Wen Ze has been very busy recently.
He had previously imprisoned all the reborn individuals in the palace at Qing Si Temple. Not only did he send people to guard the area, forbidding them from communicating with each other, but he also had the guards record their every word and action. Only after seven days did he send Situ Jiang, a civil official under his command known for his eloquence and persuasive skills, to question them about their past lives.

Anyone who tried to lie would be exposed due to inconsistencies with their previous words and actions. After three consecutive days of interrogation, two more “fish who slipped through the net” were added to Qing Si Temple.

On the fourth day, Wen Ze finally obtained a relatively credible account of the future.

These accounts were not significantly different from what the Emperor, Empress, and Pu Qianjun had said. However, they weren’t entirely without merit either. Wen Ze instructed Situ Jiang to organize and archive this information.

Situ Jiang acknowledged the order and withdrew, heading to Fuyou Pavilion next door after leaving the East Palace.

Fuyou Pavilion is the closest watchtower to the East Palace. It has now been converted into a place dedicated to organizing records related to reborn individuals. The perimeter is heavily guarded, and entry and exit require multiple layers of identity verification.

After Situ Jiang left, Wen Ze continued his work. He had a Daqing map hanging in front of him, on which the four regions of Dan Nan, Linxi, Sudong, and Qianbei were drawn in four different colors. Among them, except for Linxi, which consisted of four prefectures, the other three regions each occupied three prefectures, totaling four regions and thirteen prefectures.

According to what the reborn individuals said, starting from the thirteenth year of Tian He, natural disasters would occur frequently.

The ** must be nipped in the bud. As for natural disasters, he could only prepare for them.

One order after another was issued from the East Palace. Wen Ze was so busy that he worked day and night. Anyone else would have collapsed long ago, but he enjoyed it. He even took the time during breakfast to order Pu Qianjun to bring the officials from the Ministry of Rites in charge of this year’s spring imperial examination into the palace, saying that all the exam questions would be reissued to prevent any reborn individuals from taking advantage.

After finishing breakfast, Wen Ze happily returned to his desk to continue working. Unexpectedly, an imperial decree came from the After court, stating that the Empress was preparing to hold a flower viewing party at the Plum garden, inviting many noble young ladies from Yongdu. Of course, most importantly, the Empress had specifically invited Yin Zheng and instructed her son to attend no matter how busy he was tomorrow.

Although Wen Ze had suggested that the Empress recognize Yin Zheng as her adopted daughter, it was clear that the Empress had not given up on making Yin Zheng her daughter-in-law.

The Empress had previously only verbally urged Wen Ze to meet that second Miss Yin Zheng of the Yin family. But recently, she heard that the Yin family’s threshold was about to be flattened by matchmakers coming to propose marriage. The Empress became anxious and invited Yin Zheng into the palace, where they had a very pleasant conversation.

Because of the Empress’s actions, those who had come to propose marriage finally stopped, seemingly realizing that there were also reborn individuals in the palace. One by one, they began to feel fear.

After all, in her previous life, Yin Zheng was not only the goddess in the hearts of the people but also the Crown Princess, the Empress.

To marry the future Empress, wouldn’t that be a heinous crime?

Of course, there were also some people who considered themselves to be strategically astute in this reborn life and were particularly persistent about Yin Zheng. Relying on the fact that their parents didn’t quite understand their situation and didn’t know about the events of their previous lives, they kept asking the Yin Residence to marry Yin Zheng.

The Yin Residence’s response was naturally rejection. The Empress also asked Yin Zheng about her marriage, but Yin Zheng always evaded the question. Once, when the Empress pressed her, Yin Zheng gave the Empress a grand salute and said, “If Your Majesty wants Yin Zheng to marry His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, Yin Zheng would not dare to disobey.”

“Would not dare to disobey,” but in the end, she was still unwilling.

If it were an ordinary mother of the nation, she would definitely feel disgusted when she heard someone say that they were unwilling to marry her son.

But the Empress knew how terrible her son was, and she had gotten along very well with Yin Zheng in her previous life, so well that they could be considered as close as mother and daughter. How could she bear to force Yin Zheng to do something she didn’t like? Therefore, the Empress had to think of another way to have her son meet Yin Zheng first. Maybe Yin Zheng would agree then.

After all, although her son’s personality wasn’t great, his appearance was truly outstanding.

Wen Ze didn’t have any particular thoughts about his mother’s little plan. He suddenly remembered that the two attendants whom Pu Qianjun had captured from the Sitian Tower were still imprisoned in The Court of Revision. Because he already knew that Yin Zheng was the mastermind behind the Sitian Tower case, he hadn’t gone to interrogate them.

“I’ll go meet that woman then,” Wen Ze thought, but from his casual attitude, it could be seen that he didn’t take meeting Yin Zheng to heart.

Wen Ze was busy, and Yin Zheng was busy too.

Countless invitations gave Yin Zheng the opportunity to come into contact with reborn individuals. Every day, she was either going out to accept invitations or writing letters to probe. At night, she also had to read the letters brought by the Boy, sort out the information, and then modify and reduce the almost perfect overall plan bit by bit, trying to protect her people.

On the day she entered the palace to attend the Flower viewing party, she wore a white cross-collared shirt embroidered with peony patterns, covered with a half-sleeved top made of light gauze, and a dark blue long skirt. A white jade Jin Bu carved with floating clouds and crescent moons hung around her waist. When she walked, the pearl tassels hanging from the Jin Bu collided with each other, making a rhythmic sound.

Because the Empress valued her, she didn’t have to walk every time she entered the palace. She only needed to get out of the carriage and transfer to a Sedan.

