On either side of the imperial carriage, Pang Duan and Wan Ji each held their ground with differing opinions.
In front of the carriage, those who could be assassins or dancers continued spinning closer.
The swords and spears in their hands all gleamed silver, appearing sharp and cold at first glance, yet when they struck the ground they made hollow clanging sounds. Upon closer inspection, they were merely made of wood, painted with silver lacquer. Nearby commoners pointed and laughed, commenting on how realistic these wooden weapons looked.
Tie Ci remained silent throughout, watching the two men argue with amusement.
Finally, Pang Duan and Wan Ji reached a preliminary agreement. Wan Ji waved his hand, and a row of guards stepped forward, crossing their long spears horizontally, connecting end to end, forming a final protective barrier before the carriage.
The obvious meaning was: dance all you want, but this is the boundary.
Though this was a prudent and moderate arrangement, it still touched the raw nerves of the already disgruntled commoners. Moreover, not everyone in the crowd was truly a commoner, and immediately someone began shouting from within the throng.
“His Highness travels south on inspection, and our tribes have come ten li to welcome him, greeting our most honored guest with the hunting dance—this is our display of the valor of warriors from all tribes of Yannan. The more spirited the dance, the greater the respect shown to our guests. What does it mean for you to block us!”
“What else could it mean but cowardly timidity!”
“Does the dignified Crown Princess not even dare to appreciate a single welcoming dance!”
“She’s shutting out the enthusiasm of all Yannan people! The imperial family truly is arrogant!”
“Perhaps she doesn’t trust us…”
“Will such an arrogant and cold court treat us well in the future?”
“Exactly!”
The commoners’ curses grew increasingly fierce, while the Crown Princess’s Nine Guards held their spears crosswise before them, their eyes behind their face masks cold and unmoved.
Suddenly, a voice emerged from within the carriage, calm and laughing.
“Withdraw them.”
Without waiting for Wan Ji’s order, the Nine Guards simultaneously withdrew their spears, the cold gleam of spear points tracing countless identical beautiful arcs through the air as they were pulled back in unison.
As the spear formation withdrew, the dancing men performed even more passionately, pressing closer step by step.
Someone leaped before the carriage, swinging a great sword overhead, the blade’s tip flashing coldly.
Someone crouched low, extending both arms as if to embrace the wheels with beautiful dance postures, yet cold light glinted between their five fingers.
Someone circled behind the carriage, thrusting a long spear skyward, faintly creating sounds of wind and thunder.
The commoners watched the dancers circle the carriage with great interest, commenting on whose dance style was most vigorous and powerful, completely unaware that these dancers were getting far too close.
Suddenly, laughter rang out from within the carriage: “Dancing?”
A figure swept out, robes flowing in midair, gesturing and calling: “Such enthusiastic hospitality for guests—then let’s dance together!”
From the group of guards behind him, a cluster of people immediately swept forth, one matching each dancer.
Bu Qing approached one with a cold expression. When his opponent thrust with a spear, Bu Qing reached out to seize it and struck back with the reversed shaft. The sound of cracking bones rang out as he instantly broke both the man’s legs.
Chazi confronted another. Before her opponent could even begin a dance step, she had already scattered a handful of various powders. The man immediately held his breath, then let out a miserable scream, covering his eyes and staggering backward. Chazi laughed: “Oh my, this powder is harmless to smell—it just blinds you.”
Murong Yi personally blocked the dancer performing at the very front. When his opponent stepped diagonally left and right, Murong Yi blocked left when he went left, blocked right when he went right, laughing: “Nice physique—don’t expose it next time.”
When the opponent slashed down with his blade, Murong Yi extended his hand, meeting the blade tip bare-handed. Just as his opponent’s face lit up with joy, there came a sharp crack—the blade tip snapped. Murong Yi flicked it away with his backhand.
At the same time, one dancer suddenly leaped high, curling into a ball mid-air before hurling his long spear toward the carriage.
This spear tore through the air, drawing a black line and creating sounds of wind and thunder.
Beside the carriage rode young scions from noble families accompanying this southern inspection tour. One young master suddenly turned around to see the spinning, enlarging spear point before his eyes, red tassels whirling into bloody shadows, light bursting and scattering in his horrified pupils.
The next moment would bring the long spear piercing his body, then the carriage curtains, plunging into the carriage itself.
A hand suddenly appeared beside that young master, so abruptly it seemed as if it had always been waiting there. The hand gently caught the fierce spear point, bringing it to a complete stop at snow-white fingertips.
Fingers pinched the spear tip, thumb and forefinger forming a circle that perfectly framed a brilliant beam of sunlight, making those fingertips appear nearly transparent.
