The guards had already been dismissed outside, so there were only five people in the room witnessing this diabolical act including the two palace guards, who were, however, more stoic than their commander. After a short glance at the twisting and gyrating bodies on the floor, the two guards averted their gazes and never once looked in that direction again even when the duke slumped on the cold floor and wept.

The empress dowager was stone cold detached. She didn't even turn a hair when Shu Se whimpered and sobbed as her brother forced her to do things only a husband would demand of his wife. For the duke, the torture of watching his son defiling his own sister was mind altering. He felt disgust, fury, and yes, jealousy. Jealousy of his own son for touching what was his; and fury at Shu Se for responding to her brother's advances. He didn't hear her screams. In his twisted mind, she was giving herself willingly to her brother just as she had given herself willingly to the emperor, Gu Fang.

The incestuous act lasted nearly half an hour but to the people watching and listening to it, it seemed like hours. Zhe Bai Lian finally gave a last loud grunt then his worn out, satiated body fell off his sister's as he lay on the ground panting.

n.o.body moved. n.o.body said anything. Then the empress dowager freed the duke from his handcuffs. The duke staggered to his feet like a drunken man. After a slight hesitation, he walked over to where the bodies of his children lay naked and exposed.

Shu Se was sobbing quietly, her legs pressed against her chest in a fetal position. Beside her, Zhe Bai Lian lay with his eyes closed, the sweat of s.e.xual fulfillment dotting his moist forehead. The now flaccid brown p.e.n.i.s lay quietly between his legs, still glistening ooze from his sister's juices.

The duke seemed to be fascinated by the sight of his son's d.i.c.k. He eyes locked on it intently as he towered over his son's naked, heaving body. As if sensing his gaze, Zhe Bai Lian opened his eyes and stared straight into his father's cold and furious eyes. He scrambled to his feet, alarmed and scared, but it was already too late. It had already been too late for all of them the minute he touched Shu Se.

The empress dowager watched coldly as the maddened duke hacked viciously at his son then at his daughter with the sword she had conveniently placed beside him on the floor.

The screams were so loud and harrowing the guards scrambled inside to see what was going on. What they saw literally stretched their eyes wide open. The Duke of Zeyin, his white robe drenched in blood, was holding a long sword in his hand and was using it to viciously hack at his son's and daughter's dead bodies while laughing and crying maniacally.

This horrific sight was too much even for these hardened warriors. Their eyes swiveled to their superiors in search of guidance but Commander Yi Hai seemed unaware of their presence, his gaze on the empress dowager who was watching with inscrutable eyes as the duke vent his shame and anger on the defiled bodies of his children.

The duke's unhinged venting didn't take long. He finally stopped after exhausting himself. Then he straightened, staring woodenly at the carnage around him. His lifeless eyes made a half degree turn and landed on the empress dowager, who looked at him steadily and without pity. The duke stretched his mouth in a grotesque smile then both hands grasped the middle of the blade, plunging the blood-drenched tip deep into his own chest.

The duke then turned the blade once...twice, giving a last dying gasp before his lifeless body crumpled to the ground.

n.o.body spoke but one could hear harsh breathing in the painful silence. It was the empress dowager who finally broke it. She looked at the carnage with veiled eyes then coldly ordered:

"Clean this garbage up," she said, "and search the entire place. Arrest everyone. I want guards placed around the compound. Don't let anybody in. If they do, kill them."

Yi Hai and the guards nodded and fled, glad to get away from the stink of the room. They didn't want to stay there anymore. They didn't even want to remember where it was. All they want to do is forget, the blood, the hacked bodies, the final insanity the Duke of Zeyin inflicted on his daughter and son.

So it was true. The emperor of Yuqui didn't die a natural death. Poison. Somebody fed it to him minutes before he was about to share a bed with his new wife. The duke, the prime minister, perhaps the entire court was in on it. High treason, indeed. No wonder the empress dowager was p.i.s.sed. The prime minister...did that mean?

Meanwhile, the empress dowager hurried outside to her carriage. She commanded the driver to go to the prime minister's house. The carriage had shot past the watching crowd and was pressing onwards when Yi Hai and ten palace guards exited the compound. They hurriedly got on their horses and frantically chased after her.

