On another occasion, when he went through the region of Zhao (趙州, part of modern Shijiazhuang, Hebei) and Bei (貝州, roughly modern Xingtai, Hebei), he happened to see the country people putting on a vegetarian feast for Buddhist monks, and he falsely reported that they were plotting a rebellion.
As of 690, Wu Zetian, then empress dowager and regent over her son Emperor Ruizong, was poised to take the throne herself, and by that point, she had given Wang a general title, and then made him an assistant censor.
As he was returning to the eastern capital Luoyang, he went through Fen Prefecture (汾州, roughly modern Lüliang, Shanxi), where the military advisor to the prefect, a man named Mao, held a feast for him.
In 692, Wang falsely implicated the chancellors Li Youdao, Wang Xuan, Yuan Zhihong, Cui Shenji, and Li Yuansu, and other officials Kong Siyuan (孔思元) and Ren Linghui (任令輝), and all of them were removed from their posts and exiled to the Lingnan region.
He pretended to receive an edict from Wu Zetian recalling him to Luoyang, but as he reached the north bank of the Han River, he encountered the censor Hu Yuanli (胡元禮).