I Am A Husband Curser, And You Are A Wife Curser. - Chapter 22

Chapter 22: Self-Preservation

The leader of the visiting constables was surnamed Xiao; Yang Tongchuan addressed him as Head Constable Xiao. That evening, the County Magistrate arranged a banquet at a local restaurant, instructing Head Constable Wang to host the visitors. Yang Tongchuan accompanied them.

Through the dinner, the origins of the dismemberment case came to light.

Head Constable Xiao’s team had recently recovered other parts of female corpses, all found aboard merchant ships at various docks. “So far, besides the head found in your county, we’ve found a left leg and half of an upper torso. The rest are still being tracked. Our county’s docks serve as a cargo transit hub with far too many ships passing through; I fear the remaining parts will be hard to find,” Xiao explained. He had been chasing the case for some time with no real leads.

“Has the victim been identified?” Head Constable Wang asked.

“Likely a government courtesan Guanji. Our county only has one report of a missing person recently, and it’s a missing government courtesan,” Xiao said, trailing off. The implication was clear: her identity was likely complicated.

After dinner, Yang Tongchuan escorted Xiao’s team to an inn. On his walk home, he pondered the case. Guanji were typically women from families of officials or commoners whose assets were seized due to crimes; they were taken over by the state. They were not common prostitutes; they were managed by the government, highly trained, and reserved for serving high-ranking officials.

I cannot touch this case.

Yang’s intuition told him there was a massive problem lurking behind this.

As he approached his home, he noticed that despite the late hour, his elder brother was sitting at the entrance waiting. Candles were lit in every room, making the courtyard unusually bright.

“What happened?” Yang Tongchuan realized something was wrong.

“You’re finally back. Let’s talk inside.” His brother scanned the surroundings before pulling him through the gate.

“Er-lang, you’re back!” Mother Yang rushed toward him the moment she saw him.

“Mother, let’s speak in the room.”

In the side room where his parents stayed, Yang found Xiangxi and his sister-in-law present as well. The entire family was huddled in this small space.

“What is going on?” Yang first checked on Xiangxi. Aside from being a bit shaken, he was fine.

“Don’t worry, let me tell you,” Yang Tongshan said. As the eldest, he had been the family’s backbone tonight. After dinner, they had been chatting in the main hall. Father Yang had even brought out several characters he’d researched to name the unborn baby. Suddenly, there was a heavy thump. A bloody burlap sack had been tossed into the courtyard.

Mother Yang’s legs had turned to jelly. Tongshan had summoned his courage to open the sack. Inside was a large yellow dog, its belly sliced open—a gruesome sight.

“That’s the big yellow dog from the freight docks,” Xiangxi whispered. He had fed that dog many times while working the stall with his brother, so he recognized it instantly.

When Tongshan poured the carcass out, he found words written on the dog’s skin in blood: “Do Not Interfere.”

Tongshan realized immediately that Er-lang had stumbled into trouble. They had sent Yanzi to the yamen, but she couldn’t find him. Tongshan gathered everyone in the small room and kept watch outside.

“Where is the dog now?” Yang Tongchuan asked, chilled by how quickly someone had tracked him to his home.

“In the backyard. I’ll take you.”

Yang Tongchuan examined the carcass. He found that the dog hadn’t just been disemboweled; its limbs and neck had been snapped. The manner of death bore a haunting resemblance to the female corpse found at the docks.

“What does this mean?” Tongshan asked, trembling for their safety.

“It’s related to a case I’m on. They’re warning me to mind my own business.” Yang put the dog back into the bag.

“Then what do we do? Are you in danger?” Tongshan, who worked at a pawnshop, had dealt with thugs before, but he was deeply unsettled.

“It’s just a warning; we should be safe for now. Brother, lock the doors. I’m going to Head Constable Wang’s house.”

Yang didn’t dare delay. He slipped out with the bag, carefully avoiding the night-patrol brothers after curfew. Sure enough, the candles were lit at Wang’s house, too. When Yang knocked, he heard the sound of a blade being unsheathed inside.

“Who is it?” “Head Constable, it’s Yang Tongchuan.”

Wang opened the door. Seeing Yang with a bloody sack, he knew the Yang family had received the same “message.” Inside, they compared notes; the situations were identical.

“How do you see this?” Wang asked. He had already moved his wife and children to a back room.

“Could it be some nobleman played someone to death and failed to clean it up?” Yang suggested. He’d seen “beasts” who treated human life like livestock.

“Not necessarily. If that were the case, dismemberment wouldn’t be needed. I’m worried it’s a ‘substitution’ (stealing the beam to replace the pillar),” Wang posited.

Yang’s heart skipped a beat. If someone wanted to rescue a specific government courtesan, they could find a woman of similar build, swap them, and kill the substitute. By dismembering the body and scattering the parts across different counties, it would be nearly impossible to identify the victim with certainty. Given enough time, the case would simply become another cold case.

“What do we do then?”

“We are just small people doing a job for silver,” Wang said grimly. “It’s not worth the lives of our entire families.”

“I understand. I’ll head back then.”

When Yang left, he carried two sacks—his own and the one thrown into Wang’s yard. He found a secluded spot by the river, filled the bags with stones, and sank them. He wasn’t sure if someone was watching from the shadows, but his only goal was to protect his family in this small county.

The next day, Yang picked up Xiao’s team as usual. He escorted them around the docks but remained largely silent throughout. He showed them the files at the yamen with minimal commentary. Head Constable Xiao sensed Yang’s sudden passivity, and though dissatisfied, he couldn’t say much. After a few fruitless days, the visitors departed without even taking the head of the corpse with them.

Only after they left the city gates did Yang Tongchuan’s heart finally settle.