Later, in order to cooperate with Jun Yulin’s plans and create chaos in the court to make Lu Yan think there was an opportunity, such rumors began to spread within the imperial court:
—The Regent held control over state affairs, while the young emperor, having gradually grown stronger and more capable, was placed under house arrest. Almost none of the civil or military officials in court had seen the emperor in a long time.
And at that moment, the so-called ‘house-arrested’ young emperor was comfortably reclining on a soft couch in the palace, with freshly tributed fruits beside her. In front of her sat a certain someone who usually wore a stern expression, looking through documents that were originally meant for her to review. From time to time, he would glance up, pick a fruit or two from the platter, peel it, and feed it into Yan Luo’s mouth.
Sleeping in every day with no need to attend morning court sessions and having everything taken care of—Yan Luo was very satisfied with such a lifestyle.
“Lu Yan might make a move soon, so I won’t come by for a while. The guards outside were all arranged by me, but I still can’t guarantee absolute safety. Be careful,” Jun Yulin said, clearly in a good mood, as if he felt he was finally close to shedding his single status.
Yan Luo swallowed the fruit he handed her and nodded slightly, though the emotions lingering from the original owner still made her feel somewhat uncomfortable.
After all, the original owner had genuinely treated Lu Yan as her biological mother for over a decade.
After so many years together, this kind of discomfort was only natural.
“Royal Uncle, in the end, my mother…” she began. Jun Yulin, understanding what Yan Luo was thinking, paused briefly and reached out to poke her cheek.
“I can spare her life,” he said.
But only that.
The former emperor had died early, and although Jun Yulin hadn’t used any extreme methods at the time, he had always found the situation suspicious. Eventually, he vaguely uncovered that the emperor had likely been slowly poisoned over time.
The massacre of over a hundred members of the Jun family—Lu Yan had played a major role in that.
As for the Lu family, Lu Yan had harbored deep resentment and was set on revenge. Over the years, she had provided them with countless advantages, lifting the Lu family to glory while secretly collecting all the evidence of their corruption and crimes.
As for Yan Luo, Lu Yan’s goal was to use her to gain a legitimate title to overthrow Jun Yulin, the Regent. So it was expected that she would make her move against Yan Luo before long.
Lu Yan was essentially already insane—not in a hysterical, obvious way, but with a chilling, calm madness that made her more dangerous and harder to guard against.
Her goal was to destroy the entire Great Yan. Whoever had taken away the happiness that should have been hers, she would destroy them in return—even at the cost of her own destruction.
But in the end, she was still just a lone woman. No matter how vicious her schemes, without support, she couldn’t achieve much. The one helping her was a external king of Great Yan with wild ambitions. Jun Yulin had not acted yet because he was waiting for both sides to make their move, so he could wipe them out all at once.
After a long silence, Yan Luo finally said, “If she really crosses the line, you don’t have to hold back for my sake.”
That’s what Lu Yan’s supposed to repay.
And just as Jun Yulin had predicted, not long after, one of Lu Yan’s trusted aides somehow fooled the guards at the door and quietly snuck into Yan Luo’s palace chambers.
She stated her purpose: to ally with Yan Luo in overthrowing the Regent. The external king was supposedly someone Yan Luo should call uncle. Lu Yan’s side claimed that he had had some connection with Lu Yan in their younger days, and that he was willing to bring his troops to help them. When the time came, there would be chaos in the palace, and all Yan Luo had to do was expose Jun Yulin’s crimes.
It all sounded nice on the surface. However, letting someone else’s troops enter to eliminate Jun Yulin for them? And then what? Those troops would just leave peacefully after helping?