Who said the eldest daughter is crazy? She's clearly a woman of high rank and influence in the

The Empress tapped her fingers lightly on her knees as she saw the figure in black riding attire emerge from the ranks.

Sunlight streamed in from outside the palace gates and fell upon that figure, clearly illuminating the outline of the warm jade hairpin in her hair.

The Empress recognized the hairpin; she had seen its design before. In the appendix of the sorcerer family's manuscript, the hairpin was described as an artifact used in the formation to stabilize the main soul.

Her fingers unconsciously tightened slightly on the folds of the phoenix robe, then relaxed again.

The Queen picked up her teacup, took a sip, and used the rim of the cup to cover half of her face. She told herself that she had prepared every card for today and there was no need to panic.

Xi Mingyuan didn't sleep a wink last night. He knew someone would impeach him today; the Empress's side had already given him a message.

"Lord Xi, just keep kneeling. If you kneel firmly, His Majesty will not pursue the matter."

The impeachment petition arrived as expected.

The one who stepped forward was Zhang Bingwen, the Imperial Censor and a distant cousin of the Empress. He had a fair complexion and a loud voice. He unfolded the scroll in his hand, and the three pages listed twelve "crimes".

He read the accusations clearly and distinctly, glancing at Xi Mingyuan after each one, as if he were nailing those charges into Xi Mingyuan's back with his gaze.

"The Xi family secretly colluded with the border general of Beishuo to smuggle more than 3,000 catties of ironware out of the country. There are witnesses and physical evidence. The person who handled the ironware is an old servant of the Xi family, who is now in custody awaiting trial."

"Under the guise of a trading company, the Xi family provided spies from the Northern Frontier with maps of the capital's defenses. Seventeen secret letters were exchanged, three of which have been intercepted. The handwriting has been compared and found to match that of Xi Mingyuan himself."

"Xi Yue Li, the eldest daughter of the Xi family, had close dealings with the Northern Shuo State Preceptor during her stay at the Northern Shuo Royal Court. It is suspected that she was involved in sending military secrets of the Great Ying. We humbly request Your Majesty to thoroughly investigate the entire Xi family in order to rectify the court."

After Zhang Bingwen finished reading the last word, he closed the folded book and bowed as he presented it.

The hall was silent for two breaths before Xi Mingyuan's knees finally gave way, and he knelt on the gold-brick floor with a thud. His forehead touched the ground, and his official hat slipped off and rolled to the side. "Your Majesty... Your Majesty is innocent."

The Emperor of Ying looked down at Xi Mingyuan, who was kneeling on the ground, and then glanced at the memorial presented by Zhang Bingwen. He tapped his fingertips on the table, as if he was weighing something.

The Empress, seated on the phoenix throne, held a teacup with the rim touching her lower lip. She didn't even look in Xi Yueli's direction; she had already planned every step of the way.

Just then, a figure in black riding attire stepped out from the ranks.

She stopped in the center of the hall and glanced at Xi Mingyuan, who was kneeling on the ground. The glance was so short that he didn't even have time to look up.

Then she turned toward the throne and took out a thin roll from her sleeve. The paper was yellowed, and at the seal of the letter was a private seal with a phoenix pattern, which was a size smaller than the Empress's phoenix seal, but the pattern was exactly the same and unique.

Xi Yueli unfolded the letter, held it in her hands, and stood three steps in front of the throne.

"Lord Zhang impeached the Xi family for treason. I have a letter here, written by Her Majesty the Empress herself three years ago to General Shen Kuo, the Northern Garrison Commander of Beishuo."

"The letter stipulates that after the matter is accomplished, the three northern towns will be ceded to Beishuo, and the southern border of Daying will be divided by the river. The handwriting is that of the Empress, and the seal is that of the Empress. Your Majesty, I request that you examine it in court."

She placed the letter on the table in front of the throne.

