I Am A Husband Curser, And You Are A Wife Curser. - Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Helplessness

Before Yang Tongchuan could fully grasp the situation, he was on horseback, following Head Constable Wang out the door.

That morning, a report had come in: late last night, Lin Yujun had stabbed Master Lin. His life was currently hanging in the balance.

“A daughter stabbed her father?” Yang Tongchuan was shocked.

“Children are but debts from a previous life,” Wang sighed. When he received the news, he couldn’t fathom how a young woman could successfully wound an old, battle-hardened escort master. “Even though this happened in the neighboring county, I suspect it’s connected to the Dong Xingzhi case we’re investigating. Follow me and let’s take a look.”

By the time the party arrived at the Lin estate in the afternoon, Master Lin was still unconscious. Lin Yujun had already been taken to the local yamen. The Lin family remained tight-lipped about the night’s events, so Wang had no choice but to take Yang to the local jail.

After exchanging formalities with the local officials, they found a delirious Lin Yujun in the cells. The constables had interrogated the servants brought in with her. According to them, the Master had planned to send the young mistress away to live elsewhere for a time, but she refused to go. During the conflict, she grabbed a ceremonial saber from the Master’s room, held it to her own throat, and threatened to kill herself if he forced her away. When the Master stepped forward to snatch the blade, the action triggered her; she turned the blade and stabbed her own father—multiple times. It took the stable boys, hearing the commotion, to rush in and restrain her.

“This woman is absolutely mad,” the head jailer remarked. Having seen many prisoners feign insanity, he knew the difference. “Since she arrived, she’s been muttering: ‘You all bully me, why do you always bully me?’ It’s highly likely her mind is simply broken.”

“Let me question her. She’s linked to a homicide in my county,” Wang said, sliding a coin purse into the jailer’s hand.

“Go ahead. She’s already got so many lice she won’t feel the bites anyway,” the jailer replied, taking the money and leaving.

Wang and Yang entered the cell. Lin Yujun was still whispering to herself: “Why? Why do you all bully me?”

“Tongchuan, you ask her,” Wang said. Looking at his old friend’s child, he found he couldn’t bring himself to speak.

“Alright.”

Under Yang Tongchuan’s questioning, the full narrative of Dong Xingzhi’s death finally came together.

Ever since returning to her parents’ home, Lin Yujun had actually been waiting for Dong Xingzhi to come and bow his head to her. Instead, she received news that her husband’s concubine was pregnant. She was livid. When her husband finally arrived to fetch her, she made another discovery: he didn’t just sleep with women and gers; he didn’t even spare the young male servants around him. He had even brought a “bed-warming” servant along on the trip to collect her.

Lin Yujun felt she had suffered a supreme humiliation; all her sincerity had been fed to the dogs. In a fit of rage, she had tried to beat the servant who “seduced” her husband to death. She was only stopped at the last moment by Master Lin and Dong Xingzhi.

Over the past year, the Lin family’s escort business and the Dong family’s merchant business had become deeply intertwined. With the Dongs’ help, Master Lin’s business was doing better than ever. Although the scandal of their marriage had once made the Lin family a local laughingstock, this son-in-law was undeniably more capable than Yang Tongchuan. Master Lin’s attitude had shifted; instead of defending his daughter, he scolded her in front of her husband.

This caused Lin Yujun to snap, smashing everything in the room. Dong Xingzhi then suggested she stay to calm down for a few days while he sold his current stock and bought tea, promising to return and take her back to the border. Master Lin promised he would discipline her.

But everyone underestimated her madness. The moment Dong Xingzhi left, Lin Yujun followed in disguise. She even checked into the room right next to his using a false identity. She had originally intended to give her husband a “surprise,” only to hear him call for a prostitute. Using the eavesdropping skills common among the family’s escort guards, she heard everything—every sound from the bed, and every foul word Dong Xingzhi uttered.

Her heart constricted with pain. Dong Xingzhi had treated the prostitute as if she were Lin Yujun, using the most poisonous, debased language to insult his wife.

