“Ah… Your Highness, you’re so bad! Gently…”
“Still pretending? Deep down, this is exactly the kind of thing you enjoy.”
The sticky, suggestive sounds drifted into the air, slowly pulling Su Lingqing’s consciousness back.
Pain… It hurt everywhere!
Again?!
With great effort, she forced her eyes open and saw the shameless pair before her.
The man was strong and handsome, yet his features carried brutality and savagery. And the beautiful, alluring woman pressed against him…
Even though she already knew, rage and anguish still surged through Su Lingqing’s heart.
One was the husband who had shared her bed for eighteen years.
The other her own dear younger sister.
What a pair of shameless adulterers!
They had locked Su Lingqing in this dungeon for days. Each day they invented new ways to torture her, and each day they staged obscene performances before her.
Her body was soaked in filthy salt water. Insects crawled freely over her mutilated flesh.
The pain was worse than death yet death would not come.
Zhao Mingcheng noticed that Su Lingqing had awakened and clicked his tongue lazily.
“My beloved consort, why make yourself like this? If you hadn’t secretly sent word outside, claiming that I harbored treasonous ambitions, we might have spared your life.”
On the surface, Zhao Mingcheng seemed composed. In private, he was cruel and perverse lustful and vicious. Countless women had died at his hands.
If not for her beauty and figure captivating him, she might have been tortured to death long ago.
Su Lingqing lifted her peach-blossom eyes, like spring waters, and suddenly spat a mouthful of blood into Zhao Mingcheng’s face.
“Get lost! Just thinking about sharing a bed with you makes me sick!”
Spattered with blood, Zhao Mingcheng’s murderous nature surfaced instantly.
He stopped what he was doing and strode over, snapping Su Lingqing’s jaw with a brutal grip. The agony nearly made her black out.
“You wretch! How dare you speak to His Highness like that! Guards! Tear out her tongue!” the woman shrieked angrily.
Her entire body was a map of unbearable wounds. Su Lingqing wished she could bite her tongue and end it all but her jaw was shattered, and soon her teeth and tongue were ripped out.
Su Yaoyao looked at the figure soaking in the pool of blood, jealousy flowing from her eyes. Her expression was utterly different from the gentle facade she once wore.
“That face that could topple a nation at last, it’s ruined by my hand!”
Not a patch of unblemished skin remained on Su Lingqing’s face. She looked like a demon crawling out of hell.
“Dear sister,” Su Yaoyao cooed softly by her ear, “I’ve always been delicate. I can’t live with sand in my eyes. You were the grain of sand I endured for years. Finally, I don’t have to endure you anymore.”
She giggled and whispered, “There’s no need to worry. I’m carrying Prince Ning’s child now. If I’d known His Highness was so skilled in bed, I wouldn’t have needed you to marry in my place. You got to enjoy eighteen years of good days for nothing.”
“From now on, I’ll serve him in your stead. When His Highness ascends the throne, I’ll be the most honored woman in the world.”
Su Lingqing sneered inwardly, wishing she could drag them both into hell.
If she hadn’t married Zhao Mingcheng in Su Yaoyao’s place, how would Su Yaoyao have survived until now? How would the Minister’s household have enjoyed such boundless glory?
She wanted to ask her sister whether she had forgotten how she once knelt before her, crying and begging for her life to be saved.
Seeing Su Lingqing reduced to a monstrous state, Su Yaoyao felt exhilarated and added coldly:
“Don’t blame me or His Highness for being heartless. This was decided after discussions between the entire Minister’s household and His Highness. If you must blame someone, blame your bad fate.”
“Besides, after marrying His Highness, you were so disobedient. You couldn’t even protect your own child. And at such a critical moment, you dared to send letters? How laughable!”
In the Minister’s residence, her father had been indifferent, her stepmother scheming, the servants opportunistic no one respected her.
From beginning to end, the only person Su Lingqing had believed to be sincere was Su Yaoyao.
That was why she had obeyed her family without hesitation and stepped into Prince Ning’s residence a dragon’s lair just to keep Su Yaoyao safe.
No wonder Su Yaoyao had stopped fearing Zhao Mingcheng these past years and often came to accompany her. They had long been entangled.
The man snorted, stroking Su Yaoyao’s pale back. “I never intended to let her bear a child. Once a woman has children, she’s no longer entertaining. No matter how many times she conceived, she would never carry to term.”
Su Yaoyao blushed coyly. “Your Highness is so wicked. It must be because you cherish me that you let me bear your child.”
The child she had yearned for had been killed by its own father.
Everything she had painstakingly done over eighteen years had been nothing but lies and exploitation.
Overwhelmed by hatred, Su Lingqing vomited a mouthful of blood as her life slipped away.
The two of them entwined again, resuming what they had left unfinished, their voices rising and falling.
If there is another life…
She would never again be so foolishly kind, living her entire life as a wedding garment for others.
Su Lingqing would rather fall into the deepest hell and personally slaughter her enemies without rest!
Hatred such hatred!
Bone-deep pain and cold consumed her, severing her from the world as she died in the stinking pool of blood.
…
…
Dazed and uncomfortable.
Voices drifted from far to near.
“I say it’s better to marry her off early! The eldest miss’s birth mother has been dead for years the mourning period ended long ago!”
“You madwoman! How dare you gossip about the masters’ affairs! Careful you don’t end up in the tongue-ripping hell!”
So noisy… what is that sound?
Like a drowning person, Su Lingqing felt her body tearing apart. Yet an overwhelming instinct to live forced her awake.
She opened her eyes.
Above her was the familiar carved pearwood canopy of her bed, with pale violet curtains hanging softly.
So familiar… Where is this?
Shouldn’t she already be dead? Dead in agony and despair, killed by those she trusted.
The girl struggled to sit up and heard a young woman’s voice outside:
“Do you take us for fools? Even if our young miss is ill, we won’t let people from Fusheng Courtyard bully her! Don’t even think of taking advantage of this to marry her off!”
At those words, memories flooded back.
It should be the winter of the seventh year of Yunze when she was fourteen the day her stepmother, Madam Zheng, arranged a marriage proposal for her.
The man had been a degenerate who frequented brothels and slept with both men and women.
Soon after, one night he had nearly broken in to take her innocence by force, hoping to make it a fait accompli.
But that was eighteen years ago!
“You little wretch, don’t be ungrateful! Madam said this is a tremendous blessing for your young miss!”
“A blessing? If it’s such a blessing, why doesn’t the second miss marry him? Why don’t you marry him, you vile old servant!”
Listening to the argument outside, Su Lingqing forced herself to stay calm but her heart pounded wildly.
Could it be… she had truly been reborn?
Before she could think further, chaos erupted outside. Cries of pain rose one after another.
Bang!
The door was suddenly kicked open with force.