This episode recounts how Dong Cheng and the imperial physician Ji Ping conspired to poison Cao Cao during an attack of his chronic headache. Upon receiving a secret tip-off, Cao Cao had Ji Ping arrested and subjected him to brutal torture to uncover the mastermind. Ji Ping refused to confess even as he died on the torture rack. Cao Cao massacred all members of Dong Cheng’s family and four other conspirators’ households—men, women, young, and old. He then entered the palace and strangled Noble Consort Dong to death, dispatched troops to guard the imperial palace, and kept a close watch on Emperor Xian and his ministers.
The translation of this book series was assisted by various AI tools, but the translator has manually reviewed the content sentence by sentence, with particular care given to correcting potentially confusing expressions. The result is fundamentally different from content directly generated and edited by AI.