Chapter 190: Believe It or Not, I’ll Kill You

Chapter 190: Chapter 190: Believe It or Not, I’ll Kill You

The blade was poised barely a finger’s width from Mrs. Zhu’s neck. The slightest wrong move, and it would break the skin and draw blood.

Mrs. Zhu’s body had gone limp as a noodle. She couldn’t even remember how to speak, let alone figure out what to say.

Ji Huan sensed something was off with Mrs. Zhu today and had no patience to waste. With people who only responded to force, violence was often the most effective tool. The blade moved a little closer.

"Speak!"

Violence was indeed more effective on Mrs. Zhu, but her timid heart couldn’t take it. She gasped for air, her eyes rolling back in her head as she nearly passed out.

"We’re not done searching. When you are, hurry up and..." Aunt Kang had one foot in the kitchen when she stumbled upon the scene.

Her terrified gaze darted from the knife in Ji Huan’s hand to Ji Huan’s glacial face. Clutching her head, she let out a piercing scream, then turned and fled. "Murder! Someone, help! That jinx is going to kill someone!"

The sound of Aunt Kang’s voice pierced the fog in Mrs. Zhu’s mind, finally bringing her back to her senses.

But faced with the blade at her neck, she would have preferred to remain unconscious.

"Don’t, don’t kill me! I really, really don’t know!"

"’Don’t know? Then why do you look so guilty?’"

Mrs. Zhu’s eyes darted back and forth as beads of sweat rained down her forehead.

Miraculously, in such a desperate situation, her brain actually managed to work for once.

She guessed Ji Huan was just trying to scare her.

’That wretched girl has never even killed a chicken. How could she possibly have the guts to kill a person?’

"Wh-what makes you say I’m guilty! Get this knife away from me, or I’ll have you thrown in jail!"

Stubborn to the last.

Ji Huan sneered, pressing the blade’s edge right against the skin of Mrs. Zhu’s neck. "Why don’t we find out? Will I be the one going to jail first, or will you be the one meeting King Yama?"

A red line instantly appeared on Mrs. Zhu’s neck. The very real threat to her life made her brain, which had just started spinning, completely crash.

She stood on her tiptoes, her portly body plastered against the wall, her neck stretched as far as it could go. She didn’t dare breathe, left with nothing but the instinct to shut her eyes and scream.

"Big Sister! Big Sister, hurry! This wretched girl is going to kill me! Come save me! I don’t want to die, WAHHHH, if I die, what will happen to Mingmao... Y-you, don’t come after me! This has nothing to do with me! It was all..."

"Sister-in-law!" Ji Xiu’e rushed in, cutting off Mrs. Zhu’s incoherent babbling.

Ji Xiu’e hadn’t been seen during the search of the house. She seemed to have just returned from outside, breathless and covered in dust.

Trailing behind her were several other women who had been helping with the search, all drawn by Aunt Kang’s screams.

Seeing Ji Huan looking as if she was ready to risk it all and kill Mrs. Zhu, they were all terrified. They crowded around, talking over one another as they urged her to calm down.

Though, in that moment, Ji Huan appeared far calmer than any of them.

Yet, the more composed she seemed, the more anxious Widow Xie grew.

The Hu Family knew better than anyone how important Dabao was to Ji Huan.

If something had truly happened to Dabao, and if Mrs. Zhu was really involved, Ji Huan might actually kill her right then and there.

"Wuan, put the knife down! Let’s go look somewhere else! Dabao is waiting for you. It’s not worth hurting someone over this! Let’s not waste any more time, we have to keep searching..."

Ji Xiu’e was the calmest one in the group.

"Wuan, let’s talk this through. I can vouch for her. This has nothing to do with your aunt."

Ji Xiu’e’s arrival pulled Mrs. Zhu back from the brink of a complete breakdown.

"Right, right! If you want to know something, ask Big Sister! She knows every—"

Mrs. Zhu flinched as she caught Ji Xiu’e’s warning glare. "She... she... I..."

"What your aunt means to say is that this is my fault."

Ji Huan turned to Ji Xiu’e, her eyes narrowing.

Mrs. Zhu was stunned. She hadn’t expected "Big Sister" to be so self-sacrificing.

"You suspect your aunt just because she was talking to two strangers at the village entrance? Pah! It’s all a misunderstanding."

She waved toward the doorway, and two young men, one tall and one short, walked in.

"These two... one is my youngest son, and the other is my husband’s nephew. So, they’re both your cousins."

