Zetian, Yizhi, and Tang Anding attend a residential outreach session led by a Vanguard committee member, who delivers one of Qin Zheng's prewritten presentations on class solidarity, arguing that the masses share more with beggars than the wealthy elite. Afterward, a soldier conducts a basic firearms lesson—part of Qin Zheng's mandatory militarization of the populace. Though Zetian finds the gun training somewhat absurd, she suppresses any protest, fearing the chaos that would follow if Qin Zheng disappeared again.

On the carriage ride back through Chang'an, Zetian muses about how Shimin might have responded to the revolution, imagining him as a Vanguard but uncertain whether he and Qin Zheng would end as allies or enemies. Her reverie is broken when Yizhi's and Qieluo's tablets chime simultaneously with an emergency broadcast from the counter-revolutionaries.

The broadcast features Kong Zhuxi, a surviving member of the Council of Sages and nephew of the late Chairman Kong, standing alongside Zhuge Liang beneath the rebel White Lotus Flag. Kong Zhuxi reveals he escaped the Palace of Sages massacre by chance and has since joined Zhuge Liang. He denounces Sima Yi (Qin Zheng) and Wu Zetian as "wicked thieves" deceiving the Emperor, accusing them of robbing citizens, executing exemplary men on fabricated charges, and humiliating elders. Violent revolutionary footage—including Ye Xingzhen being shoved through a rally—plays alongside his speech.

Zetian leaves her carriage to find Kong Zhuxi's broadcast playing on every screen in Chang'an. The propaganda escalates devastatingly when it airs the suppressed footage of Qin Zheng collapsing and coughing up blood at Zetian's coronation—evidence she believed had been erased. Kong Zhuxi accuses her and Sima Yi of poisoning the Emperor and calls on citizens to raise "the flag of righteousness" and banish them. The exposure of Qin Zheng's hidden frailty threatens to unravel the regime's legitimacy.