The crowd moved forward with unwavering resolve, and the magnificent throne room—which for years had been a symbol of absolute power—now became a witness to a long-overdue justice.
Li Yuan stepped back to the side of the room, making space for the people to complete what they had chosen. He did not lead, did not incite, did not facilitate—his presence simply ensured that no supernatural force or unjust intervention could change the outcome of this confrontation.
Through his Wenjing Realm, he heard every second of what transpired, even though his eyes did not watch directly. He gave the people privacy in this moment—a moment that would shape their souls forever.
King Tianlong tried to speak, his voice rising with a mixture of anger and a deepening fear. "You... you dare! This is treason! This is—"
But his words were cut short as the people—hundreds of them, each carrying their own burden of loss and suffering—surrounded the throne. There was no explosive violence or uncontrolled chaos. There was something almost... ritualistic in their movements. As if a justice that had waited too long was finally finding its expression.
Prince Tianwei, on the other hand, tried to fight back. He grabbed a sword from one of the guards who was frozen in place, his eyes blazing with a rage and contempt that never faded even in the face of death.
"You are all slaves!" he screamed in a voice full of hatred. "You will always be slaves! Even if you kill us, you will never—"
But the people did not let him finish. Those who had lost their children to the executions two months ago, those who had seen their siblings die for daring to show compassion—they moved with a unity of purpose born from shared suffering.
Li Yuan heard through his Wenjing Realm: there was no sadism, no pleasure in the violence. Only... finality. Like cutting a knot that had tied them for too long.
Voices rose briefly—cries of anger, stifled sobs of grief, and then... silence.
The silence that fell over the throne room was so profound that even breathing felt loud.
Li Yuan finally turned to look. King Tianlong and Prince Tianwei were no longer in their seats. Their bodies lay on the magnificent marble floor, blood flowing slowly—the only red color staining the splendor that had always been built on the suffering of others.
But what drew Li Yuan's attention more was not the bodies, but the faces of the people.
They were not celebrating. There was no victory cheer, no revelry at the fall of a tyrant. Instead, the faces showed something far more complex: relief mixed with shock, satisfaction with justice mixed with horror at what they had just done, liberation mixed with a new moral burden.
One by one, they began to realize the full weight of their actions.
The young woman who had lost her sister—she who had spoken most loudly about justice—now stared at her trembling hands, her face pale. Hands that had taken part in the execution, hands that could not be returned to their previous state.
"I... I actually did it," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "I actually..."
The middle-aged man who had become the unofficial leader fell to his knees, his hands covering his face. His body shook—not from fear, but from the profound realization of what had just passed. There was no going back. They had crossed the point of no return.
Cries began to be heard—not cries of victory, but cries from souls who had done something they never imagined they would do. Some people hugged each other, seeking comfort in solidarity. Others stood alone, isolated in their internal struggle.
Li Yuan walked slowly to the center of the room, his presence bringing something calming amidst the emotional chaos. He did not speak immediately—he just stood there, letting the people feel what they needed to feel.
Through his Wenjing Realm, he heard the internal turmoil swirling in every soul: guilt, justification, fear of what they had become, hope that this action was not in vain, doubt about whether there was another way, certainty that there was no other way.
This is a burden they will carry forever, Li Yuan mused with deep sadness. Taking a life—even the life of one who has caused so much suffering—leaves a mark that cannot be erased. They will never return to being the same people they were before this night.
Finally, after a silence that felt like an eternity, Li Yuan spoke.
"What has happened cannot be undone," he said in a voice that was gentle but reached every corner of the room. "You have all made a choice that you will carry for the rest of your lives. That burden will not go away. It should not go away."
He looked at the faces that stared back with eyes full of emotional turmoil.
"But know this: what you did tonight was not murder born of hatred or revenge. This was a justice born of suffering that was too long, of a cruelty that had crossed the line of what could be tolerated, of the realization that some systems are so corrupt they cannot be reformed—they must be replaced."
