Chapter 378: Chapter 375: Kowtow to Thank for the Grace_1 Chapter 378: Chapter 375: Kowtow to Thank for the Grace_1 The translation of the provided Chinese text into English is as follows:
For those owing a life, Bai Qingyan also said that later, she would ensure that Lord Zhou provided justice for the deceased.
Bai Qingyan opened the ancestral hall to punish the Bai Clan mbers who bullied the people of Shuoyang. News that so victims had reclaid their ancestral hos or received equivalent compensation spread like wildfire through Shuoyang City.
Those victims who initially doubted Bai Qingyan would really punish the Bai Clan mbers spread the news eagerly.
Soon, more victims arrived. Even elderly people with graying hair, holding the morial tablets of their sons and daughters-in-law, ca to seek justice from the Princess of Zhen.
More and more people gathered in front of the Bai family’s gate. Those who received compensation were all grateful to Bai Qingyan for her great kindness and kowtowed to express their gratitude.
The faces of the elders of the clan, whose grandchildren were involved, grew increasingly grim. Even those Bai Clan mbers who usually kept to themselves and did not partake in wrongdoing were frightened by the scene and began to glare at their own children and grandchildren, questioning if they had caused any trouble outside.
The commotion in the Bai Clan’s ancestral hall was so imnse that the won who had been waiting for news at ho couldn’t stay put. They hurried over, stood in the courtyard, and watched their children anxiously through their tears.
The offspring of the Bai family mber who pushed the mute mother into the river was the grandson of the Clan Leader’s younger brother, Fifth Master. He was so frightened that he cried out, “Grandfather, save ! Grandfather, save … I don’t want to be expelled from the clan!”
“Grandfather, Clan Leader, we dare not do it again. We’ve repaid what we owed. Even though my brother and I have been wayward, we never took a life!”
“Grandfather, please beg the Clan Leader to spare !”
Once Fifth Master’s grandson started pleading, the other Bai family juniors kneeling in the courtyard also began to beg for rcy.
The Clan Leader looked at the stack of case file bamboo slips beside Lord Zhou and then at Bai Qingyan’s indifferent face. An ominous premonition crept into his heart.
An elder couldn’t stand it and looked at the Clan Leader: “Clan Leader, look… we’ve returned what we owed. Can’t we avoid expulsion? They really know their mistakes this ti and have learned their lesson. Could you please ask the Commandery Princess to show rcy… for the sake of being of the sa clan and bloodline?”
Bai Qingyan remained expressionless and only said, “These Bai Clan offspring have bullied the people and committed countless errors! Clan Leader, do you think we should deal with them according to the Bai Clan’s family laws or let Lord Zhou handle it?”
The Clan Leader shuddered. The Bai Clan’s family laws were much stricter than the laws of the land. If handled according to the Bai Clan’s family laws, hundreds of strokes would leave none of these children alive!
It would be better to expel them from the clan temporarily. Once relations with Bai Qingyan improved, they could ask Lord Zhou for leniency, and these children might still have a chance to live.
“Father! When have Bai family children ever suffered such hardships? Ah Jie is still so young. He went to prison, we returned what we owed, and the deceased can’t co back to life… Didn’t we also compensate with silver just now? Why do you have to be so ruthless?” Bai Qingjie’s mother glanced at her son, kneeling on the ground and too scared to cry, and wailed at the Clan Leader. “Our Bai family is a founding family with countless military rits over the years. Can’t such rit protect one of our own children?”
Bai Qingyan’s eyes were sharp and terrifying.
“Shut your filthy mouth!” Bai Jinzhi was so infuriated she cursed, brandishing the long whip from her waist. The whip cracked through the air with a deafening sound, intimidating the woman who pleaded for rcy into a shiver.
“Serving ti in prison counts as suffering? My seventeenth brother was only ten years old when he went to the battlefield to die for the country, following my uncle’s sword to protect the people, never retreating until death. His head was chopped off, and his stomach was filled with tree roots and mud! These pigs and dogs suffered more than my seventeenth brother?! Could they be younger than my seventeenth brother?!”
Bai Jinzhi’s heart ached, and her blood boiled as she thought of her young seventeenth brother. When had Bai family children ever suffered like this? What kind of suffering could compare to her seventeenth brother?!
“Our Bai family’s military rits are not sothing a despicable person like you can use to plead for pigs and dogs! It’s true that the Bai family is a founding family with countless military achievents. But those were earned by the sacrifices of all the n in the Bai family on the battlefield! They risked their lives not so that you could rely on their deeds to bully the people and take lives!”
Bai Jinzhi’s words were pearls of wisdom: “If you want military rits, why didn’t you go to the Nanyan battlefield to earn them when my grandfather, uncles, and brothers were dying? Instead, it was my eldest sister, despite being seriously injured for the country, who risked her life to go to Nanyan, defeating Xiliang and Nanyan, saving the Jin Kingdom’s border people from peril! Of all the Bai family’s countless military achievents… which one of you sitting here contributed anything?! How dare you even think about using these deeds to argue for the pardon of those pigs and dogs? Have you no sha?!”
The Clan Leader looked at Bai Jinzhi and then at Quan Yu, suppressing his inner anger and said weakly, “Our Bai family shares the sa spirit and branches, we are all the sa…”
Bai Qingyan side-eyed the Clan Leader, her gaze growing colder: “Since we share the sa spirit and branches, you should know… for generations, the Bai family fought on the battlefield, risking their lives not for military rits and certainly not to commit wrongs by virtue of their deeds. Nor would they be shaless enough to try to offset their errors by virtue of their rits. Inside this ancestral hall… the ancestors of the Bai family are above us, the spirits are above us! The main branch of the Bai family from Dadu, since following our ancestor to found the kingdom, has placed countless morial tablets here… how many died a natural death? How many died for the country?! Living for the people, dying for the nation. These six words are the Bai family’s legacy; our main branch of the Bai family from Dadu has achieved them! But can the elders standing here today put their hands on their hearts and say any of their families have achieved this?”
Bai Jinzhi looked at the people outside the ancestral hall who were unconsciously moving towards the Bai family’s main gate. She thought of her eldest sister in front of the Bai family gate in Dadu, recounting the Bai family’s achievents, making those who attempted to slander the Bai family guilty, and stirring the people’s emotions to protect the Bai family.
She recalled the public support when her eldest sister beat the drum to force King Xin to his death, rembered her eldest sister saying… that the Bai family, being reticent and reserved, never proclaid their loyalty and righteousness, which caused them to be forgotten.
She thought of the imnse power brought by the public sentint in Dadu City.
Bai Jinzhi gripped the whip in her hand tightly, looking at the clan juniors kneeling in the ancestral hall courtyard, and shouted resoundingly, “My grandfather donned armor in his sixties and led all the n of the Bai family, even my ten-year-old seventeenth brother, who fought and died on the battlefield! Their sacrifice… was never for you pigs and dogs!”
“The people of the Bai family are not afraid of death. We are all born of parents who anxiously wait for us to return. But every good son of the Bai family has never forgotten our ancestral teachings and is willing to fight to death to protect the people! Because the Bai family sees the people of the Jin Kingdom as their flesh and blood, because there are tens of thousands of people on the frontier with no one to protect them, because we bear the title of Zhen Kingdom and are ashad to fail the people who pay taxes to support us!”
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