The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty (ENGLISH TRANSLATION)

CH 24

Once he mentioned Lady Chen, everybody looked at the pretty woman that had arrived with Li Man. Tang Fan had noticed that she had a shrewdness about her, and had heard Li Man say that she had been a huge benefit to him, so he knew that she wasn’t someone that was easy to deal with. Yet, after Li Man had been exposed as the murderer, she had then — either intentionally or unintentionally — maintained a low profile, as if she wanted to blend herself into the background.

Upon hearing Li Man say this, she knelt daintily, using her sleeve to wipe her tears. “How could this concubine have the goodness and ability to do so? I am truly unworthy of receiving Husband’s generous favor! If you’re no longer here, what use is there for me to go on living alone?!”

Her tones were wondrous and prompted one to cry, but Tang Fan was expressionless, not giving her one look.

Li Man seemed not to hear Lady Chen’s words, his mind fully immersed in his memories. After a pause, he continued on. “I hadn’t ever thought of killing her, at first… a very long time ago, I proposed divorce to Lady Zhang, and was willing to subsidize her with properties, but she refused. Later on, I proposed it again, and to give her half the family capital so that she could have her later years be free of worries, but she refused the divorce all the same, saying that I needed to not forget our original vows. This went on so many times! I really had no other way!”

His expression turned malevolent. “She clearly couldn’t do anything, nor could she help me! There’s a lot of women that are more beautiful and competent than her! Me using up all of my wealth back then was already an extreme benevolence to her! Since she couldn’t have kids, why did she bother with occupying the position of my primary wife? Of course I couldn’t take it anymore! It wasn’t that I owed her, it was that she owed me! She owed me!”

Silence stretched out in the hall. Everyone stared at him in astonishment, especially the people of the Li family.

Li Man had rarely returned home, but in front of others, he had always been respectful with his wife, and not exacting towards his servants. The whole household respected him.

However, not one of them had known that underneath his peaceful and benevolent exterior, there had lurked such a beast!

Li Lin, the Young Lord, was even more positively astounded, staring at his father. “Father, why would you do such a thing?” he mumbled.

“You don’t actually think that she couldn’t help you,” Tang Fan answered coldly, “nor was this because she couldn’t have children. Rather, in your mind, you’ve constantly been brooding over that thirty-year-old past, so you blamed her family for dragging you down and hurting you by investing so much! Thirty years ago, when you were still young and in love, you thought that said investment was acceptable, but you grew older by the day, and upon going through laborious work in the sea of commerce, you saw the hearts of all sorts of people. You learned that of the four occupations, it was still scholars alone that were noble, and you gradually came to regret the choice you had made. That regret accumulated with each passing day until it became a demon in your heart, and as long as there was some slight outside trigger for it, that demon would be in a hurry to come out and cause harm! All of the ‘reasons’ you’ve just stated are nothing more than you looking for excuses for the crime you committed!

“You indeed paid a great amount in your early years, but since then, she had managed your household for you, and helped you take care of your son. Even if she did owe you, she had long paid it all back! You wanted to divorce her; what was so wrong about her refusal? Which one of the Seven Ousts[1] did she commit? Do you believe that with an annulment, a woman won’t get met with judging stares? As for financing her with capital, how could money measure her deep, decades-long affection for you?”