"Get out of Luoyi! Luoyi doesn't need your royal family's hypocritical protection!"
"You call it protection, but it's precisely because you let the Turks pass that this plague was brought to us!"
"You are the greatest sinner! And now you come here pretending to be a good person?"
Countless rotten eggs were hurled in Xie Jingqi's direction, with many vegetable leaves mixed in.
Xie Jingqi's clothes were quickly ruined, and even his face was splattered with many eggs.
Cao Yan, seeing this, wanted to draw the sabre at his waist.
These commoners were mad, daring to disrespect the prince!
Ji Zixiu, however, firmly grasped Cao Yan's wrist. "Absolutely not!"
Cao Yan looked at Ji Zixiu in disbelief. "Are we just going to stand here and be beaten for nothing?"
Ji Zixiu thought of her elder sister's teachings, tightened her five fingers, and clenched Cao Yan's wrist tightly in her palm. "Big sister said that those who gain the Way have much help, while those who lose the Way have little. The Way of a nation lies in the hearts of its people. If the hearts of the people are lost, the nation will surely decline and perish! These people are merely venting their anger. But if we draw our swords and fight back, the misunderstanding will turn into a seed of hatred in the hearts of the people, and then Luoyi will surely be estranged from the imperial court!"
Cao Yan was shocked and bewildered.
Even hearing it with his own ears, he couldn't believe such profound wisdom came from the second young lady of the Ji family, who would lash out with a whip at the slightest disagreement.
He remembered how he was beaten back then, and Ji Zixiu had never shown such consideration for the bigger picture and propriety.
Complaining aside, Cao Yan finally released his hand from his sabre.
Seeing this, Ji Zixiu led Cao Yan a few more steps forward, doing her best to protect the Seventh Prince behind them.
Han Jingyu rushed over and pulled Xie Jingqi. "Your Highness Seventh Prince, please leave and seek refuge!"
Xie Jingqi, however, stood rooted to the spot, his gaze unfocused, lost in thought.
Mu Shizhen saw this and gestured to the Turkic soldiers beside him.
While the crowd was in chaos, a Turkic soldier picked up a fist-sized stone from the ground and, unnoticed by everyone, threw it towards Xie Jingqi.
The stone, seemingly casual, was imbued with a force that far surpassed the eggs and vegetable leaves thrown by the commoners.
As Ji Zixiu saw it, she closed her eyes, intending to block it with her own body.
Han Jingyu sensed the wrongness of the stone's force and instinctively reached out to Ji Zixiu, intending to move her away.
However, an arm reached out and embraced Ji Zixiu before Han Jingyu could. At the same time, it turned slightly, drawing Ji Zixiu backward.
"Bang!"
A dull thud sounded, but Ji Zixiu felt no pain as expected.
Opening her eyes in surprise, Ji Zixiu's eyes widened in shock as she saw the person who was tightly shielding her in his embrace.
Something warm flowed down from that full forehead.
The crimson color stung Ji Zixiu's eyes.
"Big Sister!" Ji Zixiu looked at Ji Zizhao in front of her, her dark eyes filled with heartache and worry.
Ji Zixiu's scream also drew Xie Jingqi's attention.
Upon seeing Ji Zizhao's forehead gushing blood, Xie Jingqi could no longer contain himself and clenched his fists.
The surrounding commoners hated Yu Lin, but they truly hadn't intended to kill anyone.
Now, seeing Ji Zizhao's face stained with blood, they gradually stopped their actions.
For a moment, the crowded street fell into an eerie silence.
Mu Shizhen, intent on enraging Xie Jingqi, seized the opportunity to say, "I never expected that the always aggressive Seventh Prince of Yu Lin would only be a weakling hiding behind women, letting them shield him from the wind and rain. I'm very curious, is the Seventh Prince the only one like this in Yu Lin, or are all the princes the same?"
Xie Jingqi's face turned ashen, veins bulging on the back of his hand.
Looking at the gloating Mu Shizhen, who was stirring up trouble, he wished he could beat him to death for satisfaction.
However, before Xie Jingqi could make a move, Ji Zizhao stepped forward, once again shielding Xie Jingqi behind him.
It was precisely because of this that Ji Zizhao could clearly feel Xie Jingqi's body trembling at that moment.
Looking at the slender figure standing before him, Xie Jingqi's eyes, clouded by rage, slowly regained a hint of clarity.
Sensing that the breathing of the person behind him was gradually stabilizing, Ji Zizhao then looked up at Mu Shizhen. "The Seventh Prince has a bad temper, but he has never wronged the people of Yu Lin. The Seventh Prince is a dissolute noble, but he never engages in bullying the weak or oppressing women. Now, by what right does a young general of the Turks dictate matters here?"
Ji Zizhao stood here today, speaking only for Xie Jingqi.
As for the other princes, she naturally wouldn't waste her breath arguing with Mu Shizhen.
No matter how incompetent Yu Lin's princes were, they had studied the fundamentals of statecraft and the art of managing people since childhood. How could they be compared to a mere brute?
If they were truly to be compared, Mu Shizhen wouldn't even be able to compete with that perpetually faking-ill sinister individual, let alone the deeply hidden dark lump.
If this kind of situation were to happen before that dark lump, Mu Shizhen probably wouldn't have lived to boast here.
He probably wouldn't even know how he died.
Mu Shizhen, seeing Ji Zizhao speak, immediately retorted without thinking, "The Turks and Yu Lin are in a state of war..."
Ji Zizhao coldly interrupted him, "State war? Young General of the Turks, you are truly jesting. Yu Lin does not contend for anything, so how could it have provoked a state war? It is not Yu Lin that is ungrudging and willing to let bygones be bygones, but the Turks who mouth 'state war' constantly, claiming they want to bite off a piece of flesh from Yu Lin, leading to the current dire situation in Luoyi where the people suffer. Are you truly ignorant of the meaning of shame?"
The Ji family's military achievements were numerous and well-known throughout Yu Lin.
Precisely because of this, the people of Yu Lin all knew of a certain good-for-nothing young lady from the Ji family who never left her chambers.
Although the commoners of Luoyi had heard of the heroic deeds of the eldest young lady of the Ji family this time, they had never witnessed it personally.
Many commoners were seeing her for the first time now.
This eldest young lady of the Ji family, the good-for-nothing whispered about by the people of Yu Lin, now stood there calmly, a smile on her blood-stained face, composed and unruffled. Her words were like unsheathed blades, chilling the hearts of those who heard them.
At this moment, the people of Luoyi truly understood that how could the Ji family, a military lineage, produce a good-for-nothing!
Xie Jingqi looked at the person blocking him, his gaze momentarily dazed.
There was once someone who stood in front of him, shielding him from the wind and rain, but before he could grasp her hand, she had abandoned him.
These years, although his fourth brother and mother treated him with deep affection, that feeling was not the same as today.
Xie Jingqi's eyes reddened, and his chest felt a heavy blockage.
He finally understood the position this woman, whom he had always feared and hated, occupied in his heart.