No Regrets

Madam Sun was at the peak of her anger, her hand raised and armed with a golden hairpin, ready to kill Auntie Huang.

Pak! Madam Wang marched up to her and hit the golden hairpin out of her hand.

“What I mean is, if you kill her, you’re breaking the law. But as for me, I don’t even need to give a reason for dealing with her. Do you understand now, Madam Sun?”

Madam Sun stared at her in shock.

Auntie Huang’s heart trembled. “Wait, First Madam, don’t be rash now…”

“Shut up!” Madam Wang glared at Auntie Huang as though she was literally staring daggers at the older woman. Her glare was so frosty.

Madam Sun finally got it. “You… you seriously dealt with that old witch…”

Madam Wang pursed her lips tightly for a long time before speaking, “I never regret anything I decide to do.”

Madam Sun suddenly burst out laughing like she had gone mad, then covered her face as she suddenly burst into tears.

“I had always thought you were nothing but a useless ball of dough, since you listened to everything the old woman said, and you did everything your husband told you to do. I thought you had no mind of your own, no backbone at all… I thought you became the person in charge of this household full of servants by just being obedient…”

“Looks like I was wrong.”

“You’ve turned out to be the one with the most guts in this family!”

Madam Sun was a straightforward person. She was direct about who she loved and who she hated, and she did not beat around the bush even when it came to admitting her mistakes. She went down on her knees and kowtowed to Madam Wang. “Sis, I was wrong in the way I thought about you and treated you before this, so I deeply apologize for that! I’m not calling you sister-in-law because I don’t want to have anything to do with the Mi family, I hope you don’t think I’m being rude.”

“Thank you for everything you’ve done. Whether it was for me or not, I’ve gained greatly from it. If you need anything, feel free to approach me! I will do anything to help you, even if it puts my life at risk! But when it comes to this family, I’m afraid I really can’t stay here anymore. You know where you can find me…”

After she finished saying that, she pulled a handkerchief out from her pocket and wiped her face.

It was as though the chaos she had created had helped her to vent all her frustrations and her rational side had returned. She stopped holding onto Auntie Huang, and walked away after throwing her one last hateful glare.

When she reached Wen Yuansi, she stopped and knelt down again.

“Auntie Huang is not innocent, but my fight with her is just a useless display of my anger. It will not help me to find out who killed my daughter, and I can only vent my frustrations on her… I know that you are a very intelligent and capable man, while Miss Song has skilful hands and can speak for the dead like nobody else can. I beg both of you to find the killer, to seek justice for my daughter!”

“I don’t have anything to offer in gratitude and the only thing I can do is to put up longevity tablets for both of you. I will burn incense at the tablets in the morning and at night as I pray that your lives will be smooth and all things will go the way you want them to!”

Wen Yuansi replied, “Cracking cases is my job. You really don’t have to go to this extent.”

Song Caitang helped Madam Sun to her feet. “We will find the killer. I promise.”

Madam Sun’s eyes brimmed with tears as she bowed again to thank them, then she walked out of the Mi family residence without taking anything with her.

Madam Wang invited Wen Yuansi and Song Caitang to the living room to have tea, saying that she would come back to talk to them after she had settled her household matters.

It didn’t really make any difference to them.

They were already in the house, so there was no way they could avoid seeing or hearing what was about to happen next.

The ancestral hall within the residence quietened down again, but the tension in the air was rather oppressive. It felt like someone was going to die.

The butler came over to ask what Madam Wang wanted to do next. “First Madam, what do you think…”

Madam Wang narrowed her eyes as she glared ruthlessly at Auntie Huang. “Get me a good bludgeon.”

The butler was taken aback. “A bl-bludgeon?”

Madam Wang stared at him steely. “Didn’t I state what I wanted very clearly?”

“You did! I will prepare one right now!”

The middle-aged butler felt his heart pound with fear. His scalp felt numb too.

The Madam Wang he knew had always been gentle and calm, and had never lost her temper. Why did he feel so afraid when she stared at him like that?

Was this really the Madam Wang he knew? Or was this what she was really like?

