The Crown and The Rose
Chapter 67: Punishment

Chapter 67: Punishment

The Crown

Her torso has been ripped apart from the middle. It’s almost like her legs had been spread so far that her torso tore apart. All her innards are rolling out, blood is everywhere. The air is heavy with the unbearable stench of raw blood. Only her face is the only thing that is lookable. She is still wearing a red cotton dress that is barely covering her necessary bits.

My stomach rolls and I want to throw up. Sick hits the back of my throat but I gulp it down. I can’t get sick. I look around for any sign of Erick and Rosalia.

Erick is the one who is standing closest to me. He looks beyond disgusted. Rosalia is standing a bit far away and the heavy hood is hiding her face from me. But the way her lips are twitching, I can tell that he is about to get sick.

"Erick... can you handle the crowd?" I whisper to him.

I don’t need to look at him as he gives me a tight nod and starts to work to make the crowd scatter. I stare at the body for a few beats long. I look at the wound more closely, even though doing so makes my eyes hurt and my stomach lurch.

I then look at the brothel that the corpse is in front of. It’s a large and nice building. There are a lot of women standing by the entrance. There is a look of dread, fear, and horror on their faces. Each of them better looking than the last. They all are wearing almost the same dress as the corpse.

It is evident that the corpse—the woman was one of them when she was alive. I need to ask them a few things. But first, I need to calm Rosalia down. She looks beyond terrified.

I approach her slowly, trying not to scare her. Zhen Xin jumps down from my shoulder and approaches the corpse, for better inspection.

"Rose?" I say softly, "Are you okay?"

She immediately clutches my clothes and hides behind me, "I-I can’t look... it’s so..."

"I understand..." I cup her face and make her look at me, my thumb creasing her cheek soothingly, "You are fine, alright? It’s nothing. Just another Monday for me. Don’t worry. I will have Zhen Xin drop you to the passage, okay?" I smile at her warmly.

She nods but then something dawns on her, "How is a cat supposed to drop me there?"

So she didn’t realize it sooner?

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. She never reacted when Zhen Xin spoke. She never reacted when Erick said that he could give us a ride. But she is responding now? Of all time? I think I might need to question her sanity at this point.

"It is not a time to explain what I meant, Rose." I try to cut her curious eyes off with a shake of my head. "Zhen Xin will take you home. And I don’t want to see you standing around here for a minute longer."

Zhen Xin returns from his small search and I look down at her tiny form, "Found anything?"

He shakes his head, "There is no hint on the victim’s body, Your Highness."

"I see." I acknowledge him, "Xin-Xin, can you take her back to the passage?"

Zhen Xin doesn’t look all that willing to leave my side but nods nonetheless, "As Your Highness says."

"Wait, wait, wait, did this cat just talk?!" Rosalia’s eyebrows are touching the sky at this point and I rub my temple in exasperation.

"Can we not talk about that, Your Highness?" I regard her with a pissed look on my face, she is making me lose my nerves where I hold all my patients, "Just go with him and don’t ask him unnecessary questions that might annoy him. He may eat you alive." And I am not kidding when I am saying this. No matter how divine Zhen Xin is, he is still a tiger. And I don’t know how long a tiger can hold his patience around someone like Rosalia Red.

Rosalia looks like she understands the business so she nods, her expression turning a bit sour. I give Zhen Xin a light nod and they start to walk away from the scene.

The crowd is also dissipating thanks to Erick, he knows what he is doing. He reapproaches me once his work is done.

"Lush, I have cleared the area." He says.

"Good." I approach the corpse and crouch down beside it to inspect it more closely. She looks like she saw something very terrifying before her death, All the blood has drained out of her body from the wound. Now the question is, how did she get to the middle of the streets? How could no one have noticed when the culprit brought her here? "Erick, can you talk to the brothel over there?" I point directly to the brothel across from us, "She worked there. Can you bring the master?"

"I will try, Lush." He acknowledges shortly and approaches the brothel.

While he is at it, I brows over the other things that might have happened in my mind. There is blood splattered around her head. And all the bones in her body are broken. The back of her head is severely wounded as well. It is like someone dropped her from a height. My grief has my heart in its fists. I wonder what the girl might have done to be punished like this...

I look over at the brothel building. It is surely tall but I am not sure it is tall enough to break all the bones in your body if you fall from there.

"You summoned me, dear sir?" The woman who approaches me with Erick looks quite in grief but she is trying to cover it up with a polite smile. I drink her in for a bit.

She is tall, and surprisingly beautiful for her age. She is wearing a decent dress but it is showing too much of her cleavage.

"Do you know her?" I don’t need to point at the corpse to make her understand what I am talking about.

"Yes..." Her eyes well up, "She worked at my brothel."