The Empress gazed at the floor, her expression utterly blank, cold with utter desolation: You once swore that the one you loved most in this life was me, that the Nightshade Family incident back then was for my sake! You said that, no matter what, I at least had a purpose in you. But the relentless suppression of the Jun family, especially afterward, stemmed entirely from the darkest corners of your own psyche!

I am merely a woman, incapable of much, and I know I can do nothing. Since you dare utter such words to me today, I understand this means I will never again have the chance to leave the Imperial Palace, is that correct? The Empress slowly raised her head, looking at him quietly.

The Emperor turned his face away. Otherwise, you wouldn't be saying all this to me today. During this time, I have also visited the Jun family more often.

Heh, just as your suspicions never ceased, but I will give you only one warning. The Empress suddenly looked up, her eyes flashing sharply, radiating icy coldness: Ye Guhan! The Emperor flinched, finally realizing why the Empress had chosen to respond to him today.

Because Ye Guhan was under the protection of the Jun family. I hope you will not harm him again! He is already a complete wreck!

He has nothing left now; in fact, he lost most things long ago. Now, even the profound cultivation he relied upon to survive... The Empress’s voice was hollow.

Looking at the magnificent palace, her eyes were vacant, devoid of vitality. But he still has you! Your heart!

The Emperor roared, his voice tearing apart his very soul. My heart died eighteen years ago. The Empress said faintly: I no longer mind if my body perishes too, and takes your heart with it.

The Emperor stumbled backward. Just then, a eunuch’s announcement drifted from outside the door: Reporting to Your Majesty, a dispatch has arrived from the Tiannan region. Hand it over.

His Majesty the Emperor remained silent for a long time, propping his forehead with his hand, his face etched with defeat and disappointment. After a long, long while, he finally managed in a husky voice: Bring it in. Looking at the intelligence report, rolled tightly into a thin thread, His Majesty the Emperor slowly unrolled it.

After only a single glance, his pupils contracted violently. Then, his eyes, sharp as a falcon's, fixed upon the document, as if this mere piece of paper were his mortal enemy! Finally, his hand trembled, and the paper fluttered down, landing on the floor.

The Emperor’s hands remained poised as if still holding the paper open, his eyes fixed and unmoving. His body seemed as if struck suddenly by lightning, or perhaps seized by a sudden dizzy spell; he swayed twice, nearly toppling over! Then, he slowly bent down, slowly picked up the paper, and read it again meticulously, sighing heavily.

Then, seemingly still unable to believe it, he brought it close to his eyes once more, reading it word by word. His imposing figure swayed again, and his face suddenly turned deathly pale! The paper drifted from his grasp like a yellow leaf in the wind, falling to the ground again!

But this time, he did not retrieve it. The contents of the report were largely similar to those received by the major noble houses, though significantly more detailed. What caught His Majesty the Emperor’s gaze most fiercely were a few specific sentences.

... Jun Moxie single-handedly battled Xiao Buyu, Xiao Buyu committed suicide out of shame and indignation... Suspicions arise that Jun Moxie's strength has already reached the level of a Supreme Master...

... Jun Moxie interrogated the events of that year, and by sheer coincidence, Xiao Buyu confessed details about the Blood Sword Hall... ...

Jun Wuyi’s legs recovered, and he defeated Xiao Han in battle... Jun Moxie crippled Xiao Han... ...

One of the Eight Supreme Masters, the Prairie Eagle God Eagle Bokong, is currently residing with the Jun family... Supreme Master strength... Blood Sword Hall...

Eagle Bokong... Jun Moxie... His Majesty the Emperor murmured these words in an exceptionally strange voice.

The Jun family... The Jun family... His Majesty the Emperor sighed deeply, his gaze profound, before slowly closing his eyes, deep exhaustion lining the corners of his eyes.

Slowly, he murmured: I regret my initial soft-heartedness—my womanly benevolence has culminated in disaster! His voice was somewhat hoarse, carrying a subtle tremor! Then, he hurried out.

As he reached the doorway, he suddenly tripped on the threshold, staggering violently and nearly falling flat on his face, utterly disgraced. A guard stepped forward to help, but he had already straightened up. Staring heavily at the sky, he suddenly recalled something, whipping his head around, his eyes locked fiercely onto Princess Lingmeng’s face!

Then, he vanished. In the Empress’s chambers, only the mother and daughter remained, gazing at each other. Princess Lingmeng trembled, taking a few steps to pick up the paper lying on the floor.

She felt that this paper weighed more than a thousand pounds! She only hated herself for hearing so many secrets today! For Princess Yu Lingmeng, this was undoubtedly a crushing blow, too immense to bear!

These past few days, she had just glimpsed a sliver of apparent happiness, only for it to be completely shattered by the history revealed in her father’s long exposition! Now, Princess Lingmeng felt an aching emptiness inside, grasping at nothing. Looking at her mother, she realized her mother's eyes held the exact same look as her own!

The mother and daughter exchanged a look, both recognizing the profound misery and despair of their situation. Leaning into each other, they finished reading the document. A strange expression, whether a grimace of crying or laughing, appeared on the Empress’s face.

She sighed powerlessly, steeped in deep melancholy and wistfulness, and spoke one sentence. Princess Lingmeng, like a startled fawn, shook violently upon hearing this statement. She collapsed limply onto the floor, her eyes filled with terror, utterly despairing of everything.

