Wu Youwei knelt.
Those he had summoned — officials like the Yuzhou Chief Executor of the Tianxing Platform and other high-ranking officers — also dropped to their knees.
A crowd of eunuchs and palace maids from the Xuanyan Court rushed over with garments, busy trying to revive the young ladies in the pavilion who hadn’t come to yet.
Each of those girls had been tortured until their bodies were a map of bruises and cuts.
The eunuchs used the palace’s secret incense to bring them back.
What followed were sharp wails, terrified cries, struggles as they tried to smash their heads against the walls and end it, only to be held back by the eunuchs and maids.
After all, this was the Great Golden Mountain Temple, and Lu Qian — a master versed in Buddhist supernatural arts — was on guard there.
With a single Buddhist incantation, sounding like the deep strike of drum and bell, it detonated in the hearts of those girls.
The thousands of howls and death-wails quieted at once; the courtyard was left with nothing more than soft, stifled sobbing.
Some imperial female attendants and senior eunuchs drew near and gently questioned the girls about who they were, where they came from.
As the information slowly came together, everyone’s faces turned ugly.
Only thirty percent of these young women were truly common folk.