The butler’s heart palpitated as he quickly got servants to bring the stool and bludgeon used for execution.

Madam Wang was actually still there when he came back.

Did she actually want to watch?

Auntie Huang’s face was covered in wounds and the other servants held her down so that she couldn’t move. She shuddered all over when she saw the stool and bludgeon.

“First Madam… you can’t… you can’t do this to me! If not for me, you wouldn’t have found out about this! Please, spare me! Spare me!”

Madam Wang’s glare was frosty. “And you thought I would be grateful to you for that? You found it fun to manipulate your masters, didn’t you?”

“My daughter had gone missing for so many years. Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Why did you only tell me four years ago that it was Madam Liang who was behind it?”

Madam Sun was right about one thing. The Mi family had plenty of daughters, so why did the old lady only hate these two granddaughters so much that she planned their disappearance and sold them off? Just because they were of the right age?

There was definitely a problem with Auntie Huang. Auntie Huang herself had an agenda.

Madam Wang had made it this far in life and had been in charge of this household for many years now. She was very sharp and she had all kinds of terrible things. When it came to infighting within the household, sometimes, a small thing that one did not think much of could be enough to shake the entire household, or eventually lead to major disaster.

In the past, she had been blinded by hate.

Auntie Huang was clever enough to use that to her advantage, to make use of Madam Wang to kill Madam Liang.

But Madam Wang really did not regret murdering Madam Liang. She had lost more than one daughter because of Madam Liang.

Auntie Huang must have had her reasons for doing what she did. Perhaps it was a reason worthy of pity, perhaps it was a reason deserving of hate. Either way, Madam Wang didn’t want to try and find out. She was tired of wondering why.

After staring at Auntie Huang very seriously for a while, she had already realized that this woman was the one who was really behind all this.

Her grief from losing her daughter was no longer keeping her from seeing the bigger picture.

“Proceed,” she gave the command quietly and allowed her servants to push Auntie Huang against the stool.

Auntie Huang turned as pale as a sheet and seemed unable to accept reality, “No… you can’t do this, you can’t do this…”

“I can.” Madam Wang’s lips curled into a mocking smile. “Have you forgotten? I am your master. Your indenture is in my hands, so I can kill you or I can torture you as I please. I just have to give the instruction. Why can’t I do this?”

“No, no… AHH!” Auntie Huang cried out in pain, but she couldn’t dodge the beating, so she began to scream at Madam Wang, “You deserved it! All of you deserved it! That old woman merely helped me once, and when she saw that I was smart and capable, she wanted me to sell myself to her as a slave! I’m poor, but I’m human! How could I possibly be willing to leave my children to become a servant for life?! But you and Madam Sun obediently took instructions from that old woman and watched me write my own indenture… I could not be reunited with my children, so neither can any of you! HAHAHA! If not for the fact that the old woman was so good at torturing her servants and continued doing so despite being so ill, I wouldn’t have told you what happened and goad you into killing her! After all, I love watching her torture her daughters-in-law!”

Madam Wang remained completely unmoved, as though none of these words had affected her emotionally. Her gaze remained frosty as she said, “I’m not like you. I prefer to kill my enemies with my own hands.”

Auntie Huang knew that Madam Wang wasn’t going to let her off.

She was definitely going to die right here!

“Save me… please… spare me… I won’t do it again…”

Her speech was garbled and she trembled all over as she could only plead and scream in pain again and again.

Madam Wang held a cup of tea in her hands and quietly looked down at the tea leaves floating in the water inside.

It was rather ironic, really. She was a huge victim of the hierarchical difference of this society. In the Mi family, the men were like heavenly beings, while the women were dirt. Women could not raise any objections and had no choice but to obey every instruction from the men. Yet, today, she was using that same higher and lower status to oppress her servant, to beat Auntie Huang to death, to watch as life drained out of her body…

Pak!

Pak!

The sound of the wooden bludgeon was loud as it landed heavily on the old woman’s body. It was heavy and cruel.

Fresh blood began to spread across her clothes, dripping onto the ground and eventually flowing freely.

The color shone brightly in the sun. That was a symbol of life.

