The 27th year of the Qinghe era of the Great Qi Dynasty.
It was a stormy night.
Twenty li north of Liaoyang City in Liaodong stood a dilapidated Mountain God Temple.
Inside the temple, two fires were burning.
The fire on the right was dim and weak, flickering as though it might go out at any moment, leaving behind only a faint glow.
Beside it lay more than a dozen prisoners dressed in dirty white prison clothes, their hands and feet shackled in iron. There were men and women, old and young alike. Covered in shabby, grayish coats, they huddled together for warmth, curled up and sleeping. It was as though lying close together could drive away the bitter cold of the night.
The fire on the left, however, was blazing fiercely, illuminating more than half of the Mountain God Temple as brightly as daylight.
In a pile of dead branches and withered leaves near the left wall lay an unconscious girl of thirteen or fourteen.
There was a deep gash across her forehead, from which fresh red blood continued to seep. The blood mixed with dust and smeared across half of her face, making her palm-sized face look even paler and utterly lifeless.
Standing beside the girl was a man in his thirties. He wore a blue-black coarse-cloth round-collared tunic and a blue headscarf tilted to one side. His face was covered in coarse, menacing features.
The guard stood with his legs spread casually apart. As he loosened his belt, he leered down at the unconscious girl with a lustful grin. A low chuckle escaped his mouth, and a line of drool even trickled from the corner of his lips.
“Bastards! You bunch of bastards! Stop! Let her go! Ah!”
In the middle of the temple, a young, slender, handsome man was being pinned firmly to the ground by two guards dressed in the same uniforms.
His hands were twisted behind his back, and nearly his entire body was pressed against the floor. Half of his face was forced against the rough ground, with sand and dirt sticking to his scraped, bleeding skin, making him look terrifying.
The young man struggled desperately to break free. His bloodshot eyes were fixed on the guard beside the girl, who was undoing his trousers. His voice was filled with pain, despair, humiliation, and hatred.
“Don’t touch her! You bunch of bastards! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill every one of you! Ah! Let me go!”
One of the guards holding him twisted his arm harder.
The young man cried out in agony, but his eyes never left the girl. They were filled with worry, rage, humiliation, helplessness, and hatred.
“Young Master Wei, you think you’re still the legitimate eldest grandson of the Grand Tutor’s Residence, high and mighty? Heh.”
“Now you’re nothing but a condemned prisoner. And we guards—the lowly commoners you once looked down upon—can crush you like an ant.”
The guard who was undoing his belt sneered contemptuously.
“We’re not even interested in touching you. But you! Why didn’t you eat that wild-vegetable pancake? If you had, you’d have passed out too, and you wouldn’t have to suffer through all this trouble, would you?”
One of the younger guards restraining the man was young and full of vigor. He couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Brother Chen, are you going to do it or not? Why waste so much time talking to this brat? That little girl is incredibly alluring. We’re about to lose control.”
Another, older guard let out a lecherous chuckle.
“That’s right! I’ve been craving her the whole journey. If the Wei family hadn’t guarded her like she was their precious jewel the entire way, we wouldn’t have had to resort to drugging them.”
“Hurry up, Old Chen! The night is short! We’ll reach Yinzhou tomorrow!”
The guard undid his belt and pulled his outer trousers down to his ankles, leaving only a thin pair of white underwear. His bare legs were covered in black hair.
He chuckled.
“What are you in such a hurry for? It’s only the Xu hour. There’s enough time for you to fool around more than ten times. The question is whether your bodies can even handle it.”
With that, he straddled the girl’s body, one foot on either side of her. He bent down, his back arched, and roughly began undoing the buttons at the collar of her clothing.
The other two guards burst into lecherous laughter.
“Ah!! Bastards! Let her go! Let her go! You bunch of bastards! You won’t die peacefully! I won’t let you get away with this! Let her go!”
Seeing what was happening, the young man struggled desperately and let out a cry of despair. His voice was hoarse, shrill, and piercing, like that of a trapped beast.
The guards burst into loud laughter, seemingly becoming more excited the more he suffered.
So noisy!
Way too noisy!
The girl’s brows furrowed slightly.
It hurts! Why does my head hurt so much?
Wei Ning, who had just regained a little consciousness because of the noise, was immediately overwhelmed by a stabbing pain in her head.
Without even opening her eyes, she could feel someone pressing down on her body. A hand was reaching toward the collar of her clothes, roughly undoing the buttons.
A rough palm accidentally brushed against the skin of her neck, causing a sharp, painful scrape.
Someone was taking off her clothes?
Damn it! That bastard Zhao Gang. Looks like I went too easy on him last time!
Her anger came faster than her memories.
Wei Ning suddenly opened her eyes. She bent one leg and viciously drove her knee into the guard’s groin.
A faint smack sounded.
The guard, who had been bent over Wei Ning’s neck undoing her collar, froze.
“AAAHHH!!”
He let out a bloodcurdling scream, straightened his upper body, and clutched his groin with both hands.
Wei Ning clenched one fist and swung it hard at the guard still straddling her.
She hadn’t expected him to go flying. Instead, her punch seemed to have barely affected him, causing him only to stagger sideways.
Because of the intense pain in his groin, he fell to the side and began rolling back and forth on the ground, howling in agony.
Wei Ning instinctively reached to the side.
She usually kept a small knife under her pillow, but she couldn’t find it. Instead, her hand was scratched by a branch and grabbed hold of a piece of wood about two fingers thick.
Without thinking, she seized the branch and sprang to her feet.
With one hand, she grabbed the guard by the hair. With the other, she pressed the branch against his neck.
She shouted coldly,
“Don’t move. Are you tired of living? You even dare to assault a police officer?”
The guard could only whimper through his pain, his face filled with shock and disbelief.
Wei Ning stared at the guard whose hair she was gripping, forcing his face upward.
She froze.
Who was this guy?
Why was he dressed so strangely?
Cosplay?
“Ning’er! Ning’er! Are you all right?”
The young man’s anxious voice carried both worry and relief.
Wei Ning followed the sound and looked over.
Only then did she see that the young man was being held down by two men dressed in the same strange clothing. Half of his face was scraped open, with sand embedded in the wounds.
All three men were dressed strangely.
“Old Chen, are you all right?”
The older guard cursed under his breath.
“Damn it, you little bitch. You’ve got quite a temper. Just wait. I’ll show you how I’ll play with you later.”
With that, he gave the younger guard a meaningful glance.
The younger guard immediately understood. He took over with one hand from the man who had been restraining the young man and pressed his entire body firmly against the young man’s back.
The young man was slender, but he still couldn’t break free.
Wei Ning stood there in a daze when suddenly a sharp pain stabbed through her head.
Memories came rushing in like a tidal wave.
They flooded Wei Ning’s mind at incredible speed, flashing past like scenes from a movie.
Before she could process them, the older guard had already strode forward with his arms spread wide, intending to grab Wei Ning.
He didn’t seem to care at all about the branch pressed against the other guard’s neck.
Just as the older guard was about to seize Wei Ning, she instinctively released the guard she had been holding.
She lowered her body and rolled sideways across the ground.
As she rolled, she conveniently snatched the knife hanging from the older guard’s belt.
In an instant, she sprang to her feet and pointed the knife directly at the older guard.
“Don’t move.”