“I would be honored to… receive Princess Zhenguo’s instruction!” Wang Meng cupped his fists toward Bai Qingyan once more.

Bai Qingyan’s calm and profound gaze fixed on Wang Meng: “As I led my great army racing back, my subordinate officers and soldiers witnessed many officials forcibly seizing children. In their hearts, they already hate to the bone this Lin Dynasty that treats the people like livestock. The Pingyang army, having traveled this same route, must have seen much as well. Do the soldiers under General Wang Meng’s command not feel disheartened toward the Lin Dynasty? The soldiers I lead fight for the people, while the Pingyang army under General Wang Meng has already wavered in their resolve to defend the Lin Dynasty! The outcome… was decided long ago!”

Wang Meng’s eyes widened. He had thought… that Princess Zhenguo intended to support the Crown Prince’s ascension to the throne, but the meaning of these words… was she planning rebellion?

“Princess Zhenguo, these words…” Wang Meng’s sentence trailed off. Was there anything wrong with Princess Zhenguo’s words?

What the Pingyang army had witnessed on their journey to the capital was simply a living hell. Children aged five to ten were in such high demand among human traffickers that families losing children were countless. There were even incidents of officials ordering government runners to forcibly seize common people’s children.

Didn’t Wang Meng feel heartbroken seeing these things?

“General Wang Meng, whether you surrender or fight to the death for your Kingdom… It’s entirely your choice…”

After finishing her words with Wang Meng, Bai Qingyan turned to look at Du Sanbao: “I leave him to you!”

“Princess Zhenguo, rest assured! This subordinate will take good care of General Wang Meng!” Du Sanbao cupped his fists, his wolf-cub-like gaze fixed on Wang Meng, whose eyes were filled with disbelief.

Bai Qingyan leaped onto her horse, caught the red-tasseled silver spear that Ji Tingyu tossed to her, and with high spirits and complete confidence of victory, shouted: “Leave a small squad to follow General Du Sanbao in cleaning up the battlefield. Everyone else, follow me into the imperial palace! The first to break through the gates… shall be rewarded with one hundred gold!”

The soldiers’ emotions ran high as they followed Bai Qingyan, charging into the imperial palace.

Du Sanbao, hearing Bai Qingyan call him general, grinned widely… revealing a mouthful of white teeth, his heart filled with incomparable excitement and elation.

At this time, Prince Liang, having taken hostage the emperor who had already “passed away,” the Crown Prince, and the Grand Princess, was squeezed into a carriage bouncing along southward, leaving the sounds of killing in the capital far behind.

The emperor was bound hand and foot with a cloth stuffed in his mouth, sitting in the jolting carriage with an ashen and ugly expression.

The Crown Prince had already fainted, with tear stains still at the corners of his eyes and blood at the corners of his mouth.

Prince Liang gritted his back teeth, using a handkerchief to press against the tiger’s mouth where the Crown Prince had bitten off a piece of his flesh.

Before leaving the capital, Prince Liang had ordered people to kill the Crown Princess and the little imperial grandson. Upon hearing this, the Crown Prince was terrified beyond measure. Seeing that pleading was useless, he had wanted to fight desperately with Prince Liang. If Fan Yuhuai hadn’t knocked him unconscious in time, Prince Liang’s hand would have been ruined.

The aged Grand Princess sat upright in the carriage, her hands folded and placed on her legs. She knew… that Prince Liang had coerced her to follow along out of the city merely to use her to restrain her granddaughters.

Originally, when Bai Jinxiu broke through the capital, Prince Liang hadn’t had time to bring the Grand Princess into the palace together, since the guards of Princess Zhenguo’s mansion were extremely fierce, and Prince Liang had already run out of time to forcibly capture the Grand Princess into the palace.

But today, the Grand Princess had walked out of Princess Zhenguo’s mansion, which was heavily protected by troops Bai Jinxiu had dispatched, and boarded Prince Liang’s carriage herself, because the Grand Princess still wanted to preserve the Crown Prince.

Prince Liang had sent someone with a message: if the Grand Princess didn’t board the carriage, he would kill both the Crown Prince and the emperor, who had already “passed away.”