“He called me an insatiable bitch… said someone like me would find bliss even if tossed to the military camp followers… said even the cheapest old widow at the border wasn’t as loose as I was…” Lin Yujun looked at Yang Tongchuan with hollow eyes. Her memory seemed fractured, as if she had already suppressed certain parts of the trauma.

Yang Tongchuan felt a pang of pity. Though he hated her for what she had done to him, he never imagined her life would become so wretched.

“Yang Tongchuan, you know I’m not like that, right? I’m not that kind of person,” she grabbed his arm, shaking it desperately as if trying to prove her worth.

“How did you kill him?” Yang asked. He suddenly realized the aphrodisiac incense hadn’t just affected Dong Xingzhi; its ingredients were likely affecting her as well. Her madness was probably exacerbated by those fumes.

“I didn’t kill him. I only helped him,” she laughed, a sound more hideous than crying.

“How did you help him?” Yang asked gently, trying not to trigger her.

“He couldn’t perform anymore. Even the incense wasn’t helping. The woman he was biting just cried and cried… it broke my heart. So, during the day when the room was empty, I swapped his wine for unrefined fuzi (aconite) wine. That stuff is incredibly potent. Then I doubled the concentration of the incense. He thought he was cured, but little did he know that with that combination, even a eunuch would be more capable than him. Hahaha! It’s too funny.” She began to describe the details with a chilling mirth.

“The bed just kept shaking. Shaking for so long. My husband was so happy; he even asked the woman if he was powerful or not.” As she spoke, her face flushed, her breathing quickened, and she even began to pull at her clothes.

“Don’t!” Yang held her down to stop her. This was a prison; if she acted this way, she would be preyed upon.

“Hahaha! He was so powerful! So powerful, why didn’t he just go and die?” Her laughter vanished. Her features twisted with rage, and the corner of her mouth pulled into a sneer. “It’s good he’s dead. Now he’s settled. He can never go behind my back to find other women again. He can only stay with me. Only me.” Her words became nonsensical, swinging between weeping and laughing. She even began to mistake Yang for Dong Xingzhi.

“Am I good? Tell me, am I good? I’m so good… why couldn’t you be better to me? Why?” She lunged at Yang Tongchuan, trying to unbuckle his belt. Yang dodged desperately, and it took Head Constable Wang’s help to pull them apart.

Fortunately, word came that Master Lin had woken up. He insisted that the wound on his stomach was an accident—he had stabbed himself by mistake—and that it had nothing to do with Lin Yujun.

With Wang acting as a guarantor and paying the “fees” provided by the Lin family, Lin Yujun was released into their custody. She couldn’t return to the Lin home; currently, she was still a prime suspect in Dong’s death. She had to be taken back to Changxing County. Being kept in Wang’s jail was, ironically, the only way to ensure her safety.

When Dong Xingsheng heard about his sister-in-law, he caused a scene at the yamen, accusing them of protecting a murderer and threatening to appeal to the Prefectural Government. Eventually, the County Magistrate stepped in to pacify him.

Soon, it was discovered that Lin Yujun was pregnant. Calculating the days, it was impossible for the child to be Dong Xingzhi’s. However, the law stated that even a female murderer could not be executed while pregnant; she had to wait until three months after the child was born.

Once Master Lin could leave his bed, he sought out Dong Xingsheng for a day of secret negotiations. No one knew the terms of their agreement. However, Xingsheng dropped his plan to appeal and announced he would take his brother’s body back to the border for burial.

Lin Yujun was detained for “accidental death” pending sentencing. But because of her pregnancy, her life was, for now, spared. Everything seemed almost too perfectly orchestrated.

When Dong Xingsheng came to the morgue to collect his brother’s remains, Yang Tongchuan saw no grief in the man’s eyes. In fact, upon seeing his brother’s gruesome state, there was a faint, almost imperceptible upward curve at the corner of Xingsheng’s mouth.