Chapter 027: Cause and Effect

After Wu Zetian's recounting, Wang Bo finally understood the whole story.

It turned out that half a year earlier, a plot to usurp the throne had taken place within the imperial palace.

The instigator was an imperial guard named "Zhou Tai".

And this Zhou Tai was also the original discoverer of the demonic pearl.

As for how Zhou Tai discovered the demonic pearl, no one knows, but Zhou Tai indeed obtained the demonic pearl and gained great power from within it.

But the demonic pearl could beguile the human heart, and Zhou Tai's reason was gradually bewitched by it, giving rise to thoughts he should not have had.

He wanted to be emperor, the emperor above all others.

So Zhou Tai used the demonic pearl's power to corrupt several companions, turning them into puppets of the demonic pearl as well, and then one night, he launched a coup.

They planned to hold Li Zhi and Wu Zetian hostage, thereby staging a drama of controlling the emperor to command the feudal lords.

Then, when the time was ripe, they would have Li Zhi write an abdication edict, thereby becoming emperor with full legitimacy.

Without a doubt, no matter who looked at it, this was a plan that could not possibly succeed, but Zhou Tai, whose mind had already been bewitched by the demonic pearl, paid no heed to that.

Within a few days, he joined forces with his companions and launched a coup.

Zhou Tai and his group successfully captured Li Zhi, intending to hold the emperor hostage to command the nobles, but they underestimated how much Li Zhi valued the Li-Tang realm. The captive Li Zhi flatly refused every demand from Zhou Tai's group.

Afterward, the plot of Zhou Tai and his group was exposed, and they were surrounded by the imperial palace guards.

Both sides engaged in a bloody battle.

After several hours of resistance, Zhou Tai and his group were killed by the imperial guards.

But before dying, Zhou Tai and his group had slain hundreds of imperial guards and even wounded Emperor Li Zhi.

This matter greatly startled Wu Zetian.

Zhou Tai and his group were merely a handful of people, yet they killed over a hundred times their number in enemies. This was simply inconceivable. Wu Zetian quickly ordered the Chief Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, Yuchi Zhenjin, to investigate the reason behind it.

Yuchi Zhenjin quickly searched Zhou Tai's home and found the demonic pearl!

But at the time, Yuchi Zhenjin did not pay attention to the demon pearl, which led to it beguiling one of his subordinates. This subordinate stole the demon pearl and intended to flee without a trace.

Yuchi Zhenjin immediately gave chase, and the group found his subordinate. But the subordinate had already been corrupted by the demon pearl and transformed into a monster, single-handedly fighting against many experts of the Court of Judicial Review.

In the end, Yuchi Zhenjin killed the traitor at the cost of over a dozen of his men's lives.

It was at this moment that Yuchi Zhenjin discovered the secret of the demonic pearl.

Afterward, he handed the demon pearl over to Wu Zetian.

After Wu Zetian obtained the demon pearl, she regarded it as a priceless treasure. Her initial idea was to use the demon pearl to create a batch of elite fighters.

Just imagine, a mere handful of people could slaughter hundreds of imperial guards. If we could mass-produce hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of such experts, wouldn't the Great Tang become invincible, conquering all before it?

In all the world, who could still stand as an opponent to the Great Tang?

No!

But soon, Wu Zetian discovered one thing: it was true that anyone who possessed the demonic pearl would gain immense power in a short time, but in contrast, these people would lose all reason, becoming like demons, utterly incapable of following orders.

To put it bluntly, the demonic pearl could only create disasters.

This was completely different from Zhou Tai and his group. It must be known that although Zhou Tai and his group had gained great power, they had not lost their reason, and even knew to hold the emperor hostage to command the feudal lords.

Therefore, Wu Zetian concluded that the demonic pearl must hold a secret.

If only the secret within could be deciphered, powerful soldiers could be mass-produced.

Thus Wu Zetian secretly moved the demonic pearl to the Cold Palace, using condemned prisoners to probe its secrets; whenever a prisoner mutated and lost their reason, she would unhesitatingly order their elimination.

And the reason all of this was carried out by Wu Zetian was that Li Zhi had been severely wounded.

Though he managed to cling to life, he was bedridden all day, too ill to rise, so for the past six months, all state affairs have been handled by Wu Zetian alone.

Including using death-row prisoners to unlock the secret of the Demon Pearl.

But Wu Zetian underestimated the demonic pearl's ability to beguile the human heart. Despite all her precautions, the pearl still bewitched a crowd of death-row prisoners, as well as the guards watching the prisoners and the pearl.

By the way, Eunuch Li was also one of them at the time.

In the end, the Cold Palace, where the demonic pearl was studied, erupted in riot; a group of condemned prisoners broke out of prison, though the riot was quickly suppressed by the imperial guards.

However, the demonic pearl vanished without a trace during this riot.

Even when Wu Zetian dug three feet into the ground, she could not find the whereabouts of the demonic pearl.

However, in this riot, the sole gain was Eunuch Li.

Eunuch Li, as one of those bewitched at the time, had already lost his reason, but after being suppressed, he miraculously regained his senses.

and gained formidable strength, in no way inferior to that of Zhou Tai and his companions.

Wu Zetian had tested it: if Eunuch Li were fully armed, he could crush a squad of a hundred men in a frontal assault without difficulty.

This made Wu Zetian covet the demonic pearl all the more.

She had secretly investigated the whereabouts of the Demon Pearl time and again, and had Yuchi Zhenjin inquire everywhere, monitoring every movement within Luoyang, but ultimately found nothing.

The demon pearl seemed to have evaporated from the human world, never appearing again.

Half a year later, the courtesan Yin Ruiji of Luoyang suddenly rose to prominence, displaying peerless swordsmanship. Yuchi Zhenjin had been suspicious and even personally tested her.

But in the end, Yuchi Zhenjin dismissed the possibility that Yin Ruiji possessed the demon pearl.

The first is because Yin Ruiji possesses reason.

Second, because Yin Ruiji's swordsmanship was supreme. The demonic pearl could indeed grant humans great power, but such power was difficult to control. Yet Yin Ruiji possessed supreme swordsmanship and wielded her strength with ease.

Therefore, Yuchi Zhenjin believed it was unlikely that Yin Ruiji would obtain the demonic pearl.

However, not long after, Wang Bo suddenly displayed top-tier hard martial arts, defeating Zhao Wuyan with a single punch.

This made Yuchi Zhenjin suspicious again.

According to the records, both were ordinary people who had never practiced martial arts, yet it was as if they had acquired formidable skills overnight.

One is a master of swordsmanship, the other of hard martial arts. Can this be merely a coincidence?

Even more interestingly, one of the two was a celebrated courtesan of Luoyang, the other a well-known libertine who spent his days frequenting houses of pleasure and romantic haunts. Could this also be a coincidence?

In Yuchi Zhenjin's view, some things can happen once but not twice, so he suspected that this was very likely not a coincidence.

The demonic pearl indeed had never granted death-row prisoners formidable martial arts.

But, can the Demon Pearl really not do this?

After all, their understanding of the demon pearl was far too limited, so Yuchi Zhenjin immediately reported this matter to Wu Zetian. Wu Zetian, after pondering for a moment, made a decision.

Better to kill a thousand by mistake than to let one escape.