TGCFNM -Chapter 55 You Are Not Pitiful

The onlooking crowd didn’t know who started it, but suddenly a low whimper broke out, slowly swelling into a chorus of crying. The fear that had been building seemed ready to release all at once.

Even Magistrate Zhao couldn’t help but lift his sleeve to wipe his tears, overcome by grief.

Ten lives… ten!

Because of one family’s selfishness, because of two people’s self-interest, so many lives had been ruined. It would not have been excessive to tear these two apart horse-and-horse style!

“What do you know!” Sun Qingqing suddenly screamed sharply, crying out, “People like you, when have you ever known how hard our lives have been? When have you ever known how pitiful my life has been… Because I have dwarfism, my parents despise me, Sun Miao’er pities me, they think I bring shame to the Sun family, they don’t dare let me marry, they just want to wear me down until I die… No one is more pitiful than me, no one…”

“You are not pitiful.” Chu Ling’s expression turned serious. “You place yourself in the position of victim, of the pitiful one, and then start maliciously judging everyone else. You hate everyone.”

“From the very moment you decided to harm others, you ceased being a pitiful person. You became a killer.” Chu Ling said angrily. “And you are not the only one sick, but you are the only one who killed. Plainly speaking, you are a villain. Stop making excuses for yourself. I have no interest in the murderer’s pitiful past.”

Sun Qingqing froze, staring at Chu Ling’s cold, deathlike face, belatedly realizing fear.

Su He calmly set down his brush and spoke, “My lord, the record is complete.”

Chu Ling walked behind the desk and once again struck the judgment block. Glancing at the ghost of Zhong Hong beside him, she loudly declared, “Bring forth the criminal: A-Zhong!”

Zhong Hong’s face went pale; blood and tears began to flow uncontrollably.

Chu Ling let out a light sigh and ordered A-Zhong to be brought forward.

A-Zhong struggled angrily, gritting his teeth as he shouted, “Master Chu, are you seeking personal revenge? Just because I questioned you twice, you would take my life? Where is the law? Where is justice?”

Chu Ling chuckled with anger, a bitter, mocking smile on her face. “I would like to ask too… where is the law, where is justice?”

Blacksmith Zhong hurried over, seeing A-Zhong being led forward. He bowed to Chu Ling and said, “Master Chu, A-Zhong is young and inexperienced. Only because of my daughter’s death did he repeatedly provoke you and act disrespectfully. Please, spare him this once.”

Chu Ling sighed, her gaze tinged with sadness. “Blacksmith Zhong, when you plead for mercy on behalf of someone who killed your daughter, did you ever consider whether your daughter’s soul would rest uneasily?”

Blacksmith Zhong opened his mouth but could only stare blankly at A-Zhong, then at Chu Ling. “Master Chu… A-Zhong wouldn’t… A-Zhong and Hongjie grew up together… A-Zhong, he…”

Chu Ling struck the judgment block again, decisively having the blacksmith pulled aside. “According to Chen’s father’s statement, there was one night when A-Zhong delivered a knife to the butcher. By chance, he ran into the sneaky Chen Huai and followed him all the way home.”

At the time, Chen’s father, trying to take the blame for Chen Huai, gave a jumbled account—but Chu Ling immediately caught the inconsistency and uncovered the truth.

This means A-Zhong may have witnessed Chen Huai committing murder and escaping, but chose to conceal it—and even learned from Chen Huai how to harm others.

Wan Sanjin produced a gray, dusty pouch, covering his mouth and nose to show it. “A-Zhong received this pouch from Chen Huai. Inside was the drug used to render people unconscious. It’s not poison, so it leaves no residue in the body, which is why even the coroner couldn’t detect it.”

Chu Ling glanced at the pouch, then at the clothes A-Zhong was wearing. “How should I put this… cleverness punished by cleverness?”

When A-Zhong saw the pouch, his expression flickered, and then he sank to the ground in panic.

Chu Ling said, “The day you were keeping watch over the corpse, I noticed the clothes you were wearing. It was a gray long jacket, and the fabric wasn’t bad. But the parts of your pants that showed when you walked—around the legs and knees—had patches. And since you were adopted by Blacksmith Zhong, you normally live frugally.”

“For someone so frugal to have a decent piece of clothing, it obviously wasn’t bought by a blacksmith who only knows ironwork. Most likely, it was made from fabric purchased by Miss Hong. The fabric on the pouch you got from Chen Huai worried you—it might be traced—so you covered it with this gray cloth.”

Wan Sanjin stepped toward Blacksmith Zhong. “This thing doesn’t do much for a man. Take a careful look: isn’t this fabric the same as the kind your daughter bought for A-Zhong?”

Blacksmith Zhong took it with trembling hands, rubbing the cloth in disbelief through tearful eyes. He examined it over and over, then stared fixedly at A-Zhong. “Tell me—was it you? Was it really you?!”

A-Zhong closed his eyes, clenching his fists, and lowered his head in pain.

“I grew up with Sister Hong, and I treated Master like a father…”

“I don’t have a disciple like you!” Blacksmith Zhong cried.

A-Zhong bit his lips tightly and said in anguish, “I… I’ve liked Sister Hong since I was a child. So when Master said he would find her a husband and suggested it be me, I… I was really happy. But… but Sister Hong didn’t want to… no matter what I said or pleaded, she refused.”

Chu Ling sneered coldly. “What you feared more was that after Miss Hong married, it would affect your current position, right?”

A-Zhong’s hands shook as he cried, tears streaming down his face, looking at Blacksmith Zhong. “That day, Master was going to a wedding banquet. I persuaded him to go, saying I would stay home to watch over Sister Hong. Then I used the excuse that Master would be too drunk to come back to go and fetch her. I lured Sister Hong to the riverbank, and then… then I took advantage of her…”

“I wanted Sister Hong to admit her feelings for me, but she woke up. After she woke, she struggled to push me away. She kept shouting. I was scared—I was so scared—so I covered her mouth. I told her not to shout. But she didn’t listen… she didn’t listen, so… I smothered her to death.”

Chu Ling said, “After you smothered Miss Hong, worried about being discovered, you returned her to her home and staged the scene to look like Chen Huai did it. You imitated the crime to frame Chen Huai, diverting our attention, and tried to escape.”

A-Zhong bowed his head deeply, no longer able to say anything.

Chu Ling took a deep breath and looked at Chen Huai, who had long since fallen silent from lack of air, then glanced at the stunned Sun Qingqing and A-Zhong. She struck the judgment gavel, unwilling to waste any more time.

“I hereby pronounce judgment: criminal Chen Huai, having consecutively taken nine lives, a monstrous criminal; with eyewitnesses and evidence complete, sentenced to death by decapitation!”

“Accomplice Sun Qingqing, who killed her sister Sun Miao’er and conspired with Chen Huai in the murder of nine people in total; with eyewitnesses and evidence complete, sentenced to death by hanging!”

“Criminal A-Zhong, who bullied and killed Zhong Hong; with eyewitnesses and evidence complete, sentenced to death by hanging!”

“Effective immediately, carry out the sentences!”

Chu Ling’s cold voice pronounced the judgment. Even one more second with them made her feel sick.

“An eye for an eye!” someone among the villagers shouted.

“Kill them! Kill them! An eye for an eye!”

“An eye for an eye! You shall die a terrible death! Die a terrible death!”