Face-Slapping16 min read
I Caught a Killer, Grew an Empire, and Made Them Beg
ButterPicks13 views
I spat river water into the mud and sat up with a gasp.
"You're awake!" my mother cried. Her voice shook like a bell.
"Where am I?" I said. My head thudded. My lungs burned.
"Down by the river," she said. "You almost—"
"Shh," she hushed me, but everyone around talked at once.
"She tried to run away!" someone said.
"She and that slant-eyed boy were seen near the boat!" another voice cut in.
"She went crazy for a man, what a shame," a woman snorted.
I blinked. I remembered a graduation, a cap, my modern life, a smooth campus road. Then a different body woke in me: small, fat, fourteen. Dirt under my nails. A village I had only read about in textbooks. I swallowed. I was Cassandra Liu. I had been Cassandra Liu in college an hour ago. Now I was Cassandra Liu in a poor house called Old Su's in Yuanxi Village.
"Are you hurt?" my mother—Bridget Colombo—kept asking.
"Fine," I lied. My tongue felt huge in my mouth. I wanted to think, and my mind buzzed fast.
They shoved me into our shack. My family crowded there like wayside chickens. I saw my uncle, my brothers, their wives. Everyone had the same small, mean faces I'd seen in a hundred old stories.
"Listen," I said to myself. "Keep quiet. Learn. Survive."
The worst of them, the one I knew hated me like a cat hates water, was Valentina Parker. She wore a false smile. She had pushed me into the river earlier with men. She had plotted me into trouble before. I remembered a plan—her whisper, a laugh—and how she had baited me with a plan to run away with an ugly man named Vijay Hamilton. I stood now in my own damp clothes and watched the way Valentina's eyes slid around the room, claiming space.
"You should not go out," Bridget said, fierce. "Not till you're warm."
"I'm fine, Ma," I said. I smiled the way a child smiles when taught to. I kept turning facts over in my head. I had knowledge of modern crops and plants. I had the body memory of training in martial arts. This body was slow but it had weakness that could be worked. I breathed in. We were poor. We were hungry. I had a new power: a space that felt like a secret room in my head.
That night, I found the small wooden hut with pots, seeds, and some odd tools. I told myself to close my eyes and think. The room shimmered. A door opened into a place that was not outside the village: bright, empty, with soil that shone like something odd. I called it my space.
"This is mine," I said aloud. I dug my hand into the soil. It was warm and smelled like life.
"You're talking to the dirt," my sister-in-law said outside the door. She laughed. I did not answer. I moved seeds into the good soil, poured weird water from a small pond, and closed the door. Outside, the village slept. Inside, time moved different. I finished a day's work and, when I returned, the plants were six times taller. My breath came out loud with joy.
"Ma," I said the next morning, "we will never starve again."
"You can actually farm?" Bridget looked at me as if I'd told her I could pull gold from my sleeves.
"Better than the old ways," I said. "Trust me."
Days moved fast. I hunted with a borrowed bow and learned to keep an eye on people. Valentina kept visiting. She smiled like honey. "How are you, friend?" she said.
"Good," I lied. "You say you will make things right."
She fell for it. She bragged of Vijay Hamilton and said he would marry his mother into a good house. "He ran because he is afraid," she told me.
"Then bring him," I said. "I'll help."
She shivered. Her plan cracked.
When she brought Vijay, he was worse than the stories. He called me names loud enough for her to hear. He grabbed at me. I let him think I was stupid and fat. Then I turned my face and smiled and said, "You two are perfect for each other."
Vijay lunged. He cried out when I said, "Apologize to her now. You hurt her."
He looked shocked. Valentina's smile dropped away. He blurted, he begged, and then, beneath the trees, he fell on his knees and wept like a child. People came running. For the second time that day I found a new power: attention. The kids at home cheered me. For a little while I had their loyalty.
"Keep your heads," I told them. "Never let mean hearts make your heart small."
I learned to hunt well. I learned to grow ten days' food in a single night in my space. I learned that the space was not just soil: it kept seeds in full and fed me like a machine. I hid three fat rabbits in it when I returned from the mountain. The house smelled better. People ate. People smiled.
Later, in the deep wood, I found him.
He was a young man, handsome, wounded and bloody. He had a poisoned arrow in his shoulder, a deep cut in his belly, and a face that hurt to look at. His clothes were fine cloth that did not fit the village. He breathed shallow. I crouched.
"Who did this?" I hissed, pulling out the arrow.
He coughed. His name came out: Drake Suzuki.
"Don't move," I told him. "You will bleed.
He tried to hide. Then his hand closed on mine hard and he mumbled, "Thank you."
