Reborn: Revenge of the Concubine's Daughter

Chapter 46 Permanent workers who lost their fingers

The owner of that pair of beautiful eyes suddenly smiled. A light green men’s robe embroidered with white lotus made the girl’s appearance extraordinarily appealing, just like an exquisite jade. Though people could easily identify that she was a girl, she still had a natural and unrestrained quality that matched with her men’s outfit.

Seeing that Gao Jue didn’t wear his cloak, He Danggui asked, “Master Gao, did you find your cloak? Why did you come back? Didn’t you find your sister-in-law?”

Gao Jue said nothing with his hands cross behind his back.

He Danggui quickly found that he was holding something in his hands, so she asked curiously, “What is it in your hands? You’re so weird.”

Gao Jue paused for a moment and passed the thing in his hands to He Danggui with a low voice, “It’s my compensation to you. But now that you’ve changed into a men’s outfit, it is useless.”

“A compensation?” He Danggui asked in surprise. She noticed that there was a blue hairpin lying in Gao Jue’s hands. It was delicate and sparkling with subtle colors flowing. Though she was knowledgeable, she couldn’t identify what it was made from. It took her a while to figure out the meaning of Gao Jue’s words. When he unchoked the Zhenqi for her, her wooden hairpin fell on the ground and was trampled by him. So, he wanted to give her another one as a compensation.

But He Danggui refused, “I can’t take this. The wooden hairpin was just made by myself. It worth nothing. So, you don’t have to compensate me. Master Gao had helped me a lot. How can I take such a small thing seriously?”

Gao Jue lifted the hairpin to He Danggui’s face and said in a very awful tone, “I give it to you, so you must take it. I never owe anything to others. I broke your hairpin, so I compensate you.”

Zhen Jing who stood beside was scared by Gao Jue. However, He Danggui was so calm and replied, “Well, if you insist, you can buy me this. One facial mask is 3 copper cash and five masks are 15 copper cash. Come on!” He Danggui waved the colorful facial masks and reached her hand out to Gao Jue, asking for money.

Gao Jue threw his money bag to her with a poker face. She found 15 copper cash from the bag and gave them to the shop assistant in the clothes shop. Then she kept a yellow facial mask to herself and gave the other four masks and the money bag to Gao Jue. She smiled, “Take these four facial masks. They are gifts to express my appreciation to you for carrying the coffin. Please don’t refuse me. I chose them specially for you and they do match you very much!” Actually, she thought, “You can wear this facial mask while questioning a prisoner since it was scarier than your original poker face.”

Gao Jue took them silently and said, “I came to say goodbye to you. I have somethings to do in Yangzhou City. So, I won’t send you back to the Taoist temple.”

He Danggui laughed, “We will hang out in the town for a while longer, and will hire a carriage to go back. Thank you for your kindness. Wait, there’s something I wanted to discuss with Master Duan but I had forgotten. But I can talk to you.” Seeing Gao Jue was in confusion, she pointed a cyan rock in front of the shop and said, “Come on, this way.” Then she stepped forward first and Gao Jue followed. Since Zhen Jing witnessed the scene that Gao Jue got angry, she became scared of him and decided to stay in the shop to look after their clothes.

“I would like to ask about Master Geng… Is his real name Geng Bingxiu?” He Danggui turned around, staring at Gao Jue.

Gao Jue never expected that she would talk about Master Geng. Actually, Master Geng used the fake name “Geng Xin” when he was in Jianghu and only a few subordinates knew about this. How did she know this?

Seeing that he was glaring at her silently, He Danggui knew she guessed it correctly. The leader of the nine people was Geng Bingxiu, “the cruelest official in the world”. He Danggui remembered clearly that Geng Bingxiu was the good helper of three Emperors in previous life. Although Emperor Jianwen removed the Department of Imperial Guard after he ascended the throne, he still couldn’t weaken the authority of Geng Bingxiu.

Geng Bingxiu was not only merciless and cruel, but also was famous for disowning his family members and friends. He could even take his biological brother as his stepping stone when it was necessary. Most importantly, He Danggui remembered that when a case of gross injustice that shocked the government and people was exposed, Emperor Jianwen asked Geng Bingxiu to find the culprits to mollify public anger. In the end, the culprits who were put into jail by Geng Bingxiu were his subordinate generals who worked with him and went through fire and water for him for many years.

