Murong Ke frowned. What game was this woman playing again?
A few moments later, the butcher let out a few miserable wails, trembling all over from the pain. Yet he simply gritted his teeth and pushed through it, raising his head to glare resentfully at Prince Ning.
"If Prince Ning cares nothing for the lives of ordinary people, he should simply refuse instead of hiding behind a show of righteousness! Is this how you exact your private revenge?"
He let out a sarcastic, booming laugh. "Look, everyone! All this talk of a benevolent prince—it's all a lie! How could these imperial scions ever truly value our lives? We are nothing more than tools in their struggle for power!"
Murong Ke paced over leisurely, looking down from on high at this unyielding hero, and then, right there in full view of everyone, he unhinged the man's jaw.
"This prince has never claimed to be any benevolent prince, nor do I care what any of you think. That Liangzhou is well-governed has never been my sole achievement alone. On the contrary, I am exceptionally petty. If you curse me to my face, I will deal with you to your face. That way, should you suddenly manage to get yourselves killed in the future, you won't still be able to throw dirty water on me."
Murong Ke spoke unhurriedly, yet his words carried a formidable weight. At least the crowd, which had been agitated just moments before, fell into absolute silence. It was only then that they remembered this was a prince—a single word from him could determine whether they lived or died. Where on earth had they found the courage to wrangle favors from a prince?
Yet this peace lasted only a moment before someone else stepped forward to challenge him, shouting, "Is the Prince trying to silence us by killing us?"
Su Mingyu smiled helplessly and shook her head. Truly, some people had no fear of death.
Murong Ke raised his eyes to look at the speaker, an inscrutable look in his gaze. "And if I am?"
He swept a fierce, piercing gaze over the crowd.
"Your lives have nothing to do with this prince in the first place. You are not people of Liangzhou; when trouble strikes, it is only natural that your own local magistrates fail to care for you. How is it that when it comes to me, I am suddenly accused of paying no heed to your lives? Just because this prince felt a moment of softness and allowed you to rest and temporarily settle here, does that mean I am obligated to take full responsibility for you until the bitter end? Three years ago, when Liangzhou fought a great war against the Jurchens and suffered heavy casualties, none of you were to be seen when I was recruiting soldiers. A year ago, when a landslide struck the Liangzhou territories and we searched for disaster victims, none of you were to be seen. Now that you have no food and are on the verge of starving to death, you suddenly remember to come and fight the people of Liangzhou for their grain?"
"As for today's events, this prince has no desire to haggle with you. Anyone who stirs up trouble again will be beaten to death with clubs, without exception!"
As soon as Prince Ning finished speaking, dead silence blanketed the crowd. Even the butcher, who had been so righteous just a moment before, now did not even dare to raise his head.
Yet Murong Ke abruptly hoisted the butcher up by his collar. Calmly gazing at the already weakened butcher, he pointed to the man who had just spoken up on his behalf.
"That fellow over there, and the one in the gray clothes beside him, and the one wearing the headscarf—they are all your accomplices, aren't they?"
Terror flashed in the butcher's eyes, though he quickly lowered his head.
"I'm just a butcher, where would I get accomplices?! If the Prince wants to kill or execute me, do as you please, there's no need to pin labels on other people!"
Murong Ke chuckled lightly and tore open the man's lapel with a single tug, revealing a striking black golden-dragon insignia right on his chest. Meanwhile, members of the Shenwu Army who had long since lain in wait beside the other suspects stripped back their collars as well.
"That's... that's the emblem of the Jin Kingdom Black Cavalry!"
"They're Jurchens!"
Realizing their cover was blown, the Jin Kingdom Black Cavalry scattered in all directions, desperate to break through the encirclement.
For a moment, chaos erupted within the crowd. Only the members of the Shenwu Army, dressed in ordinary civilian clothes, moved against the tide of the crowd to step forward. Yet because they wore neither armor nor carried weapons, they could only rely on their bare bodies to hold the line. After a few clashes, it was hard to tell who had the upper hand.
