Chapter 421: Chapter 421 Procuress Chapter 421: Chapter 421 Procuress “Oh my oh my! There’s no such thing, we at Qinger Building open our doors to do business, how could there possibly be a fatality! It’s that wretched dwarf spouting nonsense; if old mama knew, she’d definitely tear his mouth apart, this… this is simply slander,” the Procuress huffed, her face full of indignation, looking wronged.
“Sir Constable, who exactly is slandering our brothel? It’s utterly despicable, isn’t it?” Having been around the Itinerant World for many years, the Procuress was quite cunning and was trying to probe for some information from the arrest officer.
“In the dead of the third watch of the night, it was hard to make out their face, but we only know it was a child. They seemed to carry quite the importance, spending money very freely. If not for that, the county magistrate wouldn’t have had us come here early in the morning to search for evidence.” Seeing as the Procuress had given him silver, the Yamen Runner reluctantly shared.
As soon as she heard it was a child, the Procuress immediately thought of the dwarf from last night.
Cursed be, it’s this blasted dwarf causing trouble again, causing our master to pay so much in funeral expenses, and he still had the nerve to report us to the Yamen?
He himself was clearly a murderer, yet he had the audacity to flip the situation, accusing them at the government office, playing a thief crying “Catch the thief!” with them.
The Procuress was furious in her heart, but her face didn’t show it. Her eyes darted around, then suddenly she clapped her hands as if she had just realized something, “Oh my! So it’s that dwarf who reported our brothel!”
“What? You know who reported you?” The arrest officer glanced at the Procuress.
“Indeed.”
“Good, at least it keeps us from falsely accusing your Qinger Building.”
“But we really have been wronged!”
“So what exactly happened?” The arrest officer frowned, asking with confusion.
“Sir Constable, this is what happened: last night was Qinger Building’s grand opening, we had a lot of guests, it was packed and bustling. While everyone was having a great time, in came a dwarf, short and ugly as a ghost. As soon as he entered, he started making a ruckus demanding the girls keep him company. Oh my! With his ghastly appearance… It’s not that Nanny Sun is picky, but he really was scary; the eyes weren’t in the right place, the nose was shifted, and the mouth crooked over to the nose. You tell me, with such a grotesque figure, which girl would be willing to accompany him? Right, Sir Constable?”
The arrest officer was dumbfounded, “In this world, there really are such weirdos?”
“Exactly, seeing no girl was willing to keep him company, the dwarf threw a fit, accusing our Qinger Building of discriminating against him, and threatened to take us to the government office. At the time, I thought he was just speaking in anger and didn’t take it to heart. Who knew that this wretched dwarf would actually go to the Yamen and accuse our brothel of murder? He scared me to death.”
“Is that true?”
“True, of course, it’s true; even if you gave me a hundred guts, I wouldn’t dare deceive you, Sir Constable,” the Procuress said, pulling out several silver notes from her clothes and stealthily handing them over to him.
The arrest officer looked around to see if anyone was paying attention, then took the silver notes and tucked them away in his chest.
“Sir Constable, is it time for them to leave now? With everything tossed about in such a mess, we still need to do business tonight,” the Procuress said with a smile brimming on her face.
With several hundred taels of silver notes tucked happily in his chest, the arrest officer felt quite pleased. He walked forward a few steps and, addressing the Yamen Runners who were searching everywhere inside, he called out loudly, “That’s enough, stop the search.”
Hearing this, all the Yamen Runners stopped searching and walked towards the arrest officer.
The arrest officer glanced at them and asked routinely, “Well? Did you find anything suspicious?”
“Reporting, sir, we found nothing,” the Yamen Runners replied in unison.
“Since there’s nothing, let’s be on our way. We got up early this morning to rush over to Jingshan Town and haven’t even eaten; I’m starved,” said the arrest officer, while his eyes swept meaningfully over the Procuress.