spoiled brat

Chapter 92 91. Self-crossing (1)

"Little girl...do you know this girl?" the two soldiers asked.

Zhao Zhao nodded hesitantly. She slowly squatted down and turned Yun'er's body over. The lividity was heavy, but the decomposition was very slight.

The two soldiers were seasoned veterans who had seen more dead people than Zhao Zhao had eaten rice. They recognized him at a glance: "He's only been dead for a few days."

Zhao Zhao probed Yun'er's sleeve; all the money inside had been taken. The travel permit for entering and leaving the city was still there, clearly stating that Yun'er and Zhao Zhao left Qingyang County on the same day and returned five days earlier.

"A clean and swift cut to the throat." A soldier pointed to the wound on Yun'er's neck and said, "Such a clean and efficient method is not something a bandit could do."

There is weirdness.

Yun'er was wearing only one shoe, as if she had lost it while fleeing for her life.

Zhao Zhao looked towards the corner of the alley, where a bright red embroidered shoe caught her eye.

Yun'er escaped from the alley.

And beyond this alley lies Su Chunfeng.

Zhao Zhao took off her outer robe and covered Yun'er with it. Before the two soldiers could ask any questions, she rushed into the alley... Sure enough! Sure enough, the dead people in the alley were all Zhao Zhao's familiar neighbors, including many girls and pimps from the brothel. Their bodies had been burned and were emitting a pungent stench.

Her uncontrolled gaze swept over the once vibrant faces. Whenever she saw a corpse that resembled Yao Niang Xiao Duo, she would turn it over to take a look with trembling hands. In this way, she stumbled through the alley and arrived at the real nightmare.

Su Chunfeng had been burned to a skeleton, like the remains of an animal that had been eaten clean. The house was dilapidated, the beams collapsed. Zhao Zhao walked into the ruins that still smelled of fire and stared blankly at a long stone in front of her.

This is what Xiaoduo uses to slap the table when he's telling stories.

Before her lay empty ruins, truly the place where she had grown up.

Zhao Zhao stood in the nightmare, unable to utter a sound. A piece of broken tile hit her head with a loud crack, and she felt the pain. Blood flowed from her forehead to her lips, and she was forced to believe that what she was seeing was real.

She burst through the half-burnt wooden door and rushed into the devastated backyard. Reason told her to be quiet and careful, but she kept calling out for her mother and Xiaoduo with sobs in her voice... No one answered. The charred bricks and broken tiles on the ground, the pale sun in the sky ignored her, the dry well, the fallen trees, the empty houses ignored her, the swallows' nests lying on the ground, the unrecognizable corpses, and the silent draft blowing through the courtyard ignored her.

Everything, everything, was silently and cruelly telling her that she no longer had a home.

"Little girl!" Two soldiers grabbed Zhao Zhao, who was on the verge of collapse, and urged her, "Calm down! Something's strange, something's strange! These bandits are after your building!"

Zhao Zhao's emotions tightened again, and she looked up in disbelief. A soldier bluntly pointed out:

"We tracked them down and found that the knife wounds on the bodies in the alley were different from those on the street; the method was clearly more swift! The person who killed them wasn't after money or sex; they just wanted them dead!"

Another soldier asked cryptically, "Has your establishment offended someone?"

The banditry began half a month ago.

At that time, Zhao Zhao had just arrived in Yunzhou. She neither revealed her identity to You Ming nor got involved in the river incident, and thus did not offend any important figures.

Such a heinous massacre could only be carried out by someone with immense power. First, they had to collude with officials to make the county government ignore the bandits, then they had to lure in mountain bandits and beggars as a cover, and then take advantage of the chaos to slaughter everyone in the building... Such a blatant attempt to cover up the truth was just to kill a few prostitutes.

Zhao Zhao's mind was in turmoil. Her eyes scanned the courtyard. Something was wrong. Many things had been moved, and the soil on the ground showed signs of being disturbed, as if someone had gone to great lengths to find something.

Suddenly, she remembered something and ran to the row of low houses where the prostitutes lived, looking again at the messy empty rooms. Finally, she stood still outside the small room where she and Yao Niang Aheng had lived.

