Da Tang Si Zi: My Six Super Rich Little Nuggets!

Chapter 353 No Geese Sent to Aizhou, Stars Fall at the End of the Immortal Mountain

In the 655th year of the Tian Shu calendar, in Chang'an, the Immortal Palace.

The Purple Palace was shrouded in mist and clouds, and an invisible, chilling wind quietly permeated the golden hall and jade steps.

On the dragon throne, the supreme ruler, the brows of the young slave brother were etched with an unyielding gloom. His imperial majesty was as deep as an abyss, yet a trace of struggle, imperceptible to mortals, could be discerned.

Beneath the imperial steps, the assembled officials stood like a forest, their presence heavy and oppressive, like a mountain pressing down upon them.

Only a tiny, fleeting glimmer of light broke the monotony.

Princess An Ding, Xiao Si Zi, was like a celestial flower that had absorbed the essence of the moon and stars, sitting on a jade stool specially prepared next to her father's throne.

Her eyes, clear enough to reflect the stars in the sky, now darted around with a hint of cunning and dissatisfaction, finally settling on the figure standing at the head of the court, his posture as upright as a solitary pine tree.

"Hmph!" Little Sizi puffed out her pink cheeks, her voice clear and crisp like the clinking of glass, carrying a hint of childishness, yet clearly piercing through the solemnity of the hall, "After Brother Tenderloin became Uncle Tenderloin, his mind became as cunning as the winding fairy vine in the Peach Garden! So sly, so sly!"

Her little hand gestured in the air, counting the unseen "winding and turning".

The man she affectionately called "Pork Tenderloin" was none other than Chu Suiliang, a high-ranking official of the time and the minister entrusted with the care of Emperor Taizong.

In his younger days, he was a dashing and spirited man, a beloved "brother" in Si Zi's eyes. Now, after years of weathering the storms of court life, his temples are streaked with gray, and he has become an "uncle." His upright character seems to have been tempered with a touch of profound tact and wisdom.

However, when the struggle over the selection of an empress, which concerned the very foundation of the nation and shook both the mortal and immortal realms, stirred up a tremendous upheaval, almost all the celestial officials and generals (court ministers) in the palace cited classical texts and used the glorious laws of Heaven and the ancestral laws to remonstrate against the woman bearing the destiny of "Wu Zetian" ascending to the throne.

The voices of opposition were like thunder from the heavens, so powerful that even the golden dragons on the dragon-carved pillars in the hall seemed to want to murmur.

Under this immense pressure, Chu Suiliang took a deep breath, and a faint, mountain-like phantom appeared around him, steady and unshakeable.

He stepped forward from the crowd, his voice not loud, yet it rang like the tinkling of gold and jade, each word clear and carrying an undeniable weight: "Your Majesty! This is a matter of the inner court, the workings of the universe have their own laws. Why ask an outsider?"

Upon hearing this, the entire hall fell silent.

The words "family affairs," uttered by him, seemed to carry the weight of an ancient sacred mountain, attempting to create a space for the emperor to escape the crushing weight of the world.

Even though it is the "family affair" of the supreme ruler, it still affects the fortune and destiny of the entire land. How can there be absolutes? But these words, despite the immense pressure, shielded Li Zhi on the throne from the sharpest barrage of words.

With the keen eye of a viper spotting its prey, Xu Jingzong immediately grasped the hidden meaning behind the words "family affairs".

Who has caught a whiff of the aura of boundless wealth and divine power?

He immediately wielded this "new idea" as a weapon, unleashing his power to "buy out" public opinion. His tone carried a seductive charm reminiscent of the common folk, instantly spreading throughout the court where immortals and mortals intertwined: "Ha! Why are you immortals and deities so fixated on this? Even a humble peasant, if he were to gain an extra three or five bushels of spiritual grain from an immortal field, would still think of exchanging it for a more suitable Daoist partner. How much more so should we, the supreme Heavenly Emperors who reign over the Azure Heaven and possess the Nine Provinces, have such private feelings as the desire to establish a new empress? What business is it of yours?"

That autumn, the celestial order suddenly changed.

The chilling atmosphere first targeted Chu Suiliang, who, like a mountain, had once held up the sky for the emperor.

A decree, carrying the chilling frost and the emperor's wrath, descended, stripping away his immortal bones and divine authority. His divine light, now dimmed, fell upon Tanzhou, a place shrouded in miasma and far from the capital. The halo of the once entrusted minister was instantly tarnished.

Following closely behind, the sinister plot brewing deep within the palace was finally exposed. The once-mighty and peerless Empress Wang, and the most beautiful and favored concubine Xiao, secretly plotted to assassinate the emperor's side using deadly poisons (or perhaps some kind of insidious curse?).

When his crimes were exposed, they were heinous!

Two decrees of abdication, imbued with the might of heaven and earth, descended with a thunderous roar. The once incomparably noble celestial concubines and goddesses were instantly cast down to the mortal realm, reduced to commoners whom even the lowest-ranking palace maids could look down upon. The auspicious radiance surrounding them, symbolizing their exalted status, vanished in an instant, and the invisible shackles of rank weighed heavily on their backs.

This swift and merciless reckoning extends even coldly to the very source of one's bloodline.

All of Wang and Xiao's relatives in the mortal world—their mother and brothers, regardless of their closeness or distance—were forcibly captured by the invisible force of law, their journey of exile as if falling into an endless abyss, forever imprisoned in that bitter, desolate, and spiritually barren border region.

Even the sacred titles left by the ancestors who had long since passed away and returned to the stars were forcibly erased by an imperial seal containing the power of stripping, as if they had never existed. The fortune of the nine clans was severed and extracted in this battle, and the tragic scene chilled the hearts of all who witnessed it.

In the late autumn of the 655th year of the Tian Shu calendar, a phoenix's cry startled the palace.

The smoke of battle in the Golden Palace had not yet cleared, but on the throne, Li Zhi's brows already betrayed the brewing of another storm. His gaze was piercing, penetrating the swirling mists, and his voice, carrying an undeniable imperial authority, resounded throughout the heavens:

"Empress Wu, bestowed upon me the 'Jade Register of Heavenly Secrets' by the late Emperor Taizong, moved by his divine heart!" Upon hearing this, the laws within the hall trembled slightly, as if the phantom of Taizong cast a tacit glance of approval from the river of time. Li Zhi continued, each word a gem, drawing upon invisible threads of cause and effect: "She wields the 'Pillar of All Things,' reviewing memorials as easily as reading the lines on her palm, and deciding all matters of state as effortlessly as cooking a small fish. Her talent and virtue are worthy of inheriting the mandate of heaven and the throne!" He concluded with a resounding declaration, echoing the majestic Heavenly Dao: "Her conduct is akin to that of Emperor Yuan of Han, and she shall be my Empress!"

These words, like a thunderclap from the heavens, proclaimed the complete fall of the old phoenix and the inevitable rise of the new. Just seven days after Empress Wang's deposition, an unprecedented grand ceremony of "the changing of the mandate of heaven" commenced! Auspicious clouds surged over the Purple Palace, the phantom of a nine-colored divine phoenix soared and cried, and amidst the myriad rays of light, Wu Zetian, clad in a nine-feathered black phoenix robe woven from the essence of the sun, moon, and stars and the power of the people's hearts, ascended the phoenix throne—symbolizing her supreme maternal authority and boundless power—step by step on a lotus platform!

At that moment, all the stars in the heavens shifted, and the fortunes of the four seas returned to their proper course.