Chapter 645 – Originally, You Were Nothing at All
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
Both the Mausoleum of Books and the streets of the capital sank into a deathly silence.
Many people were stunned, their mouths agape, and nobody could speak. They all believed that they had misheard. Perhaps the howling of the wind had suddenly increased, making it impossible to hear clearly?
The Tianhai Divine Empress's eyes were very beautiful, bright as stars, precisely like the eyes of a Phoenix.
A streak of light flashed in her eyes, a strand of her thoughts moving out.
She gazed at a certain place in the Mausoleum of Books. She did not see it clearly, but she saw everything with absolute clarity.
That feeling still existed. It had always been there, it had always been in this place.
Crack! Several lightning bolts as thick as trees struck down from the night sky, striking all around the peak of the Mausoleum of Books and revealing everything with incomparably vivid detail.
The black clouds above violently roiled, constantly twisting against each other. It seemed as if countless dragons were engaging in pitched battle, as if the mysteries of heaven were beginning to move, and the will of the heavens was about to descend.
An extremely faint Qi seeped out of the Divine Empress's body and drifted upwards, piercing straight through the clouds and returning towards the depths of the vast sky of stars that the eyes alone would not be able to see.
She raised her head to the starry sky, her expression indifferent, not a single word emerging from her lips.
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"What does it mean?"
"Chen Changsheng is not the son of the Divine Empress and Emperor Xian?"
"Could he not be Crown Prince Zhaoming?"
With Daoist Ji's words, the entire capital sank into a state of absolute shock.
When that rumor began to spread last year, not many people believed it. However, too many things had happened later on that forced people to believe it. The most crucial of these things were the stances of the Orthodoxy and the Divine Empress.
For his sake, the Imperial Court and the Orthodoxy had gotten into conflict after conflict, the two factions ultimately deciding to carry out a decisive battle tonight. The Divine Empress had not hesitated to lower her cultivation level to help him defy the heavens and change fate so that she could break the oath she made back then and perfect her soul. But if he was not Crown Prince Zhaoming, weren't the Divine Empress's actions meaningless?
The person that was most shocked was naturally Chen Changsheng.
Drawing on a strength he hitherto had no idea he possessed, he struggled to stand. Supporting his body with his sheath, he stared at the dark capital.
He wanted to know just where his master was and also just what those words of his meant.
The Divine Empress did not turn her head, nor did she pay him any attention.
This silence hung over the world for a seemingly endless amount of time.
His face grew paler and paler, his young and honest face brimming with frustration.
Was this true?
It had been fake all along.
He suddenly understood.
Yes, everything was fake.
When the false is taken for true, the true becomes false.
His master had made up a pack of lies and deceived the entire world.
Even he and the Divine Empress had been deceived.
The Scroll of Time perhaps really could truncate time, but that didn't mean that this time would fall on his body.
The Canon of Flowing West could change a great deal, but it could not stop the great river from ultimately flowing west.
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In this very short period of time, Chen Changsheng understood many things, even all things.
Those matters had once confused him, confused Tang Thirty-Six and confused Xu Yourong, and simultaneously given all three a vague sense of concern.
Yes, if he really had been Crown Prince Zhaoming, why would his master have let him enter the capital and appear before the Divine Empress?
Two and a half years ago, on a spring day, he had left Xining Village and come to the capital.
He had failed in ending the engagement, and been similarly unable to test into any of the other Six Ivies, ultimately ending in his entering the abandoned Orthodox Academy. It had nothing to do with whether or not the Pope knew of the situation at the time or Mo Yu having that letter. It now seemed that it had been a foregone conclusion that he would enter the Orthodox Academy. Because his master was the previous Principal of the Orthodox Academy, and his being in the Orthodox Academy would make it easier to associate him with this fact.
At the very beginning, did the Pope know of this matter? He probably didn't. Archbishop Mei Lisha then? He probably did know.
The elderly archbishop had sat in his room brimming with plum blossoms in the Bureau of Ecclesiastic Education, blocking out the storms for the Orthodox Academy and making a path for Chen Changsheng. He helped Chen Changsheng mature and ripen at an almost unimaginable speed. On the Divine Avenue, he had announced in Chen Changsheng's place that Chen Changsheng would take first rank of the first banner. He let Chen Changsheng stand out from the crowd and experience the limitless glory after a hard-fought victory.
All this had been for the purpose of making him more dazzling, to have the Divine Empress discover him even faster and then focus on him, to suspect him and investigate him.
Because he was Chen Changsheng, a member of the Orthodoxy's legitimate line of succession, the Principal of the Orthodox Academy, a genius of cultivation, the inheritor of the Orthodoxy, Crown Prince Zhaoming.
Of course, all that had been fake.
He was nothing at all.
He was a fruit.
He was just a fruit.
A fruit that was naturally poisoned.
From the moment he was born, fate had already planned out his life for him, to ripen and then be eaten.
This was his destiny.
When his fate eventually concluded with the passing of time and all settled down again, the true successor of the Great Zhou Dynasty would walk onto stage and receive all this.
Who was that person? Master? The Pope? Or...the true Crown Prince Zhaoming?
At this time, Chen Changsheng should have felt sorrow, but he did not.
He was already numb.
He looked in a daze at the world beneath the Mausoleum of Books.
If everything was fake, what was real?
Suddenly, he was filled with a deep yearning for that old temple in Xining Village. He thought back, pretending that he had never come to the capital, that he was still sitting next to the stream by his senior brother, reciting and memorizing...
Senior...did he know of these things?
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Finally, many people, including those fifteen princes of the Chen clan that had infiltrated the capital in the darkness, had begun to react, to realize just what had occurred.
Still shaking off their shock, they began to ponder what sort of blow this matter would inflict on the Divine Empress and what sort of effect it would have on the world. At the same time, they naturally began to think of a very important question.
Since the Divine Empress had still not reached perfection, Crown Prince Zhaoming assuredly lived. If Chen Changsheng was not him, then where was the real Crown Prince Zhaoming?
This shocking news spread countless times faster than the speed of a Red Falcon.
On the road from Luoyang to the capital, the bloated Prince of Xiang suddenly jumped off the ground and yelled a stream of abuse in the direction of the capital.
No one could clearly tell just who he was cursing at, Daoist Ji or Chen Changsheng, but his attendants were very sure that he did not devote a single word of this abuse to the Divine Empress.
He then gasped for breath and walked back into the imperial carriage, saying, "After entering the capital, we will investigate where my pitiful younger brother is."
On the canal from Jiangnan Province to the capital, the Prince of Zhongshan gave his subordinates a similar order, but he was much more direct than the Prince of Xiang.
"If we can secretly kill him, kill him. If we can't, then assist this prince in being the first to pledge loyalty and place myself in his hands."
Many princes also had similar ideas.
The Prince of Xiang raised the curtain of the carriage window and gazed towards the capital.
The Prince of Zhongshan stood at the bow of the ship, gazing towards the capital.
They could not see the scene at the peak of the Mausoleum of Books, but they felt like they could see it.
Even these two extremely ruthless princes could feel how wretched Chen Changsheng must feel at this time.
Simultaneously, they felt that Principal Shang was extremely frightening.
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The clouds had truly scattered.
Chen Changsheng searched in the darkness for the figure of his master, but his efforts were fruitless. Slowly, he lowered his head, raindrops slowly dripping down from his soaked hair.
The Tianhai Divine Empress gazed up at the infinite stars in the sky, remaining silent for a very long time, then finally speaking five words.
"So that's how it is."
Then she drew back her gaze and turned to the dark capital, her sneering voice saying four more words.
"And what of it?"
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