21 Thousand Revenge

"I need your help." Chen Liqin sat down on the chair while explaining the details about the illegal auction case.

"I see … then, you wanted us to trail Third Uncle Weimin?" Yong Rui asked with sparkling eyes. He loved this kind of detective-like job that made him felt like a character of a storybook he heard in childhood. He also hated Chen Weimin so it was good to have a chance to broke his reputation and made him unable to use that arrogant feature anymore.

"No. Third Uncle was very vigilant. It was hard to observe him without being found so for now, I planned to give you other tasks."

Chen Liqin handed over a scroll to Chen Shihong. "There was Yao Family's data inside and the residence's map. I wanted you to investigate the house thoroughly and search for someone that really had witnessed the Yaos escaped that night of the incident."

Chen Shihong accepted the scroll and nodded lightly. "I will take off tomorrow."

"I will go too!" Chen Yongrui exclaimed but Chen Liqin immediately denied the idea,

"I have other tasks for you. Yesterday, Junjie had come back to the palace. I wanted you to observed his behaviors. If there is something strange he did especially when it had relation to Uncle Weimin or Yao Family or the auction, report it to me!"

"Alright!" Chen Yongrui exclaimed excitedly.

Chen Liqin smiled in relief as the two were willing to help him. Because the auction case was a top-secret matter, he could not order the low-level subordinate to do it and could only seek people with a high position in the court or someone from the royal family and it had to be trusted by him too.

In fact, a lot of people in the court were having a side with Third Uncle and in the royals, Chen Liqin only trusted his parents and these two princes.

"Remember, don't get caught! Do it secretly and carefully," Chen Liqin reminded, especially the reckless Chen Yongrui.

The two nodded then asked permission to go back to their own room. They needed some time to prepare a good plan before carrying out the order.

After returned the document into the rack, Chen Liqin got out of his room, sitting down on the stone stool on the terrace. A breezy wind which was getting freezing greeted him, reminded him of the soon coming autumn.

"Yo, Your Majesty!" A light smack leisurely landed on Chen Liqin's back.

When he turned around, he could see Dai Junjie had stood beside him with a wide smile.

"You shock me!" Chen Liqin did not notice when Dai Junjie came. "Is there something wrong?" he asked after a while.

"No. I just came to say 'hello'. I can't?" Dai Junjie asked in a fake sad tone.

Chen Liqin laughed. "Of course not. How about your work?"

"Not really good. I still need to search for the Yaos' whereabout." Dai Junjie massaged his temples, sigh….

"Father ordered you to?"

"No. His Supreme Majesty ordered Uncle Qiang to do that but it had been difficult for him to do this kind of job at his old age so he asked me for help."

"I see…"

Suddenly Chen Liqin was attacked by a sneeze without a cause.

"You better go inside. Today night's wind was too cold. It was not good for your body," Dai Junjie proposed.

Chen Liqin rubbed his nose in confusion. He did not feel a cold breeze pass through him when he sneezed.

He did not know that inside the underground jail, the guards were cursing him because he had given them a very heavy burden which was a crazy girl.

*****

Shao Chen, who did not know whether it was morning or night, stayed awake. He did not feel drowsy and now, had sat back on the damp floor. As he was too bored, he eventually spread his view to his surrounding, searching for something that could intrigue him.

His view stopped at a lump of an object lying in the corner of the cell. He got nearer and grabbed the block-shaped thing. He patted the stained part, trying to remove the dust and dirt while trying to identify it.

Hearing the subtle noises the girl made, the guards woke up again one by one.

'Oh my God! She starts again!' They grumbled to themselves.

Eyes tired, they closed their eyelids, tried to sleep again but they could not help to be disturbed by Shao Chen's movement. Especially He Tao, the young guard who was forced by his colleagues to sit down in front of Shao Chen's cell.

He Tao was really unwilling to sit there because he will be the first victim of any commotions Shao Chen made. However, he was the most junior here so he did not dare to deny the order. With tears inside his heart, he had no choice to obey them and sit there to be tortured.

"Ohh … what is this?" Shao Chen mumbled.

He turned behind and directly caught He Tao in his sight.

He Tao suddenly had a bad feeling, automatically raising his cautiousness. He prayed to any God in this world so that his bad feeling won't become true but in vain.

Shao Chen had sat down behind him and stretched out the block-shaped thing to He Tao through the gap between the iron bars. "Do you know what is this?"

He Tao almost cursed and forced Shao Chen to back to sleep but he stopped. He knew that his word won't work at this crazy girl and he would just exhaust himself more.

With heavy eyelids, He Tao received the thing. After observing it for a while, he said, "It is a book."

"Book? What is it about?" Shao Chen asked with bright eyes.

His bad feeling became stronger. 'Please don't ask me to read it for you!' he thought.

Without any other choice, he screened the dirty book, searching for the title which has kinda faded. He did not expect to recognize what is the book about. Not only recognize but he was too familiar with it. "This is a popular novel. The title is Thousand Revenge."

Silent….

Shao Chen looked straight at him without blinking. Mouth wide opened.

'Ah … he was thinking.'  He Tao swallowed hard in nervousness. He hoped Shao Chen would not pop up a weird idea and disturbed their peacefulness again.

"Tell me the title again," Shao Chen said after 40 minutes had passed.

'The pause was getting longer!'  The other guards and the two prisoners who were hearing nervously could not help to comment.

"Thousand Revenge," He Tao repeated.

40 minutes later, Shao Chen's eyes lit up in excitement.

'That it is! Revenge! Maybe I can get the way to do it!'

"Read it!" Shao Chen impatiently ordered.

"Huh? I'm sleepy. Read it yourself," He Tao grumbled. His eyes remained only one-third.

"I could not read. Read it for me!" 

Even though annoyed, He Tao started to read.

The book was about a poor girl who was always bullied and full of resentment towards the bullies. The story started when the girl was only seven. At that time, the girl was bullied by her peers. They always pulled her hair and laughed at her.

Eventually, the innocent girl committed her first revenge.

"First, she was circling the bullies ceaselessly. If the bullies tried to escape, she would pull their hair or clothes then circling them again while singing the common child horror song—"

"Wait! Stop! I want to remember it!" Shao Chen ordered. He started to murmur the girl's revenge way liked casting a spell.

He Tao frowned. "What ar—"

"Shut up! I will forget if you talk to me!" Shao Chen did not stop murmuring. He won't let this important revenge plan slipped off his mind.

He Tao shook his head in wonder. Actually, he wanted to ask Shao Chen's intention on remembering this revenge way. 'Like, you see … this is a seven years old girl's revenge! What the hell is on his mind so that he wants to remember this kind of childish revenge?!'

"Ok! You can continue!" Shao Chen had repeated the revenge plan almost a hundred times until he was sure that he would not forget it eternally.

"Next … ergh, it's the song lyrics."

[You naughty child,

Listen….

If you punch,

Your hand will be chopped off….

If you mocked,

Your tongue will be burned….

If you kicked,

You will be confined in a dark room

Forever….

Forever….

Hey, naughty child,

White hands will come after you]

It reminded He Tao of his childhood. At that time, he was so scared of this song until he would not dare to go out of his room each time after he heard it.

Shao Chen was memorizing the lyrics seriously. "You will be confined … what?"

"in a dark room forever, forever," He Tao repeated.

Shao Chen nodded then backed to memorize.

He Tao looked at his seniors and the two prisoners in confusion. The latter also looked back at him with the same confusion.

They could not think of any proper reason for explaining this crazy girl's behavior. They only could wish that what He Tao did today would not give any bad impact that could throw Shao Chen inside the jail again.

'We will be crazy if that happens!'