My father ordered me to kill the emperor, but His Majesty bestowed a princess upon me instead.

When the broken bowl shattered at my feet, the crowd seemed to have been smashed as well.

First came a shout.

"He's the one who embezzled the relief funds!"

Then a second and a third sound erupted chaotically outside the soup kitchen.

"The prince consort embezzled relief funds!"

"The princess's act of distributing porridge is a sham!"

"They wear gold and jade in the palace, while we drink plain water outside!"

The disaster victims were initially lined up, many holding bowls in their hands. But when people are desperately hungry, the bowls in their hands may not even turn into bowls; they may turn into stones.

Standing in front of the soup kitchen, looking at those thin, bluish faces, I suddenly understood why the Clearing House had set up the meeting here.

It would be difficult for them to kill me in the palace.

It would be difficult for the court to kill me.

But it would be easy for the disaster victims to kill me.

If I were to order the Imperial Guards to draw their swords, it would be tantamount to the Prince Consort unleashing his troops to harm the people.

If I retreat, it would be out of fear of punishment and guilt.

It would be better if I were knocked down and trampled to death by the crowd.

The next day, the Ministry of Revenue simply submitted a memorial stating that Shen An's improper conduct during the audit had incited a popular uprising, resulting in his death at the hands of the rioters.

The dead cannot speak.

The victims could not defend themselves.

In the end, only Zheng Huaien's gentle mouth could speak.

Ah Liu was so scared that his face turned pale, but he still stood in front of me.

He had no knife in his hand, so he picked up a wooden stick next to the soup kitchen.

One end of the stick was still covered in soot.

It doesn't look like it's protecting its master; it looks like it's about to stir up trouble.

"Young master, step back."

His voice trembled, but he didn't back down.

I watched his retreating figure, feeling a little surprised.

This kid has really gotten good at things now.

At least my legs aren't shaking as noticeably as before.

Xiao Lingyi stood beside me.

She was accompanied only by Qiu Tang and a few guards from the princess's residence. Logically, given the chaos among the disaster victims, she should have retreated to the carriage first.

But she didn't.

She even took a step forward.

As soon as he left, the crowd became even more chaotic.

Someone shouted, "The princess is out!"

"Let the princess give us an explanation!"

"My son starved to death, who will give me justice!"

A woman holding a child squeezed to the front.

The child was a tiny bundle, wrapped in tattered cotton cloth, his face was bluish, his lips were pale, his eyes were closed, and he was motionless.

The woman knelt on the ground, crying her heart out.

"Your Highness! Lord Shen! You said the relief supplies had arrived! Where are they? My second son hasn't eaten for three days. He drank some porridge from your soup kitchen this morning, and then he died!"

Her crying brought tears to the eyes of everyone around her.

Several young men began to rush forward.

Yan Xiaoyi's sword was not drawn; it was simply held horizontally at the front.

He stood there alone, all his laziness gone, like a wall ready to draw its sword at any moment.

But he couldn't draw his sword.

I can't let him pull it out either.

I stared at the child.

His face was pale, his lips were white, and his chest barely rose and fell.

It looks like it's dead.

so similar.

It reminds me of the calming tea in the side hall of Changning, the white foam at the corner of Han Shangfu's mouth, and the line "Acacia benzoin, not for calming the mind, but for locking away dreams."

I took a step forward.

The woman immediately hugged her child tightly and shrank back in fear.

"Don't touch him! You killed him, and now you want to dispose of the body?"

The crowd erupted in another round of angry shouts.

Ah Liu was so anxious that he was sweating profusely.

"Young master, you can't go there!"

I whispered, "Ah Liu, go to the pot."

"what?"

"Lift the lid off the pot."

Ah Liu was stunned: "Now?"

"Now."

Although Ah Liu didn't understand, he still gritted his teeth and rushed towards the porridge pot.

Several porridge stall workers tried to stop them, but were intimidated by a single look from Yan Xiaoyi.

Ah Liu lifted the pot lid.

A fragrant aroma of rice immediately wafted up.

The porridge is indeed thick today.

It's much thicker than it was a few days ago.

Someone in the crowd shouted, "Look! They knew the princess was coming, so they cooked the porridge thick today!"

"The past few days we've only been given water to drink!"

This remark immediately ignited a fire.

Someone picked up stones and threw them.

A pebble grazed my shoulder and hit the car floor with a dull thud.

Qiu Tang's face turned pale, but she still stood in front of Xiao Lingyi.

Xiao Lingyi said coldly, "Step back."

Qiu Tang gritted her teeth: "Your Highness."

"Step back."

Qiu Tang had no choice but to take a half step back.

Xiao Lingyi looked at the crowd, her voice low but clear.

