Chapter 2
A crescent moon hung in the sky.
A tall, slender figure in armor approached from a distance. After looking around to make sure no one was there, the figure slowly began taking off the armor.
In the moonlight, the body revealed was that of a beautiful young woman!
I stood behind a tree, coldly watching Xu Zhaozhao’s every move.
Watching her remove her armor.
Watching her slender waist and full chest emerge.
Watching her settle at the edge of the stream, entirely at ease. And then—
A dark figure seized her from behind!
Chen Wu!
Chen Wu hurriedly wrapped his arms around Xu Zhaozhao in the water.
“Here I am, beauty.”
“I brought the weakening powder, just as we agreed this afternoon!”
“Come on. Let’s enjoy ourselves!”
He took out a cloth and pressed it over her mouth and nose from behind.
Xu Zhaozhao tried to struggle and shout.
“Get away!”
“Do you know who I—”
Unfortunately for her, Chen Wu’s powder took effect before she could finish.
Her whole body went limp. Held in his arms, she had no strength to resist. Even the anger in her voice dwindled to a weak protest.
“Do you know that I’m the junior general of the cavalry…”
Chen Wu laughed delightedly.
“A general? Then I’m a duke! What sort of general is a delicate little woman like you?”
“Just wait. I’ll give you what you asked for earlier. From behind…”
He chuckled.
…
I watched it all coldly from behind the tree, far away.
Then—
I picked up my brush and painted every bit of it!
Yes.
That was how Xu Zhaozhao had humiliated me in my previous life.
She had not merely severed my tendons and let those men abuse me.
She had paid a small fortune to hire a court painter, who turned every scene into obscene pictures and spread them far and wide!
Most of the aristocrats’ faces had been blurred.
But every expression and movement of mine had been painstakingly painted!
Xu Zhaozhao had said,
“I’ll have the printing houses reproduce all these filthy scenes and distribute them everywhere!”
“Every woman in the world will learn from your example never to depend on a man!”
Afterward,
Everyone praised her nobility and integrity.
Just what one would expect from a woman who had disguised herself as a man and led troops into battle!
And I?
Men secretly pored over those vile albums and fantasized, then spat on me as a “whore.” Women pointed at my grave and called me “shameless”…
I had never understood why Xu Zhaozhao treated me that way.
Only after I died and became a wandering spirit did I learn—
It was simply because I looked remarkably like her father’s first wife.
Xu Zhaozhao’s mother had been a concubine before becoming his principal wife.
That was why she had been so crazed in her humiliation of me, why she had had my degradation painted.
As though doing so let her trample the dead first wife beneath her feet…
…
At the thought, my brush moved faster!
Yes, I knew how to read and paint too.
I too had been the daughter of a learned family.
I had only been condemned to the army’s brothels because my father was falsely accused of embezzlement…
Xu Zhaozhao.
No woman was born wanting to sell her body, whatever you might say!
No woman was born to depend on men!
No woman was born to suffer at the hands of powerful families like yours!
I was not the one at fault!
The fault lay with this age that devoured people alive!
This time, I wanted to see how you would react when pictures of your own “depravity” with Chen Wu spread through the capital!