"Shut up," I said. "You bleed faster when you speak."
We argued like we both needed to be rude. He trusted me enough to let me clean him. He took my medicine that I found in his pouch. That little red seed of gold medicine worked. He pulled me close just enough to steady me and then fell asleep.
"Who are you?" I asked later.
"Drake," he said. "Drake Suzuki. Leave me out of your world."
"I can't," I said. "But I won't make you owe me."
Drake came from a big, dangerous house. He had men. He had enemies. He smiled like a blade in the sun. He also had a clean way of moving that made you think of court rooms and laws. He promised to pay help to Barnes the healer, but he stayed.
"You're staying?" I said.
"It is fine," he said. "You have strength."
He kept his secret. He did not tell me everything. His men came. A tall, dark guard named Keith Schumacher came to check. He bowed. Another, Fox Schulz, circled the house. Their eyes were cold. Later, in the night, they pulled Drake apart to examine him. They made plans to move him, but one night more saved us.
In town, the long-tongued woman Yuan—now I call her Mrs. Walter Moeller—spread lies. She told the market women that I stole, that I lied, that the fish were fake. I answered with warmth: I shared the fish with kids, we fed people, and the crowd turned.
But there was a deeper darkness. At the county magistrate's estate, men in good clothes met and clinked silver. Amos Cochran, a man who smelled of coins, spoke. "The woman will not cause us trouble," he said. "Wash it away."
"Three hundred?" the darker men asked.
"Three hundred and leave no trace," he said.
Later I learned what "no trace" meant. A woman had been drowned in the river because she had gotten in the way of a man like Amos. He gave coins to a small group to throw her in. The river took her.
When I found Drake again, he was weaker but alive. He told me pieces. He had been chased by men who worked for Amos Cochran. He had been shot with a poison arrow meant to kill. He named a few men. My hands tightened. I had a secret and now a promise. I would not let him die, and I would not let the men who had murdered the woman get away.
We planned quietly. Drake's men watched, and I kept planting. I fed the village, and word spread that the old Su house now had enough. People came and asked for help. I gave it. I also kept records.
"Why do you help?" Drake asked me once.
"My mother fed me when I was a child," I said. "I do not forget."
"It is noble," he said. "But dangerous."
"Good," I replied. "I like danger."
One sharp day, after a festival, I walked to the market with Drake partly healed beside me. Valentina walked under a bright red banner, looking pretty and sure. Vijay walked with her and laughed loud at fools. The magistrate's men stood at the plaza. The whole town crowded like beads pressed together.
I thought of the woman who had been drowned. I thought of the men Amos had paid. I thought of how Valentina had pushed me to the river. I thought of the messages Drake had shown me—letters, receipts, and the names of the men who had been paid. I had kept each piece. I kept careful notes on a scrap of paper and hidden them in the village loom.
"Now," I told Drake.
"Now what?" he said.
"We make them kneel."
At the square, I stood on a small raised stone. The crowd quieted. Valentina strutted past and stuck a finger to her lips in mock secrecy. She did not imagine I had proof. I had called the magistrate to come talk about a theft earlier—an old trick. I had the magistrate's men already there.
"All right," I said. "This ends."
Drake did not say anything. He walked beside me, his coat still dusty. Keith Schumacher and Fox Schulz stood like statues behind us.
I raised my voice. "Valentina Parker," I said, loud enough for half the market to hear. "You and Vijay Hamilton and Amos Cochran's men—step forward."
Valentina's smile froze. "What nonsense?" she asked.
"Tell the crowd what you did to me," I said.
She scoffed. "This is childish. Who will believe the fat little aunt in rags?"
Children in the crowd whispered. "She is the new rich girl's friend," someone said. "She is mad."
"Then watch," I said.
I turned and threw a small packet onto the wooden table beside me. It was a bundle of letters and a tiny silver coil showing a merchant's mark. I had found them near the river, hidden under a stone. They were the payments. I unrolled them.
"These are receipts," I said. "Watch the names."
I called the magistrate's scribe forward. He read a name from the paper: "Amos Cochran."
A murmur went through the crowd.
I kept going. "These receipts show payment for 'river work.' These receipts were found in the bag of one of the men. The same men were seen near the river the day a woman drowned."
Valentina's face went from pink to white to red, then pale. "That is a lie," she barked.
"Do you deny receiving gold?" I asked.
She looked to Vijay. He opened his mouth, then shut it. He started to sweat.
A soldier stepped forward. He held a coarse cloth bag. Inside, coins were loud as dice. "We found this at the dock," he said. "It has Amos Cochran's tin seal."