"I am not leaving today."

The crowd paused.

She continued, "If you want an explanation, I will listen. If you want food, I will provide it. But if anyone uses the name of disaster victims to commit murder, I will investigate."

Someone sneered: "Investigate? In the end, won't it just be officials protecting each other?"

Xiao Lingyi looked at him.

The man subconsciously took a half step back because of her gaze.

A princess is a princess.

She didn't shout or get angry; she just stood there, and that was more effective than a hundred constables.

Taking advantage of this brief moment, I stopped three steps away from the woman.

You said the child wasn't breathing after drinking the porridge?

The woman cried out, "Yes!"

"When did you drink it?"

"Half an hour ago."

Which bowl?

The woman was taken aback.

"Which bowl?"

I pointed to the porridge pot.

"The soup kitchen only opened this one pot today. If this child had drunk from that pot, the others in the pot would have also been in trouble. But now only he has collapsed."

The crowd was somewhat quiet.

Someone immediately shouted, "Isn't it okay for the child to be weak?"

"OK."

I nodded.

"That's why I'm asking to clarify."

I looked at the child in the woman's arms.

"Who gave him anything before he drank the porridge?"

A flicker of panic crossed the woman's face.

soon.

But I saw it.

Ah Liu saw it too.

He's been with me a long time now, and although he's timid, he's not blind.

Ah Liu immediately shouted, "Young master, she's feeling guilty!"

I almost wanted to cover his mouth.

At a time like this, if you say she feels guilty, won't that just make her cry even more?

Sure enough, the woman cried even harder.

"What do I, a poor soul who has lost my child, have to be ashamed of! Are you officials trying to drive people to their deaths?"

The crowd moved again.

I raised my hand to shut Ah Liu up.

Ah Liu immediately covered his mouth, his eyes filled with "I was wrong".

I turned to look at the worker at the soup kitchen.

"Who cooked this pot of porridge today?"

The men lowered their heads and remained silent.

Yan Xiaoyi picked one up casually.

The waiter cried out in fright, "It wasn't me! The shopkeeper asked me to thicken it a bit more, saying the princess's carriage is passing by today!"

I asked, "What about the shed?"

The waiter looked dejected: "It was here just now, but it's gone now."

well.

It's gone again.

If all the people who are missing from the capital today could gather at one table, it would probably be enough for a feast.

I walked to the pot and scooped a bowl of porridge with a long spoon.

The porridge was indeed thick, and there were quite a few grains of rice.

But when I looked at the bottom of the pot, I noticed that the rice grains were the wrong color.

There is new rice and old rice.

New rice is white, while old rice is yellow.

In this pot of porridge, the new rice is only on the top layer, while the bottom is mostly old rice fragments.

What's even more interesting is that the rice bags next to the pot haven't been completely removed yet.

I asked Ah Liu to bring the rice bag over.

Ah Liu worked very hard, his face covered in soot.

When the rice bag was turned inside out, a mark was visible on the inside of the opening.

Qinghe Yicang.

Some people in the crowd recognized the seal.

"Grain from the public granary!"

"Isn't the rice in Qinghe Granary relief rice?"

"Why didn't you have it a few days ago?"

I picked up the bag of rice and showed it to everyone.

"Why is this porridge so thick today? Because someone delivered a few bags of rice from Qinghe Granary at the last minute."

The crowd quieted down a bit.

"Isn't that a good thing?" someone shouted. "Having rice is good, isn't it?"

I nodded.

"Of course it's good. But think about it, Qinghe Granary had rice, so why didn't they distribute it a few days ago? Why did they only send rice today when the princess and the prince consort came?"

No one answered.

The disaster victims are not stupid.

I'm just hungry.

People who are starving are easily swayed, but they can also understand the simplest truths.

I pointed to the body that the guards had already dragged out from under the car.

"This man came out of the palace following an old cloth cart and died in a hidden compartment of a rice cart. He had Qinghe Granary rice coupons in his hand, with the words 'Tonight at midnight, the granary will be cleared of ashes' written on the back."

Upon hearing this, the crowd erupted into chaos.

What does "cleaning up the ash" mean?

"Should we burn the rice?"

"They're going to break the agreement!"

I said, "I want to know now too."

The woman, holding the child, had already shrank back.

Xiao Lingyi suddenly spoke up: "Stop her."

Qiu Tang immediately stepped forward.

The woman screamed, "The princess has killed someone! The princess has killed someone!"

The crowd is about to move again.

Xiao Lingyi lowered her voice: "If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't have waited until now."

She looked at me.

"child."

I nodded and walked up to the woman.

This time, the woman tried to dodge again, but Yan Xiaoyi raised his hand, and the scabbard blocked her retreat.