People’s gazes unconsciously fixed on that hand, their breathing stopped.
The next moment, those slender, jade-like fingers gave a slight twist and snap—a very light, casual gesture. With a small crack, the spear head broke into two pieces like a thin wooden stick. A flick of the fingers sent half the spear head flying away.
It flew in the same direction as the blade tip Murong Yi had discarded—toward the official road, in front of the crowd.
Two light sounds as the blade tip and spear head arced over the group of dancers, landing before the feet of the commoners at the very front.
People’s eyes unconsciously turned that way.
Someone in the crowd said: “Those are just wooden weapons used in ceremonial rites to welcome honored guests. Why make such a fuss about… eh?”
A series of small cracking sounds emerged as cracks suddenly appeared on the fallen blade tip and spear head. The cracks spread like lightning, and fragments rained down—pieces of wood shell. After the fragments fell away, cold light flashed from both blade tip and spear head, revealing sharp points beneath.
Those things that looked like wooden swords and spears for celebrations were actually just wooden shells on the outside, with real blades hidden within!
The commoners at the front had already seen this, and people looked over in amazement.
Suddenly someone seemed to lose their footing, rushing forward, lifting their boot as if to accidentally kick those blade tip and spear head away.
Once kicked into the roadside ditch, with the crowd surging, no one would see them anymore.
However, the armored general on the lead horse swept over, wielding golden melon hammers. Both hammers struck the ground hard with a thunderous boom, the earth shaking and dust rising. The person whose body was tilting naturally failed to kick accurately at their intended target, falling sideways to the ground. That pair of blade tip and spear head were violently shaken up from a distance, flying in circles before everyone’s eyes in midair. People instinctively looked up, all seeing the wooden shells still falling and the cold, gleaming blade points flashing in the sunlight.
All this happened in an instant. Only now did the commoners react to what had occurred, their mouths falling open.
So the celebration truly wasn’t a celebration—it concealed murderous blades within.
And the Crown Princess of Da Qian had personally acted in public view, crushing the spear tip with her fingers, using this silent demonstration to slap everyone present across the face.
But this wasn’t over yet.
The moment the blade tip shattered before everyone’s eyes, falling like cold snow, Murong Yi, who had been laughing and dancing moments before, said coldly: “Kill.”
His opponent was still in a daze when he suddenly heard this word. He felt all his body hair instantly stand on end, and without a sound he turned to leave.
After taking two steps, he suddenly felt something amiss, and the commoners’ shocked cries had already erupted.
He slowly looked down to see a blood-soaked hand suddenly protruding from his abdomen. Though covered in blood, the hand remained slender and beautiful, like jade, like carved stone.
But he no longer had any chance to admire this hand that had pierced through his vital organs—life whistled out through the hole in his body in an instant.
Murong Yi shook his hand like flicking a blade, and that man’s massive corpse tumbled through the air, crashing heavily into those charging from behind.
Murong Yi’s form had already moved like green smoke through the crowd, lifting his hand to point at one man’s throat while his flying leg kicked away a cold spear. As the spear tip pierced the throat of a sneak attacker, his body spun like a top, cold light flashing in his hand. The surrounding crowd fell in a fan pattern, each with a terrible gash running horizontally across their chest from left to right. His elbow rose without any trace of violence, and the sound of a skull cracking was like breaking a melon.
In the blink of an eye he had killed seven people, leaving none alive.
And as he killed, that blood-soaked hand would casually wipe itself clean on the corpses, so by the time he finished killing, his hands were already wiped clean of blood.
Tie Ci’s hand had not withdrawn. Lifting the carriage curtain, she watched Murong Yi kill with careful attention. She had certainly seen Murong Yi fight before, but he was lazy—avoiding battle when possible, finishing quickly when necessary—so she hadn’t seen much. But after spending time together, Tie Ci could sense that his martial arts were quite eclectic, including both bold and sweeping techniques and sinister, harsh ones. Most of all, he possessed killing methods utterly without hesitation—practical, cold, like the eternally unmelting snow of Cang Mountain.
Only someone who had truly experienced long periods of slaughter and bloody trials could possess such coldness and ruthlessness.
A slight tenderness arose in Tie Ci’s heart, and she even forgot to withdraw the hand holding the curtain.
Such scenes of carnage unfolded around the carriage. Though others couldn’t match his ruthless, swift killing, no one showed mercy. The dancers’ corpses fell into the dust beside the carriage, near the wheels, under military horses’ hooves. Blossoms of blood bloomed in succession in Yannan’s slightly sultry air, yet gradually calmed the previously restless atmosphere.
