Chapter 5
Just as in my previous life, I was taken to Yan Zixiu’s country residence.
I couldn’t understand. If my life was not meant to end, why couldn’t I escape?
He splashed a cup of wine in my face. “Wash her face clean.”
Several buckets of cold water left me soaked through.
Yan Zixiu took a handkerchief and gently wiped away the remaining disguise.
“Do you hate me because of that couple, Wushuang?
“I should have realized at Ruyi House. Your eyes are like his. Your lips are like hers…”
He stroked my lips. I closed my eyes, sickened.
“I’m not a heartless man. If you’d told me who you were sooner, I’d have sent you down to join them long ago. Why suffer all this?”
He gripped my cheeks and turned my face toward the pit.
“Look. Do you like it? I didn’t prepare it especially for you, but I’ve always been generous to the children of old acquaintances. I don’t mind letting you rest here forever.”
Snakes and insects piled over one another, churning…
I nearly vomited.
Yan Zixiu clapped and laughed, then abruptly darkened.
“I told you I would kill you!
“Do you think your worthless life is enough to repay me? You think you’re fit to take revenge on me?
“Come to think of it, perhaps your parents died at my hands precisely so they could atone for what you’ve done today.”
“Yan Zixiu, you’re shameless!”
“I’m shameless, but I’m a nobleman. You know shame, but you’re a whore.
“How do you think the world sees you? How do you think it sees me?”
I stared at him with hatred, longing to tear him limb from limb.
But I had no answer.
Right and wrong blurred like ink spreading through wet paper, their edges lost.
Yan Zixiu pushed me to the edge of the pit. Looking at all those pairs of red-glinting eyes, I shook uncontrollably.
“You can’t hurt me!”
“Afraid now? Too late, I’m afraid.”
“No… no! His Highness! I belong to the crown prince! Let me go!”
“The crown prince?” Yan Zixiu sounded as if he had heard an absurd joke.
“You dare drag His Highness into this?
“A whore, dreaming of the moon high in the heavens.
“A pity your whole family’s dead. There aren’t nine degrees of kin left to execute for your crime.”
He caught my chin, examining my face from either side.
“What gives you such delusions? This face?”
He held out a hand. A servant understood and bowed as he offered a dagger.
The cold blade touched my cheek.
Without another word, he slashed it down.
“Come to your senses?”
I bit my lip, refusing to show weakness.
“You’ll die a horrible death!”
He gave a cold laugh and cut me a second time.
“Oh? I’m curious. How will you make that happen? By yourself? Or through the crown prince, whom you’ve never met?”
Blood ran from the wounds to my lips.
It hurt so much.
Yan Zixiu seized my hair and dragged me along the ground.
Through the haze, I saw that vividly beautiful face again.
I couldn’t tell whether it was real.
“Your Highness…”
The words slipped out in a murmur.
Would he really come to save me?
Me, a stranger he had never known.