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

On the holographic screen in the studio, the close-up of the previous image of the Western centipede buckle gradually faded away.

Zhu Dijun walked to the whiteboard, tossing the marker in his hand, and let out a very soft, cold laugh. After the previous intense physical crackdowns and revelations of the truth, the atmosphere in the live stream was on the verge of boiling over after a period of absolute tension.

"Alright, family. We've pretty much covered the origins of the aliens. Now, let's shift our focus from the West and the Ice Fields back to our homeland, back to this land of China. We're going to tell you something even more shocking, something that happened right under our noses."

On the whiteboard, Zhu Dijun wrote down a striking date and place name: June 24, 2026, Longxu Temple, Anxi, Fujian.

"I'm sure everyone knows about the lightning strike and fire incident that caused a huge uproar online this June."

Zhu Dijun swiped the tablet, and a clear screenshot of an official fire report appeared on the screen.

"Let me first recap the official time and location. Around 8 PM on June 24, 2026, at the Longxu Temple in Xianyuan Village, Chengxiang Town, Anxi County, Quanzhou City. This is a folk temple that was newly built with funds raised by the villagers and is not yet completed and open to the public. It doesn't even qualify as a cultural relic or ancient building."

He tapped the content of the report with his pointer, his voice calm and even.

"The incident was clearly described: the area was hit by a severe convective thunderstorm, and lightning struck the wooden swallowtail roof ridge of the Heavenly King Hall, the highest point of the temple, directly igniting the wooden components and causing a fire. Villagers called the police, and firefighters arrived and extinguished the blaze. There were no casualties. As for the damage, only the wooden beams and tiles of the roof at the top were burned and charred; the walls, foundation, and main hall were all intact."

Zhu Dijun highlighted a few words on the screen in red.

"The most interesting part is this section—'The faces of the Four Heavenly Kings statues inside the hall turned black.' How did the officials explain this? They said it wasn't a direct burn from a lightning strike. It's because the statues hadn't been consecrated yet, and their faces were covered with red cloth. The high temperature and thick smoke charred and carbonized the red cloth, and the black smoke adhered to their faces, creating the illusion of blackening. Their bodies and bases were completely intact."

Question marks began to appear in the comments section. This matter had been very popular online a few months ago, and most people had indeed accepted the official "explanation."

"After the lightning strike, local officials immediately jumped out to whitewash the incident using natural science, and their explanation was impeccable."

Judy Jun listed three reasons on the whiteboard.

"First, traditional temples are built on high ground with high, swallowtail roofs, making them prone to attracting lightning. Second, many privately built temples generally lack lightning protection. Third, wooden roofs have a low ignition point, so a lightning strike can cause a fire. Finally, the official conclusion is: lightning does not discriminate based on the building's purpose; there is no such thing as 'lightning doesn't strike temples,' let alone any mystical laws like 'divine punishment.'"

Zhu Dijun put down his pointer, placed his hands on the podium, looked directly at the camera, and revealed a chilling aura in his eyes.

"But the local people don't say that."

The holographic projection went black instantly, followed by several screenshots of local forum posts that had been heavily censored and deleted.

Local people say that the temple secretly enshrined a statue of Pu Shiwen, the son of Pu Shougeng, a traitorous official of the Southern Song Dynasty! The lightning bolt struck it squarely on the head! The people say it was historical retribution, divine retribution!

The comment section exploded instantly. The name Pu Shougeng was instantly familiar to any Chinese person with even a basic understanding of history present. At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, it was this Arab-born Director of the Maritime Trade Office who massacred tens of thousands of unarmed members of the Southern Song imperial family and Han civilians in Quanzhou, staining the official hats and plumes of those who surrendered to the Mongol Yuan Dynasty with the blood of the Han people!

Zhu Dijun looked at the barrage of curses in the live chat and twitched the corner of his mouth.

"Of course, the authorities immediately came out to clarify. Village officials and staff conducted an on-site investigation and said that the main deities enshrined in the temple are Qingshui Patriarch, Lü Zu, Fazhu Gong, and the Four Heavenly Kings, and there are absolutely no statues related to Pu Shougeng or Pu Shiwen. The so-called 'splitting the heads of the statues' is just a visual effect of the smoke."

