Bai Qingyan closed her eyes and only calmed down after a long while, picking up a chess piece from the chess box.

Chun Tao and Chen Qingsheng bought the dough figurines and spoke briefly downstairs before hurrying upstairs to serve their First Miss.

“First Miss, this servant bought many dough figurines and got one for you too! Miss, look…” Chun Tao held a small figurine and bent down close to Bai Qingyan with a bright smile. “First Miss, look at this general on horseback – doesn’t it look like you? So imposing and majestic!”

Looking at the small figurine in Chun Tao’s hands – a warrior reining in a horse while raising a sword – Bai Qingyan felt a mixture of emotions.

With her current physical condition, if she wanted to don armor and go to war again, it would probably take several more years.

As night fell over the city and the bell tower lit its bright lamps, various merchants followed suit by lighting the red lanterns along the long street. The capital city, covered in white snow, was enveloped in a warm, fiery red glow.

Tea houses and restaurants were brilliantly lit with prosperous splendor, their doors crowded with customers. People came and went along the long street, bustling and noisy.

Chen Qingsheng saw an elm wood carriage painted with the Bai Family crest of Duke Zhenguo’s mansion pass through the city gate inspection and slowly drive toward the long street. He ran toward Manjiang Restaurant like the wind.

Chen Qingsheng lifted his robes and hurried upstairs, entering to tell Bai Qingyan, who was eating dumplings: “First Miss, the carriage has entered the city!”

“I understand. You may go!” She perked up, dabbed the corners of her mouth with a handkerchief, and instructed: “Chun Tao, open all the partitions.”

Chun Tao complied, pushing open all the carved partitions that separated the second floor from the corridor.

Though she had never met this cousin in her previous life, she had heard plenty about him. All the reputation the Bai family had accumulated was completely ruined by him.

Bai Qingyan picked up her teacup and gripped it tightly, her eyes cold and sharp.

In this lifetime, this cousin had not yet been grasped in Prince Liang’s palm – she didn’t know what his character was like.

If his nature was inherently good, then… she would carefully guide him toward the right path.

If his nature was inherently evil, she would use this opportunity to step on him to add fuel to the Bai family’s reputation, which could be considered his contribution to the family.

“Miss, your cloak!” Chun Yan brought the cloak to drape over Bai Qingyan.

Chun Tao replaced the charcoal in the silver openwork hand warmer carved with plum blossoms and handed it to Bai Qingyan.

Holding the hand warmer, she stood under several fiery red lanterns in the corridor. Seeing Chen Qingsheng standing downstairs talking with Lu Ping, she looked toward Duke Zhenguo’s carriage in the distance, her gaze clear and bright.

The beautiful woman sitting in the carriage lifted the curtain with her hand. Looking at the brilliantly lit capital city outside the window, she was dazzled by this prosperous scene, her heart pounding.

“Son, we’ve finally… entered the capital city!” The woman turned back to look at the youth lying on the long seat in the carriage, supporting his head with one hand and chewing on a piece of straw. “Once we enter Duke Zhenguo’s mansion and your name is recorded under Second Madam’s name, you’ll be a young master of Duke Zhenguo’s mansion! They say the Duke’s mansion has seventeen outstanding sons – from now on… it’ll be eighteen sons!”

Bai Qingxuan pulled the straw from his mouth and propped himself up with one hand, squinting: “I don’t want to go to any battlefield or be any eighteenth son! I just like beauties. Mother, do you think the maids in the Duke’s mansion are all exceptionally beautiful?”

“You shut your mouth, you little ancestor!” The woman hastily lowered the curtain, staring at Bai Qingxuan with a pale face. “Once you enter the Duke’s mansion, you must rein in your bad habits! The Duke’s mansion isn’t like that estate we stayed at, where we could settle things with silver when you tormented tenant farmers’ daughters to death! But if you let your grandmother, Grand Princess, and the Duke know you’re harming the mansion’s maids, you definitely won’t keep that leg of yours!”

