Chapter 431 Annulling the Engagement

Chapter 431: The Engagement Is Void

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and Wu Chaoyang was in too much pain to say a word.

Ji Qingqing smiled softly. "I'm in pain too, and all my pain is your doing."

"So, I want you to taste this gut-wrenching pain as well..."

The moment Chen Huaxiu saw Wu Chaoyang collapse to the ground, she completely broke down!

She crawled and scrambled over and hugged Wu Chaoyang in her arms, pressing her hand tightly against his chest.

"Yang Geer, Yang Geer, wake up! Don't scare Mama!"

"Help! Somebody help! Please save my son! I'm begging you, save my son!"

No one paid her any mind. Chen Huaxiu then lunged over and grabbed Ji Qingqing's clothes.

"Save him! Save him!"

"He's your own younger brother! How could you have the heart to kill him?"

Ji Qingqing initially tried to shake off Chen Huaxiu's hand, but with that tug, her clothes slid right off her.

The marks of lovemaking she had tried to hide were now fully exposed to everyone's eyes.

A sharp-eyed woman gasped, "Heavens! How embarrassing! This fake is already the Crown Princess, and she's still out here cheating on him!"

"You said it! Good thing this came out when it did—otherwise, if the Crown Prince had married her, wouldn't he have been played for a fool and stuck raising someone else's kid?"

"Well, you really can't judge a book by its cover with this Second Miss Ji!"

As the crowd's gossip buzzed around her, Ji Qingqing scrambled to pick up her clothes and get dressed.

But what she didn't know was that Chen Huaxiu had snagged a thread from her clothes yesterday, which is why the slightest touch made her clothes fall right off.

Luo Jingshen's face was as black as thunder. He forced himself to stay, hoping to see if there was any way to salvage this.

But instead, the Marquis's household's actions grew more outrageous by the minute, and Ji Qingqing kept destroying his image of her, bit by bit.

Luo Jingshen had finally had enough and stood up.

He declared sternly, "From this day forward, I hereby annul my marriage to Second Miss Ji. All the betrothal gifts I sent will be returned in full. I will also report this to the Emperor and let him decide. Marquis, you're on your own from here on out!"

This outcome was hardly a surprise, but Ji Nanchuan still fell apart!

"Your Highness! Crown Prince! Please, hear me out—"

He scrambled to stop Luo Jingshen, but Luo Jingshen didn't even give him a second look, flicking his sleeves and storming off!

The one hundred and twenty loads of betrothal gifts they'd carried in hadn't even had time to get warm before Luo Jingshen had them carried right back out!

Ji Nanchuan was lying to himself if he said he wasn't devastated.

Seeing this, the crowd didn't say a word and just turned and left.

A perfectly good betrothal banquet, ruined in just one hour.

All that could be heard were the wails of Chen Huaxiu and the Wu family. Blood had soaked the floor, and Wu Chaoyang lay on the ground with no sign of life.

Meng Zhao's body was also carried out by the servants, draped in a white cloth.

Meng-shi had just woken up from her faint, but when she saw this scene, she was so overcome with rage and grief that she fainted again.

Ji Qingqing, meanwhile, was on her knees, sobbing so hard she couldn't even speak.

It was over—everything she had was gone!

She had accidentally killed someone, lost her title as Crown Princess, and had no idea what was coming next.

Ji Qingqing felt like all the strength had been drained from her body. She covered her face and sobbed, looking completely lifeless and broken.

On a tall tower about a kilometer away, Hua Feixue stood atop it, holding the telescope Ji Yuntang had given her, watching the scene with a look of great interest.

"Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!"

"This dog-fight drama is truly entertaining."

But she had to admit, the stuff Ji Yuntang gave her was really handy.

Little did Wu Jinxi know that Ji Yuntang had laced his wine with a hallucinogenic drug.

That was why he mistakenly thought he'd done the deed with Meng-shi.

As for the red birthmark on his butt—Hua Feixue had overheard it from Meng-shi's maid. She whispered it in Wu Jinxi's ear twice, and it stuck in his mind, convincing himself that he really had done something with Meng-shi.

As for Wu Shijie, when he went to drink some water, Hua Feixue slipped a detox pill into his cup, and he could talk again!

Ji Yuntang had injected Wu Chaoyang with a rage-inducing drug beforehand, magnifying the evil in his heart, which was why he'd been driven to murder.

Everything that followed just fell into place.

After watching all this, Hua Feixue felt so damn good!

Evil people will be tormented by other evil people—the Marquis of Yongning's household should have to face the consequences of their own evil deeds.

Ji Yuntang's trick of killing with a borrowed knife was pure genius!

Suddenly, something occurred to her. "Oh right, that dog of a Crown Prince has already hauled off the betrothal gifts. I wonder if Princess Ye managed to pull it off on her end?"

At the same time, Ji Yuntang, wearing all black, with her hair done up to look like a middle-aged man, was casually trailing behind Luo Jingshen's procession carrying the betrothal gifts.

She was waiting—waiting for a chance to catch them when they stopped, to swipe all those gifts.

Luo Jingshen sat inside his carriage, radiating a "don't come near me" kind of resentment.

Today, the Marquis of Yongning's household wasn't the only one humiliated—he was too.

He'd arrived looking so proud, and now he was slinking back in disgrace.

Bringing the betrothal gifts in on the day of the ceremony and hauling them right back out the same day—that kind of embarrassing stunt was probably something only he'd ever pulled!

Luo Jingshen couldn't help thinking back to the Canglang Poetry Gathering, where he had publicly announced in front of all those people that he would make Ji Qingqing his Crown Princess, which had stirred up no small amount of criticism.

He had even gone so far as to have a huge fight with the Empress in Fengyi Palace over her, and the two of them had turned against each other afterward.

Luo Jingshen had sworn up and down that Ji Qingqing was the only one who could be his Crown Princess—yet not even a month had passed before things turned out like this.

If he married a village girl now, the whole capital would laugh their heads off at him.

Suddenly, a voice came from behind the carriage, "Your Highness, Your Highness, I have something I want to tell you."

The guard reported, "Your Highness, it's Marquis Ji. Do you wish to see him?"

Luo Jingshen's face went dark, his voice low and cold, "He still has the nerve to show his face here?"

But this matter really did need to be settled, so Luo Jingshen ordered the coachman to stop the carriage by the teahouse and commanded the procession with the betrothal gifts to return first.

He turned and ascended to the second floor, and Ji Nanchuan, upon receiving the order, followed him up.

As soon as he entered, he knelt on the ground and yelled at the top of his lungs, "Your Highness, today's events are all a misunderstanding. The Wu family is spouting nonsense. Qing Qing truly is our daughter."

"Nonsense?" Luo Jingshen let out a cold sneer. "Do you take me for a fool, Marquis?"

"Ji Qingqing bears no resemblance to you or Lady Meng, but shares great similarities with that family. Dare you claim this is nonsense?"

"Shall I have both families undergo a blood kinship test with her to see who her true parents are?"

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