kill anyone, these behind-the-scenes manipulators naturally had to switch to their most proficient and disgusting weapon."

The flames on the big screen gradually died down, and in their place appeared special effects text that spread wildly like black ink.

"After this unacknowledged fire failed, the ancestral secret of the Ming Dynasty's civil official group—spreading rumors and slander—has officially made its debut!" Zhu Dijun slammed his gavel, his eyes sharp as lightning.

"Don't underestimate the depravity of these people who wield their pens! To attack political enemies, even the Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang was slandered by these pedantic scholars, who claimed that he had an affair with his crown princess, Lady Lü, and fathered the Jianwen Emperor, Zhu Yunwen, thus cuckolding his own son, Zhu Biao!"

In a parallel universe, during the Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty.

The oppressive atmosphere inside the Fengtian Hall completely shattered the moment those words were heard!

"That's utter bullshit!"

Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes were bloodshot. He kicked the broken imperial desk in front of him to pieces, holding the Emperor's Sword in his hand, like a ferocious ancient beast that had gone completely mad.

"We got a green badge?! How could we possibly do something so despicable, worse than an animal! These pedantic scholars, just to smear us, dare to throw such vile and disgusting mud at us! Mao Xiang! Investigate! Anyone who dares to spread such seditious rumors will have their entire family executed, their nine generations exterminated!"

Standing to the side, Crown Prince Zhu Biao was also trembling with rage, his face ashen. This kind of vicious ethical rumor was a thousand times more painful for him than being stabbed with a knife.

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice continued without pause, dropping even more bombshells.

"Even our ancestors were slandered like this, so this time, the scale and malice of the rumors spread by the civil official group against Madam Ma in order to kill Zhu Houzhao's unborn child are unprecedented! From the capital to the secondary capital Nanjing, all the officials in both cities have been mobilized!"

On the big screen, a string of names and memorials popped up like mushrooms after rain!

"Look at the records in the 'Veritable Records of Emperor Wuzong of Ming'! In March of the eleventh year of Zhengde's reign, just a few days after Lady Ma was taken to the Leopard Chamber to prepare for childbirth, Lü Jing and Shi Tianzhu, officials from the Six Ministries in the capital, and Cheng Qichong, an imperial censor from the thirteen circuits, were present! Also present were Yin Yunxiao, an official from the Six Ministries in the secondary capital of Nanjing, and Fan Luo, an imperial censor from the thirteen circuits, among others!"

Zhu Dijun circled these names tightly on the whiteboard with a red pen, then drew a line connecting them to the famous name—[Yang Yiqing]!

"Under the covert instigation of the Grand Secretary and high-ranking officials, these groups of censors, like mad dogs programmed to do so, submitted memorials one after another! What were they accusing her of? They didn't accuse her of interfering in politics; instead, they directly slandered her by claiming she had been married before!"

Zhu Dijun placed his hands on the table, the mockery in his eyes almost overflowing the screen.

"Not only did they say she was secondhand, they also spread rumors that Madam Ma was pregnant with another man's child and was forcibly sent to the Leopard House by her own brother Ma Ang for his own greed! There were even more vicious memorials implying that the child in Madam Ma's womb was actually Ma Ang's!"

boom!

These remarks disgusted everyone, from the emperors in the modern live-streaming room to the common people in the myriad worlds.

Is there any moral bottom line in a relationship where the younger sister's child is the older brother's?

"Did you understand the subtext of this rumor?"

Zhu Dijun zoomed in on the camera, speaking slowly and deliberately, each word piercing the heart. "This is blatantly telling the whole world—you, Zhu Houzhao, have been cuckolded! You're just like your father, Emperor Zhu Youcheng, who was fooled by civil officials and had only one wife his entire life—a pathetic wretch manipulated at will! The child in Ma's belly isn't a royal heir at all; it's a complete bastard! You must immediately execute Ma and her brother to restore order to the nation!"

In the eleventh year of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty, at the Leopard House in the Western Garden.

Zhu Houzhao listened to the analysis on the sky, and his anger turned into laughter. The laughter grew louder and louder, until finally tears streamed down his face.

"What a bastard...what a way to rectify the foundation of the nation!"

Zhu Houzhao drew his embroidered spring knife from his waist and cleaved the bronze crane beside him in two with a single stroke. Those civil officials, in their attempt to ensure he had no heir, had gone so far as to use such a heinous crime to frame a fetus still in the womb!

On the sky, Zhu Dijun spread his hands with a cold smile, and the scroll of history unfolded behind him.

"Dear readers, does this tactic sound familiar? History is never new! This kind of dirty trick of using fabricated bloodlines to attack legitimacy has been played out countless times throughout history!"

Four portraits of ancient people instantly appeared in the center of the screen.

"Qin Shi Huang, Ying Zheng, the emperor who unified China and became a legend throughout history, was fabricated by later scholars to be the illegitimate son of Lü Buwei! Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Di, was falsely accused of not being Empress Ma's biological son in order to weaken the legitimacy of his succession! Emperor Shun of Yuan, Toghon Temür, was claimed to be a descendant of Emperor Gong of Song! The most ridiculous case is Emperor Yuan of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Sima Rui, who was directly falsely accused of 'a cow succeeding a horse,' disowning even the Sima family's bloodline!"

In the Xianyang Palace of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang, Ying Zheng, coldly gazed at the sky, his fingers lightly tapping the hilt of the Lulu sword.

"Lu Buwei's illegitimate son? The pen of the remnants of the Six Kingdoms, I certainly didn't kill too few back then."

