Born to Be Either Rich or Noble - Chapter 18

Saving lives is more important than taking them.

As the heir of the Duke’s House, burdened with the fate of the common people, Song Yunzhi understood the weight of choice. He handed Cui Er over to Fuyin, then stepped forward to help the wounded. He was no doctor, but for those carried out from that dark cellar, whether he knew medicine or not made no difference—
even a divine healer couldn’t mend bodies that had been tortured to the edge of death.

When Song Yunzhi saw the woman in Qian Tong’s arms, her eyes were unlike any dying gaze he had ever met before.
They were filled with sheer terror—and desperate, pleading hope.

It was the raw, trembling hunger of someone clinging to their very last thread of life.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t look away.

Qian Tong thought he looked like a fool.

Who stares so long at the dying? Did he not fear their faces would haunt his dreams?

She drew a small medicine bottle from her sleeve, tore open the woman’s trouser leg, exposing the festering wound beneath. Without changing expression, she sprinkled the powder over it and said calmly, “Don’t be afraid. He’s a divine physician from Jinling. Not only will he heal you tonight—he’ll get you out of here alive.”

In the face of death, what people needed more than medicine was hope.

The woman’s eyes flickered, shifting slowly from Song Yunzhi’s face to Qian Tong’s.

Qian Tong smiled gently and chatted as if to an old friend. “What’s your name? Where are you from? When you’re well, I’ll take you home. If you have no one left, come work for me. I’m the Seventh Lady of the Qian family—we’re quite wealthy. Work for me and you won’t be beaten or locked away. You’ll eat your fill, stay warm, and earn two taels of silver a month. You must have a child, right? Two taels a month… that’s twenty-four a year. Enough to feed and clothe your little one.”

As she spoke, the panic in the woman’s eyes slowly ebbed away.
It was as though she could already see that bright, promised future Qian Tong was painting for her.
A faint light rekindled in her eyes—hope—before she finally closed them under Song Yunzhi’s silent gaze.

Qian Tong covered the woman’s mangled leg with her skirt again, tucked away the medicine bottle, and moved on to the next. She yanked a young man to his feet—he’d been frozen in place—then murmured softly, “Don’t stare at the dead like that. Look too long, and you’ll fall in with them. She’s gone—you’re not.”

There was nothing she could truly do for these innocent souls.

The only mercy she could offer was to erase their fear before the end.

Perhaps in their next lives, they would no longer be timid.

If so, that would be her one small merit. Maybe Heaven, seeing her effort, would allow her to be reborn into wealth again.

Because she feared poverty more than anything.

Song Yunzhi didn’t listen. He looked at her instead.

The young woman’s face was calm—not terrified, not mournful. When she looked upon the dying, there was no pity in her eyes. She simply smiled as she sent them peacefully on their way, knowing exactly what they needed, and exactly what she could give.

She was more complicated than he had imagined.

He found himself watching her longer than he had the dying woman—his gaze fixed on her, the first glimmer of a strange, unreasonable hope flickering in his mind.
He hoped she stood on the side of goodness. Even if her actions tonight were driven by self-interest, he thought… perhaps he could forgive her.

By midnight, the Qian household had roused every doctor in the city.
Physicians arrived one after another, and when they saw what had been done, not one left unmoved.

The unspeakable cruelty and the victims’ ruined bodies tore away the illusion of peace that had long shrouded the grand capital of Dayu. By dawn, the city’s brilliance was stained by darkness.

Qian Tong bent to gather the scattered deeds of servitude that Song Yunzhi had thrown to the ground. She placed them neatly back into a wooden box and handed it to him. “I have something to take care of. Wait here. When the authorities arrive, give this to them.”

Those contracts would help identify the victims.

Soon, morning light would reveal everything—the Cui family’s sins would no longer hide in shadow. No matter how many favors Young Master Cui had bought with his influence, it would not be enough to bury this.

At least, as far as the imperial court was concerned, the Cui family’s road had reached its end.

The eldest son would have to turn to the Park family now.

Qian Tong glanced at the disheveled young man before her. She might be gone for the next two days, so she added, “After you hand it over, go home and rest. I’ll be back later.”

He didn’t move.

When he finally turned his head, he saw only the faint silhouette of her figure fading into the bloodstained morning, red spots like blossoms of begonia petals melting into the misty blue of the sky.

Outside, Qian Tong ordered Fuyin to drag Cui Er onto the carriage.

Luckily, Song Yunzhi’s throw had missed his head by inches, sparing his life.

But that same wooden box had crushed him half-paralyzed; only his eyes could move now. When he saw Qian Tong, he forced out a few broken syllables: “Qian… Tong… you… won’t… die well…”

“No, it’s you who won’t die well.” Qian Tong nudged his face with the tip of her shoe, spitting, “You were filth as a child, and you’re filth now. If I’d known you’d grow up to be this vile, I’d have drowned you then. What are you glaring at me for? Pathetic fool—I’ve beaten you down eight hundred times since we were kids and you still haven’t learned? Trash. Do you even know what’s coming for you now?”

