The City's Appearance

In the courtyard, two men and a woman had their hands bound behind their backs.

The three knelt together at Shen Tang's feet, trembling like leaves in a sieve.

"Who was it just now who claimed to be Heaven?"

The stick in Shen Tang's hand lifted one person's chin.

She asked with a smile, "Was it you?"

The person she'd singled out shook his head like a rattle drum, leaning away as he shook, trying to dodge Shen Tang's stick while fearing she might suddenly lash out. They had no idea how things had come to this. On top of that, they'd been beaten so badly that they were completely dazed.

Shen Tang used her stick to lift another person's chin.

"Then was it you?"

The person she'd singled out was Lai Tou, who had lured Shen Tang here.

"Not me, not me—"

His voice was choked with tears, and his words came out with a whistle. He was so terrified that tears were about to spill from his eyes.

It was no wonder he was so afraid.

He hadn't even had time to register the pain from Shen Tang's running wall kick before she'd knocked out four or five of his upper and lower teeth in one blow. The rest were loose and ready to fall out, and blood from his gums smeared half his face.

What happened afterward had felt like a dream. The three grown adults had been subdued by a little girl with yellow hair.

They hadn't been able to fight back at all!

And so here they were now.

"So it wasn't you either?" Shen Tang's eyes crinkled with amusement as she used her long stick to lift the third person's chin—the only woman among them. "Then was it you?"

The woman sold out Lai Tou without hesitation, shrieking, "I didn't say it! I really didn't! Lai Tou said it!"

Shen Tang's gaze fell on Lai Tou, her eyelids lowering slightly.

"You're still lying with death at your door. That makes your crime even worse!"

At the word "death," Lai Tou immediately burst into tears and snot. He knelt on the ground, repeatedly kowtowing to Shen Tang and begging for mercy. After he'd kowtowed just three times, she stopped him with the clothes-drying pole and said indifferently, "Seeing as you have some remorse, I can give you a chance to atone by earning merit. Tell me—where did you take all the innocent women you tricked here with this method, besides me?"

She'd searched the courtyard. There were no other abductees.

If she'd known that, why would she have gone to all this trouble?

"They—they—they, we sold them..."

Lai Tou was so frightened that he couldn't control his tongue, and his words came out stammering.

"You sold them? Where? How many people did you sell in all? How much money did you get? Confess everything, from beginning to end!" Shen Tang sat on a little stool, her left foot resting lightly on the ground and her right leg bent, so the hand holding the stick could rest on her knee.

Her rapid-fire questions left all three of them wanting to cry.

How were they supposed to answer?

If they didn't, they'd die. If they did, they'd die even sooner.

The two men had no idea what to say, afraid that one wrong answer would earn them a blow to the head from Shen Tang. The woman, however, had a guess. She thought Shen Tang had read too many street stories and yearned for the life of a wandering knight, roaming the world with sword in hand. She hadn't even grown all her hair yet, but she'd already run off to uphold justice.

There was a way to deal with an impetuous young fool like this.

She looked ready to cry. "Miss, you've misunderstood us. We only made this mistake two or three times. We really haven't done anything else that wicked."

Shen Tang sneered. "Two or three times? And one of those times happened to be me? With luck like that, why don't you go buy a lottery ticket?"

The woman clung stubbornly to her story.

"We've sold quite a bit of merchandise...but we were saving people, too." She cautiously watched Shen Tang from the corner of her eye. When she saw that Shen Tang wasn't angry, she continued, "Everyone we sold had been bought fair and square. Their parents took the money. In these times, buying people costs only a few coins. We were just blinded by greed and made a terrible mistake. We'll never trick anyone again!"

Shen Tang laughed at that. "Saving people?"

Seeing that Shen Tang seemed willing to listen, the woman immediately felt hopeful and tried to justify herself. "With all the fighting these past few years, nobody's had an easy time. Some families have so many children—so many mouths to feed. How are they supposed to raise them all? If we didn't buy and sell them, those children would either starve to death or be exchanged to another family to be eaten. At least if they were sold, they'd have somewhere to go and food to eat."