Ji Xiu’e’s speech, initially rapid, slowed as she became more and more composed.

"I’ve been back at my family home for a while now, and they came to take me back. They’ve hardly ever been to Dafeng Village, you see, so they got lost. It was just a coincidence that they happened to run into your aunt..."

The taller one even smiled at Ji Huan, seeming quite amiable.

The shorter one was dark and gaunt. His downturned eyes and the sullen way he looked at people were the spitting image of Ji Xiu’e.

For some reason, Ji Huan found him vaguely familiar.

She was certain it wasn’t a memory from the body’s original owner.

Ji Xiu’e had never once brought this second son back to her family home after he was born, so the original owner had never met this supposed cousin.

But for the life of her, she couldn’t recall where she might have seen him.

Ji Huan reined in her thoughts and turned her gaze to Widow Xie. "Aunt Xie, who was the witness?"

Widow Xie pointed to a stout woman.

The woman studied Ji Xiu’e’s son and nephew for a moment, looking uncertain.

"There was a tall one and a short one, that’s right, and they do look a bit like them... My eyesight isn’t very good, and I was pretty far away. I didn’t get a clear look at their faces."

Ji Xiu’e said, "Do you think I would lie to you? Not to mention, even if your aunt had the nerve, would she be stupid enough to meet them at the village entrance?"

Mrs. Zhu chimed in, "...Right! I’m not that stupid!"

With the person missing and not enough evidence, a growing sense of unease filled Ji Huan’s heart. She knew this wasn’t the time to get tangled up with these people. Suppressing the violent rage bubbling inside her, she withdrew the knife and started to walk out.

But now, it was Mrs. Zhu’s turn to object.

"Hey! You think you can just walk away after falsely accusing me? Let me tell you, you wretched girl, I’m not finished with you until you give me an explanation! You even cut my neck—"

Ji Huan, who had just reached the doorway, suddenly turned back.

Mrs. Zhu could have slapped her own stupid mouth.

But she’d learned her lesson. Before Ji Huan could reach her, she scrambled behind Ji Xiu’e and shoved her forward.

Ji Huan stopped a step away from Ji Xiu’e. She extended her hand, the knife reaching over Ji Xiu’e’s shoulder to point at Mrs. Zhu.

"You had better hope this has nothing to do with you. And you had better pray that Dabao is safe. Otherwise, we won’t need to go to court. I’ll just kill you myself. Believe me."

At that moment, Ji Huan was like a completely different person. Her cold, baleful eyes held a strange ferocity, and her expression was so intense it looked as if she wanted to tear Mrs. Zhu limb from limb.

Mrs. Zhu was scared stiff, frozen like a wooden statue. Even Ji Xiu’e’s expression gradually hardened.

Perhaps it was because the knife was so close, or perhaps it was the palpable ruthlessness rolling off Ji Huan, but for a disorienting moment, it felt as if she were being judged by someone else entirely.

After Ji Huan left, before Mrs. Zhu could even catch her breath, Ji Xiu’e spun around and slapped her hard across the face.

Mrs. Zhu, half-covering her face, was completely stunned by the blow.

"Big Sister! What did you hit me for!"

Ji Xiu’e said venomously, "Hit you? I wish I’d let Ji Huan kill you, you stupid fool! Look what you’ve done!"

At this, Mrs. Zhu did feel a pang of guilt.

"We watched them for days, and we finally got our chance. I was just afraid something would go wrong..."

Ji Xiu’e wanted to crack her head open to see if it was filled with pig slop or tofu dregs.

"They’re professionals! What could have gone wrong? Even if they messed up, we could have just found another chance later. The most important thing was to keep yourself out of it, but you!"

"Not only did you go to the village entrance to lead them personally, but you were seen doing it."

"And that’s not all. The moment Ji Huan scared you with that knife, you couldn’t hold it together. If I had been even a single step later, you probably would have confessed everything."

’And she had the gall to try and push all the blame onto me!’

Mrs. Zhu, however, didn’t think she was the only one to blame.

"If I hadn’t gone to the latrine behind the house before dawn, I wouldn’t have known that wretched girl was going to the market with the Hu Family. We told those two men to go to her house. With her gone to town, that little monster was obviously sent to the Hu Family’s place. If I hadn’t gone to explain it to them, how would they have found him so easily?"

Ji Xiu’e’s face was ashen. "They found him, yes. So where is he now?"