My cultivation disguise has been exposed by Xiao Sizi.

Faced with such a cruel threat.

Li Chen, however, stood up straight and retorted without backing down.

"What do you mean I'm the culprit?!"

Li Chen stood with his hands on his hips, speaking with righteous indignation, his voice even louder than Li Shimin's.

"Those long-bearded, cross-eyed scrolls—did I ask you to collect them?!"

"It's clearly your own peculiar judgment that led you to try and trick me, only to be caught red-handed by the Empress Dowager!"

"That's reaping what you sow! You can't poop, so you can't blame the latrine for having no gravity?!"

"You unfilial son! How dare you talk back!"

Li Shimin was so overwhelmed by this barrage of questions that he almost spat out a mouthful of blood.

The veins on his forehead throbbed, and his finger pointing at Li Chen trembled like a leaf.

"Good...good! Excellent!"

Li Shimin took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the urge to vomit blood.

He turned his head sharply and glared fiercely at the group of ministers and princes who were huddled in the corner, trembling with fear.

"Listen up, all of you!"

"No one is to divulge a single word about what happened in this hall today..."

He paused, a ruthless glint in his eyes, and said, enunciating each word clearly:

"Now, immediately, at once, all of you swear a divine oath to the Heavenly Dao and your inner demons!"

boom!

Upon hearing this, everyone was shocked.

The heart demon of heaven swears poisonous oath!

This is the most vicious oath in the cultivation world. If it is broken, at best one's cultivation will be completely destroyed, and at worst one will suffer from demonic possession!

"Your Majesty, you mustn't!" Fang Xuanling said with a pained expression, and knelt down with a thud.

"You know I'm very tight-lipped, so there's no need for this solemn oath, is there?"

Wei Zheng also stubbornly resisted, attempting a final struggle.

"Your Majesty, suppressing the people's voices is more difficult than preventing a river from overflowing! Your use of force to compel us to swear oaths is a sign of your insecurity..."

"Shut up!"

Li Shimin was not buying it at all. He drew the Emperor's Sword from his waist and slammed it heavily into the white jade floor tiles.

The blade emitted a clear, dragon-like cry.

"Stop spouting this nonsense to me!"

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"If you don't swear an oath today, no one will leave Taiji Palace alive!"

He pointed at Wei Zheng and sneered repeatedly.

"Wei Zheng, if you dare to divulge even a single word, I wish you diarrhea every day, whatever you eat, you'll excrete, for three years straight!"

Then, he pointed to Cheng Yaojin.

"Cheng Zhijie, if you keep such a big mouth, not only will your sow never give birth, but you'll also have to be there for her during her labor every day!"

Finally, his gaze swept over the Crown Prince and the King of Wei.

"You two unfilial sons! If you dare to utter a word, I will take away all your spirit stones and stipends, seal your cultivation, and throw you into the military camp to shovel manure!"

Faced with this utterly insane threat.

The core members of the Tang Dynasty were utterly desperate.

They looked at each other, and finally could only helplessly raise their right hands.

Before this emperor, who had been driven to desperation, he humiliatingly lowered his noble head.

Inside the main hall, a unified yet sorrowful oath resounded:

"Your subject swears to Heaven..."

"If even a single word about His Majesty's aesthetic sense were to leak out of the Taiji Palace today..."

"May I lose all my cultivation, go bald, be bankrupt, and become the biggest laughingstock in Chang'an!"

As the oath was recited, rays of light from the laws of heaven entered the brows of everyone present.

Li Shimin's face, which was as black as the bottom of a pot, softened slightly.

He waved his hand dismissively, as if shooing away flies.

"Get out! All of you, get as far away from me as possible!"

Everyone felt as if they had been granted a pardon.

Forget about decorum, he scrambled out of the Taiji Palace.

That speed was even three times faster than when they were fleeing for their lives.

All that remained were the chaotic footsteps of soldiers and the scattered urgent documents on the ground.

Inside the main hall, deathly silence returned once more.

"You..." Li Shimin was so angry at Li Chen's words, "There is no gravity in the latrine," that he almost spat out a mouthful of blood.

But he took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the urge to explode. Because out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Empress Zhangsun's phoenix eyes had narrowed slightly, a sign of her imposing presence without anger.

"Good! Good! Good!"

