70 Rumors about a Witch (1/2)
Kang Jun literally lost his soul at An Ning's unexpected move.
An Ning forcibly dragged Kang Jun in the center of attention, literally putting him under a microscope so that his body quaked and his face started to sweat bullets.
Everybody in the room: ”....”
Du Lu coughed.
”An Ning, this is not a courtroom. Let go of the child and let him speak.”
An Ning's eyes though continued to bore down on the quaking Kang Jun as if she was daring him to lie to her so that she would have a good reason to gobble him up. After a while, the killing intent that paralyzed Kang Jun on the spot eased up. Everybody released their breath then waited as An Ning calmed down and again resumed her seat on the table.
”What do you know about this witch?” An Ning's voice was flat and monotonous as if the previous show of startling emotion didn't happen.
”I don't know anything about her, your Grace,” Kang Jun said, swallowing hard. ”I heard it from somebody, an old man, who once took shelter in our house during a rainstorm. The two of us talked to while away the time and during that conversation I told him that my mother's illness prevented me from taking the civil exam that year. She needed medicines, you see, so I used the tuition money to get them for her.
”The old man was sincerely sorry to hear my predicament so he advised me to find help. He then told me about a witch who lives in the Sierra Mountains. He said that this witch knows a lot about potions that could cure all kinds of ailments. I didn't believe him though,” Kang Jun said looking up at An Ning.
”Why?”
”Because I've already consulted with several doctors in the city and all of them told me they had no idea what really ails my mother. Almost all of them said it was old age but I don't believe that since my mother isn't even forty. She became ill over a year and a half ago after my father died. Anyway, I told the old man that I didn't believe what he said about this witch because if even the doctors don't know what's wrong with my mother then who can?”
”What happened after that?”
”He told me that it wasn't hearsay but that he actually met this witch in person.”
”What?” An Ning was surprised.
”He didn't say anything about where or how he met her except that he didn't believe it was really her when they met.”
An Ning frowned.
”Your grace,” Kang Jun's voice broke when he saw the displeased expression on An Ning's face. ”The old man said that he believed that the person he met was not the witch since she was known to wear disguises to hide her true identity. And yet he also believed that it could be none other than her because the person he met was very young and there seemed to be a fierce black dog guarding her.”
”A disguise and a young girl,” An Ning murmured, as if to herself. ”Perhaps a decoy? Anything else?” she asked, looking at Kang Jun with a pair of bright eyes.
”Yes. After he said all those things, we did not anymore speak of the matter. But then after a while, he again spoke, while staring at the rain outside, that he once knew a guy who was poisoned. The poison was sprinkled on his clothing. He said that the man died in excruciating agony, with his flesh and his bones burned to nothing.”
The silence became deafening. Gu Sheng glanced at An Ning and wished he hadn't. An Ning's face drained of all color, leaving a deathly pallor that almost turned that arresting beautiful face into an unrecognizable mask. The pallor on her skin, however, merely reinforced the dark red of murderous hatred that swept over the black almond-shaped eyes. An Ning's entire body was trembling. Her fists were so tightly clenched her nails tore into the thin flesh of her palms and drew blood.
No one spoke. No one even breathed. All of them stood rooted on their spots and watched as the sixteen year old empress dowager tried to contain a hair-trigger anger that could scorched the heavens if allowed to fully express itself in unbridled lust.
An Ning wasn't seeing them anymore. She was back in that magnificent room, watching thru the stricken eyes of that old version of herself as Gu Fang writhed in unbearable agony in front of her. She remembered his eyes, the desperate plea in them. From somewhere the pain burst out of her body like a suppressed tide finally allowed to follow its true course.
She screamed and went on screaming until she became hoarse and her frail body could no longer stand the pressure and she fainted.The people around her were stunned. When they recovered their senses, they surged as one body towards her but Du Lu was faster. He caught An Ning as her body slowly folded to the ground.
She felt weightless and suddenly so frail that he panicked and threw Min Song a command, ”Find that witch and kill her!”
If it had been other than the level-headed Min Song, soldiers would have stormed the mountains and combed the trees to find an evil witch who killed the previous emperor and tried to harm his young widow but Min Song was made of sterner stuff. He merely glanced at Du Lu, gave an order to Yi Ying and his wife to leave then have Yi Hai stand guard by the door.