"Amos Cochran," I said. "He ordered the death, paid men to hide the body in the river, and silenced the woman who knew too much. Valentina Parker collected debts and helped arrange the men to push me in. She paid them to make sure I changed the place of the operation—so I would be blamed."
Valentina shrieked, "That's a lie! I help the village! I never—"
"Shut up," I said. "Tell them who was paid. Tell them who gave the coins."
Her mouth moved. She tried to look brave. "Amos—Amos did not—he never—"
A soldier slammed his staff on the table. "You will answer, woman," he said.
Everyone's faces watched like they were seeing a bead drop from the sky. Valentina's lips moved but no sound came. A child in the crowd said, "She is quiet now."
The magistrate, a round-faced man with a pen behind his ear, walked in. "We will hear this," he said.
"You took part in murder," he said to Valentina. "You and your men will be held for questioning."
Valentina laughed once—a dry bark—but then she saw the crowd turn toward her. Mothers gathered their children. Men stopped their gossip. The crowd that once whispered against me now leaned forward to watch someone fall.
Valentina's eyes shifted. She looked at Vijay, and for the first time, his face showed fear. He had never worried about much. He had been a bully with laughter like knives. Now his knees knocked.
"Valentina," I said softly. "Tell them how you pushed me."
She grabbed at a woman at her side. "She is a liar!" she screamed. "She wants them to punish me because she can't take the things she tries to steal."
"Valentina," I said. I stepped closer. "Do you think I don't know your words? The woman in the river? She cried your name with her last breath. Do you think the river did not hear?"
"That's not true!" Valentina shouted, but her voice was thin.
"Then answer," I said. "Did you go to the river with Vijay and those men? Did you pay them silver to make sure they did it?"
The magistrate's men placed a rough rope around her wrists. The rope cut her skin a little. Her smile shattered.
She swayed. Her cheeks lost their color. She tried to pick up a lie and wrap it around the crowd, but her tongue slipped. "I—" she said, and then the words fell like stones. "I was there. I pushed her. We were paid."
A hundred faces went white. I heard somebody whisper, "She admitted it."
Vijay tried to run. Someone shoved him down. He scrambled up, but the rope was quick. He looked at me like a cornered animal.
"Why?" I asked, low.
He swallowed. "She told me it would make me respected," he said. "She said it would be funny."
"Funny?" I laughed. "A human life is funny to you?"
He squinted. "I didn't mean—"
He dropped to his knees on the stone. The mud came up around him like a small tide. He held out his hands.
"Please!" he cried. "I didn't know it would go that far. I didn't know the woman would—"
He gasped and began to cry. The crowd had grown silent, then angry, then thirsting for truth. A merchant called, "Bring the money!" Another man opened his coat and found the silver receipts I had shown. People picked them up like they were proof of a spell. The magistrate ordered guards to keep Valentina and Vijay in the town jail.
Then I urged the magistrate to call them to the public square again. People would watch as the truth unfolded. This was not punishment without light—this was people seeing what lies did when fed.
"Let them confess in front of the crowd," I said.
"They will speak," the magistrate said. "But we must warn, we must have law."
"Law doesn't always do the hard part," I said. "We do."
So we made them stand before the gathered crowd. I had one of Drake's men read the list of lies Valentina had fed to the town. I had proof the coins passed hands. I put the water clock nearby so the public could see time move while we waited for their shame.
Valentina's face began with stone, moved to heat, then panic. Her hands clenched. Stitches of shame pulled at her throat like tight ropes. "It's a lie, it's a lie!" she tried again and again, but the paper and witnesses were like rain on old paint. Her friends turned away. Vijay looked up and saw people pointing their fingers at him. They filmed him with crude sketchbooks, whispers, and then a traveling clerk wrote down his confession.
By the time he collapsed, he had gone from quiet pride to shock, to denial, to begging.
"Please!" Vijay yelled. "Please! I didn't mean—I'll do anything—I'll pay—I'll go—"
He crawled on his knees toward me. The crowd watched him crawl. Children stopped eating sweets. They had never seen a grown man crawl on mud. He pounded the ground and cried, "Please don't tell my mother! Please!"
Valentina's voice cracked. She tried to stand tall. "I was paid! Amos paid me! I needed money! I needed—"
"Stop," I said. "Tell them the whole truth."
She sagged under the weight of her own lies and said, in a small voice, "We hired men. They pushed the woman in. The river took her. We threw money."
People gasped. A woman fainted. The magistrate ordered both to be held for trial, but I wanted more.
"Make them ask for the woman to be forgiven," I whispered to the magistrate. "Make them go to the river and kneel."
He hesitated. Then he nodded. The act would be public and sharp.