In an instant, all sound in the hall vanished. Some of the military officers unconsciously leaned forward, while others in the civil service gasped. Even Zhang Bingwen's fair face turned deathly pale.

The emperor on the throne reached out and picked up the letter, looking down at it for a long time. Then the thin figure raised his head, his gaze shifting from the pages to the direction of the phoenix chair.

"Empress," the Emperor's voice was low, the ending tone flat, "the phoenix seal on this letter is your empress's seal. How do you explain this?"

The Empress put down her teacup and spoke in a gentle voice, as if soothing a frightened bird.

"Your Majesty is wise. The handwriting in this letter is indeed very similar, but the Phoenix Seal of the Empress has never left my desk. Someone has forged my seal to frame me."

"The paper in that 'secret letter' is new paper from recent years, only artificially aged. If Your Majesty does not believe it, you can have the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs examine the paper on the spot. The fiber fracture pattern of paper older than three years is different from that of newly aged paper. I would never do such a thing as colluding with the enemy and betraying the country."

Her words were clear and articulate, spoken with composure. The air in the hall seemed to ease slightly after she finished speaking. Some people lowered their heads, some exchanged a brief glance, and some tightened and loosened their grip on their court tablets.

Paper can be aged, and printing can be counterfeited, but when the words "the Empress personally wrote that she colluded with the enemy" were first read aloud in the Hall of Diligent Governance, that rift was already irreparable.

The gazes of the court officials shifted back and forth between the Empress and Xi Yueli, and the initial shock in their eyes was slowly turning into a more difficult-to-suppress caution.

Xi Yueli stood in the center of the hall without saying another word. When the emperor raised his gaze from the letter, there was something new in his eyes that he hadn't seen in the past ten years—doubt.

Xi Yueli had already given the order before today's court assembly.

"The first thing is to cut off the financial supply. Starting today, the He family's businesses will simultaneously withdraw all investments in the seven private estates under the Empress's name. Withdraw cleanly, leaving no room for negotiation."

He Qingshuang's men set off from Tingzi Mansion, delivering a message by fast horse. The He family managers on the three trade routes in the southern border received the same instruction on the same day.

On the same day, the accountants of the seven private estates discovered that the money and invoices held by the He family's businesses in the estates had been wiped out, and even their channels of communication had been blocked.

The steward of the manor was so anxious that he went to the bank overnight to check the accounts and found that the banknotes could not be cashed and the shops' supply of goods was cut off by 30%.

That very night, the sorcerer family stopped paying three regular sums of money from their secluded residence on the outskirts of the capital. The money, which used to flow in like a steady tide, was now blocked by an invisible gate.

The second thing was to remove the hidden agents; the Shadow Division's forces moved on the same night.

Thirteen strongholds were distributed in alleys, teahouses, warehouses and estates outside the capital. At each stronghold, the secret police had figured out the shift change pattern and the location of the secret door.

Between midnight and early morning, the liaisons at those thirteen outposts simultaneously discovered that the secret mark outside their doors had been replaced with another one—the wolf head pattern of the Dark Pavilion.

There was no fighting, no disturbance; they simply changed the people, the locks, and all the papers and seals inside without a sound.

After daybreak, the people sent out by the Empress to make contact discovered that all thirteen outposts had become empty shells, without even a single iron plaque remaining.

A package of osmanthus cakes from the south of the city was delivered to Prince Chen's residence.

When the cake paper was unwrapped, a yellowish sheet slipped out from among the cake crumbs, folded into an extremely thin strip, with a few sesame seeds stuck to the edge.

Xi Yueli unfolded the page, which was a very simple diagram of connections, with three lines extending from the Empress's palace and converging at a single point.

The Empress's closest female official in charge of the seal of office, surnamed Wei, had served the Empress for twelve years.

A line of small charcoal writing appeared on the edge of the note: "The calluses on the web of her right hand are from wielding the Northern Shuo scimitar, not from a palace maid's hand."