“A-Yu, it has been raining continuously these past few days. Do your legs hurt?” The handsome Prince Consort, Gu Jin, reached out with tender pity, tucking a stray lock of hair behind Jiang Zhiyu’s ear.
If not for the fact that Jiang Zhiyu’s hair was currently a disheveled mess, her tongue and teeth had been pulled out, her legs were broken, and she was bound to a wooden stool inside the carriage, one might have thought they were still a pair of lovers.
In the face of Gu Jin’s false affection, even though Jiang Zhiyu’s eyes were deeply sunken, those bloodshot orbs still stared at him with stubborn resentment.
She stared at this childhood sweetheart, her husband who had once sworn eternal oaths to her, promising her a lifetime as a couple of one!
Jiang Zhiyu hated him!
She hated him to her very core!
She hated Gu Jin, but she hated her own blind and foolish self even more for once desperately marrying such a beast in human form.
Deceived by his lies and wanting to protect him, she had willingly endured the humiliation of switching marriages to marry his crippled cousin, just so he could successfully marry the Princess.
She had been tricked by him into believing that everything was a sacrifice made for love, that their hearts were always as one, and that everything was only temporary.
As long as she helped him, as long as she supported him, as long as she endured a little longer—once he held power, he would surely set everything right and resume their life as husband and wife.
Time and again, she produced secret formulas that should never have seen the light of day, helping him climb higher and higher.
Along the way, her mother was schemed against and contracted a plague; the prescription she had spent days and nights researching was taken by him to trade for an exceptional promotion. Her father and elder brother were killed for “treason,” becoming his stepping stones.
By the time she woke up from the honeyed lies he had woven, it was all too late.
Trapped in this corner, she couldn’t even die, let alone resist.
The only thing she could do was refuse to let him have his way.
No matter where he took her today or how he tortured her.
“A-Yu, why bother? I still love you, yet you refuse to be obedient.” Gu Jin shook his head and sighed helplessly. “Fine. As long as you write down the formula to treat the Empress Dowager, I will let you go regardless of the past. How about it?”
He pushed the paper on the low table closer and forced a brush dipped in ink into Jiang Zhiyu’s unbroken left hand, his eyes trying to beguile her.
With a flick of her wrist, Jiang Zhiyu threw the brush and Gu Jin’s hand aside.
The brush struck Gu Jin’s face, splashing ink across it. All his feigned tenderness vanished, leaving only true cruelty.
But soon, he smiled again.
He slowly wiped his face with a silk handkerchief and said knowingly, “A-Yu, I know you. You have a soft heart but stubborn bones. But your younger brother is still small; are his bones just as tough?”
Jiang Zhiyu’s pupils constricted.
Impossible.
A-Yuan couldn’t…
“Ah!”
A miserable scream came from outside the carriage—it was A-Yuan’s voice!
The carriage came to a halt. Gu Jin picked up a long rod and lifted the curtain just a crack.
Following that crack, Jiang Zhiyu’s eyes trembled uncontrollably.
It was A-Yuan!
Eight-year-old A-Yuan was trapped in a cage, besieged by several vicious dogs. He didn’t know how long he had been fighting them off, but he was clearly exhausted. One dog bit his foot, and the others immediately swarmed him, tearing at his flesh frantically.
“Good!”
“Bite him! Bite this traitorous spawn to death!”
“There isn’t a single good soul in the Zhenyuan General’s Manor. They conspired with the enemy and sold out the country, causing so many of our people to die. They deserve to be sliced into a thousand pieces! General Jiang and his eldest son died too easily. And that shameless daughter, who seduced her husband’s younger cousin to use the back door and let him go—now that this little brat has been caught, he should be tortured to death like this!”
The spectating commoners cheered one after another. They had no mercy for the child; they were filled only with the excitement of venting their anger, wishing for the vicious dogs to bite deeper and tear A-Yuan to shreds.
“My father and brother did not commit treason! And my elder sister certainly didn’t seduce that beast Gu Jin!”
A-Yuan, who found even struggling difficult, shouted with all his might. He wanted the world to know that things were not as they believed.
His father and brother would never betray the country. And between his sister and Gu Jin, it was clearly Gu Jin who had wronged her.
But no one listened to A-Yuan. Instead, they shouted even fouler insults, and some even threw stones into the cage.
Some hit A-Yuan, and some hit the dogs. Stung by the pain, the dogs tore and bit even harder.