At the river, a crowd of seven hundred people waited: traders, farmers, children with dried mud on their knees, and even the people Valentina loved to show off to. They saw the two of them led to the bank.
"Look," a farmer said, "it's the pair that laughed."
Valentina's face fell. Vijay was pale. They were given a place to stand on the wet stones.
"Get on your knees," I said.
They couldn't refuse. They knelt. The river murmured as if it recognized the thieves.
Vijay's voice faltered. "Please!" he said. He looked up at me. The shame had eaten his smile. His hands shook. He folded his head and wailed. The crowd turned their faces away at first, then slowly they took out their phones—some scribes made notes. In this time, more and more people recorded on the spot with small paper tablets.
"Ask them why," I said.
A magistrate's scribe read his confession out. Vijay tried to speak and failed. Valentina broke down beside him and cried hard enough to soil her sleeves. The two of them begged for love and mercy and for people not to hate them. People watched, eyes cold.
"Did you think you could hide?" Drake's voice said behind me. He had stood back until now, and his cool had become steel. He did not need to lift a hand. The law and the people's witness were the hammer now.
Vijay dug his face into his hands and tried to crawl to me again. "Please—" he said.
"Look up," I said.
He looked. He saw hundreds of faces—farmers who had lost crops, women who had cried, the sister of the drowned woman who held a scrap of her sister's scarf. The scarf had been pinned to a market pole by a brave woman who had found it after the river receded. When Vijay saw that scarf he fell in parts.
"Please forgive me," he said. "I didn't mean—"
The crowd's hum became a roar of anger and then of quiet closure. Parents pulled their children a half-step back. An old man spat into the river as if to make sure the water did not take another human life. Two children cried. Someone shouted, "Shame!" A young woman in the crowd took out a bit of paper and started to write down the confession. Others copied.
Valentina's eyes rolled. She had become small. She started to plead for life, for mercy, for a chance to be forgiven. She cried and tried to hold Vijay but he pushed her away.
"Beg," the magistrate ordered. "Tell them who paid you."
She named Amos Cochran.
At the mention of his name, the crowd swelled with anger again. Amos was not present. He was rich and far. But he had people. The magistrate said he would summon him. The townspeople booed.
Valentina hit her palms against her face. "I was paid," she said. "I am sorry."
"Will the villagers accept your apology?" the magistrate asked.
A dozen voices said no. One voice—a widow—said, "She must make public amends."
Valentina was made to stand and confess, name the men, and be taken to the magistrate's jail. Vijay was taken too. They both screamed and begged as they were brought off. The crowd watched their faces go pale.
When Amos's name went out, the magistrate sent a rider to his house. Two days later, his carriage rolled into town. He came with high men, thinking he would sweep his crimes under his coins. The magistrate read the papers, the receipts, the witnesses. The magistrate's voice was the only ruler there.
"Amos Cochran," he said, "these papers show your payment to men who killed a woman. You are charged."
Amos's face changed. He laughed at first, then anger, then a forced smile. He stood tall and proud, then he looked to the crowd.
"Do you deny it?" I asked.
He spat on the ground and said, "I ordered business. I do not order murder."
"Then explain why your seal is on this receipt," I said.
He turned pale. "That's a forgery," he said. But his voice had no heat.
The magistrate lifted his hand. "Public trial," he said. "At the square. Tomorrow."
The next day, the whole county gathered. Men who dressed like kings came to see if a great man could be humbled. The market was jammed. We arranged a place where the drowned woman's sister, now with a band of support, stood.
Amos arrived, flanked by servants. He put on a brave face. At first he sneered at the gathered people, but when the magistrate asked Valentina and Vijay to stand again and repeat their confessions, their voices broke the façade.
"You paid them," Valentina said. "You signed that coin bag."
The clerk read the entries aloud. A rope was placed around Amos's neck—not to choke but to show he could be held. He had always walked with his chin high, but now his neck was exposed. People who had lost family to cold banks and rivers turned their faces to him.
"Amos Cochran," I said, "look at the faces of the people you used."
He blinked. Then something in his chest changed. He had known power. Now the power left him like summer rain. He tried to bluster.
"You're trying to shame me," he barked. "I'll have you hung!"
"Do it then," Drake said softly. He stepped forward. "But first, tell the truth."
Amos's eyes flicked to the river, to the scarf, to the market. He had made sure his hands would not get dirty. He had hired men to do that. Now the men were named. They told the magistrate everything. They named Amos.
Amos tried to deny it, tried to buy people with gold, but the crowd had seen him step by step. The women in the market began to shout his name like a curse. "Murderer!" they said. "Pay for the woman!"