Madam Wang’s expression didn’t flinch at all even as she watched Auntie Huang scream in pain until her screams grew softer and softer and her breathing finally ceased.

To her, this was nothing. Her children had suffered so much worse.

The butler checked Auntie Huang for any signs of breathing, then reported to Madam Wang, “First Madam, she’s gone.”

Madam Wang looked at the stool covered in blood, then put down the teacup in her hand. “Get a rug, roll the body up and throw it out.”

“Yes, First Madam,” replied the butler as a faithful servant to his master. “So, what about you…”

“The Mis will not want a murderer in the family.”

Worse still, she had killed the mother of the head of the household.

“In that case…”

“Don’t worry about it. It will pass.”

Madam Wang smiled faintly as she stood up. Her expression was her usual gentle one again. “Alright then, I’ll head back to my room now. I don’t need anything else, so clear up the mess and you can go back to whatever you need to do.”

The butler scratched his head. He couldn’t understand what she was saying.

But it didn’t matter. He was only a servant, so he didn’t have to worry about what happened between his masters.

“Get a rug! Clear the place!” The butler instructed the other servants to tidy up the area and deal with Auntie Huang’s corpse as instructed.

As for Madam Wang, she returned to her room and never came out again.

It had been barely 15 minutes. When Madam Wang’s head maid came in with a fresh pot of tea, she found Madam Wang sprawled on the table, a dagger sticking out of her chest and blood everywhere. Madam Wang had also left a suicide note she had written herself.

The maid shrieked in horror and ran to get help.

By the time Wen Yuansi and Song Caitang heard the commotion and rushed over, it was already too late. Madam Wang had stabbed herself directly in the heart. She had lost too much blood and her heart and lungs had completely stopped working. She couldn’t be saved.

The dagger was stabbed very deeply into her chest, but Madam Wang had a relieved look on her face, as though it hadn’t hurt to kill herself at all.

There were bodyguards on standby at all times outside the courtyard where the head of the household and his family lived, yet not a single person heard anything. Madam Wang was so determined to die, she didn’t even let out a single sound.

Her suicide note contained a detailed description of her crime.

She admitted to killing Madam Liang, when she started thinking about doing it, why she wanted to kill Madam Liang, how long she had been plotting, what happened that fateful night, what agreement she had with Auntie Huang, how she dealt with everything after her mother-in-law’s death and so on.

Everything was written in great detail.

She did not regret committing murder. Madam Liang deserved to die. A life for a life – it was only right for her to die as a punishment for what she had done. Madam Wang knew this day would come and she had been waiting for it to arrive.

The Mis had very strict family rules and they would not want a daughter-in-law with any faults. She didn’t want to live anymore either, and she just hoped that her actions would not implicate any younger members of the family.

Madam Wang hadn’t remained calm the whole way. Her handwriting was shaky toward the end of the note, so she must have gotten quite emotional.

She wrote that women had done nothing wrong. It was the way the world worked that was wrong. In her next life, she didn’t want to have daughters anymore, and she didn’t want to have sons anymore either. In fact, she didn’t want to be a woman or a man. She didn’t want to be reincarnated as a human.

She would rather be an animal. Animals were kinder than humans.

At least lambs were humble enough to kneel when breastfeeding, and crows fed their mothers after they had matured.

As for the men of this society, they only saw women as correct, obedient and noble when they did everything in accordance with their will. Even if their own mother went against their wishes, they could choose to disown her because obeying her would be considered foolish.

The rules of this world were entirely in favor of the men!

Madam Wang’s suicide note was both calm and angry at the same time, and it shocked everyone in the house so hard that nobody knew what to say. The wife of the youngest brother, Madam Liu, broke down in tears. She cried so hard, she forgot to cover the large birthmark on her face.

Song Caitang let out a long, long sigh.

Tragedies as a result of every generation and its culture existed in every world.

Just then, the menfolk of the family returned. They marched in noisily in time to see Madam Wang’s body and suicide note.

All of them fell silent.

