Chapter 211
A long time after Fang Zichen had left, He Tiezhu still clung to a sliver of hope. Kneeling on one knee before He Huihui, the honest and simple man, who was never very good with words, felt his throat go even drier in that moment. "Huiniang, tell father, were those words that young Fang said just now true?"
He Huihui raised her head, her expression numb, her face ashen as if all hope was lost. It seemed all her tears had been cried dry. She didn't say a word. Just as He Tiezhu was about to open his mouth to ask again, Aunt He suddenly rushed over, beating He Huihui frantically like a madwoman. He Tiezhu grabbed her and pulled her away. "Woman, what are you doing?"
"What am I doing?" Aunt He roared. "I want to beat this shameless thing to death..."
He Li came over to dissuade her. "Mother, we can't believe that Fang Zichen! He said Little Sister committed adultery, how can you still believe him? You raised Little Sister yourself, don't you know what kind of person she is?"
It was precisely because she knew that Aunt He did not ask further.
Fang Zichen's words had reminded her of the day they went to make a scene at the Wu family's home. The Wu family had bluntly said they were unlucky to have married her daughter. The words of the Wu family, and also the fact that on her way back home, a few of the Wu family's neighbor women had spat on the ground behind her back. At that time, she hadn't understood the reason, but because she was intimidated by them being townspeople, she hadn't dared to confront them.
Thinking about it now, she finally understood.
The Wu family were honest, decent people. Faced with such a shameful matter, while they were furious, they couldn't bring themselves to say anything too cruel or ugly. If they had been more like the straightforward villagers—who wouldn't hesitate to curse and shout—then she wouldn't have had to wait until today to learn the truth.
The He family's face... it was completely lost.
He Huihui knelt on the ground, kowtowing with a bang bang sound. "Father, Mother, I'm sorry, I'm truly sorry. I was momentarily confused, I was wrong, I know I was wrong."
The village chief and Wang Damei were both speechless.
As the saying goes, the wrath of an emperor could leave a million corpses and blood flowing for a thousand miles.
In simpler terms, it meant people in authority favored collective punishment. An emperor in his rage might exterminate a person's entire clan, and common folk were often no better.
Even though He Huihui was not their own daughter, she was still a close niece.
If this scandal spread, they didn't know how the village would view their family from then on, or how their own daughters and gers would ever find husbands.
People would always assume that snakes and rats shared the same nest. With He Huihui possessing such a character, they would doubt how upstanding the conduct of her cousins and younger male relatives could possibly be.
[蛇鼠一窩 (shé shǔ yī wō): lit. snakes and rats share the same nest; fig. villains of the same ilk colluding together, birds of a feather.]
Wang Damei was furious. He Huihui was still sitting on the ground weeping piteously, and Aunt He was wailing on the side, crying out that it was a sin. Hearing it was irritating, and she truly couldn't stay another moment.
"Husband, let's go back!"
"But..." the village chief hesitated. The He family was in such chaos now, he couldn't just leave directly.
"But what 'but'?" Wang Damei said sternly. "Earlier, fearing that young Fang would beat her to death, we rushed here in a panic. Now, I think it really would have been better if he had beaten her to death."
Normally if she spoke like this, Aunt He would have retorted long ago. Today, however, she just cried and didn't utter a single word in rebuttal.
She didn't dare to, and she had no grounds to.
The village chief was also annoyed. He Huihui doing such a thing had caused their He family to lose all face. He was truly angry, but seeing her forehead red and swollen from kowtowing, he also felt somewhat sorry for her.
"Let's go back!" he finally sighed. "Such misfortune for the family!"
"Exactly," Wang Damei said indignantly. "Coming all this way for nothing, not only offending young Fang, but you also got kicked for no reason."
The village chief sighed again.
He understood in his heart that last time, because of his younger sister's affair, Fang Zichen had already borne some resentment towards him and had grown distant. He just hadn't made a big deal of it out of regard for their past relationship. With today's incident, he was afraid he had truly and thoroughly offended the man.
...
After leaving the He family, Fang Zichen went straight to the town. He went to a gambling den and borrowed over a dozen thugs, then led them with imposing momentum towards the Sun Family Cloth Shop.
Sun Shangcheng could gain entry to Qinghe Academy, so his knowledge was certainly sufficient. In the county exams a few years ago, he ranked fairly high. Moreover, being able to 'spend money like water' in Yuanzhou indicated his family's wealth was substantial.
At this moment, the cloth shop was full of customers, mostly women and fulangs. It was already spring, the weather was about to warm up, so naturally they needed to add a couple of new outfits. They had come in twos and threes, discussing patterns and colors, when suddenly a large group of people swarmed in from outside.
The customers were terrified. This group had clearly come to cause trouble.
Two shop clerks rushed forward. "Who are you? What is the meaning of this?"
The thugs shoved them aside, then stepped back to clear a path. Fang Zichen walked slowly through the doorway. His eyes swept briefly across the room before he raised his hand, bringing two fingers together in a signal. "Smash everything."
The customers were not harmed. The thugs shouted at them to get out.
The Sun Family Cloth Shop was quite large. There were three shop clerks inside. Before the thugs rushed in, one had already run outside to find the shop owner.
Sun Zongze arrived soon after with some men. The shop had been smashed to pieces, cloth torn and scattered all over the floor.
These were all new goods just shipped from Yuanzhou the other day, with bright colors and soft material. Sun Zongze had planned to make a big profit during the season change, investing most of his capital in this batch of goods. They were all displayed on the shelves in the cloth shop, waiting to be sold over two or three days for a good return of funds. He never imagined they would all be ruined.
