Tianqi Country, the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the thirty-second year of JingTai.
Prince Li, Baili Ye, initiated a coup, his men took control of the Imperial Palace and the entire Capital, and he arrived at Funing Palace, where Emperor JingShun resided, with the princess and a hundred guards.
Inside Funing Palace.
Consort Zhen sat beside the dragon bed, her slender and fair hand clutching a brocaded handkerchief, her nails painted with bright rouge, watching Emperor JingShun lying on the dragon bed with focused attention, as if observing something interesting.
Eunuch Chen, Emperor JingShun's head eunuch, stood quietly beside him with his head lowered, as if he were a non-existent person.
No one else was to be found in the palace.
The burning sandalwood incense drifted slowly from the Golden Incense Burner, making the vast sleeping chamber seem particularly bleak and desolate.