Du Lu watched him in gathering wrath and would have torn into him with a few well-chosen words but the girl in his arms suddenly groaned.
An Ning's eyes opened then gazed with deep perplexity at the concerned face above her.
”What happened?”
”You fainted.”
An Ning's eyes opened in surprise then turned a stormy gray when she remembered what had happened before.She stood up, Du Lu standing quietly by her side. An Ning's eyes speared the entire room with a cool glance before settling on the silent and timid figure of Kang Jun.
”Thank you for clarifying things for me. You did well.”
Kang Jun stammered then blushed.
”We should send out some people to find this witch and kill her,” Du Lu said quietly.
Min Song cleared his throat but stopped when he encountered the general's frigid eyes.
An Ning looked at him then at Du Lu.
”I would be very much interested to hear your opinion about this matter,” she said, turning to Min Song. ”Speak.”
Min Song gave Du Lu a nervous smile before speaking.
”I think we should wait for Sei Sei and Min Ling to come back before making any decision, your grace,” Min Song said. ”I totally get the general's opinion of punishing first before employing diplomacy but we have to take several things into account before pursuing vengeance. First, we need more information about this person. Who is she? If she was really the one who harmed the late emperor then it is obvious that somebody paid her to do it. But then again, her grace already punished a lot of these people and some she put to death but no one has yet to mention this person even when asked under torture. Which means, that this person is far from ordinary and must be scheming with someone we don't know as yet against the emperor and his young mother.”
There was silence when Min Song finished.He didn't dare look at the general whose face remained wooden as he listened to him speak. This was the first time that Min Song directly disobeyed a military order from Du Lu yet he didn't feel scared. He was a military strategist renowned for his cool head and ability to accurately read a situation and Du Lu's order sprung from panic and not common sense.
”What he said is true,” the emperor's voice suddenly broke the tense silence. ”Everybody connected to my father is already dead. Nobody is left but none of them, those traitors who schemed against the emperor and killed him, was willing to speak about the person who actually poisoned him. We still don't know who it was behind this plot, do we, empress mother?”
Everybody turned to him as if they have just been woken from a bad dream. The emperor's young face was tight with grief, his eyes dark pools of shock and pain. An Ning's arm stretched out as if to offer him comfort but Gu Sheng had used the formal title of her name instead of the one he usually calls her so her hand dropped to her side. The question came from a monarch to his subject and the empress dowager answered him in the same vein.
”No, my lord. Not even the late prime minister could tell us who it was who concocted the poison.”
”What do you suggest we do then?” This time, the emperor looked directly at Du Lu.
”Master Min is right, your majesty, and I was wrong. It is foolish to rush headlong into this without first following the basic step which is to gather information. My two subordinates Sei Sei and Master Min Lang are already dispatched to gather information. We should wait for their report before making any moves.”
”And what move is that?”
”I'm going to take some men with me and personally hunt and kill this witch.”
”I'm going with you,” An Ning said to the surprise of everyone.
”You can't,” Du Lu brusquely contradicted. ”You are needed here. It should be easy to hunt and kill a witch. I don't need you there.”
An Ning let out a mocking laugh.
”Precisely why you need me to go with you. I know you. You don't believe in anything other than what you see with your own eyes. You don't believe in magic. You sneer at phantoms and laugh at bogeymen. The devil himself appears before your eyes and tells you he's the devil and you think he should be put behind bars. You don't have the temperament needed for this kind of assignment, Du Lu. You're too fucking sane to fight monsters like this witch.”
”And you're not, I presume?” Du Lu mocked.
”Oh, I believe in anything,” An Ning shrugged. ”Even god and the devil. Especially in supernatural creatures that go bump in the night. You will only get yourself killed without me there to save you.”
”And here I am, having survived twenty years of life without you or your help. You're still not going,” Du Lu said and there was finality to his voice.
”Your majesty?” An Ning asked without even turning her head.
”The empress dowager will go assist the General Chen in this assignment,” the emperor said, ignoring Du Lu's frown. ”In the meantime, a council will be formed to manage the day to day operations of the kingdom while we're gone. We don't need an entire troop to do this anyway. Just a handful of reliable and excellent people will do.”
Du Lu and An Ning gaped at him, stunned.