Chapter 50

Chapter 50

Ha, it’s gone…

That night, the beasts tore off their masks of pretense and shattered the dignity I had struggled so hard to maintain!

Afterward, my West Courtyard was desolate and lonely by day, but by night, it was filled with the excited, coarse panting of beasts, and my own cries and pleas for mercy…

Third Master.

First Master.

Second Master.

…

And… Cao Houde!

My body and mind suffered unprecedented torture. I tried to end my life several times, but I was always saved.

Bowl after bowl of medicinal dregs were forced down my throat, keeping me barely clinging to life.

I was still so young!

If a young widow who carried the weight of a Chastity Arch on her shoulders suddenly died a violent death, how much gossip would the Cao Family have to endure?

So, I was not allowed to die.

But living… was a fate worse than death!

When my lower abdomen first began to swell slightly, my world truly collapsed.

Fortunately, I knew a bit of medicine, and the one thing the Cao Family never lacked was a variety of medicinal herbs.

Fresh blood flowed down my legs, and my insides felt like a churning sea as I collapsed in a pool of blood.

The child was gone, but they brought me back to life again.

I thought that after such an ordeal, they would have learned their lesson.

But after less than a month of peace, they… they came back.

I hate them!

How I hate them!

I hate those beasts, and I hate my own fertile body.

I pinched my nose and drank so many bowls of contraceptive medicine, yet I still conceived again and again, and aborted them again and again.

I don’t know how many I got rid of. Seven? Or was it eight?

Until my belly began to swell once more.

But this time, no matter how much medicine I drank, it didn’t work. My abdomen grew larger by the day. In less than three months, I was as big as a drum, looking as if I were about to go into labor.

With a belly that large, there was no hiding it.

Rumors flew, inciting public outrage. They tore down the Chastity Arch, grabbed me by my hair, and dragged me outside. They beat me relentlessly, demanding I reveal who my lover was.

The pain in my stomach was too much, and my body was too weak. I kept vomiting up blood clots until I finally blacked out.

But I was jolted awake by agonizing pain. A cloth was stuffed in my mouth, and my limbs were tied to a door plank. I couldn’t scream; I couldn’t move.

But I could hear.

It was Cao Houde!

Cao Houde told them I hadn’t been seeing a man and wasn’t pregnant; he said I was sick.

He had studied abroad and had seen similar rare and difficult cases.

To prove my innocence and preserve the reputation of the Cao Family, he took the knife himself. He sliced open my belly, moved my organs aside, and found the tumor hidden in my uterus.

He said, “Look, it’s a tumor, not a fetus.”

Ha. A tumor.

Fortunately, it was a tumor.

A tumor would only take my life, but a fetus would have destroyed the entire Cao Family!

My belly was sliced open and then sewn back together.

I was dragged back to the Cao Family like a dead dog.

While I lay on the small bed in the West Courtyard with my life hanging by a thread, enduring immense agony, the Cao Family was outside, repairing the Chastity Arch with great fanfare.

In the end, I didn’t survive that late night. I finally died.

For a person as sinful as me, even if I were to descend into hell after death, I would do so gladly.

As long as I could escape the cage of the Cao Family and flee from that Chastity Arch, I would do anything.

But when I woke up again, I realized with despair that I was still in the Cao Family.

Seven or eight Little Ghosts surrounded me, imprisoning my soul.

They were filled with deep resentment, hating every single member of the Cao Family equally.

Like a marionette, I was controlled by them to carry out a brutal, tragic slaughter of the Cao Family!

The killing brought a vengeful pleasure.

Watching the beasts who had once pushed me into the abyss fall one by one at my feet, I felt an unprecedented sense of liberation!

Finally, only Cao Houde was left in the Cao Family.

Every single night, I haunted him, asking, “Lord Cao, have you seen my Commendation Document?”

I watched him grow more terrified by the day, wasting away as I asked him only one thing: “Lord Cao, do you know how to repent now?”

Cao Houde repented. He knelt on the ground and begged me to spare his life, but the moment he turned around, he hired an Old Daoist to perform a ritual and trap me within the West Courtyard.
Haha, how could I still believe him?

