As liquid-like moonlight seeped through the white paper window lattice, she lowered her head, her gaze locking with his.
Suddenly, the “thump-thump, thump-thump” of heartbeat sounds beside their ears grew somewhat loud, making it impossible to tell whose it was for a moment.
Yin Weiyue pulled out the white jade hairpin from Huo Jun’s hair and put it into her own vanity box. When she turned back, the man’s black hair tumbled down in a cascading waterfall, fine beads of sweat oozing all over his body from the tussle just now. Under the dim candlelight, this scene appeared exceptionally tempting.
As if possessed by ghost or spirit, the woman raised her fingertips to lightly stroke those beads of sweat. In that instant, it felt as though an electric current surged from her fingertips into her whole body, and subsequently, her fingers slid uncontrolled toward his lips.
“What—what are you doing?!” Huo Jun’s voice perceptibly trembled, but Yin Weiyue willfully pressed on, paying him no heed.
She slowly drew closer, the distance between their faces growing nearer and nearer, closer and closer…
In her past life, her eldest sister often said that when a man and a woman made love, on the premise of loving each other, if the boyfriend happened to be tall and sturdy, the woman was in for a treat because he had the capacity to let her experience pleasure.
Yet the man before her merely had a good-looking face. Although tall, he was as skinny and weak as a chick. They weren’t in love, weren’t a real couple, and even harbored mutual disgust…
At the thought of this, Yin Weiyue’s hazy mind cleared up quite a bit.
As a woman who hadn’t seen a man in fifteen years and possessed a 30+ soul, wanting to vent and release was not wrong, but if her first time in life was spent on a man like this, she would be taking a huge loss.
No, her first time had to be with a strong man who liked her, no matter what.
However, Huo Jun’s lips looked truly far too delicious—ruddy in color, plump and full. Somehow, the more she looked, the more she wanted to taste whether that flavor was the same as the wild cherries she ate in the mountains in her past life…
In the end, Yin Weiyue failed to hold back and used the tip of her tongue to lightly sweep across for a brief taste.
The man who was taken advantage of widened his eyes in sudden shock. Finding that gaze too much of an impediment, Yin Weiyue directly covered his eyes with her hand, and then she lost control, becoming unable to extricate herself like a cat that discovered dried fish.
“Yin Weiyue, don’t—don’t you like Huo Kai and keep yourself pure for him? Hurry and let—let go of me!” Between the entangling of lips and teeth, the bound Huo Jun could only emit fragmented sounds, but his resistance was useless.
“Wrong! Only an idiot keeps herself pure for a man who doesn’t know how to cherish her. This old woman will surely taste all the handsome men under Heaven in the future.”
After a long while, his lips were bitten until swollen by Yin Weiyue’s chaotic kissing. In the second before she suffocated him, she finally let go of him. To vent her self-control, she bit down fiercely on his neck, not letting go until her mouth was filled with the metallic taste of blood.
“You—how insolent!” Huo Jun’s low growl carried a subtle tremor and hoarseness.
His eyes were somewhat red, his lips swollen. Because his sash was used to bind his hands, his front collar had long since fallen into disarray, making his current appearance look precisely like a little bride who had just been ravaged.
Evidently, Yin Weiyue didn’t give a damn about Huo Jun’s verbal resistance. Instead, she stared straight at the bloody teeth marks on his neck, then slowly and lightly stroked the exact same spot on her own neck, her eyes filled with utter shock.
Taking a bite out of him just now had drawn blood, yet she felt no pain in the corresponding spot on herself!
As if discovering something, in the next second, Yin Weiyue slapped the man’s handsome face.
*Slap!* The sound was crisp and loud. Five bright red finger marks instantly appeared on Huo Jun’s left cheek. Yin Weiyue touched her own face—no shared perception; it truly didn’t hurt.
To confirm once more, she presented five finger marks to the man’s right cheek as well.
In the end, practice yields true knowledge: injuries inflicted by Yin Weiyue herself would no longer be shared back onto her body. In other words, she could bully this man as she pleased in the future.
Yin Weiyue’s thoughts shifted again. Since the pain she inflicted wouldn’t be shared, why not take this opportunity to kill Huo Jun and end it all once and for all? It would spare him the suffering and hardship of future exile and the pain of losing his kin.
As the saying goes, dying early brings early rebirth; this was actually her helping him escape as an act of kindness.
Who would have thought that the moment the thought arose, the long-absent system voice sounded again: **[You may beat him, but you cannot kill him. Otherwise, the system will initiate a mutual destruction mode.]**
Yin Weiyue: “…” Fine, as long as beating him is fine.
“Have you humiliated me enough? If you’re done, you immediately—mhm!” Huo Jun’s words were cut off as the woman took off her own silk sock and stuffed it straight into his mouth.
“Mhm-mhm…”
A smile floated up at the corners of Yin Weiyue’s lips. “Don’t squirm your body, and don’t make those wanton noises either, otherwise this aunt won’t be able to hold back from taking you, and I won’t take responsibility.”
Huo Jun instantly didn’t dare to make a sound, his large frame actually shrinking back a little, his eyes filled entirely with vigilance, rendering Yin Weiyue look even more like a bandit coming down the mountain to snatch a bride.
…
Compared to the sparks flying between Huo Jun and Yin Weiyue just now, the atmosphere in the Third Branch at this moment appeared somewhat daggers drawn.
“Sob sob… Why is my life so bitter… My son doesn’t care, my husband doesn’t love, why not just let that little bitch Lady Yin beat me to death!” Mrs. Chen lay flat on the bed crying softly. Her buttocks only suffered superficial flesh wounds that were no big deal; having just applied medicine, her blood-stained clothes had also been changed out.
