Bai Jingfei and heavenly doctor Ming soon returned with their sack of loot, now completely drenched by the rain, and were greeted by Ladder. He had an imperial scroll in his hands and heavenly doctor Ming almost began celebrating.
"So they found that scum who had pretended to be me!" he said cheerfully, "Well that took them longer than I expected."
He then began grumbling and complaining. "They should've found them a week ago at the very least. These inept guards. I don't pay my taxes for this sort of nonsense."
Bai Jingfei had the urge to remind her shameless teacher that he never actually paid his taxes. He was committing tax fraud each and every time the time for collecting them came around.
This would sooner or later come back to bite him, but for now the profits were good.
Heavenly doctor Ming stuck his hand out for the scroll and patted Ladder's shoulder.
"Let me take a look at which scum was messing with me. I will make sure they reimburse the losses of that weed."
Once provoked, heavenly doctor Ming would never let go of a grudge. Feifei was similar but not nearly as outspoken as her teacher. While heavenly doctor Ming would stab his enemy openly, FeiFei would rob them in the dead of the night.
Ladder however, was a decent man. It was a miracle he had turned out that way when he was basically raised by heavenly doctor Ming. Anyone else would probably end up to be a scammer but Ladder was kind and compassionate.
Ladder shook his head and pointed the scroll at Bai Jingfei.
"Teacher, the emperor has requested to talk to FeiFei. There's a meeting soon." he said in a whisper, shocking both Bai Jingfei and heavenly doctor Ming.
While heavenly doctor Ming would celebrate being called by the emperor, Bai Jingfei was the opposite. The emperor only meant bad news for her. Since it had rained nonstop this was not good news for her for sure.
Maybe this was going to be a public execution for "the rain caller".
Or maybe the emperor would just flog her a few thousand times to appease the crowd and make sure prime minister Bai didn't hold a grudge.
"Feifei? Why? What could the emperor want from her?" asked heavenly doctor Ming.
Bai Jingfei wanted to ask the same but was afraid that the answer would be "to behead her". Her head was quite precious to her even if she didn't use it all that much.
Without waiting for an answer, heavenly doctor Ming snatched the scroll from Ladder and opened it violently, almost tearing it.
"Says something about rain calling but it sounds like the emperor was drunk writing this…" he said, skimming over the content, "'Please meet in palace very rain call'. What could that mean?"
Bai Jingfei was scared. Not terrified out of her wits but scared enough to sneak out through the back door and leave the kingdom and never come back.
If it hadn't been raining there was a very good chance that she'd steal an umbrella and run through the night like a ninja. She even had enough gold to live in a hut for a year or two.
The umbrella for self defense of course.
She would whack any bandits she came across with her umbrella.
To be honest, Bai Jingfei would have to live in a gold plated hut for her money to run out that quickly, but a gold plated hut was not quite beyond her. If given the choice between a regular hut and a gold plated one, we all know which one she would choose.
The gold plated one.
Bai Jingfei did not intend to get wet in the rain. She quite preferred losing her head in one chop to lying around in the forest with pneumonia.
Pneumonia was prolonged suffering and Bai Jingfei didn't like pain at all. She was the kind to cut off her arm because of the pain of a papercut.
To put it in simple words, she was an overdramatic wussy.
"When am I supposed to go to the palace?" ased Bai Jingfei softly. It was obvious to Ladder that she was worried and nervous, so he put his hand on her head and ruffled her hair a little.
He too had been nervous when he had first gone to meet the emperor so he thought he understood what FeiFei was worried about. He had no clue that this wasn't Bai Jingfei's first visit.
He had been nervous about being in the presence of the emperor as a humble orphan but the way the emperor pandered to heavenly doctor Ming made him lose all his respect for the emperor.
But Bai Jingfei was worried about being executed so that definitely wasn't her concern at all.
She had already witnessed the "glory" of that nasty emperor and had no respect for him either.
"Don't worry kiddo. The emperor isn't a bad- well- isn't too bad a man…" stuttered Ladder, remembering every single nasty decision the emperor had taken, "Well I'm sure you'll be fine."
This did the opposite of what Ladder had aimed to do. Bai Jingfei only got more nervous.
"Says Tomorrow." said heavenly doctor Ming curtly while yawning.
So Bai Jingfei headed to her room to sleep, and her thoughts ran wild. Dreams of a public execution ran wild in her head.
In her dreams children ran around as her head was chopped off with a sharp knife.
The words "Hahaha the rain witch is dead" floated around as she basically worried herself sick.
"The rain witch's head is rolling toward me! I'm going to kick it!" rang the voices of little children. One proceeded to kick her head into a basket and cheer before a game of football broke out.
Women samba danced in joy in the background.
Bai Jingfei woke up in cold sweat. This simply wasn't going to work.
So Bai Jingfei decided on a plan. Since she couldn't run away and couldn't avoid an execution she could simply try something else.
'If the emperor tries to execute me, I'll execute him first!'