“Protect Fourth Madam!” Dong Shi’s eyes widened as she shouted.
The guard beside Xiao Rongyan moved with lightning speed, managing to pull the person back when Fourth Madam Wang Shi’s head was barely an inch away from the coffin.
Bai Qingyan felt all the hair on her body stand on end, her heart feeling as if someone had poured a ladle of hot oil over it. Only when she saw Fourth Aunt being protected by Xiao Rongyan’s guard did the hand tightly clenched in her sleeve slowly relax.
Dong Shi rushed over and embraced Fourth Madam, choking with sobs: “Fourth sister-in-law! You must not do anything foolish!”
“That damned Prince Xin! That heartless dog! By what right does he treat the Bai family this way? By what right does he treat my son like this? Oh heavens… You are blind! Why didn’t you let that dog, Prince Xin, die on the battlefield? Why didn’t you let him die?”
The gentle Fourth Madam, having lost both husband and son, now feared nothing. Imperial nobility or the Emperor’s son – what did it matter when she had already resolved to die? Could she not curse them thoroughly at least once?!
“Mother!”
“Mother!”
Fifth Miss and Sixth Miss threw themselves forward, kneeling and embracing Fourth Madam’s legs while crying.
“Mother, your daughter has already lost Grandfather and Father! I cannot lose Mother, too!” Sixth Miss Bai Jinhua choked with grief.
Fifth Miss Bai Jinzhao cried: “Though my sister and I are not Mother’s birth daughters, we were raised in Mother’s arms from childhood. Mother is our true mother… If you follow Father and little brother! What will my sister and I do?!”
Fourth Madam Wang Shi looked down at the pair of twin concubine daughters embracing her legs. Her heart softened, and her entire body went limp as she held the two concubine daughters and wailed in anguish.
That day, when Prince Xin escorted the coffins back to the city, he had used coffins as thin as paper for the Duke and the young master of the Bai household. That seventeenth son of the Bai family was not even as tall as a horse when he went to war, dying for the Kingdom… that black-hearted Prince Xin hadn’t even had someone sew the young master’s head back together, bringing him back with humiliating intent – utterly unconscionable!
A ten-year-old child still fought bloody battles for the Kingdom, dying so miserably, with no food to eat… his belly filled with nothing but dirt and tree roots!
Since the Bai family had guarded this Great Jin kingdom, enemy nations dared not invade, and people lived in comfort with abundant clothing and food. Which family’s children had ever gone hungry?! Even those street beggars… probably had never eaten dirt and tree roots.
That Prince Xin, a prince, a man as tall as a horse, was vicious to this extent, cowardly to this extent! And pushed all the blame onto the loyal martyrs who died for the Kingdom!
This person was not only shameless and vicious, cowardly and selfish, but also a shameless wretch without any sense of honor.
Bai Qingyan clenched her teeth tightly. Having suffered, cried, and gone mad, when hearing this military record again, she thought her heart had already gone numb from pain. Yet her chest still felt as if someone had suddenly poured a bowl of hot oil over it, hatred blazing violently within.
With tears in her eyes, she took the bamboo slips from the hands of her mother, second aunt, Bai Jintong, and Bai Jinzhi, holding them to her chest as she solemnly knelt and kowtowed before the Bai family’s memorial hall.
When she raised her head again, those eyes blazed like fierce fire, her entire being emanating sharp killing intent like a rakshasa returning from mountains of corpses and seas of blood: “Grandfather, Father, Uncle, and younger brothers were persecuted and died unjustly by treacherous and shameless villains. I, Bai Qingyan, swear today before the loyal souls of the Bai family’s spirits that I will seek justice for the Bai family’s departed souls. If I do not make Liu Huanzhang, Prince Xin, and their ilk pay with their lives, if I do not obtain clear justice under blue skies, I will not rest even in ten thousand deaths!”
Having spoken, Bai Qingyan rose cleanly, straightened her spine, and strode out through the main gate of Duke Zhenguo’s mansion.
