131: Chapter 131 Don't do evil, you never know if a madman might pass by.

Fengle City was a dilapidated city.

This small city, sandwiched between the borders of Yongzhou and Yuzhou, was so poor that it couldn't even afford to build rammed-earth walls, and only had a crooked wooden archway erected at the end of the imperial road; the inscription on the plaque of the archway had been worn down by wind and sand until the characters were faint.

There was only one main street in the city, its rammed-loess road surface ground into two deep ruts by ox carts, and the ruts accumulated rainwater from a few days ago, reflecting a few sparse red lanterns along the street.

As the saying goes, shallow water breeds many turtles, and even within this dilapidated city, there were some relatively influential Family.

The Zhao Family was considered a prominent household in Fengle City.

When Old Master Zhao was young, he had run a few merchant caravans, saving up dozens of mu of meager fields and a three-courtyard residence.

He himself was also a retired Loose Cultivator, and the city-guard Cultivator had to give him some Face.

By the generation of the Zhao Family's eldest Young Master, Zhao Yuankui, the agricultural property had been mostly squandered, but the grey-brick residence of the Zhao Family in the eastern part of the city remained the most magnificent building on the entire street.

Today, the Zhao Family was brightly lit with lanterns and decorated with colorful hangings; two extremely large red lanterns were hung at the entrance of the residence, brand-new red paper couplets were pasted on the lintel, and even the necks of the pair of stone lions at the entrance were tied with red silk.

The wedding procession set out at dusk, the suona blowing extremely loudly and sharply, bouncing back and forth across the loess street, drowning out the whispered gossip of the onlookers and neighbors.

By the time the bridal sedan chair was carried to the main entrance of the Zhao Family, it was already completely dark.

The sedan curtain was lifted, and the bride was supported on the left and right by two matchmaker crones as she stepped over the brazier.

The pearl curtains on the Phoenix coronet hung down to cover her Face, the bright red wedding gown was extremely vibrant and new, and the gold-threaded Phoenix circular patterns flickered in the lantern light.

The onlookers and neighbors stood on both sides of the Zhao Family's residential gate, wearing out-of-place smiles; as soon as their gazes fell upon the bride's stiff legs, those smiles turned into extremely subtle twitches of the corners of their mouths as they exchanged glances with one another.

"What a sin." someone in the crowd muttered extremely softly, immediately being drowned out by the sound of the suona nearby.

Who in Fengle City didn't know that Zhao Yuankui had caught a cold at the beginning of the month and was bedridden, breathing out more than he breathed in for several days already?

Two market days ago, someone even saw the Zhao Family's steward go to the coffin shop to look at timber, and when he came back, his expression was so gloomy that water could be wrung out of it.

As a result, right after the last market day passed, the Zhao Family suddenly hired a wedding troupe, tossed over a few ingots of silver, and forcibly married the tenant Old Man Chen's youngest daughter back.

The bride was named Chen Xiaohe, just turning sixteen this year, and usually grew some green vegetables by her parents' two mu of meager fields to carry to the market to sell.

Several regular customers who bought vegetables year-round all said that the girl was deft with her hands, washing the green vegetables cleanly, tying them up neatly, never bargaining with anyone, and only lowering her head to smile.

When the Zhao Family's steward led people to block the courtyard gate of the Chen Family, Chen Xiaohe's Face turned into a weeping expression.

Old Man Chen was pinned against the courtyard wall with his arms supported by two servants, watching helplessly as the steward threw the marriage certificate and a few ingots of silver onto the stone table in the courtyard.

His wife knelt in the courtyard, hugging the steward's legs and crying until she almost fainted, but the steward only lowered his head to look at her and said a sentence.

"Master Zhao said, this is a proper and open marriage, and the silver will not be shortchanged for you. From now on, your Family's girl is the Young Mistress of the Zhao Family, and she will want for neither food nor clothing."

The wedding ceremony was held in the main hall of the Zhao Family.

The decoration of the main hall was extremely eerie; the bright red celebratory candles were lit very brightly, and the double-happiness character was pasted in the center of the main wall, but on both sides of the character, instead of congratulatory couplets from elders, hung two extremely long and narrow strips of white silk, swaying slightly in the draft blowing through the hall.

