The Minister: Cold by Day, Hot by Night-Chapter 31: There’s Another Twist

Ouyang Lei signaled his two companions to continue their watch, while he quietly slipped off the roof and headed straight for the room of the innkeeper’s wife, Lady Zhong.

Once under the windowsill, Ouyang Lei moistened a fingertip and poked a hole in the paper window. Inside, he saw Lady Zhong in the arms of a man of about thirty, sobbing uncontrollably.

"Where have you been all this time? What took you so long? I’ve been so scared..."

"I was afraid people would discover our affair and bring you harm, so I went into hiding for a while." After gently comforting Lady Zhong, the man added, "How is our child? Does he give you any trouble?"

"Little Hao is fine. He’s a very good boy." Lady Zhong wiped her tears, pulling the man to the edge of the bed to look at the sleeping child.

The baby was only a few months old, fair-skinned and chubby.

The man’s face was filled with love as he gazed at the sleeping child.

"Brother Ah Xiang, I don’t want to stay here any longer. Will you take my son and me away from this place?" Lady Zhong asked, looking hopefully at the man she called Ah Xiang.

"Alright." Ah Xiang agreed at once, without a hint of hesitation. "Actually, I haven’t been in Red Stone Town lately. Firstly, to lay low, and secondly, to find us a new home. I heard that White Cloud Town is a nice place. It’s far from here, and no one knows us. If we move there, we won’t have to worry about prying eyes anymore. We can be together with our child, openly and honestly."

"Really, Brother Ah Xiang?" Lady Zhong wept with joy.

"It’s true, Little Cui," Ah Xiang said, pulling her into his arms.

Lady Zhong said, "Then tomorrow, we’ll sell off the inn."

"Alright," Ah Xiang agreed, lowering his head to kiss her.

Seeing this from outside, Ouyang Lei quickly threw the door open and burst inside.

’Any later,’ he thought, ’and I’d be walking in on something I shouldn’t see.’

At the same moment, his two companions leaped down from the roof and entered Lady Zhong’s room with him.

Seeing the three men burst in, Lady Zhong’s face drained of color, and she clutched Ah Xiang’s hand tightly.

Ah Xiang shielded her behind him and demanded, "Who are you?"

With conflicted feelings, Ouyang Lei produced a token. "We are officials from the Ministry of Justice, here on orders to investigate the true murderer of Guo Yong."

Hearing this, Lady Zhong was so frightened she nearly fainted.

Ah Xiang managed to keep his composure. "You must be impostors," he said coldly. "Guo Yong’s killer was already caught and sentenced to execution in the autumn. Why would there be another investigation?"

"That soldier returning home wasn’t the killer. He was a scapegoat. The real murderer," Ouyang Lei said, his voice just as cold, "is you, Ah Xiang!"

Ah Xiang forced himself to remain calm. "That’s a vile accusation! What proof do you have?"

"Never mind your secret affair with Lady Zhong—this child is yours as well." Ouyang Lei pointed to the baby still sleeping on the bed. "Guo Yong must have discovered your affair and learned the child wasn’t his. So to silence him, you killed him and framed the soldier who was returning home."

At his words, the color drained from both Ah Xiang’s and Lady Zhong’s faces. Lady Zhong, in particular, was covered in tears, her lips trembling as she stammered, "No... it’s not like that..."

"Why don’t you confess the truth?!" Ouyang Lei demanded.

Seeing that their secret was out, Ah Xiang gritted his teeth and suddenly dropped to his knees. "I’ll take full responsibility. It’s true, I killed Guo Yong. But this has nothing to do with Little Cui!"

Now that he had confessed, Ouyang Lei said to his two companions, "Take him into custody. He will await judgment."

Just as the two men were about to step forward, Lady Zhong threw herself at them like a woman possessed, screaming, "You can’t take him! You’ll take him over my dead body!"

The three men were taken aback by her frenzied state.

The two companions instinctively moved to kick Lady Zhong aside, but Ah Xiang suddenly jumped up to shield her, taking the blow himself.

Ah Xiang collapsed to the ground.

"Brother Ah Xiang—"

Lady Zhong’s piercing shriek startled the sleeping baby on the bed awake.

"WAAAH!" The child began to wail.

Lady Zhong looked at her son, then at Ah Xiang, and her eyes, rimmed with red, filled with tears as she, too, began to cry.

In an instant, the room descended into chaos.

Ouyang Lei’s head began to throb. "Enough, Lady Zhong," he snapped. "Calm your child."

Ah Xiang insisted he was fine and told her to get the baby, so Lady Zhong scrambled to pick him up.

The baby stopped crying the moment he was in his mother’s arms.

Ouyang Lei looked at the trio, deliberated for a moment, then dragged a chair over and sat down.

"If you have been wronged, you may tell me. I will handle the matter with discretion."

Hearing this, Lady Zhong seemed to find a sliver of hope. She thrust the baby into Ah Xiang’s arms, knelt, and began to unfasten her clothes.

Ouyang Lei and his men exchanged alarmed glances and rushed to stop her. "Don’t! Seducing a Court official will only add to your crimes..."

Lady Zhong gave a bitter laugh. "Your Excellencies are mistaken. I only wish for you to see my injuries." With that, she ripped open her night robe. The ugly, crisscrossing scars covering her body were instantly revealed to the three men.

There wasn’t a single patch of smooth, unblemished skin on her body. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

There were marks from whips, burns, and knives. In the worst places, the skin was sunken where flesh had seemingly been gouged out.

The three men were shocked into silence. "This is..."

Lady Zhong said miserably, "Guo Yong did all of this..."

"What?" the three men exclaimed in astonishment.

Lady Zhong suddenly grew hysterical. "Guo Yong is a monster! He’s not human! His usual act of being simple and honest was all a lie.

"Why do you think he had several wives before me, yet never had a single child? It’s because he’s impotent! The women who came before me... they were probably tortured to death by him, too..."

Ouyang Lei frowned. "But I heard a different story. I heard your brother and sister-in-law were going to sell you to a brothel, but Guo Yong took pity on you and bought your freedom. They say you married him to repay his kindness."

"Yes, he saved me," she admitted. "But my heart already belonged to Ah Xiang. I intended to save up enough silver to repay Guo Yong, but he drugged my wine. When I woke up the next day, I was in his bed. I thought I had lost my virtue, and Guo Yong kept promising he would take responsibility for me.

"I was too ashamed to face Ah Xiang, so I married Guo Yong.

"Guo Yong told everyone that I married him out of gratitude. Everyone praised my integrity, but none of them knew that every single night, I had to endure his torture.

"He whipped me, he burned me... he tortured me until I wished I were dead. But he never touched my face, so to the outside world, I always looked perfectly fine.

"That night, the soldier returning home passed through Red Stone Town and stayed at our inn. Guo Yong hit it off with him right away, and they drank a lot that evening.

"But when he came back to our room, he took his frustrations out on me, and his torture became even more vicious.

"I was covered in bruises from his beating, my heart filled with nothing but hatred. So while he was asleep, I stole the soldier’s dagger and killed him.

"I killed Guo Yong! He deserved to die!"

At the end of her story, Lady Zhong screamed.

Ouyang Lei and his two men were stunned.

’Who could have imagined such a twist?’ he thought. ’That the killer was the seemingly fragile Lady Zhong?’