Traveling through time 1 years late, I was forced to become a powerful person

Ji Zhaoyang was silent for a long time, and then a bitter smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"Do I have a choice?"

He reached out and picked up the teacup on the stone table, and drank the already cold spiritual tea in one gulp.

With a long sigh of relief, Ji Zhaoyang seemed to have finally put down the heavy burden in his heart, and spoke to Shen Yuan seriously:

"The manipulator behind the scenes has been manipulating the emperor and controlling the government for several years, and has formed a powerful force in the government and the country.

Even if the truth behind this were exposed now, those old nobles who were loyal to the dynasty had already lost their power and were simply unable to fight against this force in a short period of time.

Especially since the puppet Human Emperor still holds the upper hand over humanity, no one in the imperial capital can defeat the Dayin Human Emperor. Even if Daozi has the magical powers of a celestial being, he cannot break the fate of humanity.

If we don’t solve these two problems, it will be difficult to change the current situation.”

Shen Yuan did not rush to reveal his cards to Ji Zhaoyang, but took the initiative to ask:

"Does the Third Prince still have any connection with the nobles and aristocratic families of the Third Prince's lineage?"

Ji Zhaoyang hesitated slightly, but still explained everything to Shen Yuan:

“After the puppet emperor used the relationship between me and Daozi to deal with a large number of nobles and officials, there was not much commotion in the court and the country.

After all, the fall of a group of ministers and nobles means that another group of powerful people will step onto the stage of the Dayin court, which is something many people are happy to see.

But the whole thing got completely out of control soon after it started, and a large number of cruel officials began to use Daozi's excuse to implicate the powerful and influential people from various aristocratic families.

From the officials who defected to me being demoted, to my relatives and friends from my mother's family being exiled to the frontier, to finally even people I knew were labeled as being from the Third Prince's line and faced liquidation.

Almost two-thirds of officials in the government and the opposition were involved in this turmoil.”

The Dayin Dynasty lasted for tens of thousands of years, and the most powerful and influential families in the imperial capital were more or less related to each other.

It is understandable if they just want to eliminate people from a faction, but once blood relatives and old friends are traced back, not many people can be spared.

At this point, Ji Zhaoyang couldn't help but sigh:

“I thought this was just the result of the dispute in the court getting more intense, but now it seems that this is the result of the puppet emperor fanning the flames behind the scenes.

There was a major reshuffle in the government and the country, and the upper echelons of the imperial capital were all in danger.

The senior hereditary princes risked their lives to make suggestions, but were ordered to be imprisoned in the Heavenly Prison by the puppet emperor.

All these things had already caused complaints from the government and the public, but the puppet emperor and the newly elected dignitaries had tried hard to suppress them, which kept the situation in the imperial capital calm on the surface.

“The prince was afraid that I would cause trouble in this situation, so he bribed several of my personal attendants. There were people secretly monitoring me day and night in the mansions around the prince’s palace.

Those powerful people were unwilling to lose their power so easily, and had already contacted me secretly, wanting to support me in fighting for the position of crown prince again. The courtesans and musicians in the Golden Wind and Jade Dew Pavilion and the Listening Ballad Tower were all from powerful and noble families."

Shen Yuan stroked his palm and said, "It seems that the Third Prince is very lucky!"

Ji Zhaoyang looked worried and sighed:
"Shen Daozi, please stop teasing me. I know very well that those powerful families just want to use me as a shield to test the attitude of the Emperor.

Once the Emperor tacitly allows me to participate in the fight for the crown prince position, they can naturally take advantage of the situation to regain their power.

But if I were punished by the Human Emperor, they would throw me out and cut off all ties with me immediately.

Now I am surrounded by princes and people from powerful families, so I can only bite the bullet and pretend to be nice to them."

Shen Yuan raised his brows slightly and glanced at the prying eyes outside the Third Prince's residence.

"The princes and the rich and powerful are not the only ones who cannot bear to be lonely."

"What does Shen Daozi mean by this?"

“There are indeed some practitioners secretly monitoring the residences around the Prince’s Mansion, but in another layer of the incense and fire domain, there is also a god comparable to the Refining Void who is in charge of monitoring the Third Prince.

Such a move is not something that the prince can come up with."

Ji Zhaoyang was stunned when he heard this, and his face became even uglier: "Shen Daozi means that the hidden Lianxu Divine Lord is the person behind the Puppet Emperor?"

Shen Yuan nodded.

The powerful and noble families would think of using the Third Prince to test the attitude of the Human Emperor, so how could the Twilight Realm not consider it?

What the Twilight Realm needs is a stable court that is under control. The actions of those powerful and influential families with undercurrents must be known to them, and the reason why they do not take action must be for other purposes.

I'm afraid that the people behind the scenes of the Dusk Realm have long been hoping that Ji Zhaoyang would get the support of the powerful families and make a positive statement, and then the Human Emperor would suppress Ji Zhaoyang with thundering means to make an example of him.

Fortunately, Ji Zhaoyang was smart enough to deliberately delay time so that the person behind the scenes did not find the opportunity to make an example of him.