Huo Kai sat by the bedside.
“You are my biological mother—how could I not care for you! But piece by piece, these matters were indeed your doing wrong. Why do you still refuse to repent even now? Take today’s evening meal, for example. There was so much food at home, yet you cried and threw a tantrum, insisting on only letting us deliver a bowl of pig’s head meat to the Old Lady, and deliberately made Concubine Song make it salty and tough. If you act like this again in the future, I will go on a hunger strike! If I can’t control you, controlling my own mouth will surely do!”
“You’re actually threatening your mother with death for the sake of the First Branch? Sob sob… I don’t want to live anymore… Heavens, open your eyes and see what a bastard creature I gave birth to!”
Third Master Huo Anzong sat on a chair beside the bed. His face showed displeasure, but even more so, helplessness.
“You still have the face to cry! I only found out today that you almost killed my biological nephew. How can I face Big Brother? How can I face our ancestors? Harming the descendants of the Huo family is touching the Old Lady’s reverse scales; giving you a hundred cane strikes is considered light! Besides, I said long ago to give half of the property to the First Branch according to Eunuch Wang’s instructions, but you just wouldn’t listen.
Who is that Eunuch Wang? He is a favored close attendant beside the Emperor—his meaning is the Emperor’s meaning! Just you wait and see; Big Brother will definitely be released! You, ah, truly have long hair and short sights, lacking any foresight at all. Let’s see how you clean up the mess when the time comes.
Consolidate the money and property immediately, move half of it out, and have Kai’er deliver it to the First Branch first thing tomorrow morning. Take this opportunity to properly ease relations with Sister-in-law. We’re family members seeing each other every day; it won’t look too terrible in the future.”
Mrs. Chen abruptly stopped her crying.
“If your Big Brother could be released, he would have been released long ago! Don’t assume I’m just a woman who understands nothing. This matter involves the Crown Prince—how many people are waiting for him to fall from power? It shows the Emperor is currently constrained to the point where an emperor cannot settle state affairs. The one riding the wave in court right now is the Fourth Prince; if things go wrong, the sky is going to change!”
Huo Anzong pointed his finger at her: “You, ah, you—was your head kicked by a donkey? Our whole family relies on Big Brother; we are blood relatives! If his crime of treason is proven, our heads will fall collectively immediately. You wish ill upon him all day long—could it be that you want to ascend to the Western Paradise early?”
“Bah bah bah! You’re the one who wants to go to the Western Paradise!” Mrs. Chen hit the head of the bed three times in resentment. “It’s precisely because I know our lives are tied together with the First Branch that I refuse to give them the property! We don’t even know how long we can live. For the remaining days, if we don’t hold onto the silver to eat well, drink well, and wear good clothes, are we supposed to freeze and starve while waiting to be decapitated?
It was your good Big Brother and good nephew who brought us to this state today! If we sent the property to the First Branch, could you and your two cheap concubines still eat big fish and meat every meal for these past two years? You enjoyed yourself in front, Master, and then turned around to blame me for being heartless toward the First Branch. Sure enough, with these two little vixens around, I, the official wife who bore your sons and daughters, have become an old yellowed face!”
“You… We’re talking about serious matters—why bring that up again for no reason!” Huo Anzong couldn’t sit still, causing the two concubines standing behind him to lower their heads even further, not daring to utter a word.
Speaking of which, Mrs. Chen was very adept at managing her husband.
Huo Anzong’s personality was softer than his elder brother Huo Anjiang’s, and he lacked ambition or independent judgment. Seeing this after getting married, Mrs. Chen held him firmly in her grip, forcefully dispersing his bedchambers right after entering the family.
In the book, Mrs. Chen was also a strange piece of work. As a concubine-born daughter, she deeply understood the logic that a mother’s status relies on her son, so after getting married, she focused on two main tasks: first, controlling Huo Anzong; second, having children.
Mrs. Chen was quite intense, giving birth to three consecutive litters within a few years of marrying in. By year calculation, she gave birth to a child every 13 months on average—except they were all girls.
After giving birth to three daughters in a row, she grew somewhat afraid. Although Huo Anzong remained obedient to her every word at this time, he wasn’t as doting as when they were newly wed.
Mrs. Chen thought this was definitely the Old Lady instigating behind her back because she couldn’t produce a son. Rather than letting Huo Anzong take concubines himself to poke her eyes out, she decided to pick a few easily controlled servant girls to place by his side.
Thus, Mrs. Chen took her two second-class maidservants, Lady Wu and Lady Song, initiated their status, and voluntarily presented them to Huo Anzong.
Mrs. Chen voluntarily taking in concubines was a forced move because she couldn’t produce a son herself. She was ten thousand times unwilling to have concubine-born children brought into the world, so she secretly poisoned the two concubines to render them infertile.
Huo Anzong naturally didn’t know the truth, believing he wasn’t fated to have a son, and thus lost the thought of taking further concubines until Mrs. Chen gave birth to Huo Kai, their sole male heir, allowing him to finally breathe a sigh of relief.
In all their years of marriage, today was the first time Huo Anzong scolded Mrs. Chen sharply in public, causing the atmosphere in the room to instantly plunge to freezing point.
At this moment, the woman who had been standing by the head of the bed spoke up.
“It is said that marrying a wife makes one forget his mother—today Fifth Brother has truly opened my eyes. However, I find it quite baffling: regarding the property left by Eunuch Wang, we’ve all kept our lips tight. How did those people in the First Branch find out? What do you say, Sister-in-law?”
While Huo Anzong and Mrs. Chen were at odds, their eldest daughter, Huo Wanyu, opened her mouth to directly bail Mrs. Chen out, precisely pointing the spearhead at Zhang Yulin.