Matriarch Rules, Scumbag Begs - Chapter 25

Chapter 25 Father’s Benevolence

Shen Qiuci looked at Dr. Xu’s confident expression, with a hint of triumph in his eyes and eyebrows, and smiled ambiguously.

The snow outside the house grew heavier.

Dark clouds loomed over the horizon, as if covering the sun in a dark cave. The light of day suddenly weakened, casting a yellowish haze over the room.

Shen Qiuci lit a fire and ignited the oil lamp on the table. The flickering light of the lamp cast a dim glow on her face, making it seem like half of it was bright and the other half was shrouded in shadows, making it impossible to read her expression.

“Since Dr. Xu has spoken so candidly, he must know that he won’t be able to work in the Shen mansion anymore,” she said.

She rolled up her sleeve and placed her hand on the table: “As a token of our past relationship, before we part ways, I’d like to trouble Dr. Xu to take my pulse one last time.”

Although Dr. Xu’s expression showed reluctance, his eyes were fixed on the silver notes beside Shen Qiuci’s hand.

After a moment, he stood up and walked over to Shen Qiuci, placing a white cloth under her wrist to take her pulse.

The air around them was unusually quiet, and even the sound of snow falling on the branches outside the window seemed piercing at that moment.After a while, Shen Qiuci looked at Dr. Xu’s hand taking her pulse and asked softly: “A doctor’s hands are meant to heal and save lives. Don’t you agree, Dr. Xu?”

Dr. Xu replied: “That’s natural.”

Just as he finished speaking, Shen Qiuci suddenly grabbed Dr. Xu’s wrist and asked sternly: “But you replaced my sister’s life-saving medicine with cheap and inferior substitutes. Is this what a doctor should do?”

When Shen Qiuci returned to the Shen mansion, she had taken her sister’s pulse and found it to be extremely weak, not as her mother had claimed, that she was being kept alive with precious medication.

Shen Qiuci had examined the leftover medicine and discovered that the herbs used were ordinary and could only deceive laypeople.

“You, you can’t wrong me!” Dr. Xu stuttered, realizing something was wrong, and tried to shake off Shen Qiuci’s grip. But no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t break free from the weak woman’s grasp.

Shen Qiuci didn’t look at him, but applied slight pressure to his wrist, twisting it backward: “What are you doing? Let me go!”

“I want to hear the truth,” Shen Qiuci said expressionlessly, twisting his wrist another inch backward.

“Ah!” Dr. Xu let out a loud cry, and a layer of fine sweat appeared on his forehead.

The piercing pain was unbearable, and he trembled all over, his lips and teeth chattering: “It was me, I replaced your sister’s medicine…”

“She was paralyzed in bed, and there was no hope for her recovery! Every day, she would soil herself with feces and urine. Continuing to drag on would only lead to loss of dignity and unnecessary suffering!”

“I… I was helping her find liberation!”

Upon hearing this, Shen Qiuci’s eyebrows furrowed slightly, clearly unsatisfied with the answer.

She continued to apply pressure to his wrist, enunciating each word: “I want to hear the truth!”

“Ah!!!”

The twisting motion forced Dr. Xu’s wrist to bend to an unnatural extreme, and he stared at his deformed wrist in horror, pain driving him to speak recklessly: “I’ll say! I’ll say!”

“It was… I accepted silver from Xue Yinshuang! I intentionally replaced your sister’s medicine!”

“My son has a serious heart condition, and just to keep him alive, the medicine costs five taels of silver per day. I had no choice…”

As Shen Qiuci heard this, her icy gaze gradually turned deadly.

So it was true…
If her sister hadn’t been given the wrong medicine, she might have been able to hold on until Shen Qiuci returned, and the mysterious doctor from Tian Ji might have had a way to save her sister’s life. But now, it was all too late…
She turned to face Dr. Xu, her eyes fixed on his pain-ridden expression, and asked sternly: “Your son’s life is precious, but my sister’s life is not?”

Dr. Xu’s face contorted in agony: “Your sister was beyond saving! I helped her pass away without pain, and in return, I got silver to treat my son’s illness. What’s wrong with that?”

“You’ve never been a parent, you don’t understand my desperation! At that time, I had no other choice, and if it meant sacrificing my own life to save my son’s, I would have done it without hesitation!”

“You’re quite the great father,” Shen Qiuci interrupted him, her deep brown eyes reflecting the dim candlelight like a deep abyss: “Unfortunately, I don’t want to hear it!”

With that, she suddenly applied force to his wrist, snapping it violently towards his forearm.

“Ah!!!”

The sound of bones cracking mixed with the crackling of the charcoal fire, both sounds bursting forth simultaneously.

A heavy metallic smell quickly spread throughout the warm room. Shen Qiuci let go of his hand, and Dr. Xu fell to the ground, rolling in agony.

She gazed coldly at the wrist that was now completely broken, the white bone protruding from the flesh, and the surrounding area a mess of blood and mangled flesh.

“You lunatic!” Dr. Xu cursed, struggling to get up from the ground and stumbling backward to the door, his eyes blazing with anger as he glared at Shen Qiuxi: “Even if I killed your sister, so what?”

“As a doctor, I know best how to kill someone without leaving a trace! Even if you report me, you won’t find any evidence!”

His gaze fell upon the silver notes beside Shen Qiuci, and he spat viciously: “You want to give me silver now? I won’t take it!”

“But when I reveal your true identity to the young master, I’ll get far more silver than this!”

“When your identity is exposed, and you’re found guilty of deceiving the Emperor, you’ll be beheaded alongside your mother!”
Dr. Xu vented his anger with a few sharp words and turned to flee, but as soon as he placed his hand on the doorframe, he heard Shen Qiuci’s cold and menacing voice behind him: “Dr. Xu…”

“Your son is about five years old now, isn’t he?” This casual sentence sent a chill down Dr. Xu’s spine, and he froze, his feet feeling heavy.

He turned around abruptly: “What do you mean?”

Shen Qiuci raised an eyebrow towards the bronze furnace with a beast’s head design beside her and then gestured to indicate its size, speaking calmly: “His head is about the same size as that bronze furnace, isn’t it?”

A sense of inexplicable fear poured in from all directions, crushing Dr. Xu. He struggled to move his lips: “W-what are you going to do?”

Shen Qiuci smiled but said nothing. She gently stroked a small pine tree on the table, picked up a small pebble, and then suddenly threw it at the bronze furnace.

“Bang.”

The next moment, the bronze furnace exploded, shattering into pieces, and the red-hot coals inside scattered, landing on Dr. Xu’s outer garment and burning small holes in it.

Dr. Xu’s eyes widened in shock, and he stared blankly at the mess on the ground, his breathing almost stopping.

Shen Qiuci gazed at him with a smile, her voice calm and collected: “I’m curious, if that pebble had accidentally hit your son’s head…”

“With your medical skills, could you save his life?”