Yi Hai was alternately frightened for her majesty's safety and angry at her willfulness. She had shown how frighteningly capable she was of taking care of herself but still these were desperate men who would not even hesitate to sell their own mothers to escape the imperial wrath. What the heck was she thinking? Or was she thinking at all and was just following the spirit of vengeance anywhere it moved her?

The dwelling place of the prime minister was not as grand or as big as the duke's but it was still fortified like a f.u.c.king gold fort. The empress dowager looked at the chains on the doors and half-laughed, half-snorted. As if she would give them any chance to escape from her. Idiots.

She glanced at the ornate ring on the middle finger of her left hand. Who would have thought that when she traveled through time and landed on another dimension that she would still be wearing this ring? The ring was very old and was a wedding gift given by her grandfather to her grandmother. Hippolyta preferred to wear no ornaments on her hands but this ring was special. It was a giant s.p.a.ce created by Li Cheung's magic, a s.p.a.ce capable of storing anything, even an object as big as a mountain.

And the last person who was in charge of this ring was Enxuo, who gave her the ring before he left. Good old Enzuo who liked to buy things in bulk and whose h.o.a.rding habits were legendary. The vast s.p.a.ce of the ring must have challenged him because he crammed an a.r.s.enal of weapons necessary to a warrior's fighting lifestyle: guns, swords, knives, chemicals, rounds and rounds of ammo including bullets and grenades, tents, dry food, blankets, medicine kits, batteries, and fuel. There were even several boxes of undetonated bombs inside and two trucks, two armored vehicles, and two tanks. Tanks. Hmnn....

The enormous tank terrified the citizens of Yuqui who heard its rumbling cry miles away. It scared the bejesus out of the rebel holdouts still hiding inside the prime minister's house. When the empress dowager rammed the vehicle's thick enormous body through the closed wooden doors, it not only splintered the wood like they were matchsticks the force literally shook and shuddered the ground like an earthquake.

People ran around like headless chickens, screaming that the end was near and praying to G.o.d for deliverance. When they caught sight of the tank, they literally froze. The empress dowager took aim and watched calmly as half of the house was torn apart by the force of the blast. Two more rounds and the prime minister's house was flattened like a pancake, dead bodies strewn around the devasation like limp noodles covered in blood.

The empress dowager opened the hatch and jumped to the ground. Under the soles of her shoes, blood flowed like a river, staining the helm of the red dress she was wearing. She didn't seem to notice though because her eyes had caught something slumped on a large piece of wood a little distance away. It was a fat young man, half of his head was blown away by shrapnel, his stomach opened like a gutted pig. A red bandana was loosely tied around his waist, the color now resembling a gray ashen dust.

"The prime minister's only son, your majesty," Yi Hai quietly said beside her. "The leader of the Scarlet Rebels."

"I want you to immediately round up those treacherous ministers. I won't even give them a fair trial. Just hang them up high until their necks break."

"It will be as you wish, your majesty," Yi Hai bowed.

The empress dowager did not speak and the silence lengthened.

"Is it over?" she said in a low voice which Yi Hai could barely hear.

"Your majesty?" Yi Hai said with a concerned frown.

The empress dowager glanced at him.

"I was talking to myself," she said.

The frown didn't leave Yi Hai's face. The empress dowager chuckled when she saw it.

"I believe everything will be alright now. We've broken the rebels' back and all the major players in this little drama are either dead or on the run. They'll most likely head to the nearest town, which is fifty miles from here. Have your men sweep that area first thing tomorrow morning."

"Yes, your majesty," Yi Hai said then hesitated.

"Is there something else?"

"That...that thing, your majesty," Yi Hai said awkwardly. "Is it a monster or something else? I've never seen one like it before."

"You mean the tank?" the empress dowager was amused.

"A tank?"

"That's what we call it in the kingdom where I came from. A tank. It's very good and effective for mowing your enemies down in battle. Do you want to take a look inside? I might even teach you how to drive it one of these days."

"Inside? It's hollow inside?"

"How else can you get to it? Come on, I'll show you around."

Commander Yi Hai was nothing if not curious. His legs almost quake when he looked at the enormous tank but he managed to wrest a decisive win from his inner wimp by climbing up the tank and dropping down inside after the empress dowager opened the hatch. It could be said that the commander's manhood not only regained its potency but his inner love for anything s.h.i.+ny was roused. And the inner chamber of this particular tank was really very s.h.i.+ny.

