Chapter 53: The Scapegoat Princess Consort is Sentenced to Death

Regarding this, Ding Shui was actually quite pleased to see it happen.

After all, if Emperor Tianwu had truly honestly sentenced his three sons to death by a thousand cuts, Ding Shui would have found it rather embarrassing to go back on her word and would have felt obliged to spare their souls. Now, however, things were undoubtedly much easier.

She simply needed to harvest their souls, bring them to the imperial prison, and wait to see which criminal was scheduled for death by a thousand cuts or flaying and stuffing with straw.

Then, she would substitute their souls right into the execution.

It was just that recently, the number of prisoners sentenced to death by a thousand cuts had decreased quite a bit.

Consequently, for a long time afterward, Ding Shui stationed herself permanently within the imperial prison, only occasionally returning home for a visit.

Initially, the civil and military officials were quite happy about this development. Having lived under the oppressive rule of Emperor Tianwu for so many years, seeing him forced into a humiliating compromise—even issuing an imperial decree to execute his own three sons—brought a sense of grim satisfaction to many of them.

Some officials even felt a subtle thrill, as if they were witnessing karmic retribution descend upon him.

However, their joy was short-lived. Just seven days after the deaths of the Prince of Qi, the Prince of Han, and the Prince of Jin—the three regional vassal kings—Emperor Tianwu launched a nationwide purge originating from the capital, mobilizing nearly three hundred thousand troops to assist and cooperate with the effort.

On the surface, the campaign was framed as being for the sake of the common people and the strict enforcement of the law, but privately, Ding Shui heard his true sentiments loud and clear.

"I have already placed righteousness above family and personally executed my own three sons. If the principle that the emperor commits crimes just like a commoner can be carried out to this extent, who else is off-limits? Who else cannot be investigated?

One by one, they sit back and wait to watch me make a fool of myself...

Thinking they could stand aloof and remain untouched, hehe!

Originally, my governance was already harsh, perhaps even slightly lacking in moral justification, but now? Not a shred of that is missing!"

In the perception of the general public and indeed throughout conventional secular society, sacrificing one's family for the sake of righteousness was considered the pinnacle of justice. Previously, when Emperor Tianwu treated officials and nobility with harsh severity, he had harbored a faint trace of guilt. Shameless as he might be, deep down he knew very well that he practiced double standards.

His own sons versus the people who worked and labored for him—

in his heart, they were undoubtedly different.

The latter were like blades of grass; you cut them down, and more would grow.

But now, he had executed his three sons in the name of righteousness. Even if he was coerced into doing so by an unknown entity, an execution was still an execution. Armed with the precedent that a prince who broke the law was likewise subjected to death by a thousand cuts, he now possessed the unwavering confidence to arrest and execute anyone who broke the law, even if they were bonded by life-and-death friendships or had meritorious service in saving the emperor's life.

At the same time, outsiders could no longer easily criticize him as being cold-hearted or ungrateful, seeing as he had even killed his own biological sons.

Everything was merely in defense of the impartiality of state law.

At least on moral grounds, his actions were flawless.

Since his three sons were already dead, Emperor Tianwu naturally intended to use this incident to launch massive investigations and widespread executions. The outcome would boil down to two possibilities: either the officials, gentry, and nobility who were slaughtered would share a bitter hatred with him, joining forces to resent and target the mysterious entity;

or, at the very least, he would successfully purge the officialdom and sweep away local gentry with vicious or illegal practices.

That way, the Crown Prince's eventual ascension and rule would be somewhat easier.

It could be said that Emperor Tianwu was genuinely driven by the mindset of "if I am going to suffer, no one else is going to have it easy," and "since my sons broke the law and were killed, I will not allow anyone else who breaks the law to live comfortably and happily." Thus, he unleashed the greatest major case since his accession to the throne.

If a third- or fourth-generation emperor, or an even later descendant, had tried to pull this off, it would have been pure suicide; before many could be killed, the gentry and officials would have already rebelled.

But Emperor Tianwu was different. He was a founding monarch.

He held firm control over military and political power, the state treasury was relatively healthy, the generals and nobility had not yet completely rotted into uselessness, and he was still capable of partially extending imperial authority down to the rural villages and ensuring his policies were properly communicated.

Therefore, although he met with resistance,

it was ultimately easily suppressed.

The officials, gentry, and local powerful clans finally experienced what it truly meant to live in dread of the law.

A portion of them grew to resent Ding Shui because of this.

Yet Ding Shui remained indifferent; in fact, her mood was quite good. After all, she was only one person, and she lacked the ability to split her soul into millions. If she had to rely solely on herself to resolve grievances and redress injustices, she would be worked to death.

Her most profound realization at the moment was this:

The resentment throughout the entire realm had decreased. Not just by a tiny fraction, but it had plummeted to rock bottom.

Decades or a century from now, the negative energy accumulated in these recent years would undoubtedly be at its lowest point. Although, viewed across the long river of history and the countless years of accumulated negative energy in this world, the reduction was actually minuscule, and it would be difficult to sustain permanently.

Still, every little bit helped. At the very least, it reduced far more than Ding Shui could ever hope to achieve by rushing around all by herself.

And since Emperor Tianwu was taking care of the grievances across various regions,

Ding Shui naturally no longer needed to dash about everywhere.

Consequently, she simply settled down in her maternal family's courtyard—a place that had been sealed up and left uninhabited ever since the original owner married out, though servants were regularly sent to clean it.

Sometimes she stayed at home, keeping her relatives company; sometimes she went out for a stroll to listen to gossip; but most of the time, she went out to forage for various plants and animals, bringing them into her synthetic storage space for fusion experiments. Using her system to deal with people like Prince Lu was truly using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, like firing an anti-aircraft gun at a mosquito.

Randomly fusing certain crops could potentially mutate and create high-yielding new varieties. Countless rounds of hybridization and fusion between two different crops might also cross-breed them into a fine new variety, or imbue a specific crop with new traits like drought resistance or pest resistance. The same was true for animal fusions.

The "golden fingers" she had purchased this time were all nearing the end of their lifespans and were slated for destruction; they were somewhat illicit operations, and getting caught would inevitably implicate her friends.

Golden fingers were fine while in a sealed state.

Once removed from their sealed state, however, they could not be re-sealed without specialized equipment. That was fine within mission worlds, as countless dimensional barriers separated them. However, bringing them back to the main world risked detection by certain patrol equipment, which would undoubtedly bring trouble.

Therefore, the best fate for these golden fingers was to be opened in a certain world and used directly until they broke down completely.

Then they could be discarded or destroyed.

In short, they must never be brought back.

Thus, as long as she prevented Emperor Tianwu from dying a peaceful death—which would completely eliminate all of the original owner's grievances—Ding Shui no longer had any use for the super synthesis system. Rather than letting it go to waste, she might as well busy herself with more synthesis experiments. Who knew? She might just synthesize some high-yielding superior seeds or top-quality livestock.

Whether she left them for her relatives to perform meritorious deeds,

or casually scattered them into the wilderness,

she could bring some help to this world, make the lives of the majority slightly better, and even delay the misery of the dynasty's end to a certain extent—or perhaps push the arrival of the dynasty's final collapse back by a few years.

Just as Ding Shui was busy trying her luck with various fusions,

her grave was dug up, and her coffin was opened.

Truly, a calamity awaited her even after death!