Nothing.

Their clothes, bedding, and paper were all taken away. Someone deliberately erased their traces, as if burying something.

A series of footsteps sounded behind them. Zhao Zhao and the two soldiers turned around at the same time and found that more than a dozen bandits wielding swords and knives had surrounded them.

"Finally, we're all here."

The leader was a one-eared man whose eerie laugh sounded like a rat's: "Little girl, what's your name?" Before Zhao Zhao could respond, the one-eared man's men flipped open a roster, which listed everyone in the building:

"Boss, this girl is Zhaozhao!"

Zhao Zhao had already realized where the trouble started. Her fingers, which were digging into the wall, turned blue and white, and blood seeped out little by little: "Your master's family is really something. They spent my mother's money to go to the capital, and after passing the imperial examination, they want to wipe the past clean."

The one-eared man grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth, and chuckled, "What master? We're bandits." He waved his hand, ordering his men, "Kill them."

Two soldiers drew their swords and stood protectively in front of Zhaozhao, coldly shouting, "Who dares to make a move against the people of the Prince of Ning's mansion?!"

Upon hearing the words "Prince Ning's Mansion," the bandits exchanged glances and burst into laughter. The one-eared man raised his eyes, filled with hatred, and gritted his teeth, saying, "What a coincidence! Killing a little bitch and running into the dogs of Prince Ning's Mansion!"

Two soldiers brandished their swords, their grip on the hilts cracking as they whispered, "These people are from the Death-Snatching Sect in the capital, not bandits! Little girl, run!"

A dozen gleaming knives came slashing at the three of them. Zhao Zhao was pushed hard, and when she looked up, she saw a window overlooking the water. Two soldiers stood in front of the door with knives, shouting without turning their heads, "Don't worry about us, run!" Zhao Zhao jumped out of the window and fell into the river. The water was shallow and could not cover her. She swam for a while, climbed ashore, took a shortcut, found the oxcart parked at the county gate, and whipped it hard, but the ox walked lazily.

Several thugs caught up, their eyes bloodshot with rage, and shouted, "Our master said this little bitch must die!"

In a moment of desperation, Zhao Zhao plunged a dagger into the ox's back. The ox, writhing in agony, charged wildly out of the county gate.

The road outside the county was bumpy and uneven. The cart was being pulled forward by the oxen, and Zhao Zhao clung tightly to the planks to avoid being thrown off. A whooshing sound came from behind as an arrow grazed her face, leaving a deep wound.

Zhao Zhao looked back; four horses were hot on her heels! Several more whooshing sounds rang out, and she barely dodged them. A few strands of hair fell down; she had been nearly shot in the head. Amidst the chaotic jolting, Zhao Zhao climbed onto the yoke, tightly wrapped the reins around her wrist, raised her dagger, and slashed at the ox's back again.

Blood splattered, and the cow's screams were deafening. It ran faster and faster, fast enough to shake off the four bandits behind it. The cart bumped and creaked against the stones on the road. Just before the cart collapsed, Zhao Zhao jumped onto the cow's back, grabbed its bridle tightly, and tried to keep her balance so she wouldn't be thrown off.

In the north of Qingyang County, there was an old and dense forest. The cow charged straight in, and countless branches and vines scratched across Zhao Zhao's back, tearing her clothes and leaving her back covered in blood. She buried her face in the cow's neck, not daring to lift her head.

The four bandits pursued them into the forest, where the grass was thick and dense, and their horses refused to follow the path the oxen had carved out. Left with no other option, they dismounted and proceeded on foot, following the trail of blood through the undergrowth deeper into the woods.

“This cow can’t run very far,” one of them said.

Another person crouched down, dipped his finger into the two pools of blood on the leaf, and smelled it: "That little bitch too, she was shot with an arrow."

Murder to silence witnesses—the Death-Taking Sect specializes in this business. The arrow was coated with anesthetic; even a grown man would collapse from being hit by it. How could a little girl possibly withstand it?
The four bandits followed the trail of blood, and seeing that the blood in the grass was getting shallower, they knew the ox was dying and the people couldn't go much further. Just as they were thinking about how to torment the little bitch who had made them chase them all the way, they suddenly saw the ox lying in front of them, its throat cut by a sharp object, blood gushing out, its tearful eyes staring at the sky obscured by tree branches, dying with its eyes wide open.