Amos's face turned hard, then pale, then he dropped. He fell to his knees in the square. His servants tried to hold him up. He clawed at the stone like a dog. He begged for mercy. "Spare me!" he cried. "I will pay double! I will give land! I will give gold!"
People threw his gold back at him like soiled rags.
"Get up," I told him. "Look at their faces. Look at the family you hurt."
He looked at the woman's sister. She stepped up, voice steady. "You killed my sister," she said. "You bought men to silence her. You bought silence for your deals. You thought money could buy life."
Amos could not deny. His hands shook. "Please," he said. "I will go away. I will leave this county."
"Leave?" the magistrate asked. "You must stay and face judgment."
Amos dropped like a tree. He crawled. He begged. He tried to kiss my hand like an animal begging for crumbs.
"Please, Cassandra," he said. "Please, I will do anything."
I looked at him. I felt the weight of the woman's death. I had no wish to hang a man. I wanted the truth to be known. I wanted the village to see that someone could not simply buy life.
"You will go to trial," I said. "You will pay the family. You will build a fund for women threatened by men like you. You will have the county watch your houses. You will kneel here each day and sweep the market for a month. You will stand with the family and help build a small shrine at the riverbank. If you do not, the law will take you."
He was weak. He agreed. He gave up gold. He promised land.
He kneeled in front of the river then, head bowed, and begged forgiveness. "Forgive me," he said. His voice broke.
The crowd watched his fall and then watched his pleading. Some clapped as if to end a fight. Some spat. The woman tied a small ribbon on the shrine pole. The river took the sound of their palms.
Valentina and Vijay were led away to do the magistrate's work in jail and public apologies. Amos left the county with his face emptied. The story spread. The shrill woman who had lied to cover wrongs was nowhere in the crowd now. People whispered that the market had been cleaned.
After the trials, I did not feel power. I felt tired. I had fed people. I had killed lies. I had saved a man who would become my friend, then partner in plans. Drake and I did not talk of love at first. We patched wounds and plans. We learned to trust.
"Why did you help me?" he asked once, hours after the town had quieted.
"Because it was the only clean thing to do," I said. "And because I liked you when you did not bow."
He smiled a small smile. "You grow the best crops. You feed the best people. You have a strange way of making friends."
"I have a space," I said. "And a plan."
We grew the farm. We taught the village to plant what I had learned in the space. Food multiplied. Money came like a slow river instead of a quick flood. People changed. The market had more than bread. The children learned math and reading from Drake's men. I taught the girls how to throw a knife and how to plant seeds.
Valentina left town when she was paroled. Vijay stayed and scrubbed fence posts for a year. Amos's fund paid for a small school and for the shrine at the river. The dead woman's sister lit incense there every month. People came to leave little stones. I learned to hold the grief and not let it break me.
One winter I sat in the space and planted different seeds: tomatoes and cotton and a strange yellow bean. The soil shimmered and the sky above my space looked softer than ever. I had choices now.
"Do you want to go back?" Drake asked, once, when the moon was thin and the laundry of the village smelled like fried garlic.
"Back where?" I said.
"Back to your old life. To the city."
I looked at the children playing under the lamplight. I looked at Bridget laughing softly with women who had been cruel before. I thought of the woman on the river and of the market crowd that had made a murderer kneel.
"No," I said. "This is my life now. I will not be the woman who runs. I will be the woman who stays."
He nodded. "Then stay."
We made a life. I taught, he traded, and the village learned to keep its head high. Valentina's name became a warning to children: do not take the easy lies. Vijay learned to lock the door and melt into a quiet man who brought wood and kept his head down. Amos's name was like a warning about what money buys.
Years later, I walked to the river shrine. Kids laughed and the wind carried grains from the fields. I touched the ribbon and thought of the river. I thought of the woman who had died and the people who had wanted her remembered.
"Promise me," the drowned woman's sister said as she put a stone on the shrine. "Promise you will not let them do this again."
"I promise," I said. "I promise we will watch."
She smiled small. "Then we are even."
I went home to my little fields and my space. I watered new seeds and fed one of my own rabbits to a child who had learned to laugh again. Drake knocked once at my door with two cups of soup. He sat and drank quietly.
"This is the end," he said one night.
"No," I said. "This is the start."
We both knew life would bring new tests, new men with money and small dark things in their hearts. But I was no longer a girl who tried to run from the river. I was a woman who had made the river stop taking what it wanted. I had learned how to grow food from nothing and how to make people see. I had learned how to make villains kneel.
And if any man ever thought my crops or my courage were small—I'd plant a money tree and watch it burn.
The End
— Thank you for reading —