He drew a heavy cross on the whiteboard.

"Official rhetoric may fool ghosts, but it can't fool history. Family members, remember the date of the lightning strike: June 24th."

A photocopy of a page from the History of Ming Dynasty appears on the holographic projection.

"How does the History of Ming record the date of the death of our Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang? The 10th day of the intercalary fifth month of the 31st year of Hongwu, the day of Yiyou. Converted to the Gregorian calendar, that's June 24, 1398!"

Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly rose in the hall.

"Although we have previously confirmed that the Manchu Qing dynasty and the civil service group altered the reign dates of the Ming dynasty, and that Hongwu should have reigned for 40 years, the coincidence is that the death date that those pseudo-historians set for themselves as the Ming Taizu was also June 24th! And the lightning strike that specifically shattered the roof and blackened the face of the statue also happened on that very day!"

"What is this? This is the so-called cycle of karma! This is the manifestation of the Great Ancestor! Even the heavens couldn't stand these bastards daring to build temples and receive incense offerings hundreds of years later, so they directly sent down a physical blow on this special day!"

In the live stream, the suppressed passion boiled over once again.

"Holy crap!!! June 24th! That's incredible!"

"He deserves to be struck down! That old beast Pu Shougeng, killing his entire family wasn't enough! And yet his descendants are still building temples for him?"

"Wait a minute, didn't Zhu Yuanzhang order the entire Pu family to be relegated to a lowly status after establishing the Ming Dynasty, with the men becoming slaves for generations and the women becoming prostitutes for generations? How come they still have money to build temples?"

"Good question. How did they escape?" Judy Jun threw down his marker and pulled up a top-secret genealogical chart.

"Back when Zhu Yuanzhang purged the Pu family, this group of Arab bastards began a secret and disgusting escape by 'changing blood and registering their residence' in order to avoid punishment."

Zhu Dijun pointed to the branches on the diagram.

"The simplest way to change it is to remove the radical. For example, remove the grass radical from the character '蒲' and take the character '卜' directly. This was the most common way for the Pu clan to change their surname back then. In Quanzhou, Yongchun, and Jinjiang, a large number of Pu clan members changed their surname to this one, which was very indistinguishable and not easy for the government to investigate. They quickly bribed local officials to launder their identities by relying on the illicit money they had accumulated over the years in maritime trade."

"The second type is recognizing a thief as one's father. After fleeing, they directly attach themselves to prominent local Minnan clans, such as the Wu or Huang clans, and register as a branch of the clan. In the Quanzhou Prefecture Annals and local genealogies, traces of the transmission of these mixed-race individuals can still be found in secret."

Zhu Dijun suddenly pointed his finger at the location of Xianyuan Village in Anxi.

"The most incredible one is the third one. The eldest son who was struck by lightning was from the lineage of Pu Shiwen! They fled to Xianyuan Village in Anxi during the early Ming Dynasty, and the entire clan changed their surname to 'Yang'! During the Qing Dynasty, these descendants of the Pu family felt that the limelight had passed, so they rebuilt the Dragon Beard Hall and secretly worshipped their ancestor Pu Shiwen. This is the true source of the online rumors about temples enshrining the Pu family ancestor!"

The live chat fell silent. Those who thought the Pu family was long dead were chilled to the bone by this insidious, virus-like way of survival.

"Change the surname to Yang. Does anyone think of anything?"

Zhu Dijun's voice dropped to freezing point, exuding a chilling aura that could crush even bones.

"Among the Ming Dynasty's civil service, Yang Shiqi was the Grand Secretary who most ruthlessly suppressed imperial power and was highly praised by Manchu historians. Where was his hometown? Can his true background withstand scrutiny? Did he climb to that position truly for the Ming Dynasty, or was it to cooperate with his clan in internally hollowing out China?"

This conspiracy theory, once thrown out, was like a nuclear bomb, completely devastating the live stream.

"It's not over yet."

Zhu Dijun cut out the last photo.

