Read Novel Full CHAPTER 52 PART2
CHAPTER 52 PART2
Xiao Yanfei walked toward them with light steps, casting a casual glance around. Naturally, she noticed Liu Chaoyun, the drawn blades of the Liu guards, and the tense air heavy with gunpowder.
So this was the “lively spectacle” Ning Shu had invited her to watch?
Could it really be Liu Chaoyun herself?
Then again, with this little princess, one never knew—the “spectacles” she favored always proved… unique.
With that thought, Xiao Yanfei came up to them, her steps quick and graceful. She offered Ning Shu and the unfamiliar maiden beside her a sweet smile.
“Yanyan, this is Gu Yue,” Ning Shu said, pointing to the upright young girl at her side.
Gu Yue? Xiao Yanfei’s brow arched slightly.
Isn’t that Gu Feichi’s younger sister?
The girl was small and delicate, yet her bearing was straighter than most young ladies. Her pretty face was set in seriousness, lips pressed lightly together, eyes calm and steady.
Xiao Yanfei looked at Gu Yue, and Gu Yue looked right back, her brows faintly furrowed.
“What a pity,” Gu Yue sighed with great solemnity.
Xiao Yanfei blinked at her in confusion.
Gu Yue added, “You’re so beautiful.”
“That’s right.” Ning Shu nodded in agreement, then leaned in to whisper mischievously into Xiao Yanfei’s ear: “Gu Feichi isn’t good-looking.”
Xiao Yanfei clapped a hand over her mouth and broke into laughter.
The moment Gu Feichi’s breathtakingly handsome face came to mind, her smile deepened, her eyes shimmering like autumn waters.
Ning Shu tilted her head and sighed: oh dear, her best friend’s taste was really questionable. What was she supposed to do about that?
Her worry only grew heavier.
The three girls clustered together in whispers, while down below, the debate in the hall grew even more heated. The students denounced Lord Cheng’en, saying he owed his rise to the Empress, that he coveted military merit, sowed chaos in court, and brought about the senseless deaths of countless soldiers and civilians in Lanshan.
The voices from below, mingled with the girls’ quiet laughter above, sounded to Liu Chaoyun as if they were mocking her father, stoking her fury.
“Ning Shu!” Liu Chaoyun snapped, raising her voice. “Don’t think that just because Prince Yi supports you, you can say whatever you please!”
“What’s going on?” Xiao Yanfei glanced at her, puzzled, then turned to Ning Shu. “Weren’t we just here for tea and a bit of fun?”
“Exactly! I heard there was a student debate here, so I asked you to come watch with me,” Ning Shu pouted unhappily. “Who knew we’d run into Liu Chaoyun again?”
Why was she always this unlucky? She should’ve checked the almanac before leaving the house.
Her lips jutted out even more as she whined, “Yanyan, she even tried to steal our private room. I booked it first!”
“The Liu family is the worst.”
The owner of the Four Directions Teahouse prided himself on refinement. There were only six private rooms upstairs, each themed after one of the Six Arts of the gentleman. Ning Shu had carefully reserved the ‘Qin Room,’ symbolizing Music, days in advance. Yet Liu Chaoyun had still tried to take it from her.
The servant in green grew more anxious, sweat beading on his brow. He wanted to explain that the manager was already looking into freeing another room, but before he could speak, Liu Chaoyun stepped forward sharply, her eyes cold as she glared at Ning Shu.
“Say that again!”
Sparks flew as the two girls locked eyes, tension thickening in the air.
Liu Jia, the heir of Lord Cheng’en, also looked displeased.
Others might fear the Liu family, but Ning Shu certainly did not. Lifting her chin proudly, she retorted, “Your Liu family has always been domineering—always snatching what belongs to others.”
Stealing qin, stealing rooms… and even stealing military glory.
“Hmph. They—” Ning Shu gestured toward the students downstairs, her voice ringing clear, “they’re right. The Liu family are cowards who fear death!”