During the Yongle reign of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Di's face had turned as black as the bottom of a pot. He was born to Empress Ma, and these civil officials, in their resistance against his tyranny, were actually stabbing him in the back!

"This is the civil service's ultimate weapon!"

Judy Jun slammed her hand on the whiteboard.

"They're killing him by destroying his spirit! They don't even need to produce any evidence; they just need to use their spittle to smear the child in Ma's womb! Completely deny the child's royal bloodline from the very foundation. Then, even if Ma does give birth to a prince in the future, these ministers who control the court will absolutely not acknowledge him! This child can never become the legitimate crown prince!"

Inside the modern live streaming room, the barrage of comments was scrolling wildly.

"That's too vicious! This move legally sterilizes Zhu Houzhao!"

"Scholars kill without a knife; they can drive people to their deaths with rumors!"

"These people are willing to abandon even the most basic principles in order to protect their own interests!"

Zhu Dijun picked up his water glass and took a big gulp, his tone revealing a violent frustration and disappointment.

Faced with this overwhelming public opinion and the ever-present threat of assassination attempts within the Forbidden City, Zhu Houzhao was at his wit's end. As long as he remained in the capital, he and his unborn child would forever be a group of flesh ready to be torn apart at any moment. Left with no other option, he made an extremely risky decision—to take Lady Ma and leave the palace for Xuanfu, his true stronghold beyond the Great Wall where he could truly control the military!

The map on the screen instantly stretched out, with a red line pointing from the Forbidden City straight to the northwest.

"But at this critical juncture, I have to say—Zhu Houzhao was a complete and utter idiot in this matter!"

Zhu Dijun ripped off his tie and pointed at the camera, cursing loudly.

"What kind of time is this! You've been forced to run away with your wife and children! And you still have the heart of a woman! You didn't even kill Zhang Yong, that traitorous eunuch who betrayed his country! You didn't even kill that biological mother of yours—Empress Dowager Zhang—who's been making you miserable in the harem every day!"

"What does it mean that these two people are still in the Forbidden City? It means that the civil service has planted two super radars deep within the royal palace! Zhu Houzhao had just begun preparing to go to Xuanfu when Zhang Yong and Empress Dowager Zhang leaked his escape plan, down to the very last detail, to those old men in the cabinet!"

Viewers across the internet were chilled to the bone. Without eliminating the mole, progress would be impossible.

During the Zhengde era of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Houzhao, inside the Leopard Chamber, was deathly pale. He truly couldn't bring himself to do it, after all, one was his wife who had watched him grow up, and the other was his own mother.

"In the struggle for imperial power, if you retain even a sliver of compassion, someone else can use that very compassion to strangle you!"

Zhu Dijun's voice was as cold as iron.

The timeline on the big screen jumped instantly!

[March of the eleventh year of Zhengde!]

"Upon receiving intelligence from an inside source, the civil service immediately launched their most frenzied attack! Lu Yong, the Imperial Censor of Zhili, stepped forward and submitted a memorial openly and vehemently opposing Zhu Houzhao's construction of a temporary palace in Xuanfu! Trying to escape? No way! You must stay in the Forbidden City and wait to die!"

Immediately afterwards, the timeline jumps to [April of the eleventh year of Zhengde]!

"The final battle has begun!" Zhu Dijun pounded his keyboard, several joint memorials crashing onto the screen like a mountain. "Grand Secretary Liang Chu and others! Minister of War Qiao Yu in Nanjing! Censor Wu Hua and others! The core power of the civil service in both capitals has been mobilized! They've submitted memorials one after another, and this time, they've even resorted to the ultimate, most ruthless, and most skillful tactic of Ming officials—the threat of mass resignation!"

Four large, blood-red characters flashed wildly across the memorial: "Please establish an heir apparent!"

"They demanded that Zhu Houzhao immediately select a candidate from the imperial clan to establish an heir! What's the subtext? My lords, the entire court is pointing fingers at the twenty-five-year-old emperor and begging him—you, a childless heir who can't produce a legitimate heir, hurry up and establish a puppet ruler, then you can die in peace!"

The live stream was deathly silent; everyone was stunned by this outrageous coercion.

"After seeing this, I can only say that Zhu Houzhao was too foolish and too weak."

Judy Jun's eyes were like those of a bloodthirsty wolf.

"Faced with this kind of coercion, if it were me, since you want me to establish an heir, I would just poison my biological mother, Empress Dowager Zhang, to death! When the Empress Dowager dies, the whole country mourns! According to etiquette, the emperor should observe three years of mourning! I wonder which fearless civil official would dare to force me to establish an heir during these three years of national mourning? We could even drag it out until Empress Ma gives birth to the child!"

Across countless worlds and timelines, numerous emperors gasped in shock, utterly astonished by the insane and bloody problem-solving approach of this descendant, Zhu Dijun.

Killing his mother to buy time? This tactic is more ruthless than a viper!

But it must be said that it is very effective, especially when the mother is a traitor. It is no wonder that it is a man of the Ming Zhongzu who was simulated by AI.

"Unfortunately, Zhu Houzhao didn't dare to do that."

Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly turned low, and the image on the big screen gradually fell into a deathly darkness.

"Faced with this unprecedented predicament, and with the inescapable trap laid by the resignations and suicide plea of ​​the court officials, Zhu Houzhao was completely cornered."

Suddenly, a high-pitched neighing of a warhorse rang out from the darkness!

"After a long period of suppression and planning, the result was the surreal event in history that completely overturned the ancestral system of the Ming Dynasty—"

A line of bright red text, as glaring as fresh blood, suddenly ripped through the darkness of the screen!

In the twelfth year of the Zhengde reign, Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao forcibly fled the Forbidden City!