"Well said. Once damaged, it would no longer be the best."
Chu Xuanzhi restrained Shen Yangge and withdrew his sword. He leaned a little closer, his voice full of seductive enticement. "Why don't you gouge out your own eyes and give them to me?"
The commoners below wore complicated expressions. Some seemed to be starting to understand what was really happening.
But how could ordinary people like them possibly intervene in a struggle for political power?
No one wanted to die, but...
Their gazes fell on Shen Yangge. Someone stirred, struggled to his feet, and shouted, "You ungrateful bastards, biting the hand that fed you! Have you all forgotten the battle to defend the city?"
"Who protected you?"
"Who sheltered your families in such desperate circumstances? Now a mere scrap of rumor is enough to make you abandon what you believed and turn around to call the Divine Dragon, who helped you and asked for your help, a monster?"
"Did those sinister priests up there come out to save a single person when everyone was suffering? They're merely wearing things they stole. They aren't real Taoist priests!"
The man tried to keep speaking, but an arrow whistled through the air and pierced his chest. He crashed to the ground and instantly lost consciousness, never able to voice another word of protest.
The surrounding commoners screamed in fright and ran aside. What they did not know was that escape was impossible. Chu Tianyin and Chu Xuanzhi's men had already surrounded the entire area.
Regardless of status or position, anyone here who revered Shen Yangge too deeply, whether now or in the past, would be killed without mercy. Everyone was terrified.
"Let us go!"
"This has nothing to do with us!"
"That's right! We commoners just want to live honest lives. What