In other words, if Duan Xiaolou, Gao Jue and others worked under Geng Bingxiu, one day they would be victims of that event!

During these days in the Taoist temple, He Danggui had owed Duan Xiaolou and others so much kindness. She just wanted to use them before. As a saying goes, “Human, rather than the plants, have thoughts and feelings.” When she got along with them more than 10 days, she had already treated them as her friends and never wanted them to head toward the death.

However, she was in a low position and her words were of little effect. She couldn’t not only persuade them to leave their positions of imperial guards, but also tell them as a prophet that Geng Bingxiu would become a merciless villain in the future and they would be persecuted by him. So, how to tell Gao Jue her ideas and let him tell it to Duan Xiaolou and others? Even if they did nothing now, they should keep alert to Geng Bingxiu.

Thinking of this, He Danggui looked up to Gao Jue and asked, “Master Gao, you must feel strange why I could know the name of Master Geng, right? I also know he has a sister named Xiangniang. So, Master Gao, how much do you know about Geng Bingxiu?”

Gao Jue frowned and stared at her face. Then he said with a deep voice, “What exactly do you want to say? I warn you. It’s a great sin if your words are disrespectful to an appointed official. You will be flogged 30 times.”

He Danggui smiled and suddenly wore the yellow facial mask which was in her hand, “Master Gao, you’re outspoken. What’s on your mind could be found in your face. But if a person always takes an ‘ordinary’ facial mask, and hides his true nature and thoughts closely. Do you think this person is so strange?”

Gao Jue became serious and asked, “Is the person you said Master Geng? Do you know him before? You must make it clear!”

He Danggui said under the facial mask, “I want to tell you a story and please convey it to other people who need to know it.” She began to tell the story before Gao Jue replied, “I grew up on the farm, and I worked in the farmland every day to plow, plant rice seedlings, weed and water crops. During the summer when I was eight, permanent workers of the farm all worked hard in the farmland. My foot was hit by the plow so I had to do some easy work. At this time, a young woman rode on a red-brown horse running on the official road from the distance. But that horse suddenly ran out of the road and rushed into the farmland. It trampled the area which had been already loosened, and ate the young leaves in the seedlings. The woman who rode the horse not only didn’t stop it, but also felt happy and giggled.”

Gao Jue stared at the eyes from the mask and was entranced for a moment, listening to the catchy female voice.

“The farmland was farmers’ lifeblood. So, the woman was surrounded by four or five permanent workers. They pointed at her and cursed her. And the woman used the horsewhip to whip their hands while yelling at a running horse cart on the official road, ‘Bingxiu, help me!’ The horse cart arrived immediately and a thin man about 40 years old with high cheekbones jumped down from the cart. His eyes were deep and his behaviors showed his arrogance. He rushed to the woman and asked, ‘Xiangniang, have you offended them?’ That woman stopped calling his name but called him ‘Second Brother’. She said that she just let her horse eat some rotten grass, but those rude men pointed at her with their dirty hands. Hearing this, the middle-aged man scolded the woman and took a silver ingot of 10 liang to compensate the permanent workers. The workers were glad and in turn apologized to him. Then the two people rode away.”

Gao Jue thought according to the described appearance of that middle-aged man, he must be Master Geng. But he didn’t bully the weak. His sister broke others’ farmland, and then he compensated them. It was very fair.

He Danggui sneered, “That incident was over with a happy ending. The five permanent workers got 2 liang silver each. Some bought food, some took as payment for gambling debt, and the others married a wife…They were grateful to the God of Wealth for bringing that two people here.”

She took off the facial mask and showed her elegant and pretty face. Then she stared at the cyan stone and recalled, “One morning after half a year, the horrible thing happened. All fingers of that five permanent workers were cut at one night. And the way of cutting was deft. When each finger was cut, it was pressed by a cotton with Powder for Anesthesia. Therefore, those permanent workers who lost their all fingers didn’t realize it until they woke up, or in other words, until their sleepy acupoints were released. When they saw their hands, their cry was so cruel that I’ll never forget.”

Gao Jue looked cold, “You mean…he did this?”