Zhao Yuankui did not come out to perform the wedding bows, and his position was substituted by a pageboy holding an ancestral tablet.

Zhao Yuankui's name was neatly engraved on the tablet, the ink still fresh, and if one got close, a very faint scent of pine smoke could be smelled.

Supported by the matchmaker crones, the bride bowed three times to the tablet, the pearl curtains of her Phoenix coronet remaining unlifted the entire time, while the observing Zhao Family members stood on both sides watching silently, without applause, without congratulations, only the steward shouting "The ceremony is concluded" three times extremely quickly.

By the time they entered the bridal chamber, the night had already grown extremely deep.

The bridal chamber was set in a detached side room deep within the Zhao residence; two white lanterns hung at the courtyard entrance, reflecting each other with the red double-happiness characters pasted on the bridal chamber's window lattice.

The matchmaker crones supported the bride into the room, made her sit on the edge of the bed, then lowered their heads and backed out, bolting the door from the outside.

The bridal chamber was extremely quiet, with only a pair of dragon-and-Phoenix celebratory candles slowly burning on the candlestick, the candle tears flowing down along the candle body, accumulating into a small pool of warm red wax on the copper candlestick.

The candlelight reflected onto the bed curtains, dyeing the red gauze curtains embroidered with the pattern of a hundred children into an extremely deep dark red.

The bride sat on the edge of the bed, the red bridal veil still draped over her head, unmoving. Her hands rested on her knees, her ten fingers gripping the hem of her wedding gown so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

The pearl curtains of the Phoenix coronet swayed slightly in the candlelight, their shadows falling upon the back of her hand like a string of pinned cocoons.

The tendons in her legs had been severed; she couldn't run.

Furthermore, if she somehow ran away, her elderly parents at home would likely suffer catastrophe.

Lying on the bed was that ashen Zhao Yuankui; tonight, she could only spend the night with this dead person.

Inside the newlywed room, a chilly aura slowly rose, not knowing whether it was from the cold night or something else.

In an extremely dilapidated adobe house in the western part of the city, Old Man Chen and his wife sat facing each other by the kitchen stove.

The fire in the stove had long since gone out, and no lamp was lit in the room; only a small patch of moonlight filtering through the window illuminated the thickly calloused hands of the two people.

The tear stains on their Faces had already dried, forming extremely faint and thin lines across skin full of weathered scars.

The two of them did not speak; all the words that should have been said tonight had been exhausted, and the tears that should have been shed had dried up.

Only a hollow numbness of not knowing why they were alive remained.

Just as the moonlight began to slowly shift toward the other side of the window lattice, that extremely old wooden door was suddenly knocked three times.

Extremely light and extremely restrained, as if the person knocking was afraid of waking up those already asleep inside the house, yet had to knock.

Old Man Chen raised his head, his cloudy eyes widening slightly in the darkness.

His wife clenched his cuff tightly without speaking.

The knocking sounded three more times.

Thump.

Thump, thump.

A strange bickering sound came from outside the door.

"I told you that damn Spiritual Qi skateboard of yours is no good! Who is going to take us in entering the city this late?!"

"Stop talking bullshit! Without my skateboard, we wouldn't need to knock, but do you think you could have reached Fengle City by tomorrow morning?!"

"You two stop arguing and ask about the situation inside first."

Hearing that they were living people, the elderly couple wondered, given such a late-night visit, could they be malicious servants from Master Zhao's household?

These three people didn't sound like good people at all.

In the end, the old man's extreme fear transformed into a surge of anger.

At worst, it was just death!

They took my daughter away and now they want this old man's life as well—I'll fight you to the death!

The elderly couple tremblingly yanked the door open.

Standing outside the door were three lavishly dressed people with strange tones.

One wore a head veil, one was dressed like a noble Young Master, and one had a Face as stiff as a puppet.

"Old man, um... truly sorry, the three of us are travelers wandering outside, and since it's too late to enter the city and there are no inns, could we lodge here for the night?"

"Of course, we won't stay for free; we'll pay."