Upon hearing this, Bai Qingxuan bit the straw, put his hands behind his head, and lay back down, crossing his legs: “Then what’s the fun in returning to the Duke’s mansion? I’d rather stay comfortable at the estate!”

“Can’t you have some ambi…”

Before the woman could finish her words, the carriage suddenly stopped. She stumbled and fell in the carriage, hitting her head and crying out in pain.

Bai Qingxuan, also hurt by the fall, spat out the straw and threw it forcefully in the carriage, his eyes vicious. Ignoring his mother, he pushed open the carved wooden door of the carriage and grabbed the driver’s hair, forcefully slamming the driver’s head against the railing. With furious eyes and a fierce voice, he shouted: “You blind dog, how do you drive? Are you trying to kill me on purpose?!”

The driver’s head immediately bled. Seeing Bai Qingxuan’s ghastly expression like a demon wanting to devour people, he went limp and fell from the carriage, quickly kneeling and kowtowing for mercy: “Young Master, spare my life! Young Master, spare my life! It’s not that this servant was blind, but… this child suddenly rushed out, and I was afraid of hurting someone!”

Standing upstairs, Bai Qingyan’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the hand warmer, immediately burning with fury. Second Uncle… how could he have fathered such a thing?

Even knowing that human nature was inherently evil, even knowing what this Bai Qingxuan had done in the previous life, she never could have imagined that at this age, Bai Qingxuan was already so violent and cruel.

For a moment, Bai Qingyan felt it was utterly wrong to bring such a creature back to Duke Zhenguo’s mansion. She should have ordered Shen Qingzhu to strangle him immediately on the day she was reborn, leaving no future trouble.

Bai Qingyan’s killing intent inadvertently leaked out, startling even Chun Tao: “First Miss?”

“We’re going downstairs…” Bai Qingyan took a deep look at Bai Qingxuan and turned around.

Crouching by the carriage, Bai Qingxuan glanced at the child being protected in an old woman’s arms in front of the carriage, frightened to tears. He squinted and jumped down from the carriage.

The driver covered his bleeding head and quickly knelt to make way for Bai Qingxuan, afraid of being implicated.

Bai Qingxuan walked to the old woman and child, looking down from above with a sinister, chilling smile at the corners of his mouth.

“The child… cough cough cough… the child was trying to pick up medicine for this old woman, cough cough cough… afraid the carriage wheels would crush the oiled paper wrapping the medicine and make it unusable. That’s why he offended the young master! Please show mercy, young master…”

The frail old woman was about to leave with her grandson when she had barely stood up before being kicked down by Bai Qingxuan. The child in the old woman’s arms fell to the ground and rolled away. The old woman cried out her grandchild’s pet name in panic. Before she could get up, Bai Qingxuan stepped heavily on her back and ground his foot down. The old woman couldn’t bear it and spat out blood, coughing violently.

The disheveled child hugged the medicine in his arms, crying loudly: “Grandmother! Grandmother!”

Bai Qingxuan put all his weight on his right foot, stepping on the old woman, bending down with a face like a demon: “Just because he was picking up medicine for you, I have to be injured for nothing? Who gave you such a dog’s courage! I’m a young master of Duke Zhenguo’s mansion – if I’m hurt even slightly, you lowly commoner… the lives of your entire nine generations couldn’t compensate for it!”

Bai Qingxuan’s eyes were bloodshot with violence showing, actually frightening the onlookers around them to step back two paces.

Having already come downstairs, Bai Qingyan heard Bai Qingxuan’s words and was attacked by fury. She was truly possessed by ghosts to think of guiding such a creature onto the path of war.

Bai Qingyan walked down the last step of the staircase with an ashen face and called out: “Chen Qingsheng!”

Chen Qingsheng had some martial arts skills. Seeing Bai Qingyan’s face dark as water, he immediately understood and stepped forward, subduing Bai Qingxuan in three moves and pressing him against the carriage.