Two Suns and Moons Illuminate Heaven and Earth!

The story takes place in a parallel timeline of the 35th year of the Jiajing reign in the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Xiyuan Taoist Temple, incense smoke curled around.

"Bang!"

A fine Ru ware teacup was smashed violently onto the Bagua diagram, shards flying everywhere.

Emperor Jiajing, Zhu Houcong, was so angry that he trembled all over. He jumped up from the prayer mat and pointed at Zhu Dijun on the sky, cursing loudly.

"Disgrace! This is utter and complete disgrace!"

The Jiajing Emperor's topknot had come undone, and he was completely devoid of his usual aloofness, jumping and roaring like a mad street ruffian.

"Your descendant, Judi Jun! How dare you slander me like this! After you mocked me for choking me during the Renyin Palace Incident, you'd actually make the same mistake again by flirting with those palace maids?! Have you lost your mind?!"

Yan Song and Yan Shifan, who were kneeling below, were so frightened that they lay flat on the ground, not daring to even breathe.

"That's unofficial history! It was made up by those Jiangnan literati to disgust me!"

Emperor Jiajing was so angry that his face was contorted and his eyes were bloodshot as he stared at the news anchor on the screen.

"Since you know it's unofficial history, prove it to me clearly, you bastard!"

[Modern Live Streaming Room]

The dim purple lights in the studio gradually faded, returning to a cold, hard tone that exuded extreme rationality.

Zhu Dijun stood behind the podium, ignoring the roar that seemed to transcend time and space. He picked up a bottle of mineral water, unscrewed the cap, and gulped down a large mouthful.

The water soothed the dryness in his throat, and he casually tossed the empty bottle into the wastebasket.

"Family members, the reason why unofficial history is unofficial history is because it doesn't follow logic, it only follows emotions."

Judy Jun's hands rapidly tapped on the holographic keyboard, producing a piercing crackling sound.

"But are these civil officials really just making up stories to smear an emperor who doesn't attend court? Today, I'll show you something different!"

The large screen shook violently, and two heavy, ancient book phantoms crashed down on the center of the screen like two mountains.

On the left is "Dream of the Red Chamber"! On the right is "Journey to the West"!

"Since we've brought up unofficial histories and the murky waters of the Ming Dynasty, let's combine them with the bizarre situation in the provinces and capital during the 35th year of the Jiajing reign to examine a conspiracy theory that will absolutely send chills down your spine!"

The live stream chat exploded with comments, as if the chat had been injected with adrenaline.

"Holy crap! Jun's about to do something big!"

"Conspiracy theories? I love hearing that! Compared to the Ming Dynasty history, which was riddled with lies by the Manchus, conspiracy theories are actually the most plausible!"

"That's right! Now even the Age of Discovery matches up. The Japan occupied by the Japanese pirates was the real Taiwan, and the Taiwan of today is the Ryukyu Islands! Wild Boar Skin can even fake the map, and the Qing Dynasty's revised History of Ming can't even be trusted for a single punctuation mark!"

"Tell me quickly! What kind of monstrous thing has this group of civil servants done this time, that's why their sons are born without an anus?!"

[“Let me explain! The original author of *Dream of the Red Chamber* was Zhu Cishao, the son of Emperor Chongzhen! He absolutely knew how deep the waters were during the Jiajing era!”]

As Zhu Dijun looked at the screen filled with enthusiastic comments, a sharp glint flashed in his eyes.

"Family members, let's throw away all that nonsense about talented men and beautiful women!"

He grabbed the pointer and lashed it hard at the phantom image of "Dream of the Red Chamber."

"Even though the first eighty chapters of this book were drastically altered by the Manchu Qing dynasty, and the authentic content of the last twenty chapters was even destroyed, we can still glean the bloody remnants of the political landscape of the Ming dynasty from between the lines!"

He wrote seven large characters on the whiteboard with great force: "[Two suns and moons hang in the sky, illuminating the universe]!"

"What do you mean? The court system in the book, on the surface, is set in the Tang Dynasty! But it's actually set after the An Lushan Rebellion, when Emperor Xuanzong fled west and Crown Prince Li Heng seized power and declared himself emperor!"

Zhu Dijun moved closer to the camera, his knuckles clapping loudly against the podium.

"In the book, the current emperor and the retired emperor are portrayed as a loving father and son. But in reality? It was a complete coup! The retired emperor was forced to abdicate and relinquish power! This deadly struggle for the transfer of imperial power directly led to the complete collapse of the old power structure, such as the Jia family!"

He suddenly turned around, and the red laser pointer in his hand was like a sharp sword, firmly stabbing into the map of the Ming Dynasty in the thirty-fifth year of Jiajing's reign.

"Now, let's play an extremely exciting immersive game!"

Zhu Dijun roared, frantically drawing lines on the whiteboard with his black pen.

"Let's apply this deadlock from the 35th year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty directly to our analysis!"

"Who was An Lushan during the An Lushan Rebellion? He was a damn Japanese pirate! A smuggling tycoon from Jiangnan who colluded with pirates!"

"Who is the retired emperor in the book? It's none other than the Jiajing Emperor, who hid in the Western Garden practicing alchemy and cultivating immortality!"

"And who is that Crown Prince Li Heng, who forced his way to the throne and proclaimed himself 'Emperor'?!"

Zhu Dijun's eyes were bloodshot as he slammed his fist on the control panel. "It's the Ming Dynasty's civil service—they spout nonsense about benevolence and morality!"

A parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly stood up from the dragon throne and stared intently at the sky.

