Yan Tinghao, surrounded and unable to move, tossed the Cuju ball high into the air. Ye Shengxiao, with his swift footwork, caught it.
Even so, Yan Tinghao endured several elbows from unseen angles, jolting him and causing pain in his ribs.
Feeling inexplicably bullied, Yan Tinghao angrily raised his hand, "Your Highness the Eighth Prince, they're hitting people!"
But the Eighth Prince shook his head, replying that he hadn't seen anything.
It wasn't that the Eighth Prince was deliberately covering up; others watching from the sidelines also hadn't seen it.
Yan Tinghao, almost spewing blood from anger, quickly walked to his superior's side. Lin Qingge had already gotten back up from the ground.
"My lord, are you alright?"
Although her palm was scraped and bleeding, Lin Qingge made no sound. She simply tucked her injured hand behind her back, making it unnoticeable.
Unaware of this detail, Yan Tinghao indignantly declared,
"My lord, they've gone too far!"
"Focus on the match. We'll discuss other matters after it's over."
With that, Lin Qingge hurried back to her position.
Despite her calm words, Lin Qingge was seething inside.
She hadn't expected the Second Prince to be even more vulgar and insidious than his appearance suggested!
To win the match, he was instructing his team to play dirty behind the scenes!
The playing field was not large, and combined with the close contact and the need to constantly keep the Cuju ball from falling, these objective factors meant that even Yan Tinghao, with his skills, had to suffer silently.
The situation for others was even more dire.
Apart from Ling Han, Hua Jinrong who was playing passively, and the fleet-footed Ye Shengxiao, everyone else was affected to varying degrees.
And as the linchpin of the Cuju team and the one who touched the ball the most, Lin Qingge was unsurprisingly the 'special target'.
Before long, she was knocked to the ground again by the Second Prince, who was rushing to steal the ball.
"Damn it, are you guys going to stop?!"
The first to erupt was Yan Tinghao, who could no longer tolerate it.
If those shameless fellows hurt him so badly when they bumped him, how could his lord, with her slender arms and legs, endure it?
However, before he could step forward to retaliate, he was pulled back by his superior. "Officer Yan, no need for rudeness!"
"My lord!"
Yan Tinghao, so frustrated he wanted to smash his head against a wall, stamped his foot and stomped off to the side angrily.
Meanwhile, Hua Jinrong, who had been standing in the corner as background scenery, familiarly slung an arm over Ling Han's shoulder and said with a smile,
"How about it, interested in teaming up?"
Ling Han glanced at Hua Jinrong, remaining silent, but he passed all subsequent Cuju balls to the latter.
Since Hua Jinrong had been playing passively all along, the opponents hadn't paid him much attention. However, with the 'five-minute talk' buff and Ling Han's cooperation, he successfully helped them catch up to a 6-6 tie.
The Second Prince, with a dark expression, gave a signal to his attendant waiting by the field, and the Shuntian Prefecture team immediately requested a timeout.
Lin Qingge and the others finally had a chance to catch their breath. Just as she took a sip of water to soothe her throat, Hua Jinrong took out a porcelain bottle.
"My lord, this is Golden Wound Medicine made by Bai Er. Please use it first. After the match, I'll have him prepare some scar-removing ointment."
Lin Qingge, who thought she had hidden her injury well, was stunned for a moment. Then, without any hesitation, she took it and applied it to the wound.
"My lord, this situation probably won't work."
Lin Qingge shook her head at Hua Jinrong's words, "If it stays like this, it's still good. I'm afraid they'll escalate things even further."
Lin Qingge's peripheral vision swept towards the opposite corner, and faintly, she seemed to catch sight of something gleaming with silver light.
"My lord, what should we do then?"
"What can we do? Nothing."
"Nothing?"
Before the bewildered Hua Jinrong could ask further, the timeout was over.
The match continued.
Just as Lin Qingge had predicted, the Shuntian Prefecture team's offensive became even more fierce, with countless unseen fouls committed.
This time, even Hua Jinrong was tightly marked.
Seeing the Cuju ball thrown towards her, Lin Qingge was about to leap up when she suddenly felt a strong gust of wind from behind.
Without needing to look back to know it was trouble, Lin Qingge abandoned the Cuju ball, sidestepped to the side, and with a flick of her toes, hooked the person running past her from behind.
The Second Prince, losing his target, was tripped. The immense momentum caused him to stumble and slide several meters on his face.
As for the Cuju ball, it was calmly caught by the master of picking up loose balls, Ye Shengxiao.
"Oh dear, Your Highness the Second Prince, how could you be so careless?"
Lin Qingge exclaimed exaggeratedly while fawningly stepping forward to help him up.
"Your Highness the Second Prince, are you alright?
If your subordinate had known it was Your Highness the Second Prince attempting to sneak attack from behind, I wouldn't have moved an inch to the side even if you had asked me to dodge!"
The Second Prince, whose nose was bleeding from the fall, brushed away Lin Qingge's outstretched hand and scrambled to his feet in a sorry state.
He glared fiercely at Lin Qingge, then turned to the sideline to deal with his bloody nose.
The match was paused again.
Lin Qingge took the opportunity to call Ling Han and the others over, "This official has always believed in not offending others unless they offend me. But if others offend me, I never wipe them out completely. At most, I'll dig up their ancestral graves.
The imperial mausoleum is quite far from here, so I can't dig it up immediately.
Therefore, let's settle scores and get revenge, and never let debts carry over to the next day. Otherwise, we'll have to pay interest, which is quite troublesome."
...
Listening to what seemed like a joke, but seeing the rare serious expression on Lord Lin's face, everyone couldn't help but suspect that she genuinely intended to plunder the imperial mausoleum.
"Remember to do it cleanly and discreetly, so that the other party can't grasp any evidence.
Especially Ling Han, absolutely do not cause any deaths in public!
And Master Hua, if you don't give your all for this official, I'll tell Officer Yan about your impotence!"
Hua Jinrong: !!!
Yan Tinghao: ???
Ignoring everyone's shocked or confused expressions, Lin Qingge, after giving her instructions, was the first to return to the field.
For the next quarter of an hour, it was the Shuntian Prefecture team that repeatedly experienced accidents.
But unlike the Fengtian Prefecture, where every player had a specific role, the Shuntian Prefecture had ample personnel. If someone got injured, they were replaced, wave after wave, like indestructible cockroaches, utterly infuriating.
Furthermore, the several players the Shuntian Prefecture brought on later were clearly skilled martial artists, and their abilities were not low.
The Yu brothers and others were no match for them, and they could only rely on Ling Han and a few others to contend with those opponents.
Finally, with no further obstruction, the Second Prince strode furiously towards Lin Qingge.
Lin Qingge, who had noticed this long ago and was secretly plotting, suddenly heard a loud shout:
"My lord, be careful!"
Immediately after, Lin Qingge was tackled to the ground, her elbow burning as it scraped against the ground.
Feeling like the Monkey King suppressed by the Five Finger Mountain, Lin Qingge looked at the simpleton in front of her, her head aching with anger.