Jiang Zhiyu wanted to call out to A-Yuan, but having had her tongue and teeth pulled long ago, she could only make a hideous, faint rasping sound.
Gu Jin found it incredibly melodious. Pressing his hand down on the struggling Jiang Zhiyu, he praised, “A-Yu, you are impressive. Even locked in the inner chambers, you managed to place your brother so securely. Unfortunately, your power is too weak.”
Jiang Zhiyu turned her head, her blood-weeping eyes staring at Gu Jin, silently saying: “Let A-Yuan go!”
“Of course I can,” Gu Jin replied understandingly. “As long as you write down the formula, I will release your brother.”
Gu Jin handed her the brush again. This time, he didn’t force it into her hand but waited for her to take it herself.
Jiang Zhiyu hesitated.
Gu Jin was not to be trusted, but…
“Ah!”
Another miserable scream.
A vicious dog tore a piece of flesh from A-Yuan’s body. Blood gushed out like a spring, and the dogs’ eyes turned red at the sight of it.
“It’s alright, A-Yu, I can afford to wait. But this is the only sprout left of the General’s Manor.”
Gu Jin was untrustworthy, but A-Yuan could not die. He could not.
Reaching out, she took the brush from Gu Jin’s hand. However, she did not rush to write, but looked at him.
Having known her for many years, Gu Jin understood what she wanted to say.
He gave an order to those outside. The cage holding A-Yuan was opened, soldiers went in to lead the dogs away, and A-Yuan was pulled out of the cage.
He didn’t see Jiang Zhiyu, but remembering the words his sister had once told him, he turned and ran.
“Write,” Gu Jin said, raising an eyebrow.
Jiang Zhiyu watched intently. Only when she saw A-Yuan leap onto the eaves did she begin to write.
A-Yuan was a mischievous child. His martial arts were mediocre, but he had learned the slippery art of Qinggong very well. Even if he was injured, once he opened up some distance, others would have a hard time catching him.
But if she didn’t write, Gu Jin would not give A-Yuan the chance to get away.
‘Snow lotus core from Mount Qilian, ten-year pearl from Five Peak Lake in Yongzhou, fire fruit from Mohe’er City in the Western Regions…’
Jiang Zhiyu deliberately wrote with great detail and slowness to buy time for A-Yuan.
It wasn’t until she saw that A-Yuan’s figure had become a small black speck amidst the chaotic cursing of the commoners, on the verge of escaping to safety, that Jiang Zhiyu wrote the final ingredient.
“It matches.” Gu Jin took the formula, very satisfied.
Jiang Zhiyu saw that A-Yuan’s figure was about to vanish completely. Just as she sighed in relief, she saw a massive ballista bolt whistle through the air at lightning speed. Before she could scream, the bolt pierced through A-Yuan’s body. He fell rapidly, like a tattered rag.
“Ah!”
Using all her strength to howl and lunge forward, this time Gu Jin did not hold her back. She fell onto the floor of the carriage, her left hand pulling her body forward with all its might.
Before she could crawl out of the carriage, her heart was pierced by something cold.
Behind her, Gu Jin shook his head mockingly. “A-Yu, you are still too soft-hearted.”
Jiang Zhiyu stared at the place where A-Yuan had fallen, her eyes weeping blood.
He did it on purpose!
He gave her hope only to plunge her into despair.
It was her own incompetence, her realization coming too late. She could do nothing; she couldn’t even save A-Yuan.
The cheers of the commoners outside for the shooting of A-Yuan blurred rapidly along with her consciousness. Her eyes remained fixed in the direction of A-Yuan as she died.
“A-Yuan!”
Jiang Zhiyu sat up abruptly from the bed, drenched in a cold sweat as if she had just been fished out of water.
What greeted her eyes was a sea of crimson. The bed curtains were embroidered with “Double Happiness” and patterns of “A Hundred Children and a Thousand Grandchildren.”
This was… her and Gu Jin’s wedding bed?
Looking down, her legs were intact, her right hand was not broken, and her tongue and teeth were still there.
She… had been reborn!
What time was it now?
Was she newly married, or…
“Young Mistress, the Madam requests your presence in the bright hall,” came the voice of a maid from outside the door.
The words and the scene overlapped with her memories, and Jiang Zhiyu’s heart jolted.
She had actually been reborn one year after her marriage to Gu Jin—the very moment she was being forced to switch marriages and become his sister-in-law.