When the empress dowager finally managed to drag him away from his new toy, they discovered that a large crowd had already gathered and were now surrounding the tank. The crowd, thankfully, remained in their shock state so everyone was silent as a mouse even when the empress dowager and the commander slid down the side of the monster and descended to the ground.

"Commander Yi, what did it look like inside?" a subordinate finally couldn't help himself and called out to Yi Hai.

"s.h.i.+ny," Yi Hai quipped.

Eh? The subordinate was confused. What's s.h.i.+ny about it?

"Can you watch over the tank while I ride back to the palace and report to the emperor?" the empress dowager was saying, looking at Yi Hai. "It's alright. They can look inside but don't touch anything!"

With that stern warning, the empress dowager again hurried to her carriage. The crowd watched as the horses revved up and carried the carriage away until it disappeared from their sight. The crowd, as if one body, speared Yi Hai with s.h.i.+ning and excited eyes.

"She said we can go inside to see," a young man excitedly said. "Can we, Commander Yi?"

Yi Hai sighed. We're going to be here until morning if this keeps up, he thought looking morosely at the growing crowd before him.

"Yes. She said it's alright to see inside. Can we, Master Yi?"

Yi Hai swallowed his annoyance.

"What I can't understand is, how in h.e.l.l did this monster get in here? Did she pull it out of air? Did it drop from the sky?" a bearded man said, frowning. "I've been thinking about it and I can't find an answer."

"Then don't think about it," his wife answered. "Stop with all these questions. It will only hurt your head."

"But..."

"I want to go inside to see. Come on, ask Commander Yi. Didn't you say he was your cla.s.smate or something?"

Stumped for words, her husband didn't know whether to laugh or cry,

Finally hara.s.sed into allowing the crowd to see the inside of the tank, Yi Hai got into the groove and used his authority to set new rules.

"Okay, group yourselves in fives...I said fives not six or seven. What are you, deaf? Line up. I said line up! No pus.h.i.+ng now. And no jostling either!"

The emperor was waiting at the same steps and the same door as before when the empress dowager's carriage finally pulled inside the compound. It took several minutes before the empress dowager alighted, however. She had in fact fallen into a light sleep and was feeling a bit groggy when her eyes finally opened.

She was home. With a yawn, she opened the door and stepped outside. The emperor's eyes moved fast as lightning around her head and body to check for injuries. He swallowed a deep sigh when he found none. His stepmother was home, unhurt and unharmed. At this moment, that was all that mattered to him.

The empress dowager lightly covered the distance between them. When she reached the top stairs and stood side by side with him, she pulled him into her strong arms and gave him a hug.

"It's over, Sheng. It's finally over. I've promised your father. Today, I have fulfilled that promise and set you free."

The emperor didn't answer, in his eyes were a turmoil of unsaid and unacknowledged emotions. The empress dowager seemed to understand because she cupped his pointed chin a gave it a little pinch.

"Don't leave," the emperor finally took his courage in his hand and whispered. "Don't leave me, An Ning. If you go, take me with you."

The empress dowager stared into eyes as clear and deep as a pool but not as tranquil. She could see her face reflected in it. Her face was younger, her cheeks still carrying traces of baby fat. The eyes that stared back at her looked unfamiliar though. Unhappy. Sad. Coldly blank. What happened to change the old her into this? That old version of An Ning gone. Was this the newer, better version of her then?

The emperor was still waiting, his hands clasped together as if in silent prayer. The empress dowager opened her mouth to speak but instead her body gently folded to the ground, as if the will that had contained the power of her wrath was spent, eroded by fatigue and some worries even she was reluctant to admit.

The emperor caught her as she was about to fall to the ground unconscious. He saw that she was crying, big, fat tears staining the blush on her cheeks with a pale trail of woe. The empress dowager was dreaming. She was being pulled reluctantly back into the past and it was hurting her. It felt like her chest was about to burst with love, pain and the unreasoning demand of sorrow. She was trapped in it and there was no escape. Not even a tiny window where she could breathe fresh air.

The dream pulled at her, angry and demanding. She allowed herself to be possessed. There really was no choice this time.