Her tone turned icy, her face sharp as a blade. She bent down until her words sliced through him like steel.
“The Cui family will be seized. Your father, your mother, every one of you will be thrown in prison. But you don’t have to worry about your mother loving your brother more—because he’ll abandon you all and run. Don’t fret, though. I’ll find him. I’ll make sure your whole family reunites again.”

Her eyes flicked to his arms and legs. “Though by then, I’m not sure how many pieces of you will be left.”

When she finally saw fear in his expression, Qian Tong sneered, lifted her foot, and ordered coldly, “Send him to the Cui residence. When Madam Cui returns, tell her to finish him.”

By the time Qian Tong returned to the Qian estate, the sky was bright.

She washed the blood from her skin, changed into clean clothes, and after taking stock of her people, made her way to the gate.

Halfway there, she ran into Third Madam. After last night’s uproar, word of what had happened was everywhere. Unable to sit still, Third Madam hurried over as soon as she heard Qian Tong was back. “Tong’er, has your eldest sister returned?”

“Fuyin’s gone to fetch her,” Qian Tong replied. “If you have time, clean up her room a bit. When she gets home, she’ll need to wash away the bad luck.”

Third Madam nodded quickly. “Good, good. And where are you headed? Be careful on the road.”

The third branch of the Qian family might bicker daily, but when true disaster struck, every one of them protected their own.

The Cui family’s deeds had been inhuman. Poor Ling-jie, trapped in that hell for five long years…

It was good that they’d fallen. Now Ling could finally come home.

Qian Tong didn’t look back. “Got it,” she said, walking away.

After dawn, the first to arrive at the broker’s compound was County Magistrate Zhang.

The moment he stepped inside, he saw Song Yunzhi sitting in the middle of the courtyard, blood-soaked and silent, holding the wooden box in his lap.

Zhang’s vision went black. His knees buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, stammering through tears, “I’ve failed His Majesty… failed the people… I deserve to die!”

When Prefect Lan arrived, he found Zhang on his knees, kowtowing and weeping.

Lan sneered that Zhang was putting on a show, wondering who he hoped to impress at this hour—until he looked up and saw the rows of mutilated corpses neatly lined in the yard. His head began to buzz.

The entire Cui family has lost their minds.

Idiots.

First a restaurant, then a human trafficking den—
if they were so eager to die, fine, but why drag the rest of them down too?

And of all times, they had to commit such atrocities now. Were they trying to provoke the imperial court?

And as fate would have it—what they feared most came first.

Before Prefect Lan could even hide the evidence, the imperial troops arrived early.
A hundred iron-clad riders reached Yangzhou and were stopped by kneeling townsfolk, weeping and pleading for justice against the Cui family’s crimes.

After Song Yunzhi and Shen Che slipped away in disguise, one Assistant Minister of the Court of Justice (Dali Temple) stayed behind. To conceal their trail, he led the soldiers down the main road—straight to the broker’s yard, where they found this “gift” awaiting them.

Seeing Song Yunzhi’s bloodstained state, the official froze, then pretended not to recognize him. He called over Prefect Lan. “Explain this.”

Sweat soaked Lan’s back. He bowed deeply. “My lord, you’ve traveled far. Please rest at the yamen—I will give you a full report…”

The Dali official ignored him. He began questioning each witness personally.

Half an hour later, a hundred riders carried out the corpses—dead and living alike—and took them to the prefecture.
Song Yunzhi, under the guise of Qian family’s “witness,” was also brought along.

Once the doors of the back hall closed, the Assistant Minister Wang Zhao turned, knelt, and whispered, “My lord.”

The blood on Song Yunzhi’s robes had long dried to a dark, purplish red. His eyes, rimmed in crimson, were cold and sharp as blades. He handed the box to Wang Zhao. “Find out when this brokerage opened. See if anyone besides Cui Yunfang was involved. This isn’t their only den. Root them all out.”

Wang Zhao took it with both hands, hesitating. Their plans had changed; he had to ask, “My lord, should we move now?”

According to their original plan, once the court’s men reached Yangzhou, they would start with the Qian family. Their salt transport licenses (t/n: salt certificates were government-issued permits controlling the legal trade of salt, a vital state monopoly in imperial China) were nearing expiration, and the family would soon petition the court for renewal. They’d use that leverage to expose the Park family next.

The remaining two of the Four Great Families were hollow threats at best.

But no one expected the Cui family to be the first to self-destruct.

Song Yunzhi knew exactly how they’d gotten here. “The Cui family must die,” he said flatly. It wasn’t open for debate. But there was something else he needed first.

The Cui family had been smuggling.

And the stretch of sea behind Yangzhou—the one their ships used—belonged to the Park family’s domain.

There was no sunlight that day; the hour was unclear. Perhaps it was already noon.
A slender figure flashed in his mind. Song Yunzhi sat quietly in the dim light for a moment before speaking again.

“Tomorrow night, the Qian family’s Seventh Lady will intercept the Cui ships in the back harbor. Take men and lie in wait. Secure whatever’s on those ships.”

He was no longer the Qian family’s “son-in-law.” He was the heir of the Marquis’s household—a court official. The blood on him from last night, every drop of it, was enough to stand for justice and purge evil from the land.

His voice was calm but cutting: “If she tries to take it… kill her.”

May she know well what line she was about to cross.