"The king and his brother were given a chance. They were given a mirror to see the truth about themselves. They were given a choice between reform and repression. And they chose repression. They chose to answer hope with a massacre."
Li Yuan walked slowly among the crowd, his gaze meeting the eyes of every person he passed.
"You do not have to feel proud of what happened tonight. But you also do not have to feel like monsters. You are human beings who have been forced into a choice that should never have existed. And you chose to stand against injustice, even at a very high cost."
The young woman who had lost her sister looked at Li Yuan with tear-filled eyes.
"How can we live with this?" she asked in a broken voice. "How can we wake up every morning knowing what we have done?"
Li Yuan looked at her with eyes that carried the understanding of thousands of years.
"By ensuring that what you did tonight brings about meaningful change," he replied in a gentle but firm tone. "By building a better system so that no future generation has to make the choices you made. By transforming this burden into a responsibility to protect and serve those who cannot protect themselves."
"Guilt without action will only torment your soul without providing any benefit to the world. But guilt transformed into a commitment to justice—that can make a difference."
Silence fell again, but now there was a different quality to it—not just shock or horror, but also a dawning acceptance. Acceptance that what had happened could not be undone, but the future could still be shaped.
The middle-aged man finally stood up from his kneeling position. His face was wet with tears, but there was something that had hardened in his expression—not cruelty, but resolve.
"We need to take care of... these bodies," he said in a tired but steady voice. "With respect, even though they showed no respect for others. Because if we treat them with cruelty, we are no better than them."
Some people nodded slowly. A practical task—even a grim one—provided a needed focus in the face of emotional chaos.
"I will help," someone from the crowd said.
"Me too," added another.
Slowly, a small group of people began to move to take care of the bodies of King Tianlong and Prince Tianwei. They worked in a respectful silence—not because they respected the king as a ruler, but because they respected human life in principle, even the lives of those who had caused so much suffering.
Meanwhile, others began to disperse to different parts of the palace. Some sat in corridors, their heads in their hands, processing what had just happened. Others stood on balconies, staring out at the city below that would now wake up to a different world.
Master Chen, the furniture maker who had joined the crowd on the merchant level, stood in a corner of the throne room, the heavy hammer he had carried now feeling incredibly heavy in his hand—heavy not because of its physical weight, but because of what it represented.
Through his Wenjing Realm, Li Yuan heard the turmoil in the man's soul: guilt for taking part, justification that there was no other choice, fear about the future, hope that this death was not in vain.
"Did we do the right thing?" Master Chen asked no one in particular, his voice echoing in the increasingly empty room.
Li Yuan, who heard the question, approached the man with a calm step.
"There is no simple answer to that question," he said with serene honesty. "True justice is rarely clean or simple. You did what you believed was necessary to stop a systematic cruelty. Was it 'right' in an absolute sense? That is a question you will carry for the rest of your lives."
"But the more important question is: what will you do now? Will you let the actions of tonight define you as murderers? Or will you use it as the beginning of a lifelong commitment to a justice that does not require violence?"
Master Chen looked at Li Yuan with tired but also searching eyes.
"I don't know if I can atone for this," he admitted in a voice that was almost a whisper.
"Perhaps there is no atonement," Li Yuan replied with a brutal but also compassionate honesty. "But there is transformation. There is the possibility that you can become someone who uses this experience—no matter how painful—to build something better."
The hours passed slowly, like thick syrup. The night that had begun with the fire of anger was now cold with the realization of what had happened.
The guards who had lowered their weapons and let the crowd pass now gathered in the palace courtyard, talking in low voices about what would happen next. Some of them felt relieved—they no longer had to serve a system they despised. Others felt lost—their entire identity had been built around serving the king, and now there was no king.
