Bai Ruoshu showed no mercy to the unconscious guards and maids. She knew full well that the only reason these people had followed her to Danxue Temple was to find a chance to kill her son.
For the past few days, she had stayed glued to her son's side, leaving them no opening to strike, but she knew they had not given up.
For now, she could not move against Prince Kang, but eliminating these underlings was well within her power. Anyone who dared to threaten her son's life deserved to die.
Lin Meng and the others quickly finished off the unconscious people. They piled the corpses together, then cut branches and weeds to cover them up.
When Song Qian suddenly caught sight of the massive pile of bodies and the blood-soaked ground, he was so terrified that he wailed at the top of his lungs. Bai Ruoshu sighed.
They were all Xi Daniu's children, so how could those two girls be so startlingly brave, yet her own son turned out to be such a timid thing?
Bai Ruoshu held Song Qian in her arms, patting his back gently as she comforted him. "Qian'er, you are a little man now, you must learn to be brave. These people were all here to kill you, and their deaths are well deserved. You should learn from your two elder sisters - they never know what it means to be afraid."
The moment Song Qian heard that, he flew into a temper, stopping his tears immediately. "Mother, they are not my sisters at all! I don't have any sisters!"
Bai Ruoshu smiled and stroked his head. "Silly child, even if you called them your sisters, they would never acknowledge you. As long as you behave yourself and don't provoke them, you will be able to keep your life."
She had thought this through clearly. For the Xi sisters, the best possible outcome for everyone was simply to leave each other in peace.
She stood up, looked at the maids and guards around her, and spoke slowly. "Let's go. We're heading back to the capital."
At those words, everyone froze in surprise.
Song Qian looked up at her, face full of confusion. "Mother, aren't we going to meet up with Grandfather and Father?"
Bai Ruoshu shook her head calmly. "No, that side is not safe. They share blood ties, so no matter how fiercely they fight, it is their own family's business. Our status is awkward there - going over would only lead us to humiliate ourselves, and we would end up pleasing no one on either side. We're going straight back to the Bai family estate in the capital."
As for whether she would ever return to the Duke's estate, she would decide that once she had thought things through properly.
What Prince Kang had done was worse than what even pigs or dogs would stoop to, and Xi Daniu was no good either. Right now, she felt like kicking just about anyone she laid eyes on.
Shortly after they left, a woman dressed in black tight-fitting attire leaped down from a tree, and quickly vanished into the mountain forest.
A long while later, the woman in black appeared before Princess Kang.
"Princess, they have left..."
She gave a detailed account of everything she had witnessed over the past few days, and Princess Kang could not help but burst into laughter.
"It seems Bai Ruoshu is not as foolish as I thought. Four days, they must have traveled a great distance by now. I wonder if the real Prince Kang will fly into a rage once he finds out. This whole game of guessing which Prince Kang is real is starting to wear me out."
The woman in black chuckled softly. "Princess, if you can't figure it out, just kill them all. Who cares if it's the real prince or a fake one? Kill every single one that shows their face, and once they are all dead, we can go home. This title of princess was never something you cared for anyway - we can throw it away without a second thought."
Princess Kang slowly shook her head. "Your people have already killed two men, and both of them were just stand-ins. That scoundrel is so terrified of death that he has made countless doubles for himself. No rush. Right now, he's having someone draft a declaration of rebellion. Other people will deal with him soon enough. We just get to sit back and watch."
Her marriage to Prince Kang was nothing but a name, all a complete facade, with each of them pursuing their own separate goals.
She was the legitimate daughter of Grand General Weiyuan, but her mother had died when she was young. After her father took a new wife, he abandoned her in the countryside when she was only five years old.
Fortunately, a martial arts master came across her, took her in as his goddaughter, and brought her back to his home - the Wuxiang Manor, a famous stronghold in the martial arts world.
She grew up within the manor. Once, after the manor master was injured from a duel with another fighter, he was ambushed by a traitor within the manor before he could recover, and lost his life.
Zhou Bingrou was injured when she fled the manor. The tragedy had struck so suddenly that she knew staying behind would only get her killed for no reason.
