Chapter 109

Chapter 109: If your brain is sick, go see a doctor, don’t act crazy

Yu Zhi Yi wanted to ignore them, but they would not let her go.

You Bing Yue looked full of disgust and said: “Why are you everywhere?”

Yu Zhi Yi rolled her eyes and said: “That’s what I want to ask.”

You Bing Yue turned to Du Zi Heng and said: “See? What did I tell you? This woman loves tricks. She says she doesn’t care about you and won’t come between us, yet she keeps getting in our way. She is not the selfless person you think. Everything is her scheme.”

Yu Zhi Yi said, voice flat: “If your brain isn’t well, go to a clinic, and don’t act crazy in the street.”

She did not spare them even a look and walked fast toward North Outskirts Street.

North Outskirts Street sat at the far north edge of the Capital City and was also called the slums.

The people who lived there had very hard lives.

Although it was inside the Capital City, the folks here might not live as comfortably as villagers outside the walls.

Villagers had fields. The people here had no land to lean on. If they could not find decent work, they had to beg on the streets.

“Zhi Yi!” Du Zi Heng hurried after her and said: “Listen to my explanation.”

He walked fast enough to match Yu Zhi Yi’s pace.

Clearly, not every candidate who passed the Imperial Examinations was a frail scholar.

Seeing this, You Bing Yue almost ground her teeth to powder.

She had stayed a few days at Prince Xiao Yao’s Manor, where the servants all gave her ugly faces.

Angry, she punished them harshly.

Proud as she was, she would not keep staying where servants looked down on her, so she left in a huff.

She wanted to show those servants that she and Prince Xiao Yao were only good friends, brothers in spirit of the opposite sex, and that she did not care one bit about the princess consort position.

She ran into Du Zi Heng by chance.

He had not come to see her for days, and she had heard he was close to that gold-digger woman. At first, You Bing Yue did not want to forgive him.

But when she saw him absent-minded, as if a fox spirit had stolen his soul, she was furious.

She was a modern queen of assassins. She was not only skilled at killing, but also first-rate at seduction.

How could she be beaten by a feudal gold-digger woman?

She could not swallow that. She wanted to win back the field.

She tried to explain to Du Zi Heng that nothing romantic existed between her and Prince Xiao Yao, that they were only friends who rose above gender.

But before she said much, Yu Zhi Yi showed up.

With him sticking to that woman step for step, and that woman still claiming she had no designs on him, who would believe it?

“Du Zi Heng!” You Bing Yue shouted in anger.

Du Zi Heng paused out of reflex.

In that brief pause, Yu Zhi Yi had already gone far ahead.

Yu Zhi Yi even felt like clapping for You Bing Yue in her heart: [Good stall. Stall more. Go anywhere you want to build your feelings. Just don’t get in the way of my real work.]

Watching Yu Zhi Yi’s back hurrying away, Du Zi Heng felt a deep guilt he could not name.

He turned, looked seriously at You Bing Yue, and said with honest tone: “I have earned my degree now. When my parents return, I will ask them to let you enter the household. Go back and wait.”

With that, he rushed after Yu Zhi Yi.

You Bing Yue stood there and hissed: “Scumbag. Shameless woman.”

Then she gave a cold smile and said: “I will expose that woman’s tricks with my own hands and let you see how sly and cheap she is.”

Using the address in the file, Yu Zhi Yi soon found a run-down house.

On this street, almost no homes had courtyards. The rare one or two that did were considered well-off here.

Rotten leaves, slop water, and household trash lay everywhere. Even people without a cleanliness habit would not want to step into such filth.

Yu Zhi Yi, of course, had no such problem. When she used to sneak out behind Yu Manor’s back, she had seen places more broken and harder to bear than this.

Du Zi Heng almost gagged and said: “Zhi Yi, why are we here?”

Yu Zhi Yi felt helpless with him. She was moving fast yet still could not shake him off.

No wonder this man had once represented the Imperial Court in a ring match against people of the martial world and won first place in his past life.

She said, half teasing, half sincere: “It is a pity you did not test for the martial champion.”

Realizing she could not ditch him, Yu Zhi Yi stopped trying to push him away.

Time was tight, and she could not waste it on things that did not matter.

She said, cool and brief: “You can come along, but keep your mouth closed. Don’t ask this or that. When the time comes, you will naturally know what you want to know.”

Du Zi Heng answered with a sigh: “Fine.”

A young talent, one of this year’s top three in the Imperial Examinations, being disliked like this left him feeling helpless.

Yu Zhi Yi did not want to startle the snake, but even the alleys here had people living in them, so there was nowhere to hide. She could only walk openly forward.

It was noon. Except for laborers who needed to eat to keep their strength, most poor families would skip lunch.

To save energy, those at home liked to nap.

So there were few people on the street.

Even though Yu Zhi Yi and Du Zi Heng wore plain clothes, the silk still looked rich. The few people wandering the street stared with wide eyes.

For a while, the men stared at Yu Zhi Yi and the women stared at Du Zi Heng, no one even blinking.

Du Zi Heng disliked those looks.

Most of all, he hated the way some men looked at Yu Zhi Yi. He was a man, and he knew that stripping gaze. It made his skin crawl.

Yu Zhi Yi seemed not to notice and walked quickly toward a house at the far end of North Outskirts Street.

Unlike the noisy places before, this spot was dead quiet.

An old man sat at the door picking vegetables. A plain wooden cane leaned beside him.

When he finished, he meant to go inside and fetch water.

As he stood up, Du Zi Heng noticed that although the man had trouble with his leg, he could still walk without the cane, just with some effort.

Yu Zhi Yi stared at the man, and Du Zi Heng almost asked a question, but he remembered her warning and swallowed his doubts.

Yu Zhi Yi quickened her step.

Old Man Zhang’s eight characters showed he would be killed today by a home invader with a single stroke, using his own kitchen knife.

And the time was almost here.

The intruder should already be inside.

It was urgent, but not without advantages.

As the saying went, catch a thief with the stolen goods. If they seized the culprit on the spot, everything that followed would go smoother.

Just as Old Man Zhang pushed the door to enter, Yu Zhi Yi pinched a talismanic seal between two fingers, ready to flick it out.

Just then, a scream burst out from inside the house.

Old Man Zhang froze in shock, and even Yu Zhi Yi was surprised.