A Lovely Girl Turning into a Rat

“We live fare apart. The grasses are tall and the orioles are flying in the air. I have travelled throughout Jiangnan but never met you again.

I once escaped into dreams but woke with a sense of deep sorrow and depressing loss. Flocks of honking wild geese flew past and I hope they can bring my love letters to you.

Life is cruel. Since you left, I have sunk into depression…”

In Nima’s dream, Ci was singing the song that she had often sung. Suddenly, Nima woke up and muttered, “Ci…” The letter slipped out of his grasp, as tears welled up in his eyes and streamed down his face.

The servants were preparing the table for dinner outside. The maid, Yan, shouted, “Third Madam, the dinner is ready.”

Nima’s thought was suddenly interrupted by her loud voice.

‘Third Madam. Madam Yang Zhen. Third sister…’

Nima had a moment of enlightenment and yelled like crazy, “Yang Zhen, come here at once!”

Yang Zhen was looking at herself in the mirror. She had rosy lips and pretty white teeth. A maid was combing Yang Zhen’s hair. “Madam, Master wants to see you.”

“He can’t live without me. What a sweet burden!” Yang Zhen put on a short padded coat and walked out of her bedroom.

Nima stood in the middle of Ci’s bedroom with a sharp knife in his hand.

“Master! What do you want to do?” Yang Zhen knelt down before him.

“Where is Ci?” Nima held the knife to Yang Zhen’s stomach and continued, “If you don’t tell me the truth, I will kill you.”

“Master, I don’t know. I really don’t know,” she replied in a trembling voice.

The sharp blade nicked Yang Zhen’s clothes and Nima said, “Ci has told me everything in the letter. You’d better tell me the truth.”

There were four lines on Ci’s letter:

“In autumn, I sit at the window with the lute in my arms. The third day after you left, a lute string broke.

The things are still there, but you are no longer by my side. My sister tells me that you will come back soon.

To a woman in love, one day apart seems like three years. Nobody knows how much I miss you.

The moon is rising in the inky sky, emitting cool light through clouds. Is everything all right with you?”

If you took the second word in the second sentence of each line and strung them together, it was a new sentence– “Third sister knows everything”. San had given Nima the letter in the capital but at that time Nima hadn’t noticed the hidden message. Ci had had an ominous presentiment of disaster, but what she had done was just a useless effort.

Yang Zhen burst into tears. “Master, Madam Juxian and Madam Ji Jing did that! I had no choice but to do what I was asked. Master, please forgive me!”

“Where is she?” The knife cut into her skin and blood started oozing out of the wound.

“Madam Ji Jing skinned Ci, cut out her tongue and wrapped her in the mole furs. The huge rat we kept is Ci.” Yang Zhen covered the wound in her stomach with her hand, but blood kept pouring through her fingers. “Master, I couldn’t save Sister Ci… I couldn’t save her. I was powerless to stop them. I watched them torture her but could do nothing to save her. If I had disobeyed their orders, I would have been killed…”

The news hit Nima like a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky and he felt dizzy.

The sewer was dark and the bones were white. After a season, Ci’s body, including the mole furs which had been stuck to Ci’s body, and her flesh, putrefied. Nima saw a complete, shrunken skeleton, including the small backbone, the incomplete bones of hands and feet and the fractured skull. The sewage flowed through the skeleton, but all the bones were still white.

In the past, the girl had wrapped her arms around him and whispered in his ear, “Because I like you, Master.” She was such a soft-hearted girl. When she saw beggars in the street, she would give them all her money. When she saw fallen petals floating on the water, she would shed tears. When she played the lute, she would steal a glance at him and lower her head with a shy smile. Only Ci had advised him to be kind. Only she loved him truly…

“If evil actions will bring retribution, I hope that I will take your place to be punish.” Ci’s firm voice resounded in his ears.

Nima picked up the skeleton in the sewer and hugged it tight to his chest. He broke down and cried loudly. The skeleton fell apart and the bones were scattered all over the ground. Ci had starved to death. Before death, she had missed Nima terribly and wished that he would appear and hold her in his arms. But at last she had died in loneliness.

They loved each other but death separated them.

Ji Jing trembled violently with her head bowed. “Master, please spare Nidazu. He is still a young child.”

Ju Juxian looked at Yang Zhen and said, “It was Yang Zhen’s idea. She bought the moles, flayed them and glued their furs onto Ci’s body. She is the brains behind the scheme. Even if I had taken a hand in it, you shouldn’t kill me. Ci is just a lowly woman. No need to care much about her.”

Yangzhen was kneeling on the floor pleading for mercy, “Master, we know we were wrong. We have attended upon you for so many years. For the sake of our marital relationships, please let us off this time.”

“Let you off?” Nima snorted, “Have you given Ci a chance to live? How could you murder her in such a cruel way?”

Ju Juxian sneered, “So, how could you kill those people in the backyard? They are also innocents.”

Nima kicked the table over and roared, “All of you, get out!”

The three women thought that Nima wouldn’t kill them, so they had no intention of leaving Nima Mansion.Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.