Chu Lu rubbed his forehead, on the verge of a breakdown.
He had thought that, with this Prince Consort sending troops to ambush and kill him, then launching a surprise attack on the spot, he had run into some brash, male-lead-style brute in a female-lead novel. He had never expected this stunt instead.
"Cuihua taught you this method, didn't she?" Chu Lu said.
The stench of this scheme was simply too strong. It was cut from the same cloth as framing the Imperial Consort with a dustpan, using the Imperial Sword to chop the Emperor, and relying on an Imperial Decree Tablet to save one's life.
The Prince Consort merely snorted. "Does that matter? The important question is, when are you going to cut your own throat?"
"I'm telling you," Chu Lu said with a sigh. Similar things had happened again and again, to the point that he could no longer even get angry.
"Have you considered that I'm the Emperor? I can change the rules however I please." Chu Lu said, "Whether I count as one of the nine generations of kin is a matter of a single word from me. Even if you want to say that ancestral laws cannot be altered, I can take a step back and issue an edict of divorce, or remove my elder sister from the family registry. Then you'll have nothing to do with the imperial family, and even exterminating nine generations won't reach my head."
The Prince Consort froze, then her face turned deathly pale. Trembling, she said, "No! You can't do that!"
"Why not?"
"Well, this... no! Anyway, you just can't!" the Prince Consort screamed herself hoarse.
"Alas." Chu Lu rose to his feet, no longer wanting to speak with this fool. He instructed his subordinates, "Drag them away and torture them for answers. I only want to know three things. First, where is Cuihua now? Second, what is their relationship with Cuihua? Third, where exactly did the army under her command come from? Report to me once you're done."
"By Your Majesty's command!"
Chu Lu left the main hall and found a side room to rest in.
He felt rather tired.
Yes, days of nonstop travel had not exhausted him, and fighting the enemy at night had not exhausted him, but that conversation just now had tired him out.
Being unable to vent the complaints filling his stomach was genuinely miserable.
Chu Lu opened the Chat Group, intending to vent to the group members. But after glancing through the chat log, he fell silent at once.
Xu Liniang: "Chu Lu is interrogating the Prince Consort right now. There's an eighty or ninety percent chance the Prince Consort is about to drop dead... Whoa! There's actually a way around it!"
Hua Honglian: "What way? Hurry up and tell us."
Luo Qingdie: "There can't possibly be a way to stop Chu Lu, right?"
Zhu Shanlin: "Not even an Imperial Decree Tablet could stop him. The Prince Consort can't possibly say she's carrying his child, can she?"
Liu Ruyue: "You cliffhanger bastard!"
Xu Liniang: "The Prince Consort provoked Chu Lu into imposing the punishment of exterminating nine generations, but Chu Lu himself is among those nine generations. Now Chu Lu is riding a tiger and unable to dismount—he can neither kill her nor spare her!"
Hua Honglian: "Eh? Wait, that's right! They're related by blood and marriage."
Luo Qingdie: "You can do that!?"
Zhu Shanlin: "What an ingenious move! She actually found a loophole."
Liu Ruyue: "Terrifying indeed."
Xu Liniang: "Ah, what a pity it was useless. Chu Lu still came out one move ahead. He said he could use divorce or removal from the family registry to sever their relationship, so they would no longer be within the nine generations of kin."
Hua Honglian: "Amazing!"
Luo Qingdie: "See? I told you, there was no way they could stop Chu Lu."
Zhu Shanlin: "A clash between masters—what a feast for the eyes!"
Liu Ruyue: "It would be worth dying just to see this!"
Chu Lu: "..."
He silently closed the Chat Group, thinking that he truly had been tired out of his wits to want to vent to this bunch of idiots.
"Honestly, there should be some normal people in a female-lead novel, shouldn't there?" Chu Lu muttered. "It'd be nice if a few showed up."
Chu Lu considered himself a generous person. He should not have to enjoy this suffering alone.
Two hours later, the interrogation in the Prince Consort's residence finally ended.
Under brutal torture, how could pampered people like the Prince Consort and the others possibly endure? They spilled every detail like beans pouring from a basket.
After the soldiers organized the confessions, they came to report.
As Chu Lu listened, his expression was calm at first, but it gradually changed, from confusion to astonishment and then to utter bewilderment.
This confession answered the three questions Chu Lu had raised earlier, though in a way he had never anticipated.
The origin of everything began with the Prince Consort's childhood. When she was young, the Prince Consort got lost in the mountains and encountered a little girl. The two encouraged each other, found their way out of the mountains, and formed a deep bond. The Prince Consort even gave the little girl a family jade pendant, but for some unknown reason, the girl suddenly disappeared afterward.
The Prince Consort then grew up, took the imperial examinations, was chosen by the Princess, married her, and treated each other with mutual respect. Their days should have continued like that.
But one day, Cuihua suddenly appeared and brought Jiang Xuening before the Prince Consort, claiming that she was the little girl from back then. Overjoyed, the Prince Consort took Jiang Xuening as a concubine. But this sparked the Princess's jealousy and set off a wave of household infighting.
Jiang Xuening tearfully lodged a complaint, and in a fit of rage, the Prince Consort hung the Princess from the city gate to bake in the sun for ten days.
When Chu Lu heard this, he nearly lost his seat.
He asked several times in succession. Only after the soldiers repeatedly assured him that they were not joking did he brace himself and continue listening.
And the story that followed was even more absurd.
The Princess failed to hold on and was baked alive to death. Only then did the Prince Consort panic. Cuihua appeared again and said that the Princess's death could not be concealed forever. Once the Emperor learned of it, she would certainly die. At this point, rebellion was the Prince Consort's only path.
Cuihua also said that she could help the Prince Consort recruit troops and buy horses. So the Prince Consort gritted her teeth and agreed.
That was where the Prince Consort's forces had come from.
Then came the twist.
This had all been a trap.
That Jiang Xuening was not the little girl from back then, but a spy from the Miecchi Kingdom, which was currently at war with Dayan.
That's right—only at this moment did Chu Lu learn that Dayan was at war.
Marquis Zhenbei was leading an army of five hundred thousand, resisting foreign enemies and holding the borderlands.
Because of his interest in military strength, Chu Lu specifically questioned Xu Liniang for the details while continuing to listen to the report.
Jiang Xuening was a spy, and the forces Cuihua had brought over naturally belonged to the Miecchi Kingdom.
It turned out that Cuihua had long since become entangled with the Miecchi Kingdom. She had wanted to use the Prince Consort to plant forces within the country, so that when the time came, they could strike from within and without and deal Dayan a crushing blow.
Incidentally, the Prince Consort's true White Moonlight happened to be the Princess.
It was said that when the servants of the Prince Consort's residence collected the Princess's body, they found that family jade pendant on her. Seized by greed, they secretly kept it.
Because the truth was too tortuous, the soldiers conducted cross-examinations and verified each other's accounts just to be safe.
The results proved correct. They had simply, by accident, shattered the Prince Consort's state of mind.
After learning the truth, she became utterly hysterical, endlessly screaming for Jiang Xuening to pay with her life.
Chu Lu: "..."
"Um, I need to go take a look." Chu Lu paused before saying, "Don't misunderstand. It's not that I doubt you. I just... I just need to go take a look."
The soldiers wore expressions of complete understanding.
Before you continue