Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Behind the flickering beaded curtain, Tuoba Lu was in a state of high emotion.

His swaying face reminded me of Chenglu, hanging from the city walls.

When the biting northern wind blew, Chenglu would sway just like that.

The commoners cursed him, pelting him with rotten vegetable leaves and filth, wishing they could devour his flesh and grind his bones to dust.

He hung there with his once-proud head bowed, his blood long since drained dry.

I stood among the crowd, watching as the seventeen-year-old boy slowly rotted away.

Tuoba Lu said he had only leaked a piece of false information, but four years ago, the Southern Tang imperial court had produced several letters, swearing they were proof of the Pei Family’s collusion with the enemy.

The Pei Family had sworn by their own blood that they never betrayed Southern Tang.

Because my grandfather and father raised doubts, they were labeled as accomplices by the Emperor, and nine generations of our kin were executed.

Even my eldest sister, who held the noble rank of Empress, was granted a length of white silk to end her own life.

I originally thought everything was a frame-up by treacherous officials.

Now I understand-the real murderer was the Emperor of Southern Tang.

He was the sovereign the Lin Family had exhausted their hearts for, and the one the Pei Family had risked their lives to protect.

After that, the court increased taxes to pay the annual tribute, leaving the common people in unspeakable misery.

Northern Liang demanded five thousand young women, and five thousand Southern Tang households were torn apart by life-and-death partings.

As for me, I was drugged by a human trafficker and sold to a family to take the place of their daughter, Yue Niang, becoming a Tribute Maiden.

We five thousand frail women were sent away by Southern Tang.

At the time, the court claimed they would build up their strength and reclaim the beautiful lands seized by Northern Liang.

In the three years since, those five thousand girls used their bodies to weave a “land of gentle dreams” to stall the Northern Liang men from marching south.

But now, who knows how many of those five thousand souls have perished in Northern Liang, while Southern Tang remains lost in its dreams of wine and song.

They never received the hope they were promised.

There will never be hope.

I turned my head to look at the bright moon outside the window.

The day the Lin Family’s home was raided and their property seized, the moon had been just as cold.

Playful as I was, I had returned home late and narrowly escaped the disaster.

I was clearly hiding in the shadows, yet my mother still spotted me.

She shook her head at me, signaling me never to come out.

I ran to find Chenglu, thinking he could save my parents, but the General’s Estate was already a river of blood.

The last time I saw my eldest sister, her corpse was turned a ghastly white by the moonlight.

The ruffians who took her to the mass grave desecrated her body.

They said that since she was the Empress, even if she was a corpse, possessing her meant they had been the Emperor for a day.

To think that we daughters of the Lin Family would all end up with such fates.

I want to go home.

I will avenge these wrongs, and then I will be with my family.

“What are you looking at?” Tuoba Lu pinched my face, forcing me to look at him.

He was strange as well.

In the past, he always covered my eyes when we were intimate, but lately, he always insisted I look at him.

His beloved has already returned; there is no longer any need for him to keep me.

Yet I am still by his side. I suppose it is as he said-I have a certain charm in bed that Feng Yu’er probably cannot match.

I used my finger to cover the scar on his chin and replied, “I’m looking at the moon.”

For the last time, I am looking at the moon.