Broken Jade - Chapter 101

Chapter 101

Sheng Zhaoning walked up to her, her gaze perfectly calm.

Jin He raised her head to look at her, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Young Master, do you think I can still go on living?”

Sheng Zhaoning answered with a question of her own. “Why couldn’t you?”

She herself had endured more desperate situations than she could count.

In Sheng Zhaoning’s eyes, no matter how hopeless the circumstances, as long as someone still drew breath, there was always a chance of survival.

She picked up the hoe that had fallen to the ground and said to Jin He, “Get up.”

Jin He stared fixedly at her. In those eyes, she seemed to glimpse a force that brooked no resistance-unyielding yet gentle, icy cold yet burning hot.

She forced back her tears.

Bracing herself on her arms, Jin He slowly climbed to her feet and stood before Sheng Zhaoning, looking up at her slightly.

The hoe was placed in her hands.

“Hit him,” Sheng Zhaoning said. “Beat him to death.”

Jin He gripped the wooden handle, her eyes widening in disbelief.

The hoe in her hands suddenly felt unbearably heavy.

As she felt that weight and gazed into Sheng Zhaoning’s eyes, an emotion she had never known before flooded her heart.

Hit him?

Jin He had never struck anyone in her life. After all these years of abuse at her stepmother’s hands, her spirit had long since been worn away. She had become so meek and weak that she had never dared resist.

But now, someone was telling her that she could hit back.

Countless times, Jin He had raised this hoe to turn over every inch of soil in the courtyard.

Now, holding that same hoe, she walked toward Liu Wu one step at a time.

Liu Wu burst into terrified tears and repeatedly dropped to his knees to beg for mercy. “Don’t hit me! Don’t hit me! Please, I’m begging you! I’ll kowtow to you!”

Jin He looked down at the man groveling at her feet and knocking his head against the ground. Not long ago, he had clamped a hand over her mouth, whispered vile obscenities, and groped her with his filthy hands, utterly indifferent to her desperate struggles.

Yet the moment she picked up a weapon, he sprawled at her feet like a dog, weeping and pleading for mercy.

So the thing that had terrified her so much was actually this pathetic.

As though seized by a frenzy, Jin He raised the hoe again and again, bringing it down on his body. The blade hacked into flesh, sending blood spraying everywhere.

Liu Wu screamed miserably as he rolled across the ground, trying to dodge. He lost count of how many blows landed on him. The pain was so intense that it felt as though his bones had shattered.

Shielding his head, he rolled and scrambled until he spotted an opening and fled through the door. It was as if he had barely escaped the gates of hell, and he did not dare look back once.

Watching him flee in panic, Jin He suddenly went limp. The hoe fell from her hands with a clang, and belated tears once again streamed down her face.

“Why? Why…?”

Jin He collapsed to the ground, repeating the question over and over.

Sheng Zhaoning lowered her gaze and watched her in silence.

After such a sudden upheaval and everything else she had endured, Jin He truly needed to cry and let it all out.

Once she had cried enough, she could slowly pick herself up again. No matter how difficult it was, she would find a way to survive.

Wei Heng sat in the chair, watching the calm and composed Sheng Zhaoning. No matter what happened, she always seemed capable of facing it head-on without fear.

She was powerful and aloof, so forbidding that no one dared approach her.

Yet somehow, beneath that hard exterior, he could see the warmth and tenderness she had wrapped in layer upon layer of armor.

…

And so, the two of them temporarily settled in Jin He’s home.

Sheng Zhaoning treated Wei Heng’s injuries again, then used wooden splints to immobilize his left leg and her own right arm.

Chenjia Village lay on the border between Shizhou and Jizhou.

Shizhou had also been struck by disaster, but the situation here was nowhere near as severe as in Jizhou.

Besides, the area had a water source. The crops around the village had not failed completely, so conditions had yet to reach the point where people were starving to death.

Wei Heng gave Jin He a jade pendant he carried with him and asked her to trade it for some silver and grain.

Everyone in the village knew Jin He had been abandoned by her parents and had now brought home two strange men, so gossip was inevitable.

But after seeing the miserable state Liu Wu had been beaten into, no one dared make snide remarks to her face.

And so, the days they spent recuperating passed in relative peace.

The only awkward moments came at night.

Jin He’s home had one heated brick bed, along with a smaller brick platform beside the stove that served as another bed.

Her parents and younger brother had once slept on the heated brick bed, while Jin He slept alone beside the stove.

But now Sheng Zhaoning and Wei Heng were staying there.

In Jin He’s eyes, they were both men. As an unmarried young woman, she naturally could not share a bed with them. Thus, she continued sleeping on the small brick bed beside the stove, just as she had before, while Sheng Zhaoning and Wei Heng shared the heated brick bed.

The bed was