"Who dares to cause trouble in Sun's shop?"
"Third Young Master," a thug went up and whispered beside Fang Zichen's ear. "That old man is Sun Zongze, the owner of the Sun Family Cloth Shop."
Fang Zichen, his face grim, said, "Seize him for me."
"Yes!"
Sun Zongze had brought a few house servants. These servants were alright for doing chores, but trying to fight against the professional thugs trained by the gambling den was like an egg hitting a rock—utterly overestimating themselves.
The Sun Family Cloth Shop had been open for decades. People in the town more or less gave the Sun family some face. In recent years, because of Sun Shangcheng, people were even more afraid to easily provoke them. Sun Zongze never expected someone to be so bold.
However, upon seeing Fang Zichen, he understood.
The newly risen scholar, the bookkeeper of Zuixiao Restaurant. He had seen him a few times from a distance before.
"So it's Young Master Fang. I, Sun, have no grievance or enmity with you. Why are you acting like this... Let go of me, what are you doing?"
When the thugs escorted him in front of Fang Zichen, Fang Zichen gave a cold laugh.
"No grievance or enmity?" He suddenly grabbed the front of Sun Zongze's robe, forcefully lifted his feet off the ground, and then viciously threw him against a wooden shelf.
"That dog Sun Shangcheng kidnapped my son. Tell me, where is that beast now?"
Sun Zongze's heart skipped a beat. His gaze went past Fang Zichen, seeing many onlookers gathered outside the shop and a room full of people. He felt somewhat panicked. If these words got out, it would be detrimental to his son's reputation. Immediately he angrily said, "You spout nonsense! My son Cheng'er is far away in Yuanzhou, studying at Qinghe Academy. How could he have kidnapped your son? Don't you falsely accuse him."
Fang Zichen was worried about his son to the point of madness. Sun Shangcheng was a beast. The more time dragged on, the more danger his son was in. He didn't want to waste words with him. He repeated, "Where is my son?"
Sun Zongze steadied his mind. "Young Master Fang, these words are laughable. Your son is missing, you should go look for him yourself. Asking me, how would I know? If you don't believe me, you can also search my house yourself. At that time..."
Fang Zichen didn't wait for him to finish. With one hand gripping his shoulder, he punched him hard in the stomach.
Sun Zongze curled up, clutching his stomach. The moment Fang Zichen let him go, he squatted on the ground in pain.
Fang Zichen raised his foot and kicked him. When the man rolled onto the ground, he stepped on his shoulder, looking down at him from above. "Fine. Very good. I'm asking you for my son now, and you won't give him. I'll remember this. When I personally go find that beast, you just wait to collect his corpse!"
Sun Zongze saw Fang Zichen's grim face, looking fierce and resolute, his eyes gloomy and terrifying.
He widened his eyes. "You... you wouldn't dare."
Fang Zichen said nothing further. He signaled to his men, and they left noisily in a commotion.
The onlookers outside hastily moved aside. When the group was far away, they whispered and discussed.
Some didn't understand the matter regarding Sun Shangcheng. "What's going on? I'm completely baffled! That very handsome young man just now, that's Fang Tongsheng, right?"
"It's him. The famously handsome man."
"He just said his son is missing, so why come make trouble at the Sun family's shop?"
"You don't know?" Someone, seeing Sun Zongze helped to the backyard by two shop clerks, said quietly, "I heard this Sun family's son has that kind of preference."
"What kind?"
"Likes to play with children. Other men can't move their feet when they see pretty girls or gers, but he can't move his when he sees pretty children."
Someone was shocked. "Really or not? This person... what's fun about children!"
"Who knows if it's true or false. Before, his family bought quite a few young children from the slave broker, saying they were bought to be servants. But those children, after entering the Sun house for not even two months, were all said to have died. Some said they died of illness, some said they died of poisoning, and others said they were played to death by the Sun family's son. It caused quite a stir at the time. But later, when the Sun family's son took the imperial exams, Shopkeeper Sun, fearing this matter would affect his son, even went to the yamen to ask coroners to examine the corpses of those children. I heard they didn't even need to examine them; when dug up, the bones were blackened, clearly poisoned to death."
Having poisoned quite a few children to death at once, the Sun family was investigated. In the end, the murderer was found.
It was a young servant in the Sun residence. He shared the servants' quarters with several of the children. After some heated arguments, he could not swallow his anger and went out to buy rat poison.
Afterwards, the Sun residence bought more children, but over time, some of those also died for various stated reasons.
The reasons given by the Sun family seemed reasonable. However, as the saying goes, 'flies don't bother with a seamless egg.' For such rumors and gossip to spread in the 'upper' circles, the Sun family's young master most likely had some issues. It was merely that his family, fearing any scandal would ruin his chances in the imperial examinations, took great pains to conceal the truth for him.
[苍蝇不叮无缝的蛋 (cāngying bù dīng wú fèng de dàn): lit. Flies don't bother with a seamless egg; fig. Problems or trouble don't arise without a cause or internal weakness—there is no smoke without fire.]
Given how exceptionally handsome Fang Zichen was, his son was likely a very good-looking child. It was entirely possible the Sun family's young master had taken a liking to the boy and kidnapped him.
Then again, the Sun residence had not been linked to such incidents for several years now. It was also possible the Sun family was being falsely accused this time.
Fang Zichen led the men back to the gambling den. He didn't speak the whole way. Arriving on the second floor, he sat on a stool, elbows on his knees, face buried in his palms, lost in thought.
The gambling den boss usually loved chatting with him, but at this moment, he absolutely did not dare take half a step closer.
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