No matter when, killing—daring to kill—always carried great deterrent power.
In this instant, the people of Yannan, the officials of Yannan, suddenly understood the meaning of the words “Imperial Majesty.”
They suddenly had a vague understanding of the Crown Princess’s intent—she wanted a stable Yannan, willing to spend time and energy pursuing gradual progress for the sake of people’s peaceful livelihood. But if Yannan itself proved unruly, she was unafraid of killing.
In any case, she was the Crown Princess, the future master of this nation. She was unwilling to engage in civil war, but she did not fear it.
And once civil war began, with both military and administrative routes in Qian Zhou already cleaned up, a large batch of officials who had been flirting with Yannan rooted out and no longer a concern, Yannan, isolated in the southern frontier, would find it difficult to win such a war.
Though Yannan’s scholarly traditions were not flourishing, there were still people who read and understood principles. Moreover, commoners were most sensitive to stability, and the deterrent effect of blood and violence projected very directly onto their hearts.
People stared at the hand still extended from the carriage, the same beautiful hand that had moments before casually snapped the spear tip, showing them the killing intent beneath the wooden shell.
Now killing was happening before the carriage, and this hand had never withdrawn, remaining calmly extended. At some point, a grape had appeared between the five fingers, and those nimble fingers gave it a gentle rub, causing the grape’s skin to fall away intact.
It drifted down into the pooling blood below, floating gently.
The blood pool grew deeper and deeper, reflecting the figures locked in combat. The fighting didn’t last long, and the final dancer’s form crashed like a cannonball into that dark red mirror, causing slight ripples across the blood’s surface before everything returned to stillness.
The grape skin was also perfectly peeled. The snow-white fingers gave a gentle flick, and Murong Yi, who had just led his people to finish the job, turned around at that moment, opened his mouth, and caught the grape perfectly.
The corner of his lips curved slightly upward.
Tie Ci also smiled.
A little reward, after all.
Killing also required proper momentum, and in circumstances where she couldn’t personally act, only Murong Yi’s intervention could achieve such effect and atmosphere.
The pale green grape pressed against red lips—the grape lustrous, the lips full and beautiful.
This scene was somewhat frivolous yet appeared pure and beautiful. The commoners couldn’t help but look at the carriage, then at this devastatingly beautiful killer, speculating about his relationship with the Crown Princess within the carriage.
Then people saw that hand withdraw.
Only after all the dancers had been killed did it withdraw.
Murong Yi also calmly returned to the carriage. Standing before it, he slightly loosened his sleeves, letting the heavenly wind wash away the slight scent of blood from his body.
Only then did everyone notice that though countless corpses lay at his feet, there was barely any blood on his person—clean as snow.
Wan Ji stepped forward, casting a rather smug glance at Pang Duan before declaring loudly: “His Highness says the hunting dance was quite beautiful—how often does one encounter such in the mortal world? Better to send it for the immortals to dance to. But we wonder who so kindly arranged today’s performance. Why not come forward to make acquaintance, so we can also arrange funeral rites for these hundred-odd brothers.”
The crowd fell silent as death.
At this moment, they wished even their shadows could shrink away, lest any slight protrusion mark them as the mastermind behind the assassination attempt on the Crown Princess.
Wan Ji hadn’t expected anyone to walk into the trap either. With a cold laugh, he said: “The people of Yannan claim to be proud and valorous, yet they prove to be merely the sort who dare act but won’t acknowledge their deeds.”
The commoners felt angry and humiliated, yet bowed their heads even lower.
“Heartless and faithless as well,” Wan Ji continued fanning the flames. “Over a hundred death warriors attempted regicide, and after their failure, no one claims their bodies. Such coldness—who knows what miserable fate awaits these death warriors’ families with no one to care for them after their deaths.”
The commoners’ expressions grew even uglier.
Behind the crowd, aside from Commander You who could still smile while eating preserved fruit, everyone else’s faces were iron-gray.
“Since no one claims them, assassinating the Crown Princess is originally a crime punishable by execution of three generations and public display of corpses. Naturally we need not show consideration.” Wan Ji waved his hand.
Horses pranced, boots lifted, and the carriage began moving slowly forward. The Crown Princess’s inspection procession continued onward.
Moving through the blood pool, rolling over the unclaimed assassins’ corpses.
No stopping, no hesitation.
Massive wheels crushed flesh and bone with splintering sounds, rolled through thick blood pools, dragging long bloody trails.
These sounds and images were truly chilling. The Yannan commoners’ faces turned deathly pale, and some began quietly retreating.
Someone in the crowd sighed softly.