Seeking Truth with a Sword
Chapter 39 - 38: The White Dog

Chapter 39: Chapter 38: The White Dog

"Quick, keep ringing the bell! Nobody is allowed to stop!"

In Sha Tao Village, Zhou Pingchun, sweating profusely, bellowed, commanding the villagers to lift heavy mallets and strike the Haotian Copper Bell repeatedly.

CLANG—CLANG—

The resounding bell echoed vibrantly through the mountains, and a streak of morning light pierced through the dense forest ridges, casting its rays down upon the Human World.

Zhou Pingchun’s pupils abruptly constricted as a group of figures appeared on the distant mountain path. The garrison’s men had returned.

Zhou Pingchun shuddered, bowed deeply, and approached to welcome the party, shouting loudly, "Shangguan, this humble one is guilty, deserving of death a thousand times over! Shangguan entrusted this humble one with the Haotian Bell, but these accursed, ignorant peasants from the backwoods used too much force and knocked the bell off its stand..."

Cheng Juxiu raised his hand to stop Zhou Pingchun from continuing, glanced at the damaged bracket that had held the bell, then turned to look at Li Ang.

Li Ang stepped forward expressionlessly and slowly said, "Zhou Pingchun, do you know who he is?"

Zhou Pingchun followed the direction Li Ang indicated, looking at the child in ragged clothes, sallow and emaciated. His expression turned ugly as he said, "He... he’s from our village, Gan Xiao’er."

"And do you know who the Corpse Evil are?" Li Ang asked, his tone calm. "His parents."

Zhou Pingchun’s face turned various shades of green and purple. Before he could say anything else, the hunter Wang Liubao took several steps forward from the crowd, fell heavily to his knees before Li Ang, tears streaming down his face, and cried out, "Shangguan, it’s all my fault, all my fault!

Four days ago, while I was chopping wood in the mountains, I saw Zhou Pingchun’s white dog lying beside the creek, bitten on the leg by a snake and poisoned to death.

"Zhou Pingchun is always cruel to the tenant farmers in the village, hitting and scolding them at will. If any farmer dares to resist, he sends his household retainers to beat and ransack their homes. I was terrified of him. When I saw his white dog dead, I wanted to turn and leave, but I was just too hungry. All the mountains near Sha Tao Village belong to his family; hunters have to turn over seventy percent of their game to him. I was so hungry that, as if possessed, I took out my knife, sliced open the white dog, cut off half of its meat, and made it look as if it had been killed and eaten by wolves. Then I sneaked back to the village.

"I didn’t expect my cousin, Gan Er, to also be chopping wood in the mountains that day; he discovered the dog’s corpse after I had left. His wife had recently broken her leg. A renowned physician in Yizhou City had treated it, and she was resting in bed. Aside from Zhou Pingchun, everyone in the village is poor. Gan Er’s family barely ate meat from one year to the next. He picked up the remaining scraps of dog meat, planning to take it home for his wife and child, but Zhou Pingchun caught him at the village entrance and pulled the dog meat and fur from his clothes.

"That large white dog was Zhou Pingchun’s treasure, always kept in his courtyard and never let out. Anyone who even glanced at it, even his own son, would get a beating. I don’t know why it ran out and got bitten by a snake that day. Zhou Pingchun brutally beat Gan Er and demanded he find the dog’s body. Gan Er said the dog was already dead when he found it and even showed him the snakebite on its skin. Everyone in the village knows that venomous snakes frequent that particular stream. But Zhou Pingchun was furious and insisted that Gan Er had killed his dog. He had his retainers tie Gan Er up, put him in a pig cage, and drag him through the village on a donkey cart, forcing everyone to come out and watch.

"Gan Er’s wife, dragging her lame leg, knelt on the ground with her son and pleaded with Zhou Pingchun, only to be slapped more than a dozen times. Zhou Pingchun then had Gan Er hung upside down from a tree. He personally burned Gan Er’s hair, smoked his eyes with burning embers, and viciously flogged him with a whip soaked in saltwater, not giving him a single drop of water. I wanted to come out and testify for Gan Er, but I was afraid, Shangguan, truly afraid. Zhou Pingchun is ruthless and harms people without batting an eye. When he tired of the beating, he had Gan Er tied next to a well and left him to bake under the scorching Sun in the peak of summer, forbidding anyone to release him.

"By evening, Gan Er was barely breathing from the torture. He died as soon as he got home. By the time I rushed over, Gan Er’s wife and their son had already hanged themselves. They had no way to live on after offending Zhou Pingchun. My cousin’s wife was dead, but my nephew, Gan Xiao’er, was light and hadn’t died from the hanging yet. I cut him down from the rope. Afraid that Zhou Pingchun would eradicate the entire family and kill him too, I told the villagers that Gan Xiao’er had drowned himself in the river. I personally carried Gan Er and his wife out and buried them. I hid Gan Xiao’er in the mountains, bringing him food at night.

