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

The studio's overhead lights were dimmed to a yellowish hue, like an oil lamp burning out on a sickbed. The oppressive atmosphere was transmitted to the very nerve endings of every viewer through the screen.

"The Taoist priest poisoned the body, which is the initial input damage. But the body's immune system, combined with the royal medical resources, can often keep the patient alive."

Zhu Dijun slapped a duty roster from the Ming Dynasty Imperial Hospital onto the big screen.

"Therefore, Xu Jie intends to implement a second decapitation strategy: cutting off the medical defenses of the Imperial Medical Academy!"

In the holographic projection, several imperial physicians dressed in official robes carried medicine chests and walked meekly under the eaves of the West Garden.

"The head of the Imperial Medical Academy, and the imperial physicians on duty to take Jiajing's pulse—whom did these people ultimately listen to in the ecological hierarchy of the Ming Dynasty's officialdom?"

Zhu Dijun raised an extremely pointed question.

Many viewers asked questions in the live stream:

"Aren't the imperial physicians all there to treat the emperor? If the emperor dies, wouldn't they be buried with him?"

"That's right. Even the most audacious imperial physician wouldn't dare to risk his entire family to appease a civil official, would he?"

Zhu Dijun looked at the comments on the secondary screen and shook his finger.

"Don't apply the mindset of watching Qing Dynasty palace dramas to the bureaucratic system of the Ming Dynasty. In the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, the Imperial Medical Academy was no longer the private property of the royal family. The promotion, evaluation, and salary of these imperial physicians were all controlled by the Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of Rites. Their social class was that of dependents on the Jiangnan literati and the civil official group. If their master changed, they would simply find another patron to continue practicing medicine; if they offended the Grand Secretariat, they wouldn't even be able to stay as low as a seventh-rank official."

He took out a red pen and drew a huge red cross on the duty roster.

"In his later years, Emperor Jiajing's organs were riddled with toxins. How did these imperial physicians operate? In short—they were passively slacking off. Every time they examined him and took his pulse, even though they knew it was heavy metal poisoning, they would always prescribe mild sedatives and qi-regulating decoctions. They never used any potent medicines that truly had detoxifying and strengthening effects. They allowed the lead and mercury toxins to run rampant in Jiajing's internal organs!"

"Moreover, in the winter of the forty-fifth year of the Jiajing reign, the emperor's phlegm and wheezing worsened, bringing him to the brink of death. The imperial physicians deliberately concealed the truth of irreversible organ damage from the emperor, creating the illusion that he had 'just caught a cold.' At the same time, they did not fully report the critical condition to the outside world. A few days before his death, his condition completely collapsed, and Jiajing vomited uncontrollably. The imperial physicians then offered their final, impeccable excuse: 'The medicinal properties of the elixir are potent and should not be mixed with ordinary medicines, otherwise the two will clash and harm the emperor's body.'"

Zhu Dijun placed his hands on the podium and let out a chilling laugh.

"Listen to this, is this what you call treating an illness? This is called watching you die and then helping to seal the coffin lid! Refusing to provide treatment, letting the poison take effect, and not being able to find any medical or political violations."

The Ming Dynasty, in a certain parallel universe.

The warm pavilion in the Forbidden City during the Chongzhen reign.

Zhu Youjian sat behind his desk, staring intently at the sky, his breathing becoming extremely heavy, his chest heaving violently. He grabbed the medicine bowl from the table and smashed it to the ground. The dark brown medicine splashed everywhere, staining the bright yellow carpet.

Wang Chengen, who was attending to the sick man, was so frightened that he fell to the ground and kowtowed repeatedly.

"Medical neglect...what a passive approach to treatment." Chongzhen's voice was dry and hoarse, like a broken bellows, his eyes bloodshot. He recalled his elder brother, the Tianqi Emperor Zhu Youxiao, who had died young. After his brother fell into the water, he was initially only frightened, but the Imperial Hospital prescribed a so-called miraculous medicine. After taking it, he swelled up all over and died suddenly within a few days. Later, the entire court fell into the hands of the Donglin Party.

"These imperial physicians are all dogs kept by the civil service!"

Chongzhen gritted his teeth, his nails digging into his palms.

"The emperor of the Ming Dynasty didn't even have the right to take a proper dose of medicine when he was sick. Scholars throughout the land conspired to poison the dregs of his medicine and falsify medical records. His position on the throne was truly worse than that of pigs and dogs!"

In the studio, Zhu Dijun's deduction entered the bloodiest and most naked third layer of isolation.

"The poisoning is complete, and the incurable condition is confirmed. But to ensure there are no witnesses left, the most crucial step is still missing: destroying the crime scene."

He typed a heavy command on the holographic control panel. On the large screen, the heavy gate of the West Garden slowly closed and was locked with a massive padlock.

"In December of the 45th year of the Jiajing reign, with only the final countdown remaining before the emperor's death, the 'Veritable Records of Emperor Shizong of Ming' documented an extremely unusual and highly irregular detail. During the emperor's critical illness, Grand Secretary Xu Jie bypassed the Directorate of Ceremonial and ordered the complete closure of the Western Garden Palace gates!"

Zhu Dijun walked to the whiteboard and wrote the words "Clear the area," each stroke carrying an extremely strong sense of oppression.

"Apart from Xu Jie himself and his trusted personal eunuchs, all other cabinet ministers, including Gao Gong and Guo Pu, members of the imperial family, princes, and meritorious military generals who had received favors for generations, were forbidden from entering to visit him! The excuse was, 'His Majesty needs to rest quietly, lest we disturb his health.' What kind of rule is this? In past dynasties, it was an ancestral custom for important officials and relatives to stay outside when an emperor was seriously ill. With this move, Xu Jie directly turned the highest power center of the Ming Dynasty into a secret prison under his private control!"

The air in the live broadcast room seemed to freeze, and viewers felt the suffocating sense of political despair through the screen.

"Why clear the area? Because the tragic state of Jiajing at the end cannot be seen. Because the poison residue added by the Taoist priests needs to be confiscated immediately. Because the medical records of the Imperial Medical Academy, full of lies, must all be thrown into the fire and destroyed immediately after his death."

Zhu Dijun pointed to the tightly closed palace gate on the screen.

Behind this door, the Jiajing Emperor discovered that even his channels for calling for help had been cut off. He had no loyal followers he had promoted, and no Imperial Guards he could mobilize. Those once obsequious eunuchs and Taoist priests had all become cold-blooded onlookers planted around him by Xu Jie. He, an autocratic ruler who had controlled the empire for forty-five years, could only suffer the torment of organ failure alone amidst endless hallucinations, numbness in his limbs, and coughing up blood. The entire encoffining process was arranged by Xu Jie, and the body was immediately sealed in a coffin, so no one could check for signs of acute poisoning or improper medication.

"What is this? This is not a death from illness at all. This is a perfect purge that exploits loopholes in the system, monopolizes internal and external information channels, and is comparable to formatting a hard drive. Xu Jie has cleared all the cache of the Jiajing era, leaving not even the last fragment."

Zhu Dijun grabbed the blackboard eraser and wiped away the door that represented imprisonment.

"The man is dead. The biggest obstacle has been removed. If that were all, future generations might still think it was a natural death. But Xu Jie's next move was like trying to erect a 'protest' archway at a crime scene that had just been cleaned up, completely exposing the ultimate secret of the entire coup."