Those who came to welcome the Crown Prince back to court were all stunned!
Prince Qi and Prince Jin couldn't hold back their laughter any longer; they were swaying back and forth on their horses.
The officials of the Ministry of Rites were furious. Who instigated these people?
The crown prince turned pale. Was this a ceremony to welcome him by the common people?
Collective urination—are they trying to completely ruin his reputation?
Wei Anlu is the Crown Prince's maternal uncle. How could he allow his nephew to suffer such a humiliation?
This is the crown prince, the future emperor; how can he tolerate being bullied by unruly commoners?
He said to the prince's guards, "Kill these unruly people."
The Crown Prince originally wanted to return to the capital in a low-key manner. He had failed in his disaster relief efforts and fled back to the capital. If he were to kill someone before even entering the city, his reputation would be further tarnished.
However, such a humiliation is intolerable.
No matter how unruly a person is, they won't seek their own death; this must be someone instigating and manipulating them.
When someone is practically shitting on your neck, what are you going to put up with?
As soon as the prince's guards rushed over, one of the people relieving themselves shouted, "The prince is killing people!"
Prince Qi shouted at Wei Anlu, "The ignorant masses are guilty of being uneducated. Your Highness is merciful and does not wish to stoop to their level. Why did you order the Crown Prince's guards to kill people? Could it be that everyone around the Crown Prince is an spies planted by the Duke of Cheng'en's mansion?"
This statement was weighty, but Wei Anlu didn't care; he had to kill these troublemakers.
Prince Qi watched them kill!
Murder? Great, the more you kill, the worse your reputation will be.
As for those people, he didn't care since he had hired them. What's the point of living if they're stupid?
The guards gave chase, and some of the men fled into the woods, while most ran straight into the city. But they couldn't escape in time, and the guards killed dozens of them in the blink of an eye.
Screams erupted as the vibrant lives that had been happily urinating just moments before vanished in the blink of an eye.
The blood stained the area inside and outside the city gates a deep crimson.
Wei Anlu roared, "Capture them alive! Capture them alive! Exterminate their entire family! Interrogate them thoroughly and find out who's behind this!"
The guards captured several people and tied them up.
Prince Qi rode over and looked at the five people who had been "respectfully" welcoming him, who had been captured. He roared, "You dog slaves, don't you know the Crown Prince has returned? How dare you publicly humiliate the Heir Apparent! You deserve to die!"
He swung his sword and killed the five captured "traitors" one by one.
The Crown Prince's guards glared at Prince Qi: "Prince Qi, what's wrong with you? These are witnesses, why did you kill them all?"
"If we don't kill them, are we just going to let them live for the New Year?" Prince Qi roared. "You couldn't even protect the Crown Prince, and you still have the nerve to question me?"
Those who had been trampled by Yin Jin'an's horse hooves and whipped, including that down-on-his-luck playboy, hadn't gone far. Now, seeing all this, they realized how frightening it was.
Those who instigated them only told them about the Crown Prince's evil deeds and that they should use bloodshed to awaken the people and the court. No one told them that they would be killed and that their families would be implicated.
The spoiled young servant whispered, "Master, you should thank Second Master Yin."
If it weren't for Master Yin's whipping, many more people would have died today.
Over there, Prince Qi killed the witness, leaving the Crown Prince's guards in a state of utter confusion.
As the argument was taking place, a group of brightly dressed women walked into the city.
They saw the blood at the city gate and screamed, "Oh no! Murder!"
It was the group of prostitutes who came to Kyoto to file a complaint.
Back then, on the pleasure boat in Wancheng, the foreigner left a box behind and left the code word "bandit with double hammers." The prostitutes waited for the "bandit" to come and take the box, and he would pay them the other half of their payment.
Later, the Crown Prince, accompanied by Shi Xiu and the Infantry Commander Ma, arrived at the pleasure boat. After exchanging a secret signal, the prostitutes brought out a box from the inner room and gave it to them.
The box was taken back by Steward Ma and Shi Xiu, but after they left, the prostitutes realized that the box had been mistakenly taken.
The box that the prince took away was the box they used to store silver notes.
When the box left behind was opened, it contained only a box of fabric.
But that group of people, whether they were delivering or receiving the mail, never came back again (in fact, there was an uprising in Zhongzhou, and the crown prince fled and was no longer in the south).
After thinking it over, they realized they had been tricked and felt that the other party had set a honey trap.
The prostitutes were quite capable; they bribed one of their patrons, an official, who told them that the wealthy young man was a nobleman in the capital, while the bandit was merely an assistant carrying boxes and was also an official.
He also told them, "The people of Zhongzhou are so poor that they've rebelled. That guy with the double hammers is not someone to be trifled with. You can't win a lawsuit here. You'd better go to the capital to appeal to the emperor."
The prostitutes didn't hesitate at all. The box contained the entire fortune of the madam and all the girls—the income from several pleasure boats, amounting to nearly ten million taels of silver!
Real hard-earned money, money earned by selling oneself.
When they went to the capital to ask how to file a complaint with the emperor, someone advised them not to do so, saying, "You don't even know who it is, so what's the point of filing a complaint with the emperor?"
So the prostitutes filed a complaint with the Dali Temple.
As the Dali Temple was examining the box of fabric piece by piece, they found a silk letter hidden in a lining.
The Dali Temple official didn't tell the prostitutes what kind of letter it was. He simply told a few of them, "The person you're accusing has no name or surname, and a box of cloth doesn't prove anything. Go back now!"
They actually brought out their complaint again.
The prostitutes were at their wits' end, sitting helplessly in the inn. Suddenly, someone delivered a message to them, saying that the person they were looking for was returning to the city today and that they should wait for him at the city gate.
So they all came to ambush him.
But this place is covered in blood, murder, murder?
They huddled together by the roadside, looking up at the majestic prince's entourage, but their eyes immediately fell upon Shi Xiu, who was following closely in front of the prince's palanquin.
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