Crown Prince Zhu Biao stood to the side, his face paling in horror. To compare the Ming Dynasty's civil service to a crown prince who had forced the emperor to abdicate? This extremely treasonous yet terrifying political dissection was like a thunderbolt, directly cleaving through the bloody mess of the Jiajing era!

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice was like a cold wind that could shatter bones.

"Apply this formula to the deadlock of the thirty-fifth year of the Jiajing reign, and then look back at all those messy things before, and you'll instantly understand!"

"Japanese pirates of An Lushan's caliber ravaged the southeast, cut off the Grand Canal, and severed the nation's purse! The Ming Dynasty was plunged into chaos!"

"Why are the civil officials, who are the 'crown princes,' constantly hindering the military generals at the front lines? Why are these gentry from Jiangnan not only unconcerned about the deaths of so many civilians, but instead hoarding land and engaging in speculation in the rear?!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed a blackboard eraser and waved it wildly in the air: "Because they're using someone else to do their dirty work! They're taking advantage of this turmoil caused by the Japanese pirates to force the Jiajing Emperor to relinquish power!"

On the holographic screen, countless hidden lines of illicit transactions intertwine between Jiangnan and the capital, forming an impenetrable web of corruption.

"Emperor Jiajing was too clever and too powerful. He controlled the court, using Yan Song as a front man, and suffocated the civil service. How could the civil service fight back? Rebel? They dared not! They directly condoned and even secretly supported the Japanese pirates' rebellion, completely ruining the situation!"

Zhu Dijun lowered his voice, each word carrying a deadly venom:

"The southeast is broke, and the country is out of food. The civil service is now using the lives of millions of ordinary people as political bargaining chips, crying poverty to Jiajing in court, and pointing at the Taoist temples in the Western Garden, cursing—Your Majesty, look how chaotic the world is! You've incurred divine punishment for your cultivation of immortality! Hand over the reins of power and let us civil officials save the Ming Dynasty!"

The parallel Yongle era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Di's face was so dark it looked like it was about to drip water, and the veins on the back of his hands were bulging as he almost crushed the jade pendant at his waist.

"Using someone else to do the dirty work... fostering a bandit to force the emperor to abdicate..."

A hoarse sound, like the grinding of cast iron, escaped Zhu Di's throat.

"What a vicious scheme! These pedantic scholars, who can't even hold a knife properly, dare to use half of the Ming Dynasty's territory and millions of lives as bargaining chips in their political gamble to undermine imperial power!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun ruthlessly revealed the Jiajing Emperor's trump card.

"But is Jiajing a pushover to be easily manipulated?!" Zhu Dijun sneered repeatedly.

"He hasn't attended court in the Western Garden for over twenty years, but all the filth in the world is in his head! He saw right through these civil officials' plot to force him to abdicate!"

"Now, Jiajing, you yourself should look at this unofficial local history and epitaph, as well as the countless unofficial histories about dew collection circulating in the capital!"

He approached the camera, his gaze cold as ice, piercing the space and time beyond the screen:

"Forcing thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girls to collect dew so their hands and feet would frostbite? Doesn't that seem utterly absurd? But the public believes it without question!"

"This is not simply throwing dirty water on the emperor; this is a carefully planned, unrestricted propaganda war orchestrated by the civil service! They not only want to exert military and financial pressure through the Japanese pirates, but also to completely portray Jiajing as a depraved tyrant and traitor in terms of law and morality!"

"The civil service must make sure all the people in the world know—the disasters you have suffered, the horrific massacres you have endured at the hands of the Japanese pirates, are all because of the sins committed by this old Taoist priest who pursued immortality! The Ming Dynasty can only be saved by us civil officials taking charge!"

A parallel Chongzhen era of the Ming Dynasty.

Under the old crooked-necked tree on Coal Hill.

Zhu Youjian collapsed into the mud, his chapped lips trembling violently.

"A war of public opinion... civil servants are using the lives of ordinary people to wage a war of public opinion..."

Emperor Chongzhen frantically tugged at his hair.

"I was cursed like that by them back then! They accused me of being stubborn and self-willed, of levying exorbitant taxes, but they never mentioned that they themselves had millions of taels of silver hidden in their homes without paying taxes!"

He threw his head back and let out a desolate laugh, tears mingling with blood as they streamed down his face.

"Your Majesty Jiajing! So you're just like me, trapped in the Forbidden City by these civil officials, becoming their live targets in their power grab!"

The studio lights began to flicker violently, turning into an extremely oppressive scarlet red.

"Family members, do you understand?! The so-called Japanese pirate raids, the so-called struggle between the upright officials and the Yan faction in the imperial court—stripped of their hypocritical moral facade, they were essentially an extremely bloody 'coup of the civil officials'!"

Zhu Dijun wiped the three characters "Dream of the Red Chamber" off the whiteboard completely. The red pointer drew a sharp arc in the air and suddenly pointed at the unopened "Journey to the West" on the other side.

"Family members, this is not recorded in the 'Veritable Records of Emperor Shizong of Ming,' but it is recorded in the large-scale written record 'Journey to the West,' which is regarded as a mythological novel. Let me explain it to you."

[Modern Live Streaming Room]

Many netizens were initially stunned, and then erupted in uproar.

[“No way, Jun-ge, even Journey to the West has metaphors and allegories.”]

[“Liberal arts students, haven’t there been some liberal arts students analyzing the Ming Dynasty recently, using Journey to the West and Dream of the Red Chamber? Anyone who has seen this, please speak up.”]

[“Upstairs, yes, there are already top students in classical Chinese analyzing it, but they haven’t reached the Jiajing era yet.”]

"Whether it's true or false, I don't dare to look. Our ancestors suffered so much!"