Chapter 1112: Revenge
Sang Hong exclaimed furiously, “Do you know what kind of a crime blindly accusing a king is?!”
Pink sighed and replied, “See? You’re already so scared just from me saying a single name. Why are you in such a rush to hear any confessions then?”
Sang Hong’s expression changed several times. It seemed he was debating something internally. Pei You and Zu An exchanged a look. No one got angry, unlike before. A strange silence descended on the room.
Zu An was the only one who remained relatively calm. He asked, “Was it King Qi who personally assigned you here, or was it one of his subordinates?”
Pink replied, “King Qi is so great; why would he personally carry out something like this? Of course it was one of his subordinates.”
“Then how do you know it wasn’t someone who was just falsely using King Qi’s name?” Zu An asked seriously.
Pink harrumphed. “Do you think we spies wouldn’t even know who we are loyal to?”
“In that case, why are you willing to betray him so quickly?” Zu An asked calmly. Even though the Embroidered Envoy did specialize in interrogation, they shouldn’t have been able to make a spy like her croak so easily.
Pink replied hatefully, “Do you know why I was captured by Yun Jianyue?” She continued before Zu An could reply, “Because after I completed my mission here, King Qi’s subordinates came to silence me. Fortunately, I had some things that I prepared beforehand and escaped. Then, I just happened to run into Yun Jianyue and was captured by her.”
The group exchanged a look. This girl is pretty quick-witted.
Pei You said, “You told us that sob story of your relationship with Chen Zhou the last time we met at Jasper Lane. Was that the real you or the fake you?”
Pink sneered. “With things how they are, is there even any difference between what’s real and what’s fake?”
Pei You said quietly, “Of course there is.”
Faced with Pei You’s scorching gaze, Pink fell silent. A while later, she said, “I was trained as a spy ever since I was young. Everything I experienced was cruel and cold. Even the occasional favor from my superior was nothing more than a manipulative tool. Only Chen Zhou brought me sincerity and warmth. Even though he was clumsy and slow of speech, I really did like him.”
Zu An said emotionlessly, “But he died because of you.”
Pink smiled dejectedly and replied, “Indeed, he died because of me. I knew that was his fate from the moment I heard that he had been discovered by my superiors. Unfortunately, I didn’t really understand what I was feeling at the time. Together with the fear of what the organization would do if I betrayed them, I didn’t think too much about it.
“Only when I received news of his death and felt daggers dig into my heart did I realize that I was wrong. But at that point, it was already too late for regrets.”
“But you still continued to act under King Qi as if nothing happened. You even used Chen Zhou to mislead us in this case,” Zu An said grimly.
Pink lowered her head. “What could I have done? My very life is at the mercy of another man. Am I supposed to tell you something else? How could you high and mighty people understand the sorrow of a nobody like me?”
Zu An fell silent. He knew that what she said was the truth.
This woman most likely had shared feelings with Chen Zhou. Unfortunately, she hadn’t had the courage to betray King Qi, and so she had constantly been torn between inner conflict and pain.
“Did the Zhenyuan Merchant Group modify the account book?” Sang Hong asked. He was already quite well along in years and had experienced all sorts of different things. His heart was already tough like steel, and he didn’t care about the romance of youth at all. He only cared about the most important things.
Pink voiced an affirmation. “I wasn’t involved, but someone disguised themselves and fetched the real account book, replacing it with the modified one. I don’t know what parts they changed exactly.”
“Who were you in contact with? How can we find them?” Sang Hong asked.
“West of the city, Peace Apothecary’s Boss Ma. Jasper Lane’s girls often need physicians to look after their illnesses, which is why he can come in and out without drawing any attention,” Pink replied.
Sang Hong exchanged a look with Xiao Jianren, who understood his intentions and quickly left with his subordinates to make the arrest.
“Do you have any other proof?” Sang Hong asked.
Pink shook her head and replied, “Everyone in our line of work has to be extremely careful. We wouldn’t leave behind any other proof.”
Sang Hong frowned. He asked more questions, but he wasn’t able to obtain any more useful information. As such, he had Pei You stay behind to continue the questioning while pulling Zu An aside to discuss things.
“Should we hide this as well?” Zu An asked out of curiosity.
Sang Hong shook his head and replied, “King Yan wasn’t his majesty’s target, so if we targeted him, his majesty would only blame us. But King Qi is the one his majesty wanted to deal with to begin with, so there are no such misgivings.”