"But the next evening, Gan Xiao’er told me his parents had come back to life, that they had climbed out of the earth..."

"Wang Liubao!!"

A sharp, angry shout interrupted Wang Liubao’s rambling account.

"You worthless dog slave!"

Zhou Pingchun scrambled up from the ground, rushed at Wang Liubao, slapped him viciously twice, and kicked him down. "What nonsense are you spewing?! Did I kill Gan Er? Is there any proof? Who will testify for you? Who?!"

Zhou Pingchun’s cold, savage gaze swept over the assembled villagers. Their faces turned pale, and no one dared to utter a word.

Wang Liubao knelt on the ground, wailing, his sobs echoing through the valley.

"Shangguan," Zhou Pingchun began, turning his head. His expression transformed in an instant, becoming fawning and obsequious as he addressed the astonished and speechless garrison soldiers, "Wang Liubao and Gan Er’s family are relatives. He must be afraid that Gan Er’s family has become demons and will implicate him, so he’s deliberately spouting nonsense to frame me. You, Shangguan, are discerning and just, and will surely clear this humble one’s name..."

CLINK—

The sharp scrape of metal against metal interrupted Zhou Pingchun’s plea.

Li Ang silently drew a Broadsword from the waist of a garrison soldier and walked toward Zhou Pingchun.

Wang Liubao’s wailing cries echoed in his ears, and Li Ang’s own voice resonated in his mind.

’Right, take the rest of the Plaster Powder and hemp cloth home with you.’

’Come back in a month to find me. If I’m not around, just unwrap the plaster and rebandage it yourself. Remember, do it a month later, and don’t wrap it too tight.’

’Also, while your bone is healing, you can eat more fish, shrimp, and eggs.’

’And more meat...’

’In short, eat whatever good food you have.’

Eat more meat,

Eat more meat,

Eat more meat...

Li Ang’s throat tightened. Wielding the heavy Broadsword, he advanced on Zhou Pingchun step by step.

"Shangguan, Shangguan!" Zhou Pingchun, his face deathly pale, retreated step by step, speaking rapidly, "You can’t kill me, Shangguan! I’m innocent! I didn’t kill Gan Er; he died on his own! Gan Er’s wife hanged herself too!"

WHOOSH—

The heavy blade slowly lifted, cleaving through the air.

"Shangguan, I have a lot of money, a lot of money! How much do you want? A thousand strings of coins? Ten thousand? I know many influential people in Yizhou City; we are close friends..."

The Broadsword, raised high above Li Ang’s head, reflected the morning sunlight.

"You can’t kill me!" Zhou Pingchun, sprawled on the ground, shrieked, his face contorted. The almost instinctual fawning expression was finally gone. "The matter hasn’t been investigated! How can you convict me based solely on Wang Liubao’s unsubstantiated claims when nothing is clear?!"

The Broadsword swung down.

"Commandery Princess!" Zhou Pingchun shrieked at the top of his lungs. Finally, the blade stopped.

"That’s Princess Le’an’s dog." Zhou Pingchun’s eyes bulged, bloodshot, as he hoarsely shouted, "Princess Le’an adores rare and valuable breeds of dogs, especially pure white ones without a single fleck of another color. I spent a great deal of money cultivating such a dog and, through connections at the Princess Manor, arranged to send it to her. Everything was settled! We were just waiting another half-month for the dog to grow fatter and more beautiful before sending it to Chang’an. That’s Princess Le’an’s dog, the daughter of a Prince! You can’t kill me! You wouldn’t dare kill me..."

Cheng Juxiu’s and Niu Wenshu’s faces turned extremely grim. Princess Le’an’s father was the Emperor of Yu’s own brother, the ennobled Prince Song.

Killing a man... all for a dog...?

Li Ang’s expression was a mixture of complexity and absurdity. He choked back a breath, slowly lowering the Broadsword.

Zhou Pingchun sighed in relief, a smug smile spreading across his face as he prepared to rise from the ground.

The next second.

SHH—

The sound of a metal blade slicing through a throat cut through the air. Zhou Pingchun stared in disbelief at Li Ang, who had brought the Broadsword down. Dazedly, he lowered his head and glanced at his own throat, slit open by the blade’s tip.

TSST—

Blood spurted out.

Zhou Pingchun frantically raised trembling hands, desperately clutching his throat, but he was utterly unable to stop the torrent of blood that sprayed and gushed from between his fingers.