After Shen Yuan's reminder, Ji Zhaoyang understood the key point and his face turned pale in an instant.

"May I ask Shen Daozi, what should we do next?"

Shen Yuan took a meaningful look at the deity hidden in the incense and fire realm, and said slowly:

"Since everyone wants to see the Third Prince express his true stance and compete for the position of crown prince, why not take advantage of his own strategy?"

Above the Third Prince's residence, all cause and effect lines deviated from their original direction silently. Anyone who peeked into this place would be led to the wrong result, and secrecy shrouded everything.

It was unknown when it started, but the Third Prince of Dayin, who had long lost power, suddenly changed his previous decadence.

After executing several servants in the princes' residences, the third prince Ji Zhaoyang began to actively visit the aristocratic families who had lost power in the changes of the court.

In the imperial capital, faint rumors began to spread among the people and in the markets.

The third prince of Dayin was gifted and had the potential to be an emperor. He once swept away all enemies in the Luotian Dharma Assembly in all realms and won prestige for Dayin.

However, such an outstanding cover was maliciously suppressed by Prince Dayin, and was instigated by treacherous officials and was rejected by the Emperor and eventually lost power.

The third prince Ji Zhaoyang, after a period of decadence, saw through fame and fortune and wanted to regroup and fight for the position of crown prince again.

After learning the news, Prince Ji Xuanyi of Dayin immediately sent people to trace the source of the news and suppress the spread of the news.

However, this move not only failed to suppress the news, but was instead seen as evidence that Prince Dayin was jealous of talented people, and the rumor began to spread rapidly to unexpected places.

Dayin is a dynasty of humanity. Although the emperor has supreme authority, it is not difficult to check and balance it.

Especially when the Human Emperor does not have complete control over the destiny of humanity, the wishes of the people have the ability to interfere with the will of the Human Emperor.

If one wants to fight against the will of humanity, one must pay a huge amount of humanitarian luck, which is exactly what the Puppet Emperor lacks.

Whether it was for the purpose of killing the chicken to scare the monkey, or to save humanity's destiny and prevent the situation from getting out of control, the Human Emperor finally issued a decree to summon the Crown Prince and the Third Prince three days later.

Civil and military officials from the court and the country, noble families and even ordinary people in the imperial capital all had the opportunity to watch the ceremony from outside the imperial city.

As soon as this news came out, it once again caused turmoil in the court and the country. All the powerful people in the upper echelons of the Dayin Dynasty were waiting for the summons after three days, each with their own thoughts.

Three days passed in a blink of an eye.

Putting on the dragon robe and crown that symbolized the prince's status, Ji Zhaoyang strode out of the prince's residence and rode in a sedan chair to the imperial city. Unknown to anyone, Shen Yuan had already sat in the sedan chair, looking at the approaching Dayin Imperial City with thoughts in his eyes.

The Dayin Imperial City is the core of the imperial capital and also the hub of the great humanitarian formation covering the thirty-six regions of the Nine Provinces.

Just approaching the city wall of Dayin Imperial City, Shen Yuan could sense the almost condensed humanitarian aura flowing on the city wall, as if it had been washed away by thousands of years.

Without the emperor's decrees or imperial ranks, ordinary practitioners would have their entire cultivation suppressed just by approaching the imperial city. Even the True Lord Lianxu would not be spared.

This is the place where humanity is at its peak. Even an immortal would be cast down to dust when he descended upon the earth. It is a forbidden area for practitioners of the sect.

There was only one team of guards patrolling the gate of the imperial city, and the lax defense was beyond Shen Yuan's expectations.

But after just a little thought, Shen Yuan understood the reason.

Without the emperor's decrees and imperial ranks, any outsider practitioner who entered the imperial city would be courting death.

The Dayin Dynasty had been in existence for tens of thousands of years. We had heard of people causing chaos in the inner and outer cities of the imperial capital, but we had never heard of anyone wreaking havoc in the imperial city.

Even if you are a celestial being from the upper realm, you can never escape the suppression of human destiny.

Inside the carriage, Shen Yuan's cultivation in the Hedao realm was almost completely suppressed. Under the might of humanity's destiny, even his magic power and Yuan Qi became like a pool of stagnant water.

Only the human forces controlled by Shen Yuan were cheering at this moment. If Shen Yuan had not deliberately suppressed it, this human force would have already broken free from Shen Yuan's constraints and entered this imperial city.

“The fact that he did not feel the suppression of the great human trend of the Great Yin Emperor is enough to prove that the puppet emperor’s control over the great human trend has reached an extremely low level.

If he had not still held the position of the Human Emperor, the general trend of humanity would have abandoned this puppet Human Emperor long ago."

Realizing this, Shen Yuan understood in his heart why the Dusk Realm was so eager to choose Ji Zhaoyang as an example to scare the monkeys.

The puppet emperor's massive purge of the powerful in the court has shaken the fortunes of the dynasty, causing the emperor to suffer backlash and is unable to sustain the dynasty. If he delays the stalemate with the powerful families for a while longer, he might expose his own weakness.

