Not This Girl

After a long, harsh winter, the rare beam of sunshine that shone in made the usually gloomy coffin home seem warmer. Even the cloth sheets covering the dead bodies didn’t seem as dreary as before.

The young woman standing in front of the whole row of cloth sheets and dead bodies also looked gentler. Her eyes were bright and filled with elegance and intelligence. The outer glow around her slim body was ethereal and soft, making her look approachable.

But First Madam Wu’s heart was beating like a war drum. She was shaken and afraid, and she felt as though thunder was echoing in her ears. She couldn’t utter a word for a long, long time.

Should she still insist on getting this woman as a wife for her idiot son?

If Song Caitang married into the family, would she really be able to run the family?

She couldn’t make a decision, so Song Caitang had to help.

“First Madam Wu has the reputation of being a kind and compassionate person. It’s a pity…the word ‘compassion’ is written on her face, but nobody knows what she does in secret.”

“Your family is in the undertaker business, and it’s a small family that has become successful very recently, yet you don’t lack money at all. You’re on good terms with the various aristocratic families of the city, and you’ve been helping them to handle all sorts of nasty cases. All it’s taken is a little bit of coffin money – or maybe no coffin – and a few bribes, and you’ve gotten yourselves a wonderful reputation along with some money…”

As she spoke, she kept walking. The light coming through the windows seemed to follow her, sometimes shining on the side of her hair, sometimes on her forehead, and sometimes on her dress.

“This ‘dead people money’ seems to be easy money to make. The masters and mistresses of these people don’t dare to let anybody know about what happened, so everything is kept safely under wraps. As if nobody will ever know.”

“But I’ve found out now.”

“Not only have I found out about this, but I have a hunch that as you, First Madam Wu, go about making friends within this circle, you do more than just handle some dead bodies for them…”

“Am I right to say that?”

Her voice was soft and gentle, but the implication of her words was severe. First Madam Wu’s expression darkened with every point she made, and by the time she made her last point, First Madam Wu wished she could shut this woman up, “Don’t spout nonsense like that if you don’t have proof!”

Song Caitang stopped suddenly in her footsteps and turned back to look at her with a raised eyebrow and a slight smile on her face, “You said…I don’t have proof?”

Her smile sent shivers down First Madam Wu’s back, making the older woman afraid that she would pull back yet another cloth and show more evidence and reveal more truths!

Song Caitang looked down at her fingers and smiled. “After visiting the lord of Hades, I did gain some knowledge. He saw that I was talented, so he gave me a few pointers, which have turned out to be so useful. My vision has been brightened, and I see things much more clearly now.”

Oh my god! Can she stop smiling like that?! With her back against that pile of corpses, the more she smiles, the scarier she is!

First Madam Wu’s teeth chattered. She didn’t dare to see Song Caitang as just another young woman!

“You know, the only problem with me is that I don’t have a very good temperament, and I can’t tolerate unnecessary suffering for long. When I feel like I’ve been unfairly treated, my heart will feel like bursting from trying to hold it in, and I’d feel a terrible urge to tell someone about it. These matters we have spoken about today,” Song Caitang pointed at the corpses one after another and continued in a frosty voice, “Might not affect the aristocrats that much even if they are made known. They are well able to pay others to shut up, and the rumors will stop spreading. And even if they can’t stop the rumors, at worst, their reputation will be a little tarnished. But what about you, First Madam Wu? If you become known for not getting the work done properly, I’m afraid…you might never get yourself out of this rut.”

She approached First Madam Wu. An intelligent gleam flickered in her pretty eyes. “Are you sure you still want your son to marry me?”

First Madam Wu felt something coming up her throat, and she nearly spat blood out. “You’re a jinx! Nobody will want you!”

No! Not this girl! She was never going to let her son marry this woman!

First Madam Wu had barely gotten a word in, and this girl had already been able to make such a scene and even threaten her. If she were to marry into the family, she would destroy the family instead of running it!

“You don’t want me, but I’m not going to take this lying down!” Song Caitang’s voice suddenly increased in volume.

She came even closer to First Madam Wu. She raised her fine brows and stared menacingly at the older woman. “I’m someone with parents who love me dearly and protected me all my life. I’ve never suffered such injustice before! I’ve been bullied! I’m not going to just let this go!”

“Then…then…what do you want?” First Madam Wu did not realize how weak her voice had become and how much fear and wariness it contained.

“I’m a frail and weak young lady. For bullying me like this, you ought to compensate me. And if you’re compensating me, it ought to be a sincere one.”

She smiled faintly and said, “Let’s see. 300 to 500 pieces of silver isn’t too little, but 3,000 to 5,000 pieces of silver wouldn’t be too much, either. What do you think?”

“Dream on!” First Madam Wu became extremely agitated. She glared at Song Caitang like she was about to bite her head off and nearly spat saliva out with her words.

The maid next to her, Yinxing, watched this scene unfold before her with wide eyes. It took a long time to snap out of her shock.

Was this woman…really the First Madam she knew?

This was a woman who remained calm and steady regardless of what business dealings she was handling or which upper-class woman she was facing. She had never been so undignified!

Qingqiao, on the other hand, was in admiration of Song Caitang.

She looked at her employer with such excitement she nearly cupped her face and squealed.

Goodness, gracious meeeee! Is this really my Young Mistress?

It’s true that good times come after the hard ones! My Young Mistress turns out to be so amazing!