In the noble quarter, news of what had happened at the palace spread like wildfire. Some nobles frantically packed their belongings, preparing to flee before the people's anger turned to them. Others—those with a living conscience—just waited with a trembling fear, hoping that their past actions were not bad enough to make them a target.
On the merchant and commoner levels, the reaction was different. When the news reached them—through whispered word-of-mouth, through running messengers—there was an explosion of complex emotions: relief, fear of the uncertainty, cautious hope, and sadness for those who had died before seeing this moment.
Li Yuan stood on the palace balcony overlooking the city, watching the twinkling lights on the various levels. Through his Wenjing Realm, he heard the symphony of surging intentions—millions of individual voices uniting into a chorus of change that was both wondrous and terrifying.
This is a night that will be remembered for generations, he mused with a quiet awareness. The night when the old system fell and the uncertainty of the future began. Some will remember this as the night of justice's victory. Others will remember it as the night of murder. And the truth, as always, lies between the two extremes.
But what is certain is this: this kingdom will never be the same again. And the people who participated in this night—whether they took direct action or just witnessed it—will all carry the mark of this experience.
The sky slowly began to change from pitch black to dark blue—the first sign that dawn was approaching. But there were still several hours before the sun truly rose, several hours where the darkness still dominated.
In the throne room, some of the people were still gathered—too shaken to go home, too afraid to be alone. They sat in small groups, sharing a silence or speaking in low voices about what would happen next.
The young woman who had lost her sister sat on the steps of the throne—the throne that was now empty, never again to be occupied by King Tianlong. She hugged her knees, her tear-streaked face buried in the shadows.
Li Yuan approached her with a gentle step and sat down next to her—not too close to intrude, not too far to feel distant.
"Ling would be proud," he said in a very soft voice, referring to the woman's executed sister.
The young woman looked up at Li Yuan with red and swollen eyes.
"Would she?" she asked in a broken voice. "Or would she be ashamed that I became like them—someone who kills?"
"You are not like them," Li Yuan replied with a gentle firmness. "They killed innocent people to maintain their power and ego. You took action against those who had caused systematic suffering because there was no other way to stop it."
"That doesn't make it any easier," the woman whispered.
"No," Li Yuan agreed with serene honesty. "It will never be easy. And it shouldn't be easy. The fact that you feel this burden shows that you still have a conscience, still have humanity. That is a valuable thing, even when it feels like a burden."
They sat in silence for a while, two people—one who had lived for thousands of years and had seen the cycle of violence and justice repeat itself, the other who had just crossed a threshold that would change her forever.
"What happens now?" the woman finally asked.
"Now," Li Yuan answered, looking at the horizon where dawn was slowly approaching, "you all must decide what kind of world you want to build from the ruins of the old one. You have destroyed the old system. The more difficult part is building something better to replace it."
"And how do we do that?"
"By making a choice—every day, every small decision—to be better than those who came before you. By remembering the suffering that brought you to this night and ensuring that no one has to suffer in the same way again."
Li Yuan stood up, giving the young woman space to continue her contemplation alone.
"Dawn will come soon," he said with a gentle finality. "And with the new light, you all must begin writing the next chapter of this kingdom's story."
He walked back to the balcony, leaving the people to continue processing this long and painful night.
And as the sky slowly changed from black to dark purple, then to a soft blue, Li Yuan stood in silence, listening through his Wenjing Realm to the symphony of souls that had been changed forever in one night.
This is the end of something, he mused with a calm certainty. And the beginning of something else. What will grow from the seeds planted tonight—whether it is wisdom or further destruction—will depend on the choices made in the coming days, weeks, and years.
But at least now, they have a chance. A chance to build something better. And that, in the end, is all any generation living under oppression can ask for.
The sun finally began to emerge on the horizon, its first rays touching the mountain peaks and slowly creeping down toward the tiered city.
And with the light of dawn, the long, dark night finally ended.
But for those who participated in the events of that night, the darkness in their souls would take much longer to become light again.