Defeat the system! Kiss my little monster!

"Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer! Your Majesty! Your Majesty! I am the head of the harem, I am the Empress... Your Majesty! You can't do this to me... Your Majesty..."

A shrill female voice suddenly rang out from behind the pile of stones. Upon hearing this, Shen Yu paused slightly, but still held the broken stones in his hand without moving.

Mu Yuyuan, who had just approached the pile of stones, suddenly stopped. The disheveled woman in white rushed towards him. Her fingernails were full of mud, and her body was obviously dirty. She tugged at Mu Yuyuan's sleeve and kept wailing.

"Your Majesty... I was wrong, Your Majesty... Please forgive me... Please forgive me! Your Majesty, I beg you... Don't abandon me..."

Mu Yuyuan frowned, yanked the woman who was tearing and crawling at him away, and said coldly, "Where did this madwoman come from? Drag her away!"

"No—no! I won't leave! I won't leave! This is my home, my house! You're a thief! You're the thieves... my son..."

Upon hearing the noise, the guards quickly gathered around. They pulled the woman away and whispered to Mu Yuyuan, "Chief, the Cold Palace is full of concubines who have been abandoned by the emperor. They are all somewhat mentally unstable. In this situation, they have probably been frightened."

As the woman was dragged backward, she struggled and clung to a nearby stone pillar. Her fingernails and flesh were torn to shreds, and blood flowed continuously from exposed skin.

She stared intently at Mu Yuyuan, still muttering to herself, "It's all fake...it's all fake..."

Mu Yuyuan's face was extremely ugly.

The guards were swift and efficient; in just a minute or two, they dragged the madwoman away and threw her into the nearby woodshed. Heavy iron locks pierced the doorknob, and the woman continued to pound on the door, her sharp, pitiful screams penetrating the air and reaching everyone's ears.

"Chief, shall we continue?"

Mu Yuyuan's eyes held a hint of melancholy. He seemed not to hear the woman's voice, stood there for a few seconds, and then suddenly walked behind the pile of rubble.

The guards followed closely behind. Mu Yuyuan strode forward, and after vaulting over the pile of stones, he saw only a stagnant river. The surrounding area was deserted, and the night wind swept through, dispelling all the familiar scents that Mu Yuyuan had smelled earlier.

There is no one here.

Mu Yuyuan looked around, stared at the surface of the Dead Water River for a moment, then turned and left.

"Go back and continue the search."

"Yes." The guards acknowledged the order, turned around, and followed their leader outside.

The firelight outside gradually faded into the distance, and the shadowy figures flickered and disappeared into the area. The stagnant lake, as if falling into dust, trembled and merged with the darkness, then for some unknown reason stirred up ripples.

Shen Yu had already changed locations before Mu Yuyuan arrived. The crazy woman made quite a fuss and wouldn't let go of Mu Yuyuan, which gave Shen Yu an opportunity to escape.

Shen Yu hid in a dilapidated house that the guards had just searched. He looked out the window and saw that the guards, having found nothing, had expanded their search to another palace outside the Cold Palace.

Shen Yu watched them walk away until the entire Cold Palace returned to silence before he stood up from his hiding place.

Despite its precarious existence, it remained vigilant, keeping an eye on the coal briquettes and surveying the surroundings once more as Shen Yu stood up.

Most of the concubines imprisoned in the Cold Palace had gone mad. Desperate to survive, they smashed down the walls next to the Cold Palace, causing many of the madwomen to escape. Outside, chaos reigned, with strange noises constantly emanating from the walls.

Shen Yu approached the house where the madwoman had been imprisoned. He stood motionless behind a door, and could vaguely hear heavy breathing coming from inside.

"...Lan Yu".

The voice was soft and trembling noticeably, yet the words uttered were exceptionally clear and powerful.

Shen Yu felt a chill run down his spine. He was stunned for a moment before squatting down in front of the wooden door that was locked from top to bottom: "...Empress Zhaoxian."

The person behind the door stopped breathing. In an unknown moment, her emotions collapsed, and her voice rose to the level of a sob: "Lanyu, in this world, you are the only one who still remembers me."

Shen Yu's eyelashes trembled slightly. He felt a dryness and pain in his throat, making it difficult to speak.

Empress Zhaoxian, Jiang Feiran, was the first wife of Emperor Yue and is now the deposed empress. She married Xuan Lin, who was then a prince, when she was a teenager. The two were a harmonious couple and shared joys and sorrows.

Over a decade has passed, from prince to Emperor of Yue, from battlefield to palace, she has witnessed everything Xuan Lin has gone through. The fierce winds and sandstorms on the border battlefield tormented people's flesh and spirit, and also gradually robbed Zhao Xian of her beauty.

Xuan Lin once felt sorry for the chilblains on her hands and would kiss her wounds at night. But after ascending the throne, he became particularly disgusted with her rough and loose skin and regarded her as an ugly woman.

Jiang Feiran was incredibly perceptive. She argued with Xuan Lin several times in the palace, and the rift between them gradually deepened. Not long after Xuan Lin ascended the throne, he deposed Jiang Feiran from her position as empress and imprisoned her in the cold palace on the grounds that she had attempted to poison a prince.

Shortly thereafter, Xuan Lin issued an edict to marry Shen Yu.

Shen Yu and Jiang Feiran had a close relationship. The time they spent together on the battlefield was the last difficult but hopeful period of their lives.

Now... Xuan Lin ascends the throne and acts recklessly; Shen Yucheng becomes infamous for his evil deeds; and Zhao Xian is directly deposed and imprisoned in the cold palace.

Shen Yu didn't know how to tell Zhao Xian about what was happening in the outside world. Zhao Xian had been imprisoned in the Cold Palace long before Shen Yu was made empress, so she probably didn't know what Lan Yu had become.

Shen Yu had heard rumors of Zhao Xian's madness, but upon seeing her again and hearing her voice, he realized that it wasn't true.

"Lanyu, we are sorry for what we did to you." Zhaoxian tried to see Shen Yu's face through the crack in the door. She opened her eyes wide and engraved the slightest trace she saw into her pupils.

Her voice was dry and withered, like a dying tree: "The late emperor asked me to take good care of you before he passed away, but I failed to do so... Now, I am also nearing my end."

Shen Yu was taken aback: "...The late emperor?"

“Yes… the late Emperor.” Zhao Xian chuckled softly, tears streaming down her face. “Xuan Lin has been dead for three years now.”

Shen Yu blinked.

“Lanyu, in the seventh year of Cheng’an, Xuanlin ascended the throne. He was seriously ill at that time. Even if you worked tirelessly to save him, he wouldn’t live much longer.”

Looking at the light shining through the crack, Zhao Xian slowly said, "He had a premonition that his death was coming, so he wrote his will in advance and decided to pass the throne to the then young second prince... That edict has always been in my hands."

Shen Yu: "The Second Prince drowned two years ago."

“I know, I pushed him down.” Zhao Xian lowered her voice and said, “If I don’t kill him, Xuan Lin will kill him too when he finds out, so I might as well do it now.”

Shen Yu lowered his eyes, remained silent for a long while, and then asked, "You faked your death...where did you send him?"

Zhao Xian coughed once: "Cheng Yuanshan."