When she had that blood clot and behaved like an idiot, nobody would ever have thought she could be this incredible!

She’s amazing! She’s so smart! She’s so… Qingqiao couldn’t find any more words. Everything about her was great. Qingqiao was determined to cling to Song Caitang for the rest of her life!

First Madam Wu was used to getting as much money as she could from other people, but getting money out of her was as difficult as sending a rocket into space. It was as if you were attempting to get a slice of her flesh or drinking her blood.

She was never going to give any money to this shameless little bitch!

She told herself that she must not give in, no matter how hard Song Caitang pushed her.

But her guess was wrong.

Song Caitang didn’t push her. After she had said her piece and saw that First Madam Wu wasn’t going to agree to her terms, she didn’t continue threatening the older woman and turned to leave. “Well, I’ll leave you to think about it. I’ll give you about five days. If I don’t see what I’m expecting to see, then I’ll start to feel like I’ve been unfairly treated. And If I feel this way for too long, then…it’s going to be hard to control this mouth of mine.”

“Qingqiao!”

“Coming!” The round-faced little maid quickly ran to catch up with her Young Mistress.

But after taking just two steps, Song Caitang suddenly stopped again and said in a loud voice without bothering to turn around, “Also, First Madam Wu now knows that I’ve gone to visit hell before, and I’m especially interested in the matters of the dead, so I hope you can tell your subordinates that this coffin home… I’ll drop by whenever I want to!”

With that, she picked up her skirt and walked out of the door.

First Madam Wu stared at Song Caitang’s back view and was in disbelief for a while. Had she walked out just like that?

She didn’t want the money anymore?

No, it wasn’t that she didn’t want money. She wanted First Madam Wu to decide how much to give.

If she gave too much, then Song Caitang was going to accept it and laugh at her happily. If she gave too little, then Song Caitang was going to sell her out!

First Madam Wu suddenly started to regret being so nasty earlier. Even if it cost her more, at the very least, she had had the chance to discuss and settle for an exact amount. But now, Song Caitang had left. How much should she give?!

Merchants hated having to deal with such ambiguous bills!

Just thinking about all these things made her feel all stuffy inside. She glared especially hard at Qingqiao and suddenly really hated the maid.

If not for the fact that she was trying to arrange for her son’s marriage and killing someone would be bad luck, she would have killed this loyal maid who protected her Young Mistress so fiercely by now! If that maid had died, then nobody would have stopped her from making a half-dazed Song Caitang marry her son. Once they consummated their marriage, everything would have been fixed in place.

By that time, even if Song Caitang recovered, she already belonged to her husband and his home, so she wouldn’t rebel like this!

But of course, it was too late now. Thinking about what could have been was pointless.

First Madam Wu’s first reaction was to blame everything else. Heaven was playing a trick on her, or the people around her didn’t do enough to make things work out. She was almost there! She could have avoided the disaster today!

Just then, some men carried in a fresh corpse and happened to pass by Song Caitang.

Perhaps the atmosphere around here was too tense and too cold, so the men carrying the body felt hesitant. Their footsteps wavered slightly, and they accidentally knocked into the door frame.

The impact was a little too great for the body on the hard stretcher, so the white cloth over the body moved slightly, and an arm fell out.

“Ah!” Qingqiao was frightened out of her wits and quickly ran to hide behind Song Caitang.

Song Caitang glanced at the body, then patted Qingqiao’s back before taking her hand in hers and walking on. She chuckled and said, “You don’t have to be afraid of the dead. They can’t scheme. They can’t bring harm to others or kill others. The living are more frightening…”

Qingqiao’s teeth chattered as she trembled. “That’s because you’ve met with the lord of Hades, and you know everything, and you can see everything clearly. I…I…I haven’t seen him before…”

As they continued chatting, they went further and further away, and their voices faded until it was completely silent.

The men carrying the body were still stuck at the entrance. They saw First Madam Wu standing there with a stern look on her face, but because they were carrying a corpse in, it was difficult for them to bow to her, yet it seemed rude not to do so, so they just stood where they were.

First Madam Wu’s chest heaved as she furrowed her brows. Anger filled her eyes.

PAK! She suddenly turned and slapped Yinxing fiercely. Wasn’t this girl usually very sharp in such awkward situations? Why wasn’t she saying anything? Was it fun to watch her employer embarrass herself?

Yinxing’s nose wrinkled up, and she nearly burst into tears. She cautiously pointed at an empty table for corpses and said, “Put…put it down…”

First Madam Wu rolled her eyes at her, scoffed, then turned and walked out.

The older lady and her maid had seen the whole thing from outside the window.

Once the entire place was quiet again and everyone had left, the maid started patting her chest like she had just snapped out of her daze.

“Oh my goodness gracious me! Where did this young lady come from? Her eyes are so sharp, and her heart is so strong!”

The older lady looked down at the cloths covering all the bodies on the tables in the coffin home and said nonchalantly, “It’s better to be strong. Then you won’t get bullied.”

The maid knew that the older lady resonated with the young woman earlier, and she also knew what she was thinking about, so she tried to lighten up the atmosphere. “The most important part is her capabilities. That was truly incredible. Is one really able to do such things after paying Hades a visit?”

The older lady laughed.

“You’re really good at this,” She turned and looked at the maid with a stern expression and bright eyes, “Go around and find out who that young woman was.”