HLnovel Chapter 245 The Truth Comes Out
Chapter 245 The Truth Comes Out
Chapter 245 The Truth Comes Out
Wang Bao watched Zhao Yuanwai's hypocritical actions from behind, and felt that this was the perfect opportunity to kill him. He secretly reached into a cloth bag wrapped around his waist and grabbed the poisonous snake that Zhao had hidden inside.
After Master Zhao got up, he pretended to help him up, but when no one was paying attention, he quickly pressed the fangs of the venomous snake onto Master Zhao's arm.
The wealthy Zhao was already in excruciating pain in his back, and the agony of the snake bite was completely ignored. He didn't even notice Wang Bao's movements. He let out a breath and waved to the two guards:
"Come here and bury him."
The change occurred at this time—
Just as Master Zhao finished speaking, his body suddenly trembled violently, his eyes widened in horror and disbelief, and he raised his hand to turn around and grab Wang Bao, but his lips quickly turned purple, and a trickle of black blood flowed from the corner of his mouth. In an instant, he died!
Wang Bao let out a feigned scream of terror, forcefully shoved Zhao Yuanwai aside, took two large steps back, and shouted, "A ghost! That female ghost killed our master!"
Master Zhao's body fell face down on the rotting corpse, dying suddenly and unexpectedly.
This scene terrified the matchmaker and the two guards from the other courtyard. They retreated in panic, so much so that no one noticed a small, greenish-white snake rapidly crawling away from Master Zhao's body.
"It's not my fault! It was that Master Zhao who tricked me into coming here! He saw how beautiful you were and wanted to have some fun with you. It was all his idea and his fault! Don't come looking for me!" The matchmaker thought there really was a ghost and pointed at the dead Master Zhao in terror, speaking to the air around her.
"So you all killed her together!"
Suddenly, a chilling female voice rang out from nowhere. The matchmaker, thinking it was a ghost, cried out "A ghost!" twice, then fainted from fright, her eyes rolling back in her head, her crotch soaked with sweat.
"Who! Who's playing tricks here!" The matchmaker's two guards, however, remained alert, raising their shovels and warily surveying their surroundings.
At that moment, a figure seemed to descend from the sky and landed in the forest, quickly defeating the matchmaker's guards. Wang Bao recognized who it was and immediately sensed something was wrong. He turned to run, but his feet were suddenly bound by something extremely cold, firmly pinning him to the spot.
"You've colluded to use dirty tricks to harm innocent women, causing countless deaths. Today, none of you will escape!"
Two figures walked slowly from outside the forest. The one in front was Ye Pianran, who was wearing a green gauze dress and a veil on her face, while Min'er followed behind her with a disappointed and still frightened expression.
When Wang Bao saw Min'er, his expression changed drastically, and he blurted out, "Min'er!"
Min'er was slightly taken aback, glanced at him, and then quickly turned her face away, taking a step back to hide behind Ye Lingyue.
Ye Pianran walked to the front of the dug pit, coldly surveyed her surroundings, her gaze lightly sweeping over the matchmaker, the guards, and Wang Bao, before finally landing on the rotting corpse wrapped in a shroud, and she sighed heavily.
They were too late after all. Xue Ling was still... sigh.
Just now, after Master Zhao and Wang Bao left the Zhao residence, she and Ye Lingyue followed Min'er at a distance until they arrived at the villa, where they watched as Xue Ling's body was pulled from the pond.
Actually, when she was at the Zhao residence, she noticed that Master Zhao and Wang Bao were always vague and unwilling to reveal Xue Ling's whereabouts, so she already had a guess in her heart, but she never dared to confirm that guess.
She never imagined that there would be such people in this world who would use all sorts of means to force women into prostitution, just to satisfy their own desires.
The wealthy Zhao was betrayed by his confidant and poisoned by Wang Bao and Min'er. In the end, he was bitten to death by Wang Bao with a poisonous snake, which can be considered as fulfilling the saying "karma is retribution, and he died a worthy death".
But... now that Xue Ling is dead, how can she explain this to that scholar Wang? Scholar Wang had already lost all will to live because he was separated from his wife. If he knew what Xue Ling had gone through, he would probably follow his wife to his death.
