spoiled brat

Chapter 33 32. Countercurrent (2)

"It's a small matter, no problem," Magistrate Wu smiled, rubbing his dusty fingers, and said lightly.
"Everything in the world can be resolved."

This means they want money.

The coroner returned home dejectedly, his mind constantly replaying the words of Magistrate Wu.

Seeing that he was distracted, the jailer asked, "Brother, did Magistrate Wu not understand the case file you wrote?"

Coroner Chen shook his head, understanding completely.

He made a pot of egg drop soup, placed it by his younger brother's bedside, and then, under some pretext, went out and walked to the old banyan tree.

In the same place, on the same stone platform, there was no letter, only a bag of silver, a full forty-five taels.

The person who brought him here yesterday had calculated everything correctly.

He put the money in his pocket, unable to describe his feelings. He was excited that he could get his brother a different job, but also humiliated that he had been manipulated.

The tangled shadows of the trees fell upon him, like a cage for rats. He tilted his head back, his voice no longer as loud as yesterday:

"You will get your comeuppance."

Zhao Zhao sat on the tree branch from yesterday, the sparks from her pipe glowing red like blood in the night. She exhaled smoke softly and smiled.

*
The jailer couldn't understand where Chen the coroner got the money to pull strings and transfer him from the lifeless county jail to the yamen (government office). He then took Chen to Wang Mazi's steamed bun shop, where Chen ate all kinds of steamed buns.

He had enjoyed a few good days, but before he could even finish celebrating, he was notified that he had to go and clean the burial room.

The four bodies were placed in the mortuary, and they were already rotting and infested with maggots. Everyone found the job disgusting, and it was passed around until it ended up on him, a newcomer.

That's how things are in officialdom; there's nothing he can do but accept it.

Suppressing his nausea, he stuffed the four men into a wooden box, then spurred the horse toward the mass grave outside the carriage.

Halfway there, a mother and daughter stopped the carriage.

The jailer was completely baffled. Did these scoundrels have wives and daughters?

The woman led a girl of about seven or eight years old up to him, her face full of weariness. She looked at him and said, "Young man, please have mercy and let the child see her father one more time."

The jailer's lips twitched. He had carelessly tossed the four corpses into the wooden box; how could he possibly let the mother and daughter see them?
"It doesn't look good, forget it..."

To everyone's surprise, the woman sneered, "I want her to know what kind of end result her father, whom she has been longing to see return every day, has met!"

The jailer had nothing to say and could only push the wooden box open.

The stench was overwhelming. The girl stood on tiptoe and glanced at it, her face instantly turning as white as paper. She squatted down on the side of the street and vomited.

Strangely enough, the woman, who clearly loathed men, couldn't help but cry when she saw his corpse. Her cries, mixed with curses, were heartbreaking.

The young jailer wanted to offer some words of advice but couldn't find anything to say, so he could only tell the woman about the last few days her husband had spent in prison.

After they finished speaking, the woman finally stopped crying, and the two of them realized that the girl had disappeared.

The woman was terrified, so the young jailer had no choice but to stop the carriage and search separately with her.

He found the girl in a small alley.

The girl stared blankly at the alley entrance, her eyes glazed over, holding a bright red candied hawthorn in her hand, her innocent face full of confusion and bewilderment.

The young jailer suspected she had been possessed by a beggar, so he quickly looked her over from head to toe, and only after confirming she was alright did he ask with concern:
"Little sister, how did you get here? What did you just see?"

“There was an older sister…” the girl’s voice was soft, “She made me remember her face.”

The young jailer felt a chill run down his spine: "What else did she say?" "She told me to find her when I grow up... She'll be waiting forever, waiting for her retribution."

Zhao Zhao never expected that retribution would come so quickly.

She started bleeding.

The first two times, the bleeding stopped after a few days, but now it's started again.

At first, it was just a tiny bit, reddish-brown, like a cinnabar mole.

The color then deepened, turning a dark red, and the thick blood soaked down his thighs and into his shirt, its sweet and pungent smell carrying the scent of death.

For the entire morning, she lay on the bed, afraid to move, as if the slightest movement would cause her to bleed uncontrollably and die as pale as paper.

She was wracked with abdominal pain and felt drowsy. It felt as if she had a ten-pound hot iron inside her stomach. Unless her stomach was cut open with a knife to remove it, this pain would accompany her for the rest of her life.

She had already changed her lower garments several times, but the blood would seep through again after a short while. With no lower garments left to change into, she had no choice but to take a pile of dry grass from outside and spread it at her feet, standing motionless as she watched the blood slide down her thighs, gradually soaking the dry grass into a dark reddish-brown color.

Is this retribution?
Zhao Zhao couldn't help but think of death.

Everyone dies eventually.

She didn't want to bleed to death in such a pathetic way, nor did she want to hang herself, throw herself into a well, or drink poison. She longed for a tragic death to end her not-so-noble life, preferably one that was tragic enough.

What should it be like?
She recalled the lyrics Xiao Duo had sung in the opera, "Yellow sand covers the face, the corpse is incomplete," and couldn't help but smile. For a moment, she felt that the blood on the dry grass beneath her was bright and beautiful.

If you're going to die, you might as well die a spectacular death.

Just like the troop of soldiers we saw on the way to Yunzhou, galloping horses, billowing dust, imposing armor, fiery red tassels, and cold sabers...

"Zhao Zhao'er." There was a knock on the door; it was Xiao Duo: "Are you hungry?"

Since their argument that day, the two have become somewhat estranged. These past few days, Zhao Zhao has either been away from the building or stayed in her room, spending less time even taking care of Yao Niang.

Zhao Zhao looked at Xiao Duo's figure behind the lattice wooden door, her vision blurring. Suddenly, she felt that everything in the room was black, even the sunlight outside the window was black.

"I'm not hungry." Zhao Zhao held onto the bed railing, feeling dizzy and unsteady on her feet.

Xiao Duo thought Zhao Zhao was still sulking with him, so he stood silently at the door for a while before finally putting the food in his hand on the stone slab.

"Remember to eat."

As he walked away, Zhao Zhao's stomach began to rumble. She could smell the aroma of food through the door. If she wasn't mistaken, there must be a bowl of steamed egg custard sprinkled with scallions. She loved that, and Xiao Duo knew that.

It won’t taste good if it’s cold.

Zhao Zhao put on her blood-stained lower garment, pushed open the door, and carried the food plate from the floor into the room. Just as she was about to turn around and close the door, she saw Xiao Duo standing outside.

Looking at the mess in the house and the blood on Zhao Zhao's clothes, he instantly understood what had happened.

“Zhao Zhao’er…” He blushed to his ears and turned away, not daring to look at Zhao Zhao: “You’ve started your period.”

Sunflower water?

Zhao Zhao was stunned. She had grown up surrounded by women and had heard those two words countless times. She had always thought she was far removed from them, but she never expected them to be so close, so close that she was at a loss for words.

Xiao Duo said softly, "I'll go get you some things."

Zhao Zhao called out to him.

"Take it easy...don't let Yu's mother know."

(End of this chapter)