Chapter 15: Good, Keep Stabbing!
He Jianzhong shook his head frantically: “I don’t know! I really don’t know! I’ve never heard that there were people after that! The Du Family has never revealed any information about the source of their money up to now, but I know that before the incident happened back then, they already had extra property on hand!”
Yue Tang looked at him indifferently for a moment, sliding the knife down to his throat: “If my Princess’s Seal is in Du Minghuan’s hands, where do you think it’s most likely to be placed?”
More fear appeared in He Jianzhong’s eyes, then he quickly said: “Study! It must be the study!”
“How are the sentries at the study distributed?”
His teeth chattered: “All hidden sentries, arranged in the formation of the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams, specifically, specifically I don’t quite understand either. But last year when the sentries changed shifts, Zhang Shaode participated in setting up the formation, he definitely knows!”
“Zhang Shaode?” Yue Tang twisted the knife handle, “Is there a secret room in the study?”
He Jianzhong’s throat moved but he didn’t dare move: “I’ve only seen him treasure a peony painting hanging in the study, he doesn’t allow anyone to get close. If there’s a secret room, it can only be behind that painting.”
Yue Tang tugged at the corner of her mouth: “Is there anything else to confess?”
“No more!” He shook his head frantically, “I swear there’s really no more!”
“That’s good.” She said, “If there’s none, you can go die!”
With those words, she gripped Madam He’s hand and suddenly moved the knife to his chest!
As the words fell, with the knife tip in Madam He’s hand, it plunged into his chest cavity with a puff!
—How precise this strike was.
And how forceful!
With just one stab, the blade had pierced straight through the center of his heart and out from his back!
He Jianzhong instinctively reached for the sword, but the second knife had already come.
Then the third knife, the fourth knife.
Each knife nailed the incredulity in his eyes to his pupils!
Yue Tang held Madam He’s hand, striking repeatedly amid her screams!
Until he convulsed a few times and could no longer move.
Yue Tang patted the back of Madam He’s hand: “Good girl, you continue. Keep stabbing, and Princess Yongjia won’t come for you. She will forgive you.”
She released Madam He, who was huddled with her head in her arms.
Madam He stared blankly at the knife, then at the corpse, and then really stabbed down.
Blood sprayed all over Yue Tang, she casually brushed it off, then took Madam He’s pulse.
Yue Tang curved her lips and stood up: “Useless thing, so greedy back then, not afraid to instigate murder, but now that the knife is handed to you, you really go mad.”
After speaking, she walked back to the mirror, looked at her face from left and right, then wiped off the two drops of blood stains on it.
Xiao Huo glared fiercely at Madam He on the ground, then bowed and walked behind Yue Tang: “Princess, should the remaining people of the He Family be kept?”
The He Family father and son, several concubines, He Xu’s brothers’ children, and Madam He still right there.
“Keep them.” Yue Tang pulled a brocade cloth from the table, wiping her blood-drenched fingers, “If we kill them all, it would be too fake, and the later play wouldn’t be easy to perform.”
Xiao Huo hummed, but said hatefully: “Really should not leave a single one!”
“You go out first, have Hua Lin wait for me outside the door.”
Yue Tang put down the cloth, took out a token from the Imperial City Department, stuffed it under He Jianzhong’s palm, then stood up and said: “After delivering the message, immediately let Zhang Shaode know that He Jianzhong is dead, find a way to make him rush here as fast as possible!
“Be quick, if slow, I’m afraid the Du Family will get there first.”
Huo Yun slipped out through the back window with a whoosh.
After he left, Yue Tang straightened up and walked over to open the door.
There was still no one in the courtyard.
Thick smoke billowed from the direction of the storeroom. That was where the He Family stored their family fortune.
Everyone had gone firefighting.
Even if one or two were still on duty at the main chamber, their full attention was on the fire.
Yue Tang, covered in blood, walked out of the courtyard gate and shouted: “Help! Madam killed the Master! Quick, come help!”
Several people under the door turned back at the same time, and seeing her like this, they ran towards the courtyard in shock!
Inside the room, Madam He was also covered in blood—no, because she had stood in front of Yue Tang for every knife, there was much more blood on her than on Yue Tang.
The maidservants saw her holding a blood-drenched knife with both hands, stabbing into He Jianzhong’s body one after another.
Her mouth still muttering: “I’m obedient, I’m obedient, kill you, kill you, the Princess will definitely forgive me, definitely…”
And He Jianzhong lay on his side facing her, his round eyes just like He Xu and Zhang Shi’s, filled with incredulity and terror.
“Ghost!”
No one knew who screamed first, then voices rose one after another: “There’s a ghost, there must be a ghost!”
The ghost and god talk that Nanny Li had suppressed yesterday suddenly resurfaced!
No, compared to yesterday’s suspicions, this eerie scene was even more horrifying and convincing!
Some of the people who came fainted.
Some tripped over the threshold and fell to the ground.
Some instinctively rushed forward but stopped halfway in fright.
Madam He turned her head and grinned at them.
The crowd cried and ran outward.
Yue Tang retreated from the crowd: “The He Family has had one person after another die in succession, who knows what sins they committed to have vengeful spirits come knocking. Aren’t you afraid? Why not run quickly, waiting to become the next victim of the blade?”
Everyone shuddered.
Yue Tang stood outside the threshold: “Tell the He Family people, no need to pay me the consultation fee, farewell!”
She passed the screen wall and strode towards the side gate.
The yellow dog tied under the side gate wall heard the footsteps and barked at her.
She glanced at it, turned two steps, and stomped her foot on its food basin!
The large pottery basin shattered into pieces, the yellow dog was first startled, then let out earth-shaking angry barks from behind.
Yue Tang grinned at it, then lifted her skirt and dashed to the door, kicked open the door panel, and walked out into the slanting sun.
Outside the side gate, Hua Lin was already waiting in front of the horse carriage, and Lan Qin’s face peeked out from the car window.
Lan Qin quickly got out of the carriage, shook open a cape to wrap her and helped her into the carriage: “Are you injured?”
“No. Don’t worry.”
The horse carriage immediately headed towards the north city.
Yue Tang used the mirror to wipe her face, then carefully peeled off a thin, cicada-wing-like film covering her eyebrows and eyes, revealing a pair of sharp arched eyebrows and almond eyes completely different from before.
She breathed a sigh of relief, looked outside the window, where carriages flowed like water and horses streamed, the street market prosperous, no different from the capital city’s appearance three years ago.
Princess Yongjia, who was publicly said to have been forced off a cliff to her death by robbers, had become outdated gossip.
Prince Duan’s Mansion, once the top imperial noble household in the capital, was now desolate with few people left, only the widowed wife of Prince Duan’s Heir Apparent, guarding the mansion’s threshold alone.
The capital city’s people now were focused on the new wave of imperial power and wealth. And those family statuses thriving by clinging to imperial power and wealth.
Lan Qin took out a clean outer robe for her to change into.
She pulled off the bloodied clothes: “After you go back, immediately prepare the meal as I said, and when Xiao Huo returns, he must deliver it to the prison right away.
“He Jianzhong is dead.
“The next one is Zhang Shaode.
“Zhang Shaode is more cunning than He Jianzhong.
“We need to appropriately give him some time, but definitely not more time for him to react.
“At latest, let him live another day and night.”
Lan Qin looked at her: “Xiao Huo just said, regarding Zhang Shaode, do you still have questions to ask?”
“Yes,” Yue Tang tugged at the corner of her mouth, “I want both his life and his words!”