Accompanied by Cao Yu-shi’s laugh that sounded more like sobbing, the woman’s monologue drifted farther and farther away. The illusion in front of my eyes shattered with a bang, and my mind snapped back into place-I was still standing at the entrance of the West Courtyard.

In the West Courtyard, Wu Qian was slumped on the ground. Cao Yu-shi cradled that Commendation Document in her hands, opened it to the first page, and read, “Cao Yu-shi of Jingcheng…”

She read very slowly, crying as she read-then laughing through her tears.

The Little Ghosts on her shoulders followed along, crying and laughing with her.

After a long while, Cao Yu-shi suddenly murmured, “If I hadn’t lost this Commendation Document back then, would everything have turned out differently?”

“No… if there hadn’t been this Commendation Document from the very beginning, would my fate have been different?”

“Or maybe, if I hadn’t been sold into the Cao Family and had starved to death by the roadside early on…”

“What did I do wrong? Where did I go wrong?”

“No. I never had the right to choose. The ones at fault are you! You!”

Rip.

The Commendation Document that Cao Yu-shi had searched for for over a hundred years was torn to pieces in her hands.

My heart sank. I hurriedly urged everyone to retreat from the Cao Family estate.

Cao Yu-shi flung the scraps of paper into the air. A vicious glare burst from her blood-and-tear-filled eyes, while the Little Ghosts on her shoulders cackled and shrieked.

Bang!

Bang, bang!

As Cao Yu-shi’s resentment reached its peak, her ghostly power surged to an unprecedented height. One by one, the thresholds of the grand residence shattered on their own. At this moment, the Cao Family’s seals could no longer hold her.

With a hoarse roar, Cao Yu-shi sent the Little Ghosts on her shoulders flying. They cackled as they dove straight at us!

Li Qingying gripped her Long Whip, and Master Hui Quan raised his Ruler. The two of them stepped in together to meet the attack.

Meanwhile, I protected the Wu Family as we fell back.

But tonight, Cao Yu-shi and her Little Ghosts were clearly far stronger than they’d been last night.

Li Qingying and Master Hui Quan were tangled up by several Little Ghosts and couldn’t break free, while Cao Yu-shi herself charged straight toward us.

“Go! Get out of the Cao Family first!”

As I shouted, I formed a hand seal and barked, “Fengwu, out!”

A longbow wreathed in flames appeared instantly in my hands, the Golden Scale set into its body gleaming with brilliant golden light.

I drew the bow to its limit, the string pulled taut, and aimed at the snarling, clawing Cao Yu-shi.

To be honest, I was a little panicked.

These past few days I’d been recuperating, and I hadn’t drawn the bow. Back when Liu Junyan embedded the Golden Scale into it, I could draw it and trigger an empty twang, and I could feel the impact in the air-but that force was scattered, with no focus and no concentrated killing power.

Cao Yu-shi was already right in front of me. If I slipped up now, we’d lose everything.

There was no time to hesitate. I clenched my teeth and released.

Whoosh-whoosh whoosh…

The instant the taut bowstring snapped forward, clusters of pale-gold flames appeared out of thin air and shot in every direction.

Cao Yu-shi froze.

The Little Ghosts froze.

Everyone froze.

Until Master Hui Quan shouted, “Down!”

Master Hui Quan and Li Qingying threw themselves to the ground at the same time. Several clusters of flame pierced straight through the Little Ghosts’ bodies. Amid piercing, miserable screams, the Little Ghosts were pinned in midair.

Golden flames burned inside them, and thick black smoke poured out nonstop.

The Little Ghosts, their resentment raging sky-high, gradually faded-until they vanished completely.

And I had already drawn the longbow full again, the taut string aimed straight at Cao Yu-shi.

I wasn’t sure Fengwu could unleash that kind of power again, and I wasn’t sure I could hit Cao Yu-shi this time either. But at the very least, I had to intimidate her. Otherwise, none of us would be getting out tonight in one piece.

Yet at that moment, the malice drained from Cao Yu-shi. She lifted her face toward me, blood and tears streaming down her withered cheeks.

Eyes closed, she smiled. “A full one hundred and twenty years… I… can finally be free…”