Chapter 167

Chapter 167: Never Tasted Sweetness, So I Didn’t Know Bitter

Yu Zhi Yi said: “Before, you could barely eat enough, but after your brother came, your parents said everything at home had to be saved for their precious boy. A money-loser like you did not deserve enough food or warm clothes, so your days grew even harder.”

She said: “You were forced to do more work and given even less to eat.”

The ghost listened quietly without a word. If not for the black energy showing her unrest, anyone seeing her calm at this moment would not have thought she was dangerous.

Drawn in by Yu Zhi Yi’s words, Du Zi Heng and the others listened. Li Chang Huai asked weakly: “Even so, there was no need to kill so many people after you died, right?”

Bang, the world went quiet.

Yu Zhi Yi continued and said: “If you have never tasted sweet, you do not know what bitter is. At most, you grow numb. But when you were twelve, you learned what sweet meant.”

She said: “You met a sister and brother from a rich family. They had sneaked out to travel. When they reached the area near Cao South Village, they found the mountains and waters pretty and saw simple smiles on the villagers’ faces, so the two decided to stay as lodgers.”

She said: “The sister was fifteen, just of age, and her family had already arranged her marriage. After they returned from this trip, she would marry the man she loved.”

She said: “The brother was thirteen, a cheerful and upright boy who was handsome and wealthy.”

She said: “Once, he saw you nearly faint by the creek. Seeing your thin, yellow face, he gave you two pieces of pastry.”

She said: “Even though he was only thirteen and born into a noble house, he was well educated. He was not like idle dandies who look down on the poor. Instead, he was gentle to everyone.”

She said: “After saving you, he realized your life might be bad and asked about your situation. Learning the truth, he promised that once he went home, he would find a way to take you away.”

She said: “That was the first light in your twelve dark years. Those two pastries were the best thing you had ever eaten.”

She said: “The second light was the boy’s sister. She was gentle and calm. Once, when she happened to see the wounds on you, she took out medicine and treated you. Her soft voice was full of pity for you. It was the first time anyone had looked at you with real care and treated you so gently.”

The ghost’s energy grew thicker. Her gloomy voice turned rough as she cried: “They should die! They should die!”

Liu Fei Yang could not help asking: “What happened exactly?”

Yu Zhi Yi’s eyes showed a hint of sorrow as she said: “Saying that remote, poor places breed mean people is sometimes not empty talk.”

She said: “The siblings’ father was a fourth-rank official. After they saw Cao Zhao Di’s situation, they felt pity and wanted to take her and other girls just like her away from the village. But villagers overheard their secret plan.”

She said: “The one who heard them was Cao Da Li. He had a son who was lazy and wouldn’t work. Their family was dirt-poor. People for miles around shook their heads at his name, and no decent family would marry a daughter to them.”

She said: “To keep his family line from dying out, Cao Da Li told the village chief about the siblings’ plan. The village chief was afraid a high official would act against their village, so he came up with a foolish idea: they detained the sister and brother.”

She said: “He dared to do this because the siblings had let slip earlier that they had made full plans to sneak out, and their family would never find them.”

She said: “The chief sent people to hold them down. He gave the sister to Cao Da Li’s son as a wife. As for the brother, they beat him to death.”

Liu Fei Yang gasped and said: “Are these people sick? Just because the siblings wanted to rescue abused girls, they killed someone?”

Du Zi Heng thought further and said: “Thirty years ago, a fourth-rank official, a sister and a brother who both disappeared… you mean Lord Fan, the former Minister of the Court of State Ceremonies, and his two children?”

Yu Zhi Yi nodded and said: “Yes.” When she reviewed the files, she had noticed the case of Lord Fan’s missing children. But the siblings’ disappearance and the ghost case were several years apart, and one was a very poor, backward village while the other was the family of a high official in the Capital City, so few would link them.

She said: “After the brother died, Sister Fan was locked up by Cao Da Li’s family. Their thatched hut was not sturdy; a person could break it with some effort. But at first, Cao Da Li and his wife and their son watched the new wife very closely. Every day at least one person kept an eye on Sister Fan.”

She said: “This only eased after Sister Fan gave birth to a child, the Cao Clan’s little grandson. Even then she was not free and could only move inside the hut each day.”

She said: “For many women, once they have a child, they have a weakness. Sister Fan kept struggling between running away and enduring for her son’s sake.”

She said: “At that time, she did not know her brother was already dead. To keep her from killing herself, the Cao family hid Brother Fan’s death and used his safety to threaten her.”

She said: “For the sake of her brother and her son, she could only swallow the shame and live.”

She said: “The turning point came five years later. By then, Cao Zhao Di was seventeen. She finally slipped away from her family’s and the villagers’ eyes and crept near Cao Da Li’s house. She told Sister Fan that Brother Fan was already dead and promised to help her escape.”

She said: “Hearing that her brother was dead, Sister Fan collapsed. She decided to make the whole village pay with their lives for him. She agreed with Cao Zhao Di to flee together.”

Here, Yu Zhi Yi could not help sighing and said: “Ropes break where they are thinnest.” The poor girl never escaped that den of monsters, and she never got to avenge her brother. Even Cao Zhao Di’s fate was changed by that night of flight.

She said: “That night, a man had diarrhea and went out to the latrine. He happened to see the two girls running and shouted: ‘Oh no, Da Li’s daughter-in-law ran away!’”

She said: “The whole village chased them. In no time, they were caught.”

She said: “Seeing there was no hope and crushed by her brother’s death, Sister Fan took the chance when the villagers were unguarded and killed herself by ramming her head into the old locust tree at the village gate.”

She said: “The villagers feared that Cao Zhao Di would also seek death, so they restrained her at once. Afterward, Cao Da Li went to make trouble for Cao Zhao Di’s parents, saying they lost a daughter-in-law because she urged the escape. To quiet things, her parents gave Cao Zhao Di to Cao Da Li’s son as a second wife.”

Liu Fei Yang looked at the wound on Cao Zhao Di’s head, full of surprise, and said: “So she wasn’t beaten to death?” He was not being cruel; seeing her miserable state, anyone would have thought the same, that she had been smashed to death by the furious villagers back then.