He Danggui blinked innocently and asked amazedly, “Who is ‘he’ in Master Gao’s words? I just said an interesting story that I saw in my childhood. That can be a topic for you to discuss in case others think you are dull and boring. Please don’t force to interpret. According to our laws, one slanders an official who works for the imperial court would be whipped 50 times.”

Gao Jue sniffed and also looked at the cyan stone. No one knew about his thoughts.

He Danggui continued, “At that time, no one connected this tragedy with what happened half a year ago. Lots of people thought the five permanent workers owed much money so they were crippled by the underworld. But as a bystander, I found another strange thing.”

Gao Jue asked at once, “What?”

He Danggui’s mouth was taut and others couldn’t tell whether she was smiling or gritting her teeth, “I got a little knowledge of medical skills when I was nine. According to the symptoms, that five people seemed to be poisoned by ‘Jiaochang Powder’ or something similar from Sichuan Prefecture. But no one believed me when I told them this. They mocked me and thought I was arrogant for coming from a medical family. A month later, the five permanent workers recovered. Although they lost fingers, they still needed to work and the life had to go on. At noon, I pushed a barrow to send pumpkin soup for the workers. The five permanent workers came to me first. I handed them five bowls of soup. And they swallowed in front of me… Suddenly, the soup leaked from their bellies to the ground drop by drop.”

Gao Jue also shuddered. What was Jiaochang Powder? This poison should melt the flesh and blood of a person without any sign and feeling!

“Of course, those five people died. However, they died after they drank the pumpkin soup that I brought, so I became a murder suspect. At that time, I was sent to the County Government of Duoye County with the ‘poisonous pumpkin soup’. My voice was not as big as theirs, and I was shorter than them. It was really like ‘A scholar is always wrong when he is in front of a solider’. The magistrate looked as he didn’t fully wake up from a nap. He was about to charge me with ‘poisoning and murdering people for money’. In a hurry, I got rid of everyone and run towards the cart, filled a bowl of warm pumpkin soup, and drank it all at once.”

With fierce eyes, Gao Jue said with a deep voice, “I didn’t expect that there is still such a muddleheaded official in the Ming Dynasty. During his term of office, there must be many false and unjust cases in Duoye County. We must investigate him thoroughly!”

He Danggui smiled and said, “Ah, this is not the key point I want to talk about. Master Gao, you hate evil, which is really admirable. But that magistrate of Duoye County had left his office and gone home because his father passed away half a year ago. What I want to say is that after I drunk three bowls of soup in a row, I was still alive. Then people finally believed that there was no poison in the soup. Just at that time, the coroner who came late examined the five corpses, confirming that the five people were poisoned to death. According to the poisoning situation, it was impossible to cause their deaths overnight. Someone continuously poisoned them and fed them with anesthetics. So, their viscera were gradually eroded for more than half, but they didn’t know. In my knowledge, only Jiaochang Powder of Tangmen, Sichuan Prefecture can be so vicious.”

“Was there any result of this case?”

He Danggui opened her hands, “Yes! The magistrate said that according to his analysis, the five people were not ordinary farmers, but hidden people from Wulin. Because they offended their enemies, all of them were killed in their battle in Jianghu. So, this case was solved.”

In the past dynasties, the government also had the so-called “Three Unhandled Cases”. The first one was life and death in the arena. The government didn’t handle it. The second was in the civil strife when both sides had autographed consent forms and witnesses. In this case, if someone was injured or died, the government didn’t handle it. The fight between Jianghu sects or murder in Jianghu was the third case that the government didn’t handle since they were beyond the management scope of the imperial court, and there was no chance for the imperial court to handle.

Gao Jue gritted his teeth with anger, “That bastard! With the salary and food of the imperial court, how dare he handle cases in that way!” Zhu Yuanzhang, the Emperor, hated corrupt officials the most. He had vowed to kill all corrupt officials in the world. As the Emperor’s favorite general, Gao Jue had the same opinion with that of the Emperor.

He Danggui suddenly said, “That day I was called by Tai Shan to see you. Master Geng also talked to me. It seemed that he has an accent in Sichuan area.”

Gao Jue looked at He Danggui and asked, “He is the middle-aged man at the beginning of your story, right? Tell me, don’t play charades!”