"What about people?!"

The four bandits searched everywhere for Zhao Zhao, but the bloodstain, which was a shade lighter than cow's blood, had quietly disappeared.

Suspecting that Zhao Zhao had been drugged, they silently stumbled into the bushes and began searching in different directions with their knives.

Half an hour later, the four people who had searched in vain returned one after another. One of them cursed, "Damn it, what the hell! Is that little bitch some kind of demon? She just vanished without a trace!"

Someone panicked and said, "If the boss finds out we lost track of them, I don't know how furious he'll be!"

The oldest bandit calmly squinted and looked up at the sky. The forest was so dense that the thick foliage blocked out the sky, making it so green that it was impossible to see anything.

He suddenly raised his hand: "Release the arrows."

The other three were bewildered: "Where to?"

"Up in the tree!"

The four men had a total of fifty or sixty quivers on their backs, and they would fire a burst of arrows at people's heads every so often, startling countless birds into flight, chirping and rustling.

But after the storm subsided, the forest remained silent.

When one plan failed, someone else suggested, "Why don't we set the woods on fire? No matter where that little girl is hiding, we can say she burned to death, and then we can go back and report."

The older bandit cursed, "You think you're the only smart one? This tree is ancient and full of moisture, how could it possibly catch fire?"

The mountain wind blew, and the dark clouds on the horizon rolled in. Before it rained, a thunderclap boomed.

Zhao Zhao sat on a thick tree branch. She was lucky; she had only been grazed on the leg by an arrow. But it wasn't good; the anesthetic had already spread throughout her body.

She cut off a piece of fabric, tied her left hand tightly to the tree trunk, and pressed her right hand under her leg. Blood from her wound seeped into the bark through her fingers, a scene of eerie silence.

Zhao Zhao glanced down at the four bandits still searching in the forest. A few more claps of thunder sounded, and the rain began to fall. The blood from the wounds seeped into the tree bark, flowing down the veins until it was diluted by the rainwater and no longer visible on the ground.

My body grew colder and colder, and my consciousness became blurred. All I could see was a deep green color.

Suddenly, a hissing sound came from above, and a small, green snake hung in front of Zhao Zhao's eyes, flicking its tongue playfully.

Amidst the patter of rain, Zhao Zhao met its gaze. It was a venomous snake with beautiful, clear pupils that reflected her face.

It slowly approached, its sinister pupils narrowing into slits. Zhao Zhao saw it crouch down to bite, but couldn't muster even the slightest strength to dodge. Just as death was imminent, a sudden chill ran down her face, and by sheer coincidence, the flying arrow struck the snake's body.

The emerald green snake floated to the ground, dying unjustly in front of the four bandits. The four men had exhausted their arrows and tried every means to search, but to no avail. One of them began to have second thoughts: "Although we must see the body, there are many beasts in this deep forest. If we all say that the girl's body was carried away by a tiger, the boss will not blame us."

Just then, several horse neighs sounded from outside the woods, and the older bandit suddenly realized, "Could that girl have gone out of the woods to steal our horses?" The remaining three agreed and hurried out of the woods.

Seizing the opportunity, Zhao Zhao slid down the tree trunk, her clothes stumbling as she rushed into the depths of the forest. Layer upon layer of dense green stretched before her like a whirlpool; the escape route seemed endless.

She didn't know how far she had run, only that the rain seeped into her wounds, her body grew colder and colder, her heart and lungs pounded fiercely and hotly, and the taste of blood filled her mouth, thump, thump, thump...

thump.

A deafening clap of thunder boomed overhead, freezing Zhao Zhao in place. Her pupils dilated abruptly, her eyes quickly turning dull and lifeless. The lightning illuminated her face, making her appear as white as paper, her life force fading, like a shadow puppet with its limbs pulled. Another clap of thunder followed, and Zhao Zhao collapsed as if her strings had snapped, tumbling down the hillside.