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Chapter 237: Kowtow
Chapter 237: Kowtow
Chapter 237
As soon as he walks out of the Siyi Pavilion, the hustle and bustle in the streets greeted him.
The streets were bustling with people who were coming and going.
A few yamen* were carrying gongs and drums, banging them to attract the attention of the people passing by while shouting at the top of their voices.
(*bailiff of feudal yamen or government slaves)
“Take a look, take a look! The Prince of Northern Yan is going to Yingling Temple to kowtow to those soldiers who died in the battle of Great Qi.”
“Our ten and thousands of heroic soldiers who died in the battle and who are now in heaven can finally rest in peace!”
The yamen repeated these words over and over again causing more and more people to gather making the discussions within the crowd denser and denser.
“Prince Beiyan really wants to go to the Yingling Temple to kowtow? Then I must go and have a look.”
A young man in gray said excitedly, “One of my cousin died on the battlefield in northern Xinjiang three years ago. He was only 22 years old, and now he has left his child orphan and wife widowed.”
“Beiyan people are ruthless and cold-blooded. These years, they have repeatedly violated the border, disturbing the peace of the border area, and we don’t know how many soldiers died in battle, not to mention innocent people who died!” A scholar on the roadside angrily scolded.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“There is a family in the village next to us who escaped from Northern Yan, I heard that half of the village died in the hands of the Northern Yans’, even the one-year-old toddler was not spared, it was hell on earth ……”
The common people were filled with righteous indignation and denounced the evils of Beiyan people.
Yu Fuyun also heard these conversations and looked cold.
He was most aware that these people depicted only one or two out of ten. The sins committed by the Northern Yan Army in northern Xinjiang were a hundred deaths!
On the street, the people’s emotions become more visible and stronger as their voices raise pitched higher like a pot of boiling water.
When Yelu Luan came out of the Siyi Pavilion, the people all looked at him in unison.
Yelu Luan’s blue eyes and profound facial features were obviously different from those of the people in the Central Plains. People easily guessed his identity and looked at him with indignation.
Yelu Luan: “!!!”
He thought he was just going to the Yingling Temple to kowtow and endure the humiliation for a while. Unexpectedly, Gu Zezhi was so despicable and stepped on his face, the face of Yan!
“Gu Zezhi, what do you mean by this?” Yelu Luan questioned, saying the words with gritted teeth.
Gu Zezhi looked at him with a gentle smile.
”Since Prince Yelu is so sincere in making amends for invading the Great Qi, on behalf of the State of Yan, of course, we the people of Great Qi must see through it.”
“Or is it that Prince Yelu wants to cede the three cities?”
Gu Zezhi pressed forward step by step, his tone and smile were still warm.
Yu Fuyun’s servant Cheng Ying looks at Gu Zezhi with burning eyes and almost applauds him.
Yelu Luan’s face turned from blue to purple, as he felt the eyes of the people around as if shooting arrows at his face. He was annoyed, hateful, embarrassed, and unwilling.
Once again, Gu Zezhi reached out his hand in an inviting gesture.
Yelu Luan has no other choice.
Yingling Temple was located on Daying Street in the west of the capital. Although it was located in the capital, it was quiet and free from all of the noise, with the ancient trees towering on both sides of the street it gives off a solemn and peaceful atmosphere.
Unfortunately or fortunately, Daying Street today was particularly lively. The beating of gongs and drums, and the people’s discussions made the whole street noisy.
Because the group of people was so noisy, it drew more crowd along the way, forming a procession of at least several thousand people, looking like a flock of crows.
Gu Zezhi had invited the military forces from the five cities in advance to help maintain the order.
Yelu Luan arrived in front of Yingling Temple with a livid face amid the beating of gongs, drums, and criticism all the way.
The gate of the Yingling Temple was open. Yelu Luan, Gu Zezhi, and Yu Fuyun entered the Ancestral Hall together. There were three huge stone tablets in the courtyard in front of them, and each stone tablet had tens of thousands of names carved on it, all of which were the names of the soldiers who died in battle for the Great Qi.
Inside the Yingling temple, steles could be seen everywhere, there were too many of them that it looked like a forest.
This was a piece of evidence that there were countless soldiers who died in the battle of Great Qi but did not leave their names.
“Prince Yelu, please!”
Gu Zezhi stood with his hands folded, at this moment, his face was no longer smiling, it was replaced with a solemn look, standing there like a straight red ying spear.
At some point, the surrounding area fell into silence, and the people outside the Yingling Temple all looked at the back of Yelu Luan, their eyes burning.
Yelu Luan stood rigidly for a while, before lifting his robe and kneeling down with difficulty, feeling the sound of something breaking in his ears, ringing.
During the twelfth lunar month, the slate floor was even colder not to mention harder because of ice, revealing a biting chill.
Yelu Luan clenched his fist tightly, and the back of his hand protruded a sinew.
He stopped down with great difficulty feeling as if there were thousands of boulders on his back, making him unable to breathe as his forehead stopped at three inches from the ground…
Once he kowtowed his head, it meant that Yan had bowed to Great Qi.
Yelu Luan’s face turned red, and he wanted to disappear into thin air, however, at that moment, Gu Zezhi’s not-so-subtle voice came to his ears.
“Prince Yelu, how about considering the three cities?”
This person…
Yelu Luan’s heart was burning with fire as he secretly vowed that before he could stab Gu Zezhi into thousands of cuts with his sword, his anger would never be quelled.
And Yelu Luan almost knocked his head down with all his strength.
***