CH 79

“Father!” Ban Hua flipped off the horse, before Rong Xia could react, a gust of wind swept past him and his fiancee was already a few zhangs away. Rong Xia hurriedly ordered his guards to help Ban family guards closing in on the wooden building from which the flower pot fell.

* 1 zhang 丈 = 3.33 metres.

“Father, are you alright?” Ban Hua tugged Ban Huai’s sleeve, carefully looking him up and down.

“I am fine, I am fine.” Ban Huai haven’t yet processed what had happened, he only reacted after seeing his daughter’s anxious face.

Ban Hua was relieved to hear he was fine. She pulled the whip off her waist, moved up to the building’s door and kicked it hard a few times. A hole appeared on the door, Ban Hua turned to the guards, “Open the door!”

The door was pried open, Ban Hua rushed in with a few guards.

The crowd was intimidated by the smashed door and the grim faces of the guards.

Du Jiu gulped, his eyes moved from the broken door to his master’s slender waist. Had it been his Master who was being kicked, could his lean arms and legs stand it?

“Why are you looking at me?” Rong Xia got off the horse, “Send someone to report to the officials.”

“Yes.” Du Jiu developed a immense deferance towards the future Countess.

“Uncle,” Rong Xia approached Ban Huai, “You must be in shock, aren’t you?”

“I am fine.” Ban Huai had recovered by now. He broke out in cold sweat to see the huge flower pot on the ground. If it had fell on him, this one life of his would have been game over.

Rong Xia let Du Jiu secure the place, while he went to observe the soil in the pot. The soil was loose,  not hardened yet. The pot also looked new, it didn’t look to have been used for a long time.

Keeping flowers required knowledge such as different pots for different flowers. The flowers in the pot were of the cheap and common one, the sort that could be dug out from the fields. But this pot, a bulky one such as this should be around several hundred wens, ordinary people wouldn’t spend this much for a pot.

“Uncle, maybe we need to involve Dalisi.” Rong Xia twisted the soil in the pot, then he stood up and cupped his hands to Ban Huai, “This may not be an accident, but a murder attempt.”

*Dalisi 大理寺 = Court of Judicature and Revision, the central government agency in charge of reviewing judicial proceedings at all administrative levels and singling out the cases for a retrial by court officials or the emperor himself.

“What?” Ban Huai looked at Rong Xia with surprise, “I am just an idle wastrel, what good is it to kill me?”

Rong Xia: ………

Ban family often talked flippantly.

“Whatever the reason is, this can’t be taken lightly.” Rong Xia couldn’t help feeling it lucky that Uncle happened to see them and turned to another direction, otherwise it would have been a bloodbath on the spot.

Rong Xia’s heart shivered to think how close Ban Hua was to her family, he dared not think of how it would have been if the murder attempt had been successful.

“Peng!”

A loud sound resonated from the building. Worrying about Ban Hua, he wanted to step to the building but Ban Huai stretched his hand to stop him.

“Junpo ah,” Ban Huai drily coughed, “This matter, you can leave it to Hua Hua, you don’t need to be there. This child is good in everything, it’s just that once she is angry, she could be a bit rash, so you….”

“Ah!”

A man’s scream was heard, Ban Huai shuddered along with it. At the puzzled face of his future son-in-law, Ban Huai laughed drily twice and turned his head away, pretended that he knew nothing.

Soon after the sounds of clashing weapons came out. Rong Xia knew a fight was going on inside the building but Ban Huai was still restraining him, so he told Du Jiu, “Go take a look.”

“Yes.” Du Jiu gravely stepped around the pot on the ground and ran into the building.

More and more people came crowding the scene, then Capital yamen runners arrived too. Seeing the number of people watching, they drew a rope to surround the small wooden building. The head of the runners had a headache when he saw Ban Huai there, he was about to approach to salute when a howl similar to a pig being killed was heard, it scared him so much that his shoulders trembled.

* Yamen 衙门 = local governmental office in town or region level. They managed local finance and capital works, the judging of civil and criminal cases, and issuing of decrees and policies.

“In there…..” The official cupped his fists to Ban Huai, “May I ask the Duke, are those your guards inside?”

Ban Huai nodded without speaking.

Painful screams came out of the building from time to time, the officials shrunk their necks lamenting that Jingting residence guards deserved to be the descendants of martial artists. With their special method, those who didn’t know would think someone was killing a pig instead of catching assassin.

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When Du Jiu ran into the building, he saw two men behind the counter who looked like the shopkeeper and an attendant, he bent to touch their pulse, good thing they were still alive.

The building were quite old, the floor creaked when stepped on. Turning around a corner, Du Jiu saw someone was rolling down the stairs like a barrel. He moved aside to avoid, the man crashed into a corner next to the stair with a heavy bang, his leg twitched twice and didn’t move anymore.

Du Jiu knelt down to check, that man had strong arms and callused palms, must be a rough worker or a martial artist. His clothing was old and tattered, he did not seem like a professional assassin. The man’s face was bloody and swollen beyond recognition but he was not dead. Yamen runners had come inside, so Du Jiu left him.