I squatted down and looked at the child.

The closer you get, the stronger the medicinal smell becomes.

It doesn't taste like porridge.

It has a sweet, calming scent.

I reached out to check the child's breath.

There's still air.

very weak.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

"He's not dead."

The woman's face changed drastically.

"You're talking nonsense! My son is already dead!"

I looked at her: "You really want him dead?"

The woman was speechless.

Ah Liu immediately exclaimed, "Listen! She's just feeling guilty!"

I turned around and glared at him.

He covered his mouth again.

Xiao Lingyi took out a silver hairpin and handed it to me.

I gently pricked the child's fingertip with the tip of the hairpin.

The child pulled his finger away.

A gasp of surprise rang out from the crowd.

"Alive!"

"The child is alive!"

The Song physician was not present, but fortunately, there was a female physician accompanying the princess's carriage.

After examining the patient, the female healer said, "She has been given a sleeping potion, which has suppressed her breathing. If this had dragged on for another half an hour, something terrible would have happened."

The woman's face was completely drained of color.

She suddenly knelt down and backed away: "I don't know! I really don't know! Someone said that as long as I held the child and cried out for justice, they would give me two bushels of rice! I didn't know the medicine would harm him!"

The crowd erupted in uproar.

Two bushels of rice.

A mother brought her child to set up the scheme.

That sounds hateful.

But when I looked at her thin, sunken face, I felt like something was stuck in my throat.

The worst part of famine isn't that people die.

It meant exchanging living people for food.

Xiao Lingyi's voice was cold: "Who gave you the rice?"

The woman, weeping, pulled a rice coupon from her bosom.

It's Qinghe Charity Granary again.

Two words were written on the back:

They cried out for justice.

I took the rice coupon, and as I looked at those two words, my fingers tightened little by little.

Okay, very good.

Qinghe Yicang did more than just buy palace gates, deliver carriages, and hide corpses.

It even used relief grain to buy the cries of disaster victims.

I stood up and looked at the crowd.

"Look carefully."

I held up the rice coupon.

"This wasn't given to her by me, Shen An, nor by Princess Zhaoning. It's a rice voucher from Qinghe Granary."

Someone in the crowd shouted, "Then do you dare to open the Qinghe Charity Granary?"

The moment those words were spoken, the surroundings fell silent.

Everyone was looking at me.

Ah Liu's face turned pale instantly.

"Young master..."

I know what he's afraid of.

Qinghe Granary was not an ordinary granary.

It was nominally a private granary, but in reality it was registered with the Ministry of Revenue, with grain donations from local gentry, rice offerings from temples, and accounts for the conversion of disaster relief funds into grain.

Without an imperial edict or documents from the Ministry of Revenue, an imperial censor's unauthorized opening of a public granary constitutes an overreach of authority.

Moreover, I am now the son-in-law of the emperor.

The accounting committee passed the message here, finally revealing their true colors.

If I don't open it, the disaster victims will say I'm guilty.

If I open it, the Ministry of Revenue can impeach me tomorrow for misappropriating government grain, inciting disaster victims, and seizing grain from public granaries.

No matter which way you choose, it's like a dead end.

I looked at Xiao Lingyi.

She was looking at me too.

She didn't make the decision for me.

That's what makes her so amazing.

She knew she had to take the blow herself.

I slowly exhaled.

"open."

Ah Liu's legs went weak, and he almost sat down on the ground.

The crowd was stunned.

I looked at the person who had just shouted.

"The Qinghe Granary will be cleared of ashes at midnight tonight, so we won't wait until midnight."

I turned to look at Yan Xiaoyi.

"Take people to Qinghe Granary."

Yan Xiaoyi nodded.

I looked at Xiao Lingyi again.

"Your Highness, use the guards from the Princess's residence to maintain the soup kitchens. Do not harm the people, and do not let the soup kitchen managers go."

Xiao Lingyi said, "Qiutang."

Qiu Tang immediately responded.

I clutched the rice coupon with the words "cry for justice" written on it in my hand, watching the disaster victims who had quieted down.

"You want grain, I'll take you to see it."

"If you want an explanation, I'll take you to see the accounts."

"But if anyone uses a child as a knife again, don't blame me for breaking their hand first."

No one in the crowd spoke.

I don't know who lowered their head first.

Then more people lowered their heads.

They don't submit to me.

They just desperately wanted to know where the grain had gone.

I turned and walked towards the car.

Ah Liu caught up and whispered, "Young master, are you really opening the granary?"

"open."

"The Ministry of Revenue will kill you."

"Let them bite."

I lifted the carriage curtain and looked back at the steaming pot at the South Congee Stall.

"They cooked this pot of porridge too thick today."

"I'll just make it thick to the end."