She returned to the village where she had been left before, and just then the Zhou family's people arrived from the capital to fetch her, so she went back with them.
She had only planned to lay low, recover from her injuries, and wait for the right time to take her revenge. She never expected that the Zhou family had asked her to return to the capital just to have her take the place of their real daughter in a political marriage.
She did not run away. Instead, on her wedding night, she laid all her cards on the table to Prince Kang, and the two of them struck a deal.
When Prince Kang found out that the Zhou family had tricked him, he was so furious that his face turned livid. But if he exposed the lie publicly, he would not only lose face, but also turn the Zhou family into his enemy, making the whole marriage a total waste.
If he chose to pretend he knew nothing, the Zhou family's extensive network of connections would still be there for him to use. And so, Prince Kang and Zhou Bingrou became a pair of fake spouses, each harboring their own hidden agendas.
Once Zhou Bingrou had fully recovered from her injuries, she used the power of Prince Kang's residence to pull off many things - including returning to Wuxiang Manor to take her revenge, and seizing full control of the manor for herself.
Now, she was the master of Wuxiang Manor. She had also rescued many of the children Prince Kang had abducted to use for his alchemical experiments, and brought them back to the manor to be properly cared for.
She could leave this place any time she wanted, but she was in no hurry. She wanted to see how Prince Kang's story would end. A prince who used innocent children to make elixirs, a beast in human form - she could not wait to see just how miserable his final fate would be.
As a thought crossed her mind, she gave the woman in black a faint smile. "Qin Yi, from now on, when no one else is around, don't call me Princess. Just call me Young Lady."
Qin Yi's face lit up with joy at those words - it meant they were almost ready to leave.
She nodded happily at once. "Yes, Young Lady."
Several days passed in the blink of an eye. The people at the temple assumed Bai Ruoshu had already left, and stopped paying attention to her.
Prince Kang had been busy posting his declarations of rebellion all over the city, and preparing his rebel troops and weapons. It was only after he finished all this work and sent men to the temple to fetch Bai Ruoshu that he found out she had left several days prior. He was so enraged that he nearly ordered the temple to be torn down to the ground.
"Useless fools, all of you! How could so many people disappear without anyone coming back to report it to me?"
He personally led a group of men to the temple to investigate the situation, and then headed toward the back mountain.
When he saw the stinking, fly-covered piles of corpses, Prince Kang's face changed colors over and over, before he could not help but run to the side and throw up.
A moment later, a guard holding his nose came up to him to report. "Your Highness, apart from Miss Bai's people, Lin Meng and his men are also nowhere to be found. All the other guards and maids are dead. They have been dead for three or four days, so Bai Ruoshu and the others must have left days ago. It's too late to catch up now."
The moment he heard that, Prince Kang flew into a violent rage. "A bunch of ungrateful traitors! Lin Meng, don't ever let me lay eyes on you again, or I will have you torn apart by five horses!"
He did not suspect Zhou Bingrou or Nanny Liu at all. He simply assumed his men had been careless and their plot had been discovered.
He snorted coldly. It did not matter that they had left. Sooner or later, he would hunt them down.
He immediately gave an order to the deputy general beside him. "Deputy General Cao, get ready at once. Lead twenty thousand troops to Xin'an City, and capture those two disastrous demon girls for me. Avenge my Ninth Brother."
"As you command, Your Highness. This subordinate will surely capture them." Deputy General Cao accepted the order and left.
Xin'an City.
Xi Qingyue did not care in the slightest about the "heads" that were soon to be sent her way. Right now, she was sitting in her newly renovated mansion, enjoying the view.
In just a few days, the two adjacent mansions had been connected into one large estate, and the back garden had been expanded by half its original size.
Xi Weilan was happily cruising around the garden paths on her small electric scooter, her favorite daily activity — she absolutely loved zipping around on her little ride. She rode up to Xi Qingyue, her little face lit up with excitement. "Sis, there aren't any fish in that pond over there. Should we get some to put in it?" Xi Qingyue nodded with a soft smile. "That sounds lovely. Let's go add the fish right now."
