Chapter 454: Zero Tolerance
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
The official’s expression changed at once. He reached out to grab Su Ying, but before his hand could touch her, a sharp hook was already in front of him barely inches away from his eyes. If Su Ying’s hand moved forward, the hook would pierce through his eyeballs.
The official was so scared that he froze on the spot and did not dare to move. “Who are you? How dare you lay a finger on us government officials!”
“I am looking for someone. Don’t interfere.”
The official quickly backed off, but his terrified expression immediately became vicious. “What are you guys still standing there for? Hurry up and throw this person out!”
The officials obeyed the order and surrounded Su Ying.
Su Ying used the hook to drag away a beam and saw the old woman lying there with half of her twisted body charred black.
The old woman said that she hoped that she could live on and raise her grandson so that she could be at ease.
She said that she must have done something good in her past life for her to meet Su Ying when she was on the verge of death.
However, now, she was lying in the pitch-black fire debris and could no longer hear her grandson call her “Grandma.”
Su Ying squatted down and carried the old woman’s body out, but the officials went up to grab her right at this moment.
The old woman’s corpse was grabbed by the officials and dropped heavily to the ground. Her almost carbonized legs broke and the whole corpse was now incomplete.
Su Ying’s eyebrows twitched violently, and she took a deep breath to suppress the hostility in her eyes.
-Hurry up and get lost. Do you hear me?” The official was still clamoring and even kicked away the old woman’s broken limb that had fallen off.
Su Ying placed the old woman’s body on the ground and brushed her hand over the dead woman’s eyelids. “Rest in peace. I will let your grandson grow up safely.”
The old woman seemed to have heard Su Ying’s words. Those wide-open dead eyes closed after this.
Su Ying picked out a charred wooden pole from the ruins and immediately hit the official who was stepping on the old woman’s corpse!
The ones who should get lost are you guys!”
The officials rushed forward and surrounded Su Ying. Su Ying didn’t want to waste any more time on them, so she directly lifted one up and threw him out of the rums. Those who dared to step forward again were punched until they began to doubt their very existence.
Su Ying threw the dozen or so officials to the ground like torn rags.
“Argh!”
Zhou Qing watched the officials being thrown out. She carried the child and went forward to pick up a wooden stick on the ground. She hit those officials who were still not unconscious and knocked them out.
After all the officials were cleared out, Zhou Qing carried the child to the old woman.
“Grandma, Grandma…” The child looked at the old woman lying on the ground and cried out. However, no matter how much he called out, the old woman could never respond to him again.
“There’s an inn at the end of the street. Take the child and stay there first. I’ll go and look for you in a while.”
Zhou Qing looked at Su Ying worriedly. “Young Master, you have to be careful.”
“Mm-hmm.”
After Zhou Qing left, Su Ying continued to rummage through the ruins. After digging out all the corpses, she went to the area that she believed was the inn’s backyard based on her memories.
She found traces of tung oil in the backyard.
The traces were not only in the backyard but also in the collapsed firewood shed.
Innkeeper Li said that there was no fire in the backyard at night. It was also impossible for the tung oil to be splashed in a flammable place for no reason This was clearly evidence that someone had deliberately set this place on fire! After confirming her guess, Su Ying took the old woman’s body away from the rums and found a relatively quiet place in the city to bury the body. Then, she went to the inn where Zhou Qing was staying.
“Old Li has always been a cautious person. How could he let such a major incident happen to the inn? It’s fine if he just lost money. Now that so many people had died in the inn, the rest of his life was ruined.”
“Food is expensive now, and so is the price of water. How many customers in the inn are willing to pay money to start a fire? The kettle with warm water is also in the middle of the courtyard. Even if the stove rolled onto the ground the fire wouldn’t be able to start. I heard that Old Li rejected the Hee family’s goods yesterday, which made Caretaker Wang very displeased. I suspect that they sent people to take revenge…”
Su Ying stood in the inn’s lobby and listened to the conversation between these two people at the counter. There was a possibility that the speculation raised by the two of them happened. She raised her head and saw Zhou Qing standing at the railing and waving at her.
Su Ying went up to the second floor and entered the guest room with Zhou Qing.
As soon as the door closed, Zhou Qing asked anxiously, “Young Master, have you settled the old woman’s body down?”
Su Ying nodded. “Yes. I buried her in an open field near the outskirts of the city.”
“Someone must have set the inn on fire. I’m sure there was no open fire in the kitchen last night.”
“Indeed, someone did set the inn on fire. I found many traces of tung oil near the boundary wall of the backyard and in the firewood shed. If someone did not deliberately the fire, the fire wouldn’t have spread so quickly without wind.” Zhou Qing clenched her fists in anger. “The arsonist is really despicable. How many innocent people have lost their lives!”
“Tomorrow morning, after the city gate is open, you will go out of the city and wait for the Empress. After meeting up with her, you will come into the city with her.”
“Yes, I understand.”
The officials who had been badly beaten up by Su Ying realized that Su Ying was gone when they regained consciousness. They quickly cleaned up the corpses that Su Ying had dug out and brought them back to the government office to report to Lord Wei.
“Lord Wei, those people have returned from their errands.”
Lord Wei was playing with a turtle in the jar with a piece of raw chicken in his hand. When he heard that, he threw the raw meat into the jar. The turtle immediately snapped up the piece of meat.
“Let them in.”
Lord Wei turned around and saw the officials’ swollen faces. “What happened to all of you?”
The official grimaced in pain. “My Lord, someone caused trouble and injured me. He even knocked all of us unconscious…”
Lord Wei frowned at once. “Where is he?”
“He ran… ran away…”
Lord Wei was so angry that he laughed instead. “There are more than ten of you officials but you can’t even capture one person? Useless trash! Send people to look for him. How can the prestige of my government office be ruined by him?” “Yes, yes.”
Lord Wei’s eyes were ominous as he said, “The fire has been put out?”
“Yes, it has been put out. This matter has a lot to do with the innkeeper. I have already captured the innkeeper.”
Lord Wei nodded in satisfaction. “Mm-hmm. Let them interrogate him severely and then drag him out to display as an example.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I have zero tolerance for this kind of greedy merchant who doesn’t think about the commoners and starts up the kitchen in the middle of the night to earn money from the commoners!”
The official and the caretaker agreed with him in a groveling fashion. They knew what Lord Wei meant.
“My Lord is wise indeed. There is no other person in Luo City who cares about
the lives of the commoners like you.”
Lord Wei thought so too and nodded. “Go. Get the Hee family to settle the matter as soon as possible.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Early the next morning, Zhou Qing rode out of Luo City at dawn and arrived at the location Su Ying mentioned.
There was a pavilion three miles away from the city. There was no one in the pavilion at the moment, so Zhou Qing waited inside the pavilion.
A moment later, a convoy slowly moved in her direction.
Zhou Qing leaned forward and could clearly see that the curtains of the carriage were embroidered with phoenixes. She thought that the person sitting in the horse carriage must be the Empress..