More sound heard from upstair so there must be more than one assassin. Du Jiu walked upstairs, another man was lying not far from the stairs, his condition was not much better than the one in ground level. This one was also clothed in tatters, there were whipping wounds on him.

Du Jiu drew a cold breath when he thought about the whip.

Looking around, he saw Ban Hua was heavily whipping a man clothed in grey, this man’s painful screams haven’t subsided yet when Ban Hua stomped, her feet brutally crushed on the man’s unspeakable part.

This time that man didn’t make a sound, either he had fainted or because it was too painful.

Seeming not content yet, Ban Hua kicked him again, then turned her head to another assassin who was the only one left with a voice. Her whip dashed out like an agile snake, it wrapped around that assassin’s neck.

“Speak, who sent you?!” Ban Hua’s pair of red eyes fixed on him, there was no sweet smile on her face.

Du Jiu halted, there was a vague unease feeling. It was probably just his illusion, but currently Fule Junzhu did not look right.

The assassin grabbed his own neck, his face crimson, no word came out.

“Not telling, do you.” Ban Hua swiped her whip, it released the assassin neck. The assassin tried to escape but one of Ban Hua’s guards kicked him.

Ban Hua picked him off the floor and sternly said, “Who sent you to touch my family? It’s fine if you aren’t talking, I’ll just make you regret it your whole life.”

“I…, I’ll say it!” The assassin apparently was not a death soldier, his mates miserable condition had long scared him, he was wishing for a quick death. “We are only street thugs, smoking is recently banned in the Capital, we aren’t doing well so can only picked up this kind of jobs. I was paid to get rid of someone, but we have nothing to do with anything else! Half shichen ago someone told us to wait here for a rich nobleman in a light-coloured robe on a black horse with many guards. If we can do it, we’ll get 100 gold.”

T/N – The raw is 戒烟 = quit smoking. Does it look to be about cigarette? Probably opium or other heavy stuff? 1 shichen = 2 hours.

“Rich nobleman?” Ban Hua laughed coldly, “The life of a Royal Duke worths only 100 gold? Don’t try to fool me with this excuse!”

Since the strange dreams, Ban Hua’s bottomline had been her family’s safety. She could accept the house seized as long as her family was safe, all she wanted was for them to stay well and alive. The attempted murder on her family member today made her lost her mind at once.

Thinking of how her father was almost killed in front of her eyes, Ban Hua wanted to crush these people inch by inch, to let them beg as ‘living is not allowed, yet death is out of reach’. Who cared how a noble miss should look like, who cared how others view her?

The mouths of ten thousands people on earth was not as important as her family.

Screw them all!

“Royal…. Royal Duke?!” The assassin lost all hopes now, the one they were attacking was a Royal Duke? They were told he was just a rich merchant? The person who hired them also said after it was done they could go to the Southern to escape the law.

So they were deceived?

The assassin went limp, after a while, he shouted frantically, “I am telling, I will say everything, please Your Honour spare me.”

“Speak.” Ban Hua threw him to the ground. As her whip was full of blood, she cast it onto the table, a guard picked it up and silently retreated to the side.

The assassin began pouring out what had happened. Roughly, a few days ago someone gave them an order to kill, and today that person said they could make a move, the victim’s clothing and physical appearance was also described.

All of them were low-level thugs who had never been acquainted with any noble person. After taking the deposit, they hid in the wooden building waiting for the victim to pass by, planning to crush him to death with a flower pot.

This was a dumb but effective method. They had carefully planned it, when the victim was crushed to death, everyone’s reaction would be watching first before entering the building to search. People in the Capital loved watching shows, and when there were more and more people ran into the building, they would use this opportunity to come out of hiding and blend with the crowd to disappear.

After calculating so much, the rich old man’s luck was unexpectedly very good. Just one more step, but he suddenly turned around and left. The flower pot was already pushed down, it was too late to withdraw. And on top of that, the guards had reacted very quickly, the blades were out and the building was surrounded, the crowd watching the show couldn’t get anywhere near the building.

Had they known the victim was a prestigious Royal Duke instead of an ordinary rich man, they wouldn’t have picked up the job even for 10,000 gold.

“Junzhu,” Du Jiu was worried that Fule Junzhu was too enraged that she would beat up the only assassin who was still able to speak to unconsciousness, he gathered up the courage to speak, “Yamen runners are here, they are downstairs.”

“This is not something that Yamen can handle, send a report to Dalisi.” Ban Hua wiped her hands with a handkerchief, her voice was shockingly cold. “This should be investigated clearly. If Dalisi can’t do it, I will go to the Palace to beg the Emperor.”

Du Jiu was about to reply when footsteps came from the stairs.

It was familiar to Du Jiu, Master Count’s footsteps.

The wreckage was all over the place, Fule Junzhu’s hair was dishevelled. The uneasy feeling grew heavier.

Master Count…… after seeing this scene, how would he think of Junzhu?

There were plenty of spirited women in the world, but how many were this ruthless?