Except for the second brother, Mi Xiaoli. He tugged at his older brother’s sleeve and looked very anxious, “Eldest Brother, Eldest Brother, my wife, Madam Sun, has run away from home! Please send someone to look for her, please! She has a short temper and can be very obstinate, so I’m afraid if we take too long to talk to her, she’d decide never to come back…”

“It’s best that she doesn’t come back!”

Mi Xiaowen flung his younger brother’s hand away. “The Mi family can’t afford to do something so embarrassing, so since she’s willing to repudiate herself, let her be!”

“All of you, listen up! If she doesn’t come back, good. We’ll take it that such a person never existed before in the Mi family. But if she dares to come back, make sure the gates are shut and none of you are to let her in!”

“Yes, First Master,” responded the butler before asking about Madam Wang, “Then about First Madam…”

Mi Xiaowen narrowed his eyes, his glare filled with rage. “First Madam? What First Madam? The family does not have a daughter-in-law who would kill her mother-in-law!”

As the men of the family rushed home, news about what was going on at home was sent to them constantly, so before they could even reach their doorstep, they had already found out about what happened, including Madam Sun’s angry fit, Madam Wang bludgeoning Auntie Huang to death, and the fact that Madam Wang had admitted to her own crime.

Mi Xiaowen couldn’t believe she did that. As long as she did not admit to doing it, there was a way to salvage the situation. And not only that – she ended up killing herself too!

“Wrap her body up and send her back to the Wangs! She is not to be buried with the rest of my family!”

Mi Xiaowen had a nasty look on his face as each sentence he uttered was more cruel than the last.

She was not to be buried with the rest of the Mi family.

That was a big thing.

Once a woman was married, she was no longer part of that family, so she could not be buried with that family. If she couldn’t be buried with her husband’s family as well, then she would be considered a homeless ghost!

She was already dead. Did he really have to go this far?

It was true that Madam Wang was wrong for murdering her mother-in-law, but Madam Liang was already severely ill and wouldn’t have lasted much longer, and her character was also questionable… Everyone present was more sympathetic toward the long suffering Madam Wang. Not allowing her body to be buried with the rest of the Mi family was simply too cruel.

Also, the Wang family was probably going to raise a ruckus if her body was sent back to them.

Someone nudged Mi Gaojie to get him to say something.

He was Madam Wang’s son, after all.

But Mi Gaojie was still shellshocked from learning that both Wenxiang and Yuetao were his younger sisters.

What in the world had he done…

He had wanted to sleep with his cousin and treated his biological sister as his enemy!

And now, his biological mother was dead and was not allowed to be buried with the rest of the family… and the reason was that his mother had killed his grandmother!

It was a little too much for him to accept. He fell to his knees and wept, “Father, you can’t do this… it’s wrong to do this, it’s wrong…”

But Mi Xiaowen refused to listen to anybody. He pushed his son aside and said, “I said she will not be buried with the family, so she will not! Men! Clean up this mess and send her body back to the Wangs!”

What a mess.

Wen Yuansi and Song Caitang exchanged sad and helpless glances.

They had cracked the case, but they couldn’t fix the hearts of people.

What happened to the family after this was their business. They were in no position to interfere.

The truth of the matter was already clear. After taking Madam Wang’s suicide note as evidence, Wen Yuansi and Song Caitang left the house.

Song Caitang was silent the whole way. Wen Yuansi sighed quietly, then asked in a low and gentle voice, “Are you upset?”

She nodded, then shook her head.

“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t emotionally affected at all. As a coroner, I can clearly feel how despised my role is. But there’s nothing I can do about it, and it seems the only thing I can do about it is sigh.”

Wen Yuansi said, “Just like how there’s yin and yang in the world, there are rules everywhere and nobody is indispensable. We can’t be too extreme about anything. There’s no reason why a particular person or group should be at the top all the time. Men have objectified women for their own convenience, so they will get their retribution someday.”

“Madam Wang has turned out to be the boldest and most responsible person in the Mi family.”

“What a pity.”

A sudden gust of strong wind sent half a piece of paper that someone had burned for the dead flying toward them. It floated in midair for a while before falling again, like a lifeless butterfly.