Xiao Rongyan’s deep, dark gaze watched Bai Qingyan’s resolute retreating figure, his eyes narrowing… The eldest miss of the Bai family was still that spirited woman who rode fierce horses and cut down enemy soldiers. To speak of making Prince Xin pay with his life, besides the eldest miss of the Bai family, probably no second person could be found in the entire capital city.
“Miss Bai, where are you taking that military record?” Prince Qi asked anxiously.
Standing beneath the plaque of Duke Zhenguo’s mansion, with the corners of her mourning clothes fluttering, Bai Qingyan turned her head back. Gritting her teeth, she said: “To the palace gates, to beat the Denunciation Drum! To cry injustice for the Bai family! To seek justice for my wrongly deceased Grandfather, Father, Uncle, and younger brothers!”
Prince Qi’s eyes widened as he understood that the eldest miss of the Bai family… was going to force his imperial father!
“Elder sister! I will go with you!” Bai Jintong, tears streaming down her face, gripped her hem tightly and stepped over the threshold with firm resolve.
Bai Jinxiu, her eyes bloodshot, gritted her teeth and stood up: “I will go too!”
“I’ll go too!”
Just as Bai Jinzhi’s words fell, they heard the Grand Princess’s voice booming like a great bell from behind…
“A’Bao, you stop right there!”
Hearing this, she held the bamboo slips tightly to her chest, her fingers instantly turning ice-cold, her body stiffening as well.
People could become invincible due to blood kinship and familial love, but could also become incomparably weak because of it. Even iron will and iron bones could be shattered by such an impact.
But now, before these twenty-odd coffins of the Bai family, she would not retreat because of her grandmother.
Even if her grandmother wanted to stop her, it was already beyond redemption!
Under this broad daylight, before the watchful eyes of the capital’s citizens, could her grandmother, the Grand Princess of the Lin imperial house, still confine her to the inner courtyard?!
She would still be disappointed, the heartache would still be unstoppable. Her grandmother, the Grand Princess, upon hearing what was written in these bamboo slips, knowing how her husband, son, and grandsons died so miserably, knowing how her grandson, Little Seventeen, had his head severed and body dismembered, still wanted to protect the Lin imperial power…
She turned around, her eyes seeming stained with blood yet deep as an abyss as she looked at the Grand Princess, her voice becoming very soft: “Will Grandmother obstruct me?!”
Seeing the disappointment and wariness in the eyes of the eldest granddaughter she had personally raised and taught, seeing the tense readiness and anger radiating from her third granddaughter, the Grand Princess found that the words that had reached her throat could not be spoken for a moment.
But she was the Grand Princess after all. Though in her twilight years, her naturally dignified and imposing bearing had grown even more profound with age. Even with her haggard appearance and silver temples combed meticulously, she still held her back extremely straight.
The Grand Princess’s eyes were red from crying. Gripping her tiger-head walking stick tightly, supported by Nanny Jiang, she finally walked toward Bai Qingyan’s direction. Meeting Bai Qingyan’s gaze, her usually gentle voice was tinged with hoarseness: “What logic is there in having you, a daughter of an inner chamber, charge ahead for the great revenge of the Bai family! This old body is the Duke’s wife of Duke Zhenguo’s mansion! This old body is not yet dead! My husband! My sons and grandsons! Even if I sacrifice this flesh and blood body, I will seek justice for them!”
This was both beyond Bai Qingyan’s expectations and completely within reason.
Her eyes grew redder, her heart slowly softening. Compared to them losing fathers and brothers, the truly pitied person… was her grandmother, the Grand Princess, who in one night lost husband, sons, and grandsons all buried in Nan Jiang, while the perpetrators were from her maternal clan.
As they say, life has three great sorrows: losing one’s father in youth, losing one’s husband in middle age, losing one’s children in old age.
They were all just pitied souls.
She actively stepped forward two paces to support the Grand Princess, choking: “Grandmother… we will go together with Grandmother!”