They Didn’t Deserve To Live

Everything had happened too quickly. Liu Zhenghao’s heart was racing and his mind was filled with excitement. The desire to spill it all was bursting out of him, but he had been wary earlier.

However, Wen Yuansi’s expression was a normal one. Nobody who was trying to trick him into a confession would look like this.

Besides…

He had his father!

His father had managed to cover up everything despite how many women he had killed, so telling someone in a private room at a teahouse couldn’t hurt.

Liu Zhenghao looked confident and was finally relaxed for once as he broke into a completely unreserved smile. “I didn’t know that you would be into something like that, Magistrate Wen.”

How to describe this smile…

A well brought up aristocratic young man perfectly packaged in elegance and politeness had suddenly revealed his fangs, like a deep forest where the sun could no longer be seen. The surface of the pond turned dark, but you quickly realize it wasn’t water at all. It was a swamp and the black, sticky mud started moving to suddenly reveal the head of a monster. The monster has emotionless, yellow pupils and its sharp teeth has reddish remains of the last thing it had eaten.

It was cold, wicked and stank.

Even the air in the room seemed a little gross and sticky now.

Wen Yuansi had attained his goal and was relieved, but he wasn’t done here, so he had to endure the awful atmosphere of the room even if he felt like throwing up.

In order to encourage Liu Zhenghao to talk, he poured Liu Zhenghao a cup of tea and widened his smile to make himself look like he was really a big fan of the other man. “Mr. Liu is really an intelligent man…”

Liu Zhenghao picked up the teacup, took a sip and snorted. “If you ask me, I’d say the officials are stupid Is that Zhao Zhi really from the royal family? No wonder the emperor has given up on him and sent him all the way out here. Those women are just cheap sluts selling their bodies, so why does he bother taking this so seriously?”

“Seriously though,” he leaned closer to Wen Yuansi and spoke in a low and deliberate voice, “these guys are never going to get me. Scapegoats like Liu Sui? I’ve got plenty more to spare.”

Wen Yuansi pretended to be curious. “Why do you always pick courtesans?”

“They’re young. They’re only in their teens, yet they’re so shameless. They can’t sleep if they don’t spend their day seducing men or fucking a few at night. As long as you have money, you just need to look at them and they’ll come crawling to you, and you can do anything you want to them…”

Liu Zhenghao’s expression darkened as he said these things. “How could such women deserve to live?”

Wen Yuansi recalled Song Caitang’s autopsy reports…

It was true that every victim had been quite young. The youngest was 12 or 13, while the oldest was just 20 or so. The most recent ones too. Wenxiang was only 19, while Yuetao… was only 15.

They were at such a lovely age, yet their fates were so tragic. They had done their best to survive this world and they could have had a bright and happy future. But because they ran into Liu Zhenghao, all their hopes for the future were dashed.

The environment here forced people to mature early, but few of these women chose to work at a brothel. They were sold to one.

Liu Zhenghao did not need a response from Wen Yuansi, and he didn’t notice the change in Wen Yuansi’s expression. He smiled as he continued to soak himself in his thoughts.

“They didn’t deserve to live.”

“I was helping them to break free, to get rid of their sins, to get back into the cycle of reincarnation as a clean and pure soul. They should be thanking me!”

“All of them were so boring. They’d just get scared, start screaming, and keep pleading for mercy… Gosh, women are seriously so useless…”

Liu Zhenghao talked about the courtesans he had killed in the past in an extremely condescending and sarcastic tone of voice, and only suddenly grew excited when he started talking about the most recent killings.

“After more than ten years, I finally met one that was interesting.”

He started talking about Wenxiang.

“Actually, I had my eye on Yuetao. She was such a slut – she was only 15, yet her butt and chest had grown to such a size. She had a butterfly hairpin in her hair and wore a sheer dress with butterflies, and she danced so shamelessly, it gave one the urge to just pin her down and fuck her hard.”

“The Double Seventh Festival was a good day.”

“But Yuetao didn’t come. Wenxiang came instead.”

Liu Zhenghao sounded a little disappointed when he talked about how he felt at that point, “I’m a little picky, so when the person I’d targeted didn’t come, I decided against killing someone that night… but Wenxiang was really interesting. She was challenging me.”

“I come to this area about twice a year, and I know about the rumors among the courtesans. I didn’t bother myself with the rumors, but Wenxiang clearly took them seriously. Not only did she take them seriously, but for some reason, she actually suspected me. I don’t know how she came to this conclusion, but since she dared to suspect me, she had to pay the price for doing so.”

Liu Zhenghao swirled the teacup in his hands and narrowed his eyes slightly.

His father could protect him from everything, but it was best that as few people as possible knew about this. He knew his limits.

“I noticed how she kept trying to sound me out, like a bold rat trying to secretly tug at a cat’s whiskers… it was so adorable, I decided to help her a little and help her have more fun.”

“She thought I didn’t suspect a thing and she was very cautious, but actually, I already knew what she was doing and was just pretending not to know. Leading her in a different direction was so easy.”

Liu Zhenghao looked a little smug, “I just dropped a couple of hints while she was resting and she really believed me. After that, she immediately turned all her attention to Zheng Kanghui, and even wrote a note to him that said she had feelings for him and wanted to meet him in secret.”

