I Am This Type of Woman

79

"Father!" Ban Hua flipped off the horse, before Rong Xia could react, a gust of wind swept past him and his fiancee was already a few zhangs away. Rong Xia hurriedly ordered his guards to help Ban family guards closing in on the wooden building from which the flower pot fell.

* 1 zhang 丈 = 3.33 metres.

"Father, are you alright?" Ban Hua tugged Ban Huai's sleeve, carefully looking him up and down.

"I am fine, I am fine." Ban Huai haven't yet processed what had happened, he only reacted after seeing his daughter's anxious face.

Ban Hua was relieved to hear he was fine. She pulled the whip off her waist, moved up to the building's door and kicked it hard a few times. A hole appeared on the door, Ban Hua turned to the guards, "Open the door!"

The door was pried open, Ban Hua rushed in with a few guards.

The crowd was intimidated by the smashed door and the grim faces of the guards.

Du Jiu gulped, his eyes moved from the broken door to his master's slender waist. Had it been his Master who was being kicked, could his lean arms and legs stand it?

"Why are you looking at me?" Rong Xia got off the horse, "Send someone to report to the officials."

"Yes." Du Jiu developed a immense deferance towards the future Countess.

"Uncle," Rong Xia approached Ban Huai, "You must be in shock, aren't you?"

"I am fine." Ban Huai had recovered by now. He broke out in cold sweat to see the huge flower pot on the ground. If it had fell on him, this one life of his would have been game over.

Rong Xia let Du Jiu secure the place, while he went to observe the soil in the pot. The soil was loose,  not hardened yet. The pot also looked new, it didn't look to have been used for a long time.

Keeping flowers required knowledge such as different pots for different flowers. The flowers in the pot were of the cheap and common one, the sort that could be dug out from the fields. But this pot, a bulky one such as this should be around several hundred wens, ordinary people wouldn't spend this much for a pot.

"Uncle, maybe we need to involve Dalisi." Rong Xia twisted the soil in the pot, then he stood up and cupped his hands to Ban Huai, "This may not be an accident, but a murder attempt."

*Dalisi 大理寺 = Court of Judicature and Revision, the central government agency in charge of reviewing judicial proceedings at all administrative levels and singling out the cases for a retrial by court officials or the emperor himself.

"What?" Ban Huai looked at Rong Xia with surprise, "I am just an idle wastrel, what good is it to kill me?"

Rong Xia: .........

Ban family often talked flippantly.

"Whatever the reason is, this can't be taken lightly." Rong Xia couldn't help feeling it lucky that Uncle happened to see them and turned to another direction, otherwise it would have been a bloodbath on the spot.

Rong Xia's heart shivered to think how close Ban Hua was to her family, he dared not think of how it would have been if the murder attempt had been successful.

"Peng!"

A loud sound resonated from the building. Worrying about Ban Hua, he wanted to step to the building but Ban Huai stretched his hand to stop him.

"Junpo ah," Ban Huai drily coughed, "This matter, you can leave it to Hua Hua, you don't need to be there. This child is good in everything, it's just that once she is angry, she could be a bit rash, so you...."