“As long as bandits ravage Youzhou, innocent people will continue to die by the thousands. Every life lost is on Lord Cheng’en’s hands!”
“I wonder,” she turned to Gu Yue, eyes bright, “does he ever hear vengeful spirits at night?”
“Of course he does.” Gu Yue nodded gravely. “My grandmother says spirits who die unjustly cannot rest. Without rites, they cannot reincarnate. They wander the mortal world, seeking out their killers… whispering into their enemies’ ears at night…”
Her solemn tone sent a chill down the Liu siblings’ spines. Liu Chaoyun instinctively covered her ears.
Xiao Yanfei idly toyed with the crimson silk cord hanging before her chest, rolling the coral bead at its end between her fingers.
She’d heard of the Youzhou bandits from Gu Feichi himself.
According to him, Youzhou was once held by the Xie family’s old troops. After the Xies fell, their men were executed, dismissed, or demoted, and Lord Cheng’en’s nominees were installed instead.
This recent band of raiders in Shangguo County numbered under a thousand—mere rabble. But they were ruthless, burning, looting, murdering, even slaughtering entire villages and towns in acts of unspeakable cruelty.
From the original host’s memories, Xiao Yanfei herself had witnessed such atrocities: neighbors she’d laughed with the day before lying butchered the next, blood soaking the streets, eyes frozen open in death…
The lives of commoners mattered too.
“What’s wrong? You Liu’s can commit such acts but can’t bear to hear the truth?!” Ning Shu’s voice rose louder, drawing the attention of many downstairs.
“They just don’t want you saying it,” Gu Yue corrected her soberly.
“Huh?” Ning Shu blinked, uncertain. “Is that so?”
Gu Yue pointed at the students below. “If it were them, they’d all be arrested by now.”
But Ning Shu was different. No matter how harshly she condemned Lord Cheng’en, the Liu family wouldn’t dare lay hands on her.
Ning Shu burst into delighted laughter, nodding eagerly.
Liu Chaoyun’s face flushed crimson with rage. She trembled all over, shouting, “Insolence!”
How dare they humiliate the Liu family like this? Her aunt was the Empress herself!
Ning Shu sneered. “You’re just a minister’s daughter without title or rank, and you dare posture in front of a princess? Who’s insolent here?”
“Of course it’s you.” Xiao Yanfei chimed in smoothly, pointing right at Liu Chaoyun. She even shot Ning Shu an approving glance, as if to say: well done, little princess, you’re brilliant.
Buoyed by her friend’s praise, Ning Shu lifted her chin even higher in pride.
Fuming, Liu Chaoyun turned to her elder brother, stomping her foot in frustration.
Liu Jia soothed her with a calm look, then elegantly flicked open a folding fan painted with cranes frolicking in water. He fanned himself lazily, the picture of grace and arrogance.
“What would you women know?” he scoffed, his eyes sweeping over them with haughty disdain. “The Liu family doesn’t fear war. We simply despise it.”
“War is no good thing. It’s not like you little girls buying rouge or hairpins. On the battlefield, people die. When soldiers fall, the land trembles, the nation plunges into turmoil, and the common folk are driven from their homes, forced to wander in misery.”
“Yiming,” Liu Jia turned his head slightly to glance at a youth in blue sitting to his right, “what do you say?”
It was a boy of fifteen or sixteen, dressed in a lake-blue robe embroidered with bamboo leaves. His features were striking, his build neither tall nor short.
At the words, the boy’s gaze flickered with unease. He quickly nodded, stumbling over his words: “Y-yes, that’s right.”
Ning Shu, knowing that Xiao Yanfie didn’t recognize Yiming, leaned in and whispered, “That’s General Ming’s youngest son. General Ming and his eldest, Ming Shu, had defended Lanshan City for years. Last year, Yiming went there to visit family… after the city fell, out of dozens of the Ming clan, he was the only one left alive. Even his sister-in-law and three-year-old nephew were slaughtered.”
Though her words were matter-of-fact, there was no mistaking the ridicule laced within them.
