She seemed to speak very little, even in death. Her words came out stuttered, filled with caution yet brimming with hope.
She had heard that healers were good people who always saved lives!
Her dark eyes stared unblinkingly at Wen Qingchen, silently crying.
“Why didn’t you save me, sister? Aren’t you a healer? Some bad people came and gave me very smelly medicine… Why didn’t you save me, sister?”
Her questions were filled with despair and resentment.
Wen Qingchen clenched her fists tightly, feeling a heaviness in her chest.
She had initially thought that Aunt Zhang was falsely claiming that her daughter Lanlan had died just to frame her. That was why she had insisted on seeing the body.
But she hadn’t expected that Lanlan was really dead!
Wen Qingchen closed her eyes, recalling the hopeful look in Lanlan’s eyes from yesterday. If… if she had just asked a few more questions, could she have understood why Lanlan had looked at her like that?
Hearing Lanlan’s desperate questions, Wen Qingchen felt a deep sorrow.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t understand your gaze and let this happen to you.”
After death, only immense hatred could turn a person into a ghost, unable to move on.
Lanlan must have experienced such hatred.
Others couldn’t see ghosts, and upon hearing Wen Qingchen’s apology, Aunt Zhang’s eyes lit up. She immediately clung to this opportunity: “You admit it, don’t you? You admit it! You’re the one who killed Lanlan! You must…”
Wen Qingchen kicked her away without hesitation, her heart filled with disgust.
“Ow… he’s trying to kill me! He’s going to silence me!” Aunt Zhang rolled on the ground, clutching her chest and gasping for air.
The crowd immediately stepped forward, accusing, “What are you doing?! Are you trying to kill her to silence her?”
“Silence her?” Wen Qingchen sneered, walking to the back and picking up the few packets of medicine on the table. “Aunt Zhang, these are the medicines you got from me yesterday, right? They’re all here. You can take them to anyone knowledgeable about medicine and ask if there’s anything wrong with them!”
Aunt Zhang’s face changed color, and she hurriedly got up, trying to snatch the medicine away.
But Wen Qingchen didn’t let her.
“And another thing,” Wen Qingchen sneered, pulling up Lanlan’s sleeves and pant legs. “Look at these hands and legs, covered in bruises and whip marks. Aunt Zhang, you’ve been beating your daughter regularly, haven’t you?”
“That… that’s because she’s disobedient…”
“Disobedient, so you abuse her like this? Are you really her mother?”
Wen Qingchen had noticed these injuries the day before but refrained from commenting because the world still held traditional gender biases. She had feared that if she intervened, Lanlan might suffer even more severe beatings. So, she had only sighed in frustration at the time.
The onlookers, upon seeing the extensive bruises and marks on Lanlan’s body, were shocked. How severe must the beatings have been to leave such scars?
They were genuinely taken aback by Aunt Zhang’s cruelty.
Then, they remembered that Lanlan was a girl Aunt Zhang had picked up to raise. Her son was mentally challenged, and her husband had died, so she had taken in Lanlan with the intention of making her a child bride for her son. When Lanlan grew older, she would bear children to continue the family line. Lanlan wasn’t her biological daughter, making it easier for Aunt Zhang to be so ruthless.
The crowd’s expressions turned complex.
“And another thing,” Wen Qingchen suddenly lowered her voice, leaning close to Aunt Zhang’s ear. Her voice was icy, like a chilling wind from hell, causing shivers.
“You probably don’t know, do you? Your daughter Lanlan is right here beside you.”