Wang Bao was tightly bound by the Spirit Abyss Vine and couldn't move at all. Seeing Ye Pianran just standing there coldly staring at Zhao Yuanwai's corpse, and Min'er standing behind Ye Lingyue without saying a word, he felt very uneasy. He swallowed hard and couldn't help but speak up:
"Miss...the divine healer..."
"This girl's name is Xue Ling. She is the wife of a scholar surnamed Wang. The couple is deeply in love and has come to the capital to seek a living. Their hearts are full of hope and expectation for the future. Who would have thought that you would ruin it like this?"
Ye Pianran spoke, her tone growing increasingly sharp:
"Your master is greedy for life and lustful. He has nine wives and concubines at home but is not satisfied. He also has affairs outside, causing trouble and ruining other people's families, ruining other people's marriages, and killing other people. He is truly guilty of heinous crimes! And you, not only aided and abetted him, helping him to harm countless young girls, but also poisoned people in an attempt to seize other people's property. You are also guilty of unforgivable crimes!"
Wang Bao's face turned pale upon hearing this, and he clenched his fists tightly, as if trying to defend himself.
"In your eyes, are women merely playthings for you to manipulate at will?" Ye Pianran sneered, silencing him. "You keep telling Min'er that you will give her a good life, but perhaps when you actually seize that Zhao family's wealth, you will make her disappear from this world forever, just like you did with Xue Ling?"
Wang Bao's face darkened further when Ye Pianran saw through his thoughts. Min'er observed his reaction, feeling a chill run through her.
"Tell me, how did you kill Xue Ling?" Ye Pianran said coldly.
After struggling internally, Wang Bao realized he couldn't escape, so he gave up resisting and recounted the whole story.
Half a month ago, Master Zhao took a liking to Min'er at a tavern and plotted to marry her as a concubine. However, Min'er and Wang Bao fell in love, so they conspired to obtain a drug called "Female Pleasure" and poisoned Master Zhao. After being poisoned, Master Zhao felt unwell and could not consummate his marriage with Min'er, which made him very angry. One day, while strolling in the West Market, he encountered Xue Ling. Overwhelmed by lust, he took advantage of Xue Ling's presence alone in the cloth shop and had a matchmaker drug her and bring her to this detached courtyard, intending to force himself on her. Just then, Xue Ling woke up and resisted fiercely. In a fit of rage, Master Zhao smashed a vase over Xue Ling's head, killing her on the spot.
Even after she died, Master Zhao still wouldn't let her go. He cruelly desecrated her corpse, took away her valuables, and finally, together with the matchmaker, tied large stones to her body and sank her into a pond at the foot of the mountain.
After returning home, Zhao Yuanwai's back was covered with itchy and painful pustules. Subsequently, every time Zhao Yuanwai had a lustful thought, the pustules on his back would become more severe, until he could no longer bear it and sent someone to seek medical help from Liu Luluo, which was when the affair was exposed.
Everything seemed unrelated, but they were all tightly intertwined. If one step was missed, Xue Ling's whereabouts would never be found, and she would forever sink in that unknown pond, enveloped by the cold lake water, never to be reborn.
Ye Pianran's series of tasks has now come to an end, with only one final step remaining—informing Wang Shusheng of Wangjiang Tower about Xue Ling's whereabouts.
However, such an outcome is perhaps too heavy and cruel.
"Have you noticed anything unusual?"
"There they are! I see someone!"
Just then, a commotion of voices suddenly came from down the mountain. Wang Bao was overjoyed, thinking that perhaps the guards from the villa had noticed something was wrong and came looking for him. But Ye Pianran immediately poured cold water on his hopes.
"I reported to the authorities on my way here, so it should be the yamen runners from Shuntian Prefecture who have arrived."
As soon as she finished speaking, Feng Ling, the Prefect of Shuntian Prefecture, led a group of constables dressed in red and black striped uniforms and barged in. Upon seeing the rotting corpse lying on the ground and the body of Master Zhao, Feng Ling's expression immediately changed, and he shouted:
"There has been a murder here. Immediately cordon off this area!"