Shen Tang was so furious at this black-and-white-twisting argument that she laughed.

She pressed the stick against their throats and gave them one last warning with a cold laugh. "Enough excuses. Confess! Otherwise, I'll shove this stick straight through you. You've felt how strong I am. I guarantee I can thrust it right through you from front to back, then string all three of you onto it."

She applied just a little pressure, leaving a dark bruise at the woman's throat. The woman yelped in pain.

"I'll confess! I'll confess!"

"Spare me, hero!"

Only then was Shen Tang somewhat satisfied.

The butcher kept glancing outside at the sun. The more he looked, the more anxious he became. He rubbed his hands nervously and sighed.

"Old man, are you sure what you said will come true?"

Who knew the customer would smile, pick up the lotus-leaf-wrapped parcel, and nod toward the end of the street? "I won this round."

The butcher stuck his head out and squinted in that direction for a long while. Because of his work, he'd started slaughtering livestock before dawn, and over time his eyes had been worn out. Anything at a distance was a blur. He squinted until his eyes nearly cramped, but still couldn't see anything.

He only noticed the crowd stirring in that direction.

It wasn't until Shen Tang came closer that he could make out what was happening.

The pretty young lady—no, the young gentleman—was riding on the back of that handsome mule, chewing something in her mouth as she ambled back at a leisurely pace.

She held a rope, with two men and a woman strung along it—

All three had swollen, bruised faces and limped as they walked.

But anyone who did business around here could recognize those three wicked bastards even if they'd been reduced to ashes.

Shen Tang returned to the tavern and sat on her little stool to wait for the others. She flicked her fingers, sending three round, flat pits from the green plums she'd eaten flying at them. One after another, the three of them dropped to their knees, their kneecaps slamming straight into the ground.

The dull thuds made everyone's scalp crawl, their own knees aching in sympathy.

Shen Tang pointed at the three of them, her Killing Intent overwhelming. "All of you, stay on your knees."

The three swallowed their cries of pain and cowered, not daring to disobey in the slightest.

The customer: "..."

A trace of surprise seemed to flash through his eyes.

He'd thought Shen Tang would kill the thugs who'd tried to take advantage of her.

What was this, then?

"Young gentleman, why didn't you just kill them?"

The onlookers had seen enough of the spectacle and were gradually dispersing. The customer stepped forward and struck up a conversation with Shen Tang. Shen Tang had been idly nibbling green plums and complaining that Qi Shan still hadn't arrived. At his question, she turned her head toward the speaker.

She pointed at herself. "...You called me young gentleman?"

The customer asked, "Is there something wrong with that?"

His gaze paused for a second on the Literary Heart Sigil at Shen Tang's waist, then moved away.

Shen Tang said, "No, nothing wrong. You've got a sharp eye, brother!"

Everything else about him was fine. It was just that, like Qi Shan, he was blind!

As for the question he'd just asked—

"Why didn't I kill those three? Of course it's because murder is against the law. I'm a law-abiding citizen, a painter who can't even truss a chicken. How could I do something so bloody? No matter how deserving they are of death, they should be handed over to the Xiaocheng Prefectural Yamen..."

But the real reason was—

That courtyard was too remote and deserted. If she killed those three there and left their bodies exposed, they'd rot and fill with maggots if nobody took care of them, which would be terrible for Xiaocheng's appearance.

Besides, it wouldn't look good for a painter to go around killing people.

So she'd decided to cultivate herself and obey the law.

The customer could just about follow Shen Tang's string of complaints. He said, "If you hand them over to the Prefectural Yamen, they'll be free again in no time."

Shen Tang paused in the middle of biting into a green plum, then hesitated. "Then... should I drag them outside the city and kill them later?"