“But we only have a single person’s confession; there’s no material substance,” Zu An said worriedly. After all, King Qi was incredibly powerful, so Pink’s confession alone wouldn’t do much.
Sang Hong sighed as well, saying, “Indeed. It’ll now depend on whether Sir Xiao can find anything on his end. However, I’m not too optimistic.”
Zu An also agreed with that sentiment. Why would an old fox like King Qi leave behind an obvious opening after Pink escaped?
He was also a bit hesitant. He had had some dealings with King Qi in the capital, and they had even formed some kind of ‘alliance’. Even though they both knew it wasn’t all that reliable, Zu An still had to help King Qi deal with the emperor somewhat. The best result would be for both of them to destroy each other. If King Qi were killed, it would instead go against his best interests.
Xiao Jianren returned soon afterward. He had returned so quickly because Peace Apothecary had already been emptied out, leaving only some servants who didn’t know anything.
“It was as we predicted.” Sang Hong had a bitter smile as he spoke. He began to hesitate as to whether or not he should hand over Pink to the superiors.
Even though he didn’t share many interests with King Qi, what he was more worried about was something else. The criminal charge he would take on was definitely no joke. If this case was brought up and he had no proof on his end, King Qi would survive. Meanwhile, with the emperor’s cold nature, he might just use the Sang clan as a scapegoat.
He had already paid a bitter price the last time. He definitely didn’t want to repeat that a second time.
Just then, a subordinate came in and reported, “A large fire has broken out in a city outskirts village.”
Sang Hong harrumphed. “Why are you telling me something like that? Do you think we do not have enough on our hands already or something?”
The soldier explained, “It was the village where Chen Zhou’s widow resided.”
Zu An had investigated that area, so the Imperial Envoy had stationed some people there to keep an eye on the village. They hadn’t expected to end up receiving such grievous news.
“What?!” Zu An was shocked, and quickly asked for the details.
The soldier replied, “The exact details are unclear. It seems to have started in the middle of the night. Because everyone was sleeping, the fire spread quickly. Not a single one of the village’s 36 inhabitants survived.”
Zu An’s expression became incomparably cold. He said, “It snowed for several days in a row not too long ago. How could it be that easy for a fire to start? And how could there not even be a single survivor?!”
“They were all silenced!” Sang Hong exclaimed, coming to a similar conclusion.
…
Zu An and Sang Hong quickly brought their men to the city outskirts to investigate the scene of the crime.
There were already bailiffs present arranging the corpses. There was an extremely foul smell in the air. It looked just like hell on earth. Many of the bailiffs couldn't help but retch.
Zu An remained expressionless. He walked over to Chen Zhou’s wife. When he thought about how the woman’s playful son was now just a chunk of coal, he felt anger burn madly within him.
Even though he had already known that for bigwigs, the lives of commoners were worth as little as grass, he hadn’t expected it to be this bad. They hadn’t even let such young children go.
A government official came over to report, “We have already started to examine the corpses. There were large amounts of ashes in the deceased’s lungs; they burned to death. For now, we can eliminate the possibility that they were murdered.”
Zu An gave him a cold look and asked, “How do the corpses’ conditions look?”
The person replied, “They look to be at peace. They were probably burned to death in their sleep.”
Zu An harrumphed. “No matter how well they were sleeping, do you think they wouldn’t react at all with the fire blazing like this? Someone clearly struck their acupoints, then set fire to this entire place!”
“Wha… Who would do such a deranged thing?!” The government official was horrified.
Zu An didn’t reply to him and picked up the young remains. He said gloomily “There’s no need to bring these two back to the government office. I’m going to bury them and let them rest here.”
Since he knew the killer, there was no need to have those two corpses displayed in the government office. With Zu An’s cultivation, he was able to quickly dig up a huge pit. Then, he hacked apart some trees to form a simple coffin, burying the mother and child within. He remained silent throughout the entire process.
Sang Hong said in consolation, “Ah Zu, please do not blame yourself too much. This is unrelated to you.”
Zu An didn’t reply. Instead, he silently took out the wooden sword the child had given him back then and called out, “I vow with this sword that I will definitely get revenge for you, lest I meet the same fate as this sword!”
His cultivation rippled outward, and the wooden sword snapped in two. He was about to stab the sword into the grave when his eyes suddenly narrowed.