She also knew that this was a special privilege and didn’t want to be too ostentatious. However, she had repeatedly begged the Empress, but the Empress refused to withdraw her preferential treatment towards her. Therefore, on the day of the Flower viewing party, Yin Zheng unexpectedly encountered a group of noble young ladies who had also been invited to the palace at the palace gate, as well as the Sedan that had been waiting at the palace gate and Mama Kang, who was from the Empress side.

Although there were many reborn individuals, not every family had one. Not everyone knew about the matter of rebirth.

Most people only knew that Yongdu had recently experienced a strange disease that would cause people to fall into a coma. After waking up, they would be like they were possessed, but they would soon recover, without even needing to take medicine.

So, similarly, many people didn’t know why this second Miss of the Yin family had suddenly become so popular. There were too many ignorant people. Some chose to follow the crowd and treat Yin Zheng differently along with those who knew the truth. Others chose to reject Yin Zheng, a character who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and were particularly dissatisfied with her, even harboring contempt.

Those who rejected Yin Zheng were mostly noble young ladies who were similar in age to Yin Zheng but had more outstanding backgrounds. Coincidentally, a large portion of the ladies the Empress had invited this time were like that.

It was a pity that the Empress only wanted to take this opportunity to connect Yin Zheng with her son and let Yin Zheng make more friends. She didn’t expect it to backfire, causing Yin Zheng to encounter a cold reception as soon as she arrived at the palace gate.

Yin Zheng was used to being at ease in any situation, so she didn’t feel anything about this. On the contrary, Mama Kang was worried. In order to let others know how much the Empress liked Yin Zheng and to knock on the heads of those arrogant young ladies, she deliberately went to greet Yin Zheng. Not only was her attitude respectful, but she also helped Yin Zheng into the Sedan, stunning all the noble young ladies.

They had just been exchanging glances and secretly laughing, mocking Yin Zheng for being successfully isolated. In the blink of an eye, Yin Zheng took the Sedan and easily went to the Plum garden, while they had to walk in the cold wind.

And that Sedan, they originally thought that Sedan was prepared for the Miss He family, but wasn’t it?

Riding the Sedan was faster than walking. When a group of noble young ladies arrived at the Plum garden, Yin Zheng had already chatted with the Empress for a while, drank a few cups of tea, and even ate a piece of hibiscus snow sugar cake.

Seeing this, some ladies silently changed their attitudes and prepared to befriend Yin Zheng. Others became even more resentful, thinking that they must find a way to suppress Yin Zheng’s arrogant aura.

The forced arrogant Yin Zheng obediently stayed by the Empress’s side, mainly because the weather was too cold today, and Yin Zheng’s constitution was weaker than ordinary people. She was afraid of the cold and didn’t want to play and enjoy the flowers outside with the other ladies.

Not long after the Flower viewing party started, a eunuch came to report that the Crown Prince had arrived.

The ladies couldn’t help but feel a little restless. Yin Zheng was also curious and wanted to see what her husband from her previous life looked like.

Soon, a man wearing red clothes and a golden crown, followed by attendants and maids, appeared at the entrance of the Plum garden and walked towards them.

Yin Zheng couldn’t see clearly at first, but after the man got closer, she couldn’t help but be slightly stunned.

People often use stars to describe a person’s eyes as beautiful, but when facing Wen Ze, seeing his eyes, one would not think of that little starlight, but rather the deep night sky carrying countless stars. However, even with such beautiful eyes, they were not the most attractive part of Wen Ze’s face.

Yin Zheng had seen many handsome men with outstanding appearances, but never before had she been so sure—there was definitely no one more attractive than him in the world.

Yin Zheng slowly came back to her senses and couldn’t help but begin to suspect: In her previous life, she probably married him for his face.

Wen Ze saluted the Empress. The Empress said a few words to him and told him not to waste time here, and also asked Yin Zheng to see Wen Ze off for her.

Yin Zheng still obeyed and got up to walk to Wen Ze’s side.

Yin Zheng was curious about Wen Ze, but Wen Ze didn’t care about Yin Zheng.

Just like Yin Zheng didn’t think she would stop in her previous life, Wen Ze didn’t think that he would put the blame of attempted patricide on himself for the sake of a woman.

But he believed that Pu Qianjun wouldn’t lie to him, so there was only one possibility—that he in his previous life had deceived Pu Qianjun.

He must have had another reason for taking the blame, but he didn’t want Pu Qianjun to stop him, so he wrapped it in a layer called love, making it impossible for Pu Qianjun, as a subordinate, to object.

Moreover, although Pu Qianjun knew that Yin Zheng was the culprit for destroying the Sitian Tower, he didn’t know the reason why Yin Zheng destroyed the Sitian Tower, nor did he know that the disasters that Daqing suffered later were all Yin Zheng’s doing. Therefore, the information Wen Ze obtained was also limited, and he still thought that what Yin Zheng did was only destroying the Sitian Tower.

As for the descriptions of Yin Zheng in other people’s mouths, because they were too perfect and one-sided, Wen Ze was more willing to believe that the so-called “goddess” was a facade he had created for the world. Therefore, Yin Zheng, in his heart, was no different from others. The only thing that could make him explore was the reason why Yin Zheng wanted to destroy the Sitian Tower.

Wen Ze didn’t take precautions against Yin Zheng, or rather, Wen Ze didn’t think there was anything about Yin Zheng that needed him to be vigilant about.

Therefore, on the way out of the Plum garden, when the attendants and maids following behind them distanced themselves from them, Wen Ze opened his mouth and asked Yin Zheng, “Why did you destroy the Sitian Tower?”

Wen Ze went straight to the point, not wanting to waste any time on Yin Zheng.