Only by getting rid of Ji Zhaoyang can the situation be stabilized once and for all and preparations can be made for the conquest of the entire Xuanhuang Realm.

The carriage slowly moved under the city gate, and the patrolling imperial guards let it pass without any inspection. Their guards were not even as strict as those in Xiaoyou Qingxutian.

After crossing several palaces, the carriage slowly stopped outside the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

The door to the Hall of Supreme Harmony opened, and behind the falling pearl curtain one could only vaguely glimpse a majestic figure wearing the robes of the Yellow Emperor of the Ming Dynasty sitting on the throne. It seemed as if everything in the entire imperial city was gathered here.

On both sides of the road outside the palace, there were civil and military officials, nobles and dukes standing on both sides. Almost all the powerful and noble families in the imperial capital had hereditary titles, and even if they had been stripped of their official ranks, they could still appear here.

And all around, projection spirit beads were suspended in the air, turning everything that happened here into projections, projecting them onto the imperial capital outside the imperial city and the vast land of Kyushu.

Ji Zhaoyang walked out of the carriage, and not far away from him was Prince Ji Xuanyi of Dayin, with a face as gloomy as water.

The two princes of Dayin walked side by side. All the civil and military officials in the court, as well as the military nobles, looked at them, with a hint of expectation flashing in their eyes.

Ji Zhaoyang and Ji Xuanyi came to the outside of the Hall of Supreme Harmony and both knelt down to pay their respects to the supremely majestic figure in the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

"Your son Ji Xuanyi pays homage to the emperor!"

"Your son Ji Zhaoyang pays homage to the Emperor!"

The figure on the throne did not respond, and there was only a depressing silence in the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

After a long while, the crown prince Ji Xuanyi took the initiative to speak:

"The government is in turmoil, and all civil and military officials believe that a new crown prince should be appointed.

The third brother believed that all the crown princes of Dayin were the most outstanding people in the royal family, and wanted to use this to compete for the position of crown prince.

I, your son, dare to ask you to give me the test questions!"

As soon as these words came out, the powerful noble families, civil and military officials all bowed respectfully and said in unison to the Puppet Emperor:

"Please appoint a crown prince!"

Inside the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the majestic figure behind the pearl curtain finally moved.

It was as if a sleeping god opened his eyes, and a pair of huge eyes above the sky of the imperial city looked down at all the civil and military officials, and unparalleled terrifying oppression came down.

A dry, monotonous voice full of majesty rang out outside the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

"The position of crown prince concerns the country of Dayin, how can I allow you to play with it like this?"

Ji Xuanyi immediately knelt down and bowed: "Father, please calm down! Father, please calm down!"

No one could see that there was a subtle curve at the corner of Ji Xuanyi's mouth.

The pair of eyes transformed by the destiny of humanity fell on Ji Zhaoyang who was kneeling outside the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

"The Third Prince Ji Zhaoyang made friends with the traitors and was punished by me, hoping that he would reform himself.

However, Ji Zhaoyang harbored resentment and spent several years in prostitutes, living a dissolute life and disregarding the majesty of the royal family.

Such a frivolous person is not worthy of competing for the title of Dayin Crown Prince!"

Above the sky, a golden bolt of lightning roared down, the wrath of heaven and earth erupted, and the instinctive fear instantly filled the hearts of the civil and military officials in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

"From now on, Ji Zhaoyang will be stripped of his status as the Third Prince of Dayin, his cultivation will be revoked, and he will be sent to the Heavenly Prison to await trial!"

As soon as these words were spoken, all the powerful and powerful people had expressions of shock that they could not conceal.

Although most of the powerful people also believed that the Human Emperor would favor Ji Xuanyi, they should at least give a test as a formality.

Who would have thought that the Human Emperor not only did not want to go through the motions, but also directly stripped Ji Zhaoyang of his status as Prince, abolished his cultivation, and imprisoned him in Heavenly Prison.

How could an ordinary person endure the torture of the Heavenly Prison? This was almost a death sentence for Ji Zhaoyang.

Under those eyes, it seemed as if every thought of the powerful and aristocratic families was known.

Since they united to use Ji Zhaoyang to test the Emperor, the Emperor of Dayin killed Ji Zhaoyang and cut off all their thoughts.

“That’s my biological son, the most outstanding one in the Dayin royal family.

He didn't make any mistakes, but he directly ordered the killing to establish his authority. What a cruel method and what a cruel heart!"

Everyone present was frightened and looked at Ji Zhaoyang with pity in their eyes.

At this moment, Ji Zhaoyang, who was kneeling on the ground, stood up on his own initiative.

"Your Majesty is not only a father, but also a monarch. If the monarch wants the subject to die, the subject must die.

But as a descendant of the Dayin royal family, I do not wish to wait for death in such a filthy place as the Heavenly Prison."

At this point, Ji Zhaoyang looked sharp and said word by word:

"I, your son, dare to ask Your Majesty to impose humane punishment!" (End of this chapter)