The emperor… the Grand Princess had long since stopped caring about.

The Grand Princess was not unaware that Prince Liang’s current life-saving talisman was still the Crown Prince, and he absolutely would not kill the Crown Prince so easily.

The Grand Princess didn’t know how she should face her granddaughter Bai Qingyan, who intended to rebel against the Lin Dynasty.

So she chose to leave behind Bai Jinse and Nanny Jiang, boarding Prince Liang’s carriage alone.

She still wanted to struggle and make one last effort for the Lin imperial power, hoping that no matter where they went, she could protect the Crown Prince, hoping that by then Bai Qingyan could support the Crown Prince’s ascension to the throne, or even… support the little imperial grandson’s ascension, becoming a powerful minister who controlled the court, rather than… a treacherous rebel.

Otherwise, after a hundred years, having neither protected the Bai family’s descendants nor preserved the Lin Dynasty’s realm, she would have no face to meet her husband, Bai Weiting, much less face her father emperor.

She was greedy, originally hoping to achieve the best of both worlds, but it was impossible.

Now, since she had already failed to protect her descendants, she wanted to make one final effort for the Lin Dynasty’s realm.

When leaving, Bai Jinse and Nanny Jiang insisted on following, but the Grand Princess brought no one…

She was willing to sacrifice her life to make a final effort for Lin imperial power because she was the Jin state’s Grand Princess, but her young and innocent granddaughter Bai Jinse shouldn’t follow her to become another handle Prince Liang could use to threaten A’Bao.

She also understood that the reason she could strive for this Lin imperial power was because she was a daughter-in-law of the Bai family… the grandmother of Princess Zhenguo Bai Qingyan.

The Grand Princess knew her body was deteriorating day by day. If she could die before A’Bao overthrew the Lin imperial power, it could be considered following heaven’s will. If not, she approved of her A’Bao ascending to that supreme position as a woman. In terms of character… governing talent, and decisive killing, A’Bao lacked nothing!

But if A’Bao ascended to the throne, she might not necessarily be a good emperor.

A’Bao inherited the moral character of the Bai family ancestors – she was a gentleman who stood tall and upright like a thousand-ren cliff without branches, harboring great love and great ambitions. But the more one was a gentleman of pure jade and unalloyed gold, the less capable they were of being a good emperor of a nation.

Once A’Bao had asked her whether, in this era, the more loyal, brave, and righteous a person was, the less likely they were to survive, asking her whether, in this world, those who harbored kindness, righteousness, and principles were destined to meet bad ends.

She had been unable to answer A’Bao at that time, because the kindness, loyalty, righteousness, and principles A’Bao spoke of were the foundation of being a person… of being a gentleman or minister. But if one wanted to become a king, to become an emperor! Even to become a great ruler… how could one still want these three things: kindness, righteousness, and principles?

Those who could accomplish great things and become kings… could harbor as much filth and sordidness in their hearts, and their methods needed to be unconventional.

Gentlemen like the Seven Disciples of Pre-Qin, Yan Hui, and Zengzi, who were like precious jade held in embrace and whose conduct was as lofty as high mountains, could not tolerate harboring filth and corruption in their hearts, could not tolerate decay and rot. But the Grand Princess, born into an imperial family and raised by her father emperor’s side from childhood, knew… that an emperor’s heart could not be compared to that of gentlemen and sages. It could accommodate the world’s great righteousness and great love, but could also contain filth and harbor the world’s most base and sordid things.

The Zuo Zhuan states: “Mountains and marshes harbor disease, rivers and lakes contain pollution, fine jade conceals flaws.”

Mountains harbor disease, thus achieving their greatness. Rivers and lakes contain pollution, thus affecting their depth. Beautiful jade contains flaws, thus achieving its uniqueness.

But the Bai family people were all too upright and unyielding, too devoted to emotion and righteousness. If faced with a choice between abandoning righteousness for profit… such as abandoning her, this grandmother, to achieve imperial enterprise, A’Bao probably couldn’t do it, but as an emperor she would have to!