“You…you killed her,” one of the young ladies accused Feng Tianlan. Her teeth chattered with fear.
“Don’t you know who she is? She’s the daughter of the Minister of Justice.” Even though these words were meant as a threat, her voice continued to tremble uncontrollably.
Feng Tianlan took out a handkerchief and gently wiped the blood off her dagger as she looked calmly back at them.
“We didn’t say any of things. These rumors have been flying around for a long time now.”
“All the rumors started way back when everything first happened. We weren’t the ones who spread these rumors, and we weren’t the first to talk about this.”
“Spare our lives, Feng Clan Head! We won’t dare to talk nonsense anymore. We won’t…”
“We were wrong. Please don’t kill us, and we will clear up these rumors…”
The young ladies were terrified and collapsed on the ground, hugging each other and crying for mercy as they watched Feng Tianlan slowly clean the blood off her dagger. Nobody had expected Feng Tianlan, who had remained silent all this while and seemed easy to bully, to just kill someone off.
“Ugh, there’s a pee smell in here.” Luo Yunzhu wrinkled her nose then looked at the girls on the ground. One of them was so scared that she had peed in her pants. She pinched her nose as she said, “If you don’t have the guts, then don’t go around spreading rumors.”
“You girls have really big mouths, eh?” Feng Tianlan threw the freshly cleaned dagger in front of them.
The dagger hit the ground with a clang, and the girls hugged each other even more tightly than before, begging for mercy.
“Since you like to be big-mouthed, let me help you slit your mouths wider…”
Before Feng Tianlan finished her sentence, the one who had said she was a taint on the city’s reputation immediately started kowtowing. She cried as she begged for mercy, “Feng Clan Head, have mercy on me. I was wrong…AHH!”
Feng Tianlan had slit her mouth from one corner of her lips up to her ears, and the gaping wound made the other girls shriek in terror. They hugged each other so tightly they nearly became one and wished they could go underground to hide from this demoness.
“Either you slit your own mouths, or I’ll help you.” Feng Tianlan gripped the dagger and slowly went closer to them while they continued to shriek. She squatted down and put the blade in one girl’s hand and said very gently, “You choose.”
The girl’s hand was shaking so badly. She wanted to throw the dagger aside, but when she saw the other girl with a slit mouth and Feng Tianlan narrowing her eyes at her, immense fear welled up in her heart. Finally, she sobbed as she used the dagger to try to slit her mouth slowly. After she had only sliced it open an inch, the pain caused her to cast the dagger aside. She didn’t dare beg for mercy anymore but continued to scream in terror.
Feng Tianlan didn’t even look at her. She picked up the dagger and passed it to another girl. After seeing how the previous girl had been let off after just creating an inch-long wound, she knew it would be better for her to cut herself than for Feng Tianlan to do it. So, she had no choice but to slit her own mouth by an inch then cried as she tossed the dagger aside.
With emotionless eyes, Feng Tianlan saw that all of them now had wounds on their cheeks and half their faces bloodied. She picked up the dagger and started wiping off the fresh blood. She glanced at them while she wiped the dagger, scaring them into a tight huddle again.
They wouldn’t dare do anything like that again, and they wished that Feng Tianlan would stop being so scary!
“Just because I don’t say anything to explain myself doesn’t mean that I’m an easy target.” Feng Tianlan scanned them with cold eyes and watched them shudder and hug each other tightly. “Use these new mouths of yours to warn everyone that if they spread any more baseless rumors, they’ll have to drain their own necks.”
The girls nodded and sobbed in response as they remained huddled together.