Li Shimin said "good" three times in a row, and then suddenly waved the wide sleeves of his dragon robe.

"Buzz—!"

With a deafening roar, the protective array of Taiji Palace was activated, sealing off the entire hall so tightly that not even a fly could escape.

The old foxes looked at the light screen flashing with golden runes, and a sense of foreboding rose in their hearts at the same time.

Li Shimin strode back to the center of the hall, his gaze sweeping over the trembling officials like a hungry wolf, finally settling on Li Chen.

"If even a single word of what happened today were to spread beyond the Taiji Palace..."

Li Shimin bit his fingertip and drew a talisman in the air. In the blink of an eye, a blood-red contract radiating terrifying pressure slowly took shape in mid-air—the most domineering and unsolvable "Nine Nether Heavenly Dao Poisonous Oath" in the cultivation world!

His eyes were bloodshot, like a gambler who had lost everything, as he pointed at the blood-red contract and roared, "Swear to me, all of you! Now! Immediately! Right now!"

When the ministers saw the blood oath, they gasped in shock and shook their heads vigorously.

Wei Zheng stiffened his neck, his professional instincts kicking in, and he was about to step forward and remonstrate to the death: "Your Majesty! Silencing the people is more difficult than stopping a river! You are using such a vicious oath to coerce us; you are simply delusional..."

"Shut up!"

Li Shimin strode up to Wei Zheng, spitting almost in his face: "Wei Zheng! If you dare not swear an oath today, I will issue an imperial decree tomorrow morning, announcing to the world that you are madly infatuated with that long-bearded, muscular Barbie, and that I have already betrothed her to you!"

Wei Zheng froze, his righteous indignation shattering instantly. He coughed up the word "tyrant" as he forced it back down.

"And you all!"

Li Shimin whirled around, glaring fiercely at Cheng Yaojin, Fang Xuanling, and the others: "Anyone who doesn't swear an oath will not only have their photos taken in women's clothing posted on the Great Tang Spirit Network, but the Hundred Cavalry Division will also confiscate all the private savings you've hidden in secret compartments of your studies and under your beds, and deposit them all into the national treasury!"

These words were a fatal blow.

Fang Xuanling, Cheng Yaojin, and the others turned deathly pale, as if struck by lightning. Their secret stash of money was their life savings, accumulated behind their wives' backs for most of their lives!

"Your Majesty... Your Majesty swears..." Fang Xuanling, tears streaming down his face, was the first to yield.

"I, Cheng Yaojin, swear! As long as you don't touch my private stash, I'll keep it to myself even if you tell me that Your Majesty likes boars!" Cheng Yaojin said with a mournful face, quickly forcing out a drop of his essence blood and flicking it into the blood pact.

"You old fool, can't you speak properly!" Li Shimin was so angry that he almost kicked him again.

Following this, Crown Prince Li Chengqian, Prince Wei Li Tai, Li Jing, Changsun Wuji, and others, under Li Shimin's murderous gaze, ultimately had no choice but to compromise.

The top figures of the Tang Dynasty, like long-term laborers who had signed indentures, lined up with bitter faces and dripped their blood essence into the blood contract one after another.

He also made a series of extremely vicious and down-to-earth vows, such as "If I leak the secret, my cultivation will never improve, I will be beaten by my wife every day, and I will never have toilet paper when I go to the toilet."

Even the most resentful Prince Li Chen of Qin, under the secret warning from Empress Zhangsun, could only purse his lips and reluctantly hand over his essence blood.

"Buzz—"

As the last drop of essence blood merged in, the blood pact in mid-air shone brightly, then transformed into countless streaks of blood light, which entered the foreheads of everyone, signifying the fulfillment of the vow!

Li Shimin finally breathed a sigh of relief and with a wave of his sleeve, removed the barrier around the main hall.

He waved his hand dismissively at the trembling core members and snapped, "Alright, all of you, get out of here! Just looking at you makes me annoyed!"

The voice just fell.

These powerful civil and military officials of the Tang Dynasty seemed to have received a pardon.

In an instant, it burst forth with ten times the speed it had come from, transforming into a series of afterimages as it tumbled and scrambled out of the Taiji Palace, leaving behind only a pile of sunflower seed shells and an awkward silence throughout the hall.