Chapter 3: I’m Here To Collect A Debt
Madam He gradually fell into a deep sleep.
Yue Tang yielded her position to the maidservant, walked out of the main chamber, looked toward the pitch-black sky, then strolled along the deserted long corridor to the small garden.
Hua Lin came up behind her and handed her a pill: “How was the fire control for today’s first batch of medicine?”
Yue Tang peeled open the wax pill, chewed the medicine, and looked toward the main house not far away: “It’s still one furnace short.”
Hua Lin nodded. He lowered his head and withdrew.
There was no moon in the sky, and it was still pitch black.
Like all moonless, windy, and murderously tense nights.
Yue Tang raised her hand to touch the scar under the hairline behind her ear, parted the flower branches, and walked into the garden.
……
Only one oil lamp was lit in the main house.
Zhang Shi was rubbed raw and exhausted, and after her hoarse roars faded, she slumped in the corner.
She was shocked in her heart, because she couldn’t imagine that He Xu had really died, just died right under her eyelids!
Although she was jealous and hated his promiscuity, she had never thought of letting him die!
If he died, she would become a widow!
She was afraid in her heart too; now not only was he dead, but she had also become the murderer!
The He Family would kill her to avenge him!
What should she do?
Zhang Shi was from a minor family; before, she didn’t even have a decent piece of jewelry. Three years ago, with the rising tide, she finally became the young madam, took charge of household management, and countless family fortunes passed through her hands as she enjoyed unprecedented luxury!
But after merely three years, she was to be treated as a murderer and put to death—how could she accept that?!
“Let me out!”
But there had been no sounds outside the door for a long time; after she was locked up, the servants had withdrawn from the courtyard.
They found her noisy; they actually dared to find her noisy!
“Creak—”
A faint sound suddenly came from under the back window.
She turned around in shock!
But she only saw that the window, which had been securely bolted, was now open. A figure lightly floated into the room, landed, and hooked her lips at her.
Zhang Shi scrambled to her feet!
“Lin Shi? … It’s you, you bitch!”
Yue Tang strolled into the room: “Your spirits are still pretty good.”
“I’ll kill you!”
Zhang Shi’s throat was strained out of shape as she grabbed a flower vase nearby and smashed it over.
The He Family wronging her was hateful enough, but this bitch was even more hateful!
If not for her, He Xu wouldn’t have quarreled with her; if not for the quarrel, the He Family wouldn’t have used it as an excuse to pin the murder motive on her!
And if not for her, Madam He wouldn’t have been provoked into insisting she was the murderer!
This cunning and vicious vixen!
Yue Tang reached out to catch the flower vase and simultaneously slapped her across the face.
Zhang Shi was stunned by the blow!
Yue Tang patted her face again: “Be good, don’t make noise.”
Zhang Shi’s face suddenly changed.
Yue Tang lowered her hand, then took out a token.
Seeing the token, Zhang Shi’s expression changed again: “The Imperial City Department token for assignments! … How do you have it?!”
Nowadays, the one in charge of the Imperial City Department was the Marquis of Guangling!
Yue Tang said: “Three years ago, on the night the Zhang and He Families rendered that great service for the Marquis of Guangling’s Mansion, Prince Duan, who originally controlled the Imperial City Department, also died in the palace. Afterward, the position of Imperial City Department Envoy was taken over by the Marquis of Guangling.
“Because of this, the Marquis of Guangling’s Mansion, which held great power, rose from fallen nobility back to the position of unparalleled prestige.
“—Naturally, I’m from the Marquis’s Mansion, so I have this token.”
Zhang Shi was somewhat flustered.
Unconsciously, she looked toward the back window that had mysteriously opened. Given the height of the window and the position of the lock, it was indeed not something an ordinary person could do.
While she was dazed, Yue Tang had already walked up to her: “A few days ago, someone informed the Marquis that back then your father secretly hid a batch of jewelry that Princess Yongjia carried with her, and later gave it to you as dowry. The Marquis sent us to the He Family to investigate if it’s true.”
Zhang Shi instantly came back to herself: “There’s no such thing!”
Yue Tang raised her lips: “Then after your father rendered great service, he received a full thirty thousand taels of reward money—didn’t he give you any of it?”
Zhang Shi gripped the back of the chair: “He did. But that silver was given to me openly and honestly by my father—”
Yue Tang slowly smiled: “How much did he give?”
“Three thousand taels!”
“And then?”
“Nothing!”
Yue Tang gradually withdrew her smile.
Without the smile, she was like a spider lily blooming in hell.
Zhang Shi shivered.
Yue Tang took another step closer to her, less than a foot away: “Among that package of jewelry, there was a gold lock engraved with characters, prepared by Princess Yongjia and her husband together for their child who had just turned one hundred days old.
“That was a gift they had jointly prepared for the child. It was also her only remembrance of the child.
“Your father, father-in-law, and husband not only vilely plotted against her, but also murdered her child right in front of her and took away her remembrance of the child.
“Does jewelry stained with the smell of blood look good when worn?
“After massacring so many of the Princess’s servants and attendants and forcing her to jump off a cliff, is that reward money spent with a clear conscience?”
Her face pressed right above Zhang Shi.
Zhang Shi retreated in panic: “You, how do you know about this gold lock?!”
She not only knew that three years ago the He and Zhang Families killed Princess Yongjia, but also that the Marquis of Guangling had instigated it!
The Marquis of Guangling didn’t even know about that batch of jewelry, yet she knew everything about the gold lock inside it and its full backstory!
Yue Tang said nothing, just gazed at her with a smile.
Zhang Shi’s courage shattered!
She retreated again, bumped into the table and fell to the ground. She supported herself with both hands and tried to crawl up, but Yue Tang suddenly reached out. In the blink of an eye, her cool fingers clamped her neck!
Yue Tang gazed at her with a light laugh: “No matter what you took, as long as you took it, you deserve to die!”
As the laughter fell, her free right hand grabbed Zhang Shi’s disheveled bun.
Zhang Shi, who weighed over a hundred pounds, was lifted into the air and flung toward the table in front!
She didn’t even have time to react.
Not even time to scream.
Her temple hit the table corner squarely, and blood gushed from all seven orifices!
“Actually, I’m not here for answers,” Yue Tang patted her face again, “I’m here to collect the debt.”
Zhang Shi’s eyes bulged wide, her mouth agape, but it all ended midway, and she slumped softly.
The person had been smashed into a corpse, but the huanghuali table against the wall remained unmoved.
Outside the room, it was still quiet, even the wind was still, like that midnight riddled with ambushes.
Yue Tang stepped over the pool of corpse blood on the ground and slowly stopped in front of the trunks under the wall.
She opened each lid one by one and reached inside to search.
A nanmu box carved with a pair of phoenixes was pulled out from under the stacked clothes.
She lightly stroked the lid a few times, the lid popped open, and a golden glow spilled out first. Two exquisite pure gold eight-treasure fortune-and-longevity bracelets lay on the silk cloth, gleaming under the room’s light.
She slipped the bracelets onto her wrist and shook them lightly twice.
A black shadow leaped in from the half-open window, glanced at the corpse on the ground, then at Yue Tang, then at the bracelets on her wrist. He jumped in place and lightly clapped his hands: “This subordinate said you were thin now, right? Look at these bracelets—you used to complain they were tight!”
It was precisely because they were too tight that they had been casually removed and tossed into the horse carriage.
Yue Tang took off the bracelets and exited through the window the way she came: “Clean up. Find that gold lock.”