"Besides the Yang family, there's another branch of the Pu family who chose to marry into the family. They changed their surname to 'Hong' and became involved with the Chen family of Haining. There's a persistent rumor online that Hong Chengchou, the traitor who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty at the end of the Ming Dynasty and massacred countless anti-Qing patriots, was actually 'Pu Chengchou'!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his fist on the table.

"I personally believe this is correct! Why did the Manchus like to say 'Hong and Chen are companions, living a carefree life'? Because Hong Chengchou was not a Han Chinese at all! He had the blood of a foreign race like Pu Shougeng, who was opportunistic and slaughtered Han Chinese! The Manchus and the Pu family were essentially cunning variants used to devour the flesh and blood of the Chinese people, so of course they would be in cahoots!"

Ming dynasty.

A parallel Hongwu timeline.

The air pressure inside the Fengtian Hall had dropped to an extremely low level.

Zhu Yuanzhang sat on the dragon throne, his eyes fixed on the portraits of Pu Shougeng and Hong Chengchou displayed on the ceiling. His hands dug deep finger marks into the armrests of the throne, his knuckles turning pale from the exertion.

"Good, good, excellent."

Zhu Yuanzhang first gave three short, cold laughs. There was no anger in his laughter, only a pure, chilling intent to die.

He had thought that reducing the Pu family to the lowest social class, forcing the men into slavery and the women into prostitution, was the cruelest punishment he could inflict on this family that had betrayed China. But he never imagined that he would still make the same mistake that his descendants would later point out—to be merciful.

We cannot leave a single survivor among foreign tribes. Even a tiny remnant can be reborn, infiltrate the veins of the Ming Dynasty, and grow into malignant tumors like Yang Shiqi and Hong Chengchou!

"Second son." Zhu Yuanzhang didn't waste any words and called out the name directly.

Standing to the side, King Zhu Shuang of Qin suddenly stepped forward, knelt on one knee, and the iron plates on his armor made a chilling clanging sound.

"Your subject is here!"

"You will personally lead the team to southern Fujian."

Zhu Yuanzhang stood up, walked to the edge of the jade steps, and looked down at his son. In those old eyes that should have been cloudy, the flames of slaughter and destruction burned.

"Investigate according to the list and methods provided by the descendant of the fourth brother on the celestial screen. Those surnamed Bu, Yang, Wu, Huang, and Hong. No need for the formalities of the three judicial departments, no need for interrogation."

Zhu Yuanzhang raised his hand and made a clean and decisive downward chopping motion.

"Find all those people who have the blood of the Pu bastard. Kill them all. Leave no one alive, even the newborn bastards should be killed by throwing them to their deaths."

The entire hall was completely silent; even the civil and military officials dared not breathe.

"All the local clans that sheltered them, all the so-called major surnames that recorded them in their genealogies. No matter how many people are involved, no matter if tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands are killed, slaughter them all, along with the clans that protected them."

Zhu Yuanzhang turned his head and looked at the burning ruins of the Dragon Beard Palace in the sky.

"So that future generations will never again suffer from the harm inflicted by such bastards. So that the bloodline of our Chinese nation may be kept pure." He spoke each word clearly, his voice echoing throughout the hall's dome, "I, Zhu Chongba, will bear the eternal sins of this butcher!"

King Zhu Shuang of Qin looked up, his eyes equally bloodthirsty, and responded loudly, his voice booming like a bell.

"Yes, Father! Your son will plow the land of Fujian until it bleeds three feet deep!"

Modern studio.

As Zhu Dijun watched the barrage of comments expressing his fury and elation, he slammed his tablet face down on the table. His expression didn't relax after dropping this bombshell; instead, it grew even colder and harder.

"Family members. The Pu family's practice of changing skins is just an appetizer. Their method of infiltrating other ethnic groups has been developed to an unbelievable degree over the centuries of the Qing Dynasty."

He picked up a marker and drew a huge question mark on the whiteboard.

"Since they can even change their surnames, have you ever considered why, after the supposed fall of the Qing Dynasty, the Eight Banners nobles, who once boasted of a million men and constantly clamored for their noble bloodlines, vanished overnight, almost to the point of extinction?"

Zhu Dijun stared at the camera.

"Where did they go? Did they really evaporate into the air?"

See you next time!