Su Mingyu had already joined the battle the moment the Jin Kingdom Black Cavalry revealed their true identities. But after all, she only had two hands; even with her formidable martial arts, she could not be everywhere at once. Gone was the playful amusement with which she had watched the show moments before—she now wished she could grow wings to hunt people down.
Looking ahead at these useless peasants who only knew how to cause trouble and run around in panic, Su Mingyu felt her anger flare even higher.
Having finished off the Black Cavalryman before her, she drove her blade into the ground and shouted at a few men cowering and retreating not far away, "What are you hiding for? Let's go together!"
Those men froze for a moment, then looked at the members of the Shenwu Army blocking the way in front of them, and somehow found they could no longer move their feet.
"Fellow villagers, there are more of us, what the hell are we afraid of? Let's charge together and take down this bunch of Jurchens!"
Before long, more and more townspeople joined the fight. And right then, the fully armed Shenwu Army reinforcements from inside the city gates finally arrived. In the blink of an eye, the tide turned, and all the Jurchens were captured.
Just then, the sound of horse hooves drifted from afar—the grain delivery convoy had arrived.
Hearing the commotion, the townspeople inside the city let out deafening cheers. As for the refugees from outside the city who had just been so righteous in demanding grain, not a single one dared to mention grain again.
Prince Ning was right; he didn't owe them anything. Furthermore, they had previously been incited by the Jurchens to embarrass Prince Ning, and the fact that they weren't implicated now was already an extraordinary display of mercy from His Highness—how could they possibly dare to harbor any other greedy fantasies?
By the time the carriages came to a halt, Murong Ke had already arranged for people to drag the Black Cavalry back for strict interrogation. Chiyan arrived to find the place in absolute shambles, looking utterly bewildered as she had no clue what had happened.
"Your Highness, the grain has all arrived."
Murong Ke nodded.
"Leave a few baskets of grain, and distribute a bowl to each of the disaster victims outside the city. If there are no other matters, once they receive their grain, send them back to their native places. For any who are elderly or seriously ill, arrange for them to enter the city for medical care. As for the rest, none of them are allowed to linger any longer outside Liangzhou City!"
"Understood!"
Murong Ke's voice was not loud, but the surrounding citizens heard every word clearly. The Prince was actually going to distribute grain to them!
Immediately, several people on the spot dropped to their knees before Prince Ning, kowtowing and offering a thousand kins of thanks. Some even began slapping their own faces, cursing themselves as worse than pigs and dogs for having been bewitched by the Jurchens to trouble the Prince.
Su Mingyu low-key blended into the grain-delivery convoy and entered the city. Yet the more she thought about it, the more she felt something wasn't quite right.
Before she had time to dwell on it, she had already stepped into the mysterious Liangzhou City.
Once inside, the streets were noticeably congested. The roadside was lined with sallow, emaciated refugees, yet the area—which ought to have been chaotic—was remarkably orderly.
She heard that to provide a place for the refugees to settle, Prince Ning's Estate had rented out every single inn in the city and set up porridge-distributing stalls along the four main thoroughfares.
Having nowhere else to go in Liangzhou, Su Mingyu shamelessly tagged along behind Murong Ke and entered Prince Ning's Estate.
As night began to fall, Su Mingyu disguised herself sneakily in the garb of a Shenwu Army soldier and slipped into the estate's underground dungeon where the prisoners were being held.
Earlier that day, Murong Ke had made a great public spectacle of dragging the captured Jin Kingdom spies back and locking them up here, even claiming he would interrogate them personally.
Yet the moment Su Mingyu stepped into the dungeon, she was dumbfounded.
The very "Jin Kingdom Black Cavalry" who had been clamoring to kill Prince Ning just hours before were now sitting around in a circle, drinking alcohol and playing finger-guessing drinking games.
Amidst her shock, Su Mingyu accidentally brushed against a concealed mechanism in the dungeon.
The men drinking snapped to instant alertness, jumping to their feet and grabbing the swords on the table. "Who's there?"