When the authorities found the little girl's body, her mother cried so hard that she fainted.
To Wenren Luoshui's surprise, the Left Chancellor came as well.
[Salty Fish System: I forgot to mention this earlier. This little girl's parents are distant relatives of the Left Chancellor. They came to Capital City on business. The girl was playing around and got separated from her maid and serving woman on the street. Once she was alone, that little demon set his sights on her.]
Yunjian trembled all over with rage as she looked at the little girl's corpse. In her previous life, neither her father nor her mother had loved her, yet she had managed to live perfectly well on her own.
But what about this little girl?
She had parents who loved her dearly, yet a born demon had destroyed her!
Her lips pressed into a straight line. She lifted her lashes, her eyes fixed darkly on me.
"Little Shui, that little beast will get the punishment he deserves, won't he?"
Her voice was icy, her eyes overflowing with murderous intent.
Normally, she was an easygoing girl who never took her troubles to heart.
Wenren Luoshui had only seen that expression on her during the Apocalypse.
She reached out and gently patted her shoulder.
"Don't worry."
Wenren Luoshui walked over to the girl's body and infused a wisp of spiritual energy into it. Under its influence, the corpse, which had already begun to rot, slowly rose with stiff, sluggish movements.
Seeing this, the girl's parents thought she had come back to life and rushed forward to embrace her, but she showed no reaction to them.
She walked on by herself. Though the officials had no idea what was happening, they followed behind her.
She led us to the Zhao Residence, just as Zhao Junsheng returned from school.
He sauntered along in front, having dumped his brushes, ink, paper, inkstone, and everything else on the school attendant following him.
Displeasure crossed his face when he saw a crowd gathered outside his home.
"Why are you all standing outside my house? Can't the court afford to pay you anymore? Coming here won't help! All my family's money is being saved for me!"
Despite his young age, Zhao Junsheng spoke with an utterly nasty tone.
He was still at that age when he feared neither heaven nor earth, and even the sight of a group of officials in their robes did nothing to temper the arrogance on his face.
Only when the little girl slowly approached him did that change. Zhao Junsheng, who had been outrageously cocky a moment earlier, stumbled backward in terror at the sight of the girl he had killed with his own hands, half her face already rotten.
He accidentally tripped over the stone steps outside his gate and landed squarely on his backside.
The Zhao family's old matriarch rushed out to defend her grandson when she heard the news. Unfortunately, no amount of twisted reasoning, tantrums, or shameless antics could make the officials obey her.
Zhao Junsheng and everyone else in the Zhao Residence were taken to the Ministry of Punishments.
The little girl slowly wrote down what had happened to her on a formal complaint.
The Deputy Minister of Punishments read the complaint aloud to Zhao Junsheng. Frightened senseless by the girl who had risen from the dead, he stared blankly ahead, repeating meaningless snippets of words.
The Zhao family flatly refused to admit their guilt and tried to shift all the blame onto their servants.
But with every sentence they uttered, the little girl's eyes grew a shade darker.
Finally, she plunged one hand into Old Madam Zhao's chest. Fortunately, she missed her heart, so the old woman did not die on the spot.
The old woman, who had spent her entire life acting fierce and overbearing, could now only lie on the floor, groaning in pain.
Zhao Junsheng's father, meanwhile, shouted that he had connections in the palace.
[Salty Fish System: Someone's completely bamboozled this man.] [How so?] [Salty Fish System: A minor official he was sucking up to told him that the emperor had taken a fancy to his younger sister and brought her into the palace, keeping his beauty in a golden house. Whatever they did from then on, his sister, the favored imperial consort, would back them up. That Zhao fellow's brain short-circuited, and he actually believed it. And that's how he spoiled his son into a murderer!] [Yunjian: So does that minor official actually have a sister?] [Salty Fish System: Yes, but she eloped with a poor scholar and took more than half the family's gold and silver with her. He only told Zhao that story to swindle him out of his money. Who knew Zhao would actually believe such an outrageous explanation?]
Everyone who heard those inner voices: ...
Sure enough, an idiot's thoughts were beyond ordinary people's comprehension.
Although Zhao Junsheng was still young, the crime was so heinous that he was sentenced outright to death, to be beheaded after autumn.
As for the Zhao family, their property was confiscated and they were sentenced to exile for causing an uproar in court and shielding a criminal.
After this incident, the rumors about Commandery Princess Luoshui in the capital grew even more fantastical.
The quick-witted heads of the great aristocratic families went home and repeated their warnings a thousand times over.
They told their families not to provoke Commandery Princess Luoshui lightly when they went out.
The imperial treasury was short of money right now. However poor these aristocratic families appeared on the surface, their accumulated wealth could hardly be insignificant.
The truly poor were not called aristocratic families, but humble households.
If they provoked that harbinger of disaster, not only would they suffer, but their property might also be confiscated.
Who would want that?
Besides that, some people used me to frighten their disobedient children.
They said Commandery Princess Luoshui could command corpses. If children misbehaved, they had better watch out, or she would send ghosts to knock on their doors in the dead of night and carry them away.
Wenren Luoshui only heard about this from the system.
Their reasoning was simple.
They had watched the Ministry of Punishments investigate cases before, but no corpses had ever risen.
They had also watched the Embroidered Guards investigate cases, and no corpses had risen then, either.
Besides, most people could hear my thoughts, so wasn't it perfectly normal for me to have a few other abilities as well?
Though their reasoning was wrong from start to finish, their wild guess had actually landed on the truth.
Moonlight spilled down from above, illuminating the ripples sweeping across the lake.
Yunjian sneaked out of the Yun Residence, carrying two watermelons that were even bigger than basketballs.
She hurried to the Anyi Marquis Residence. Looking up at its outer wall, three or four meters high, she set the watermelons down and rubbed her hands, which had been chafed red by their weight.
After resting for a while, she took out the wall-passing talisman her best friend had given her and stuck it onto the wall. Carrying her two enormous watermelons, she passed effortlessly through the outer wall and entered the Anyi Marquis Residence.
Unable to sleep that night, Sui Yun had come outside to practice martial arts. He had just finished a set of punches and was about to return to his room when he suddenly sensed a stranger's presence.
He hid himself, then saw the Yun Residence's fifth young lady enter his courtyard by some unknown means, carrying two round objects.
Yunjian carried the watermelons to Sui Yun's door. Finally unable to hold on any longer, she put them down and plopped onto the steps.
After all that effort, she had not even seen him yet, but she had already worked up a forehead full of sweat.
"Miss Yun, what brings you here instead of sleeping at this hour?"
Sui Yun did not know why, but seeing the girl's adorably clueless look made him want to tease her.
Once that thought surfaced, he could no longer suppress it.
Yunjian had not registered whose voice it was and answered naturally.
"I just found these huge watermelons with lovely, grainy flesh, so I brought them for my crush to try. Hey, buddy, do you want a taste too..."
As she spoke, she turned her head and came face-to-face with Sui Yun's teasing half-smile.
She: ...
Aaaaaah!
She had only wanted to sneak over and leave him two watermelons!
Why had she run straight into the man himself?
He wouldn't mistake her for a thief, would he?
The moment that possibility occurred to Yunjian, she sprang to her feet, bowed to Sui Yun at nearly ninety degrees, and ran away as fast as she could.
Sui Yun was left standing alone, looking at the two enormous watermelons she had left behind.
After a few seconds of silence, he laughed so hard that he could not straighten his back.
His handsome face, usually so aloof, now shook with laughter like blossoms trembling on their branches.