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Chapter 49.1

Liu Ze backhandedly slapped Zhao Jiahua’s face and said, “Tell the truth!”

With a “slap” sound, Zhao Jiahua’s face turned to the side. The corner of her mouth cracked and cut out a bloody trace.

Zhao Jiahua frowned at the pain, but when she turned her face around, she already had a calm expression. She said flatly: “She is dead. Instead of being brutally killed or sold by you, I let her leave peacefully and painlessly with my own hands.”

“That’s a lie! How could you let her be hurt!” Liu Ze yelled.

“After knowing what you have done, I had nothing to lose.” Zhao Jiahua looked at him coldly. “Mr. Zhao came to look for me, didn’t he? He came back from the dead, and you were surprised he didn’t die, weren’t you?”

Liu Ze was surprised, and he froze for a moment.

Zhao Jiahua continued: “Mr. Zhao did not know the inside story. He only heard that I was married in Zhonglan City and wanted to ask why I did not wait for him, so he came looking for me. When he found Xu Matchmaker, he heard I had given birth to a daughter. Counting the days, he thought it might be his, so he asked the Xu Matchmaker to bring him to the restaurant to see what kind of a man I married, and he hoped to take me away. You pretended to be virtuous and amiable. Then, you promised to take him to see me and ask about my wishes in person, only to have you take him to the gambling house and have the thugs kill him in front of the Xu Matchmaker.”

Liu Ze was stunned, “How do you know all this?”

“Xu Matchmaker was greedy for money. She stripped his body of gold and silver ornaments to pawn them. I saw his ring and waist pendant when I visited the pawn store. Then, I asked about it and knew that it was Xu Matchmaker who pawned them. So I went to ask her.”

Liu Ze sneered: “That woman is a fool.”

“I scared her, and she told me everything. She owed too much money to the gambling house and would lose her hand. You stepped in and saved her, promising to help her pay her debts, only asking her to do some things for you in return. It was to go to Feng’an County to abduct me and convince me to marry you. She was indeed stupid. She didn’t even think that this was a trap.”

“It’s funny. Why did you need to entrap a matchmaker to arrange a marriage? It’s cheaper to pay for one, two, three, even more matchmakers than paying off her gambling debts.”

“No, This was to let her help kill and burn innocent people to keep their mouths shut. You did not stop at that one gambling debt, but again and again, you’ve been coaxing her to go gambling, turning her until she could not get away.”

Liu Ze slightly narrowed his eyes, thinking about the situation: “What else do you know?”

“Not too much. Although Xu Matchmaker was stupid, she was also timid. But even if she did not say it, I have eyes and ears. I can observe, I can think. I just realized that I did not marry an ordinary restaurant owner.”

So that’s all? Liu Ze asked again, “When did this happen?”

“Before the death of Xu Matchmaker. I planned to pull her along to save myself, especially after you learned Yin’er was not your flesh and blood. I felt that I had to do something about it. The way you looked at Yin’er, the hatred you could not conceal. I overheard you discussing with Lou Zhi how to deal with Yin’er when you were drunk.” Zhao Jiahua lowered her eyes and said sadly, “But I haven’t figured out how to lobby Xu Matchmaker. I was not sure about her. You had so much leverage over her in your hands, so I thought I must find leverage over her too. But before I could even start, she suddenly died. After her death, I realized that although I had stayed in Zhonglan City for three years, I was like a bird in a cage. I couldn’t get out. I had no friends and nothing but food and clothing.”

“With enough food or clothing, what more do you want?” Liu Ze punched the wall around her ear and snarled. “You forget that you are just a lowly courtesan. No one else in this world will treat you so well except me. I cared about your reputation and face. I arranged to forge an identity for you. I even gave you a magnificent house to live in. I fed you fine food and let you have servants to serve you. I treated you so well, but you cuckolded me. That’s okay. I’ve already planned to forget about the past. We can have another child. As long as Yin’er is gone, what happened before will be treated as if it never happened.”

“How can it not have happened?” Zhao Jiahua laughed coldly: “The sky is watching! Do you think you don’t have to pay for killing people, and that someone will always clean up after you have done something evil? No matter how lowly I am, I have never forced you to marry me! No matter how lowly I am, I still know how to distinguish between good and evil, beauty and ugliness. But you, you are extremely wrong!”

Liu Ze fiercely reached out with his palm and choked her neck again.

Zhao Jiahua looked him in the eyes and asked, “You want to kill me? If you want to kill me, just do it. Kill me, and I will go to Yellow Springs to reunite with Mr. Zhao and his daughter. I know you will do it sooner or later. After the death of Xu Matchmaker, I thought every day about what I could do. I have no evidence. I feared even if I report to the authorities, you will escape. Then you will turn against me. I wanted to find help but unfortunately couldn’t find it. Until I heard about An Ruochen.”

Liu Ze was so angry that he tightened his palm and asked through clenched teeth, “What did you say to her?”

Zhao Jiahua struggled and grabbed Liu Ze’s wrist with her hand: “Not too much, I know too little. I thought you killed Xu Matchmaker, but I was afraid to have made the wrong guess and mislead her. I was afraid she wouldn’t believe what I said. After all, you look like a good man with helping hands. But I told her what I should tell her, and she will check it out. Did you see the way she looked at Yin’er? She likes Yin’er. The disappearance of Yin’er is similar to the disappearance of her sister, and she will pursue it to the end for no other reason than those two children. She will cling to you and not let go. So what if you have someone in the government? An Ruochen has General Long behind him! So what if you kill me? There are people alive in this world who are watching you closely. The net of heaven is wide open and reveals all the bad things you’ve done. Someone will take revenge for Mr. Zhao, for Yin’er, and me.”