Aside from the traitor Duke Cheng’en who fled, every soldier who defended Lanshan perished. The city’s people too were butchered, almost none surviving.
Ning Shu deliberately turned back to Yiming. “Tell me, Yiming, do you still dream of your father and elder brother?”
She didn’t care how he had managed to escape that massacre. The mere sight of him mingling with the Liu family—the very people responsible for his father and brother’s deaths—was enough to disgust her.
Yiming: “…”
His expression went blank, his face drained of color.
“Yiming, Xie Yimo is dead. Your father and brother can rest in peace.” Liu Jia patted his shoulder soothingly, then said coldly, “It was Xie Yimo who dragged countless men to their graves with his treachery. Were it not for his rebellion, the Ming family would never have met such an end!”
He sighed with practiced sorrow, though his burning gaze had already shifted to Xiao Yanfie’s flawless face—finally placing her.
No wonder she had seemed familiar at first sight. On the day of the Qianfang Banquet, she had been with Princess Ning Shu; Gu Feichi had even knocked the Crown Prince from his horse for her sake.
Later, Liu Jia had asked his sister about her. She was the Xiao family’s second daughter—the emperor’s betrothed for Gu Feichi.
Yet now, staring at her, the memory of that day at Danbi Pavilion returned with stinging clarity: Gu Feichi had humiliated him before the crowd, trampling him into the dirt.
Liu Jia’s eyes darkened. Snapping his fan shut, he walked toward Ning Shu, Xiao Yanfie, and Gu Yue with deliberate leisure, saying, “The Liu family is not like Gu Feichi—bloodthirsty, ruthless, willing to sacrifice anything for victory, treating lives like weeds!”
“Second Miss Xiao, Gu Feichi’s cruelty only brings needless slaughter, staining the battlefield red with our soldiers’ blood. Do you understand?”
He stopped three steps short of Xiao Yanfie, then tipped his closed fan toward her delicate chin with a mocking flourish—
Smack!
Xiao Yanfie swiftly brought down her round fan on his right hand, striking hard without a hint of mercy.
Caught off guard, Liu Jia’s fingers jolted, and the fan slipped from his grasp, clattering to the floor. A red welt spread across the back of his hand as his face flushed an ugly shade of purple.
Smiling sweetly, Xiao Yanfie twirled her silk fan, embroidered with butterflies among blossoms, as if the blow had been nothing. At a glance, her manner seemed casual—look again, and it brimmed with defiance.
On her, the gesture became dazzling, a contradiction of obedient grace and untamed spirit that drew every gaze in the room.
“Lord Liu, no matter how you dress up your words, at heart it’s nothing but cowardice.” She gave her fan a shake, lips quirking. Really? Trying to twist the truth like that? Does he take us all for fools?
Exactly! Both Princess Ning Shu and Gu Yue nodded in firm agreement.
Xiao Yanfie continued, “I can fear death, the princess can fear death, the common folk most of all—but the soldiers on the front lines cannot. Their commanders cannot. The court officials cannot. Least of all, His Majesty himself.”
“You, a son of a military house, not only shirk battle but justify it so righteously—where does that leave the people?”
Remembering his words at Danbi Pavilion, where he had branded Xie Yimo and Xie Wuduan ‘cowards’ who deserved to be ground to dust, she curved her lips into a frosty smile. “And yet you dare to condemn the Xie’s? The Xie family fought to the last man, not one retreating. Your Liu family abandoned a city.”
“Abandoned its people to slaughter!”
Her words cut like blades, each syllable driving deeper. Though she had not moved closer, Liu Jia felt a suffocating pressure, nearly forcing him to retreat.
Watching his eyes flicker with unease, Xiao Yanfie’s smile sharpened. Mimicking Gu Feichi that day, she let out a light laugh. “Cowardice?”
“The only liar here is you.”
She suddenly stepped forward, placing her foot firmly atop the fallen fan. Grinding it beneath her heel, she smiled warmly—yet her gaze was cold as eternal snow.
***