“Unfortunately, while Zheng Kanghui did get the message about her feelings, her note about meeting him in secret didn’t get to him. It got stuck with me. To make her happy, I went along with whatever she wanted and responded on behalf of Zheng Kanghui with the venue and time.”

“She was very passionate in bed that night, and once everything had calmed down again, she wanted to leave to meet with Zheng Kanghui.”

After relishing that memory for a while, his expression grew serious again. “I teased her for a while, then pretended to fall asleep. She called out to me twice and thought that I was asleep when I didn’t respond, so she quickly got changed and left. After she was gone, I slowly got up to get my clothes on, and used a shortcut to get to the venue earlier than her.”

“The expression she had when she got to the venue and saw me there… you wouldn’t be able to imagine it.”

Just thinking about it made Liu Zhenghao instantly excited. Wenxiang’s expression was filled with shock, horror, disbelief…

She had been even cuter than a rat trapped beneath a cat’s paws!

Liu Zhenghao rubbed his palms. “She was so much fun, I could think about her for the next ten years!”

“Wenxiang was not like the other girls before her. She was very obstinate, and even when she was screaming from the pain and barely conscious anymore, she refused to plead with me and even dared me to kill her… she knew very well that once she got in bed with me, she was going to get killed!”

“This game was really fun… she wasn’t the one who caught my eye initially, yet she managed to make me so happy, so excited.”

Liu Zhenghao shut his eyes as though he was reminiscing. “She was very special, so I couldn’t help but treat her with care. When I put those earrings on for her, I even avoided making her bleed and was very gentle. I even felt some regret after the whole thing and couldn’t bear to part with her even after Liu Sui came to clean everything up. I’d killed her too quickly.”

“Such a courtesan deserves to be played with for a long, long time…”

The room fell silent again after Liu Zhenghao said those smug words.

What an animal! Wen Yuansi pursed his lips tightly and gripped his teacup as he did his best to hide his true emotions.

At the same time, the young lady practicing her tea making skills had stopped too. She turned around and got up. It was Song Caitang.

The window was wide open and she wasn’t sitting too far from them, so she had heard everything Liu Zhenghao said.

She slowly approached the window.

Her knowledge of criminal psychology was not very deep, but there was one thing she remembered very clearly. Killers liked showing off, they liked to tell others about what they’d done. Regardless of whether they were psychos or normal people, their psyche was unique and there was always something about them that they didn’t want others to know about.

If they could find it, use it, and create the right environment, they would definitely be able to break through this man’s defenses!

Wen Yuansi continued leading Liu Zhenghao to say more. His voice was quiet, “What about Yuetao?”

“This courtesan was very interesting too.”

Liu Zhenghao finished the tea in his cup and started fiddling with it. “I thought she was a spineless, timid and bulliable girl. To my surprise, she turned out to be a loyal one.”

“Her relationship with that Wenxiang was very strange. They were top courtesans from the same brothel, so while they did compete and dislike each other, there was also some sort of concern for each other. She hated the fact that Wenxiang existed, but she was very unhappy when Wenxiang died.”

“She wanted to avenge Wenxiang and I could tell immediately… She was really too young and everything was written on her face. She was like an open book.”

As he spoke, he started chuckling. “During the Ghost Festival event, she came with much bravery and fury, and yeah, she looked a little aggrieved too. She was like a female warrior… a female warrior in a pink dress.”

“Perhaps it was because Wenxiang had left a note for Zheng Kanghui, so it was as though Wenxiang had marked him, and she went straight for him.”

Liu Zhenghao frowned. “It was a little troublesome, but I wasn’t too bothered.”

“That was until I drew a portrait of her.”

“She stared at the painting and suddenly started crying, saying that it reminded her of someone she knew.”

Liu Zhenghao sounded a little confused at this point, “I don’t know what was going through her mind, but after that, her attitude changed. She entertained Zheng Kanghui merely because it was her job, but she kept throwing me glances and even left me a note.”

“That was when I knew I must not let her go.”

“I was the host of this event and I had full control of the venue. Even if Yuetao managed to sneak out of the party under everyone’s nose, I would be able to find a way to make sure she couldn’t leave the premises.”

“But this woman didn’t do that. She secretly arranged to meet me late that night, served Zheng Kanghui deftly and came for me.”

“She had prepared a knife and some poison, as if I’m an idiot or something… since she was so disobedient, I had to make sure I took special care of her!”

Liu Zhenghao looked fairly proud of himself as he talked about what happened. “She was really horrified when she realized she couldn’t kill me. Her face was as white as a sheet and looked soooo pitiful. I told her that I’d seen right through her and that there was no way she could possibly kill me.”

“I thought she was another obstinate one and was looking forward to a good time, and even thanked the heavens for giving me someone like her, but to my dismay, she started crying immediately… She was seriously scared and totally caved in. This was the first time I’d met someone who accepted reality so quickly in all my years of doing this. She felt the pain and screamed as well, but she started pleading right at the start and even tried to placate me in hope that I wouldn’t kill her…”

Liu Zhenghao laughed louder and louder, and even had to cover his mouth to calm himself down. “What a naïve little girl! She still hoped that I would let her off even until her last moments…”

“I put on Wenxiang’s earrings for her, so I think she should be very happy.”

“She was such a loyal friend, and now, they’re reunited in the nether world. I’m sure she must be very thankful to me.”

After saying all that, Liu Zhenghao exhaled deeply.

“I’m such a good person.”