Because the Empress had said: Misfortunes sent by heaven can be overcome, but self-inflicted ruin brings inescapable doom! It has come swiftly; the wheel of karma turns, and retribution is swift! Jun Moxie, Jun Wuyi, Tianxiang are finished...

To outsiders, Jun Moxie, the Young Master Jun, appeared to be enjoying great success and riding a wave of fortune. Yet, his journey so far had been anything but smooth; in fact, it could be called fraught with peril at every step, moments of heart-stopping terror, fields strewn with thorns, and endless desolation! This was solely because the strange occurrences surrounding the Young Master were too numerous.

It was as if a peerless master were deliberately targeting him along the way, subjecting him to an unending, non-stop barrage of continuous pranks! This left Young Master Jun utterly vexed, unable to defend himself, with nowhere to hide and no place to take cover! To cite one particularly absurd and unbelievable example: he was riding his horse with the main contingent down a road when a flock of crows suddenly flew overhead.

Then, this flock of crows simultaneously suffered severe diarrhea. That in itself is already outlandish, isn't it? That’s not even the worst part—as everyone else was completely untouched, the aiming precision of the mass avian excretion was flawless, striking only Young Master Jun, drenching him and his horse thoroughly!

Any sane person would never imagine a flock of crows flying high overhead suddenly experiencing collective digestive distress! Young Master Jun was still within the realm of normal human comprehension, so he couldn't have predicted it either, and thus, he suffered the consequences. The smell was instantly overpowering, enough to make people gag!

If merely smelling it was that bad, what must it have been like for the Young Master, who was the direct target of this... 'manure'? Another time, while eating, gathered in a circle with the Six Soldiers, happily devouring his meal, halfway through his bowl of rice, a cockroach crawled out from the bottom—and it was still alive...

If these examples had occurred only once, though bizarre and outlandish, they might still have been vaguely explained away as coincidence. But when the second, third, or even fourth time this happened, it seemed impossible to attribute it to mere chance anymore, didn't it? And the torment didn't end there.

As the 'manured' individual, he naturally needed a bath. Having finally cleaned himself, he discovered upon reaching the bank that his neatly prepared clean clothes had vanished without a trace! He searched naked for a long time without success, only to be immediately hit by a lump of mud thrown from somewhere unknown.

Forced to return to the river for a second wash. The timing of these bizarre incidents was always exquisitely precise, offering the victim almost no chance to react. Even with Young Master Jun Moxie’s superhuman reflexes, he could only evade a small fraction; most of the time, he was left completely at the mercy of these events!

Young Master Jun was truly beaten. A perfectly flat road, unharmed by a thousand troops passing over it, but when he walked across it, with a deafening rumble, he and his horse plunged into a huge pit. Even if this was a prank, the scale was immense—what level of power would be required to create such a trap instantaneously?

When sleeping at night, he decided against sleeping in his tent. But no matter where he slept, if it was a tent, the Young Master, accustomed to high-quality rest, would inevitably find several brightly colored snakes coiled inside his clothes when he dressed in the morning. To be honest, if it weren't for the Hongjun Pagoda and the Yin-Yang Evasion technique shielding him, Young Master Jun wouldn't have been able to survive these days...

However, Jun Moxie's targeted countermeasures and reactions earned the admiration and awe of those setting the traps! If an ordinary person encountered such things, they would surely have suffered complete mental collapse long ago. But Jun Moxie, Young Master Jun, was still bouncing around cheerfully.

He didn't even let his expression change; if he got dirty, he'd simply wash again. After washing, he stopped looking for clothes altogether, simply vanishing naked, and nobody knew how he disappeared—leaving people scratching their heads, eyes wide with confusion! Every morning at mealtime, he stopped eating rice or the communal stew, opting instead to roast snake meat and consume it with relish, allowing his squad of rough soldiers to feast as well.

Wasting such plump snakes seemed a pity! Watching this, Snake King Qianxun’s teeth were clenched so hard they audibly clicked. If any birds or other flying creatures passed overhead, Jun Moxie would shoot them down from a great distance.

If the meat wasn't tasty, he'd ignore it; if it was good, it became another wild delicacy. If there were traps on the road ahead, he would still fall into them, but only his horse would go down—he himself would manage to avoid the drop. In short, throughout this continuous battle of wits, Young Master Jun appeared to be suffering losses, yet he always managed to satisfy his appetite.

And so they journeyed on like this. Those designing the schemes grew desperate: how could one person possess such unwavering psychological fortitude? How could his guard be so consistently high?

Surely, they could wear him down through sheer attrition! But Jun Moxie had spent his entire previous life enduring the most hostile environments, and many of his experiences were far more dangerous than his current predicament. Not to mention, the current situation was, at best, mere mischief, posing absolutely no threat to his life—it could not compare to his near-death experiences in his past life.

In fact, after each confrontation, the Young Master even felt a flicker of long-lost familiarity, finding the entire process surprisingly relaxed and enjoyable! This left the white-robed maiden Mei Xueyan and the Snake King Qianxun looking at each other in helpless resignation. They truly could not believe such a bizarre anomaly existed in the mortal world.

If they had been subjected to such continuous torment, they would have sought out a tree to end their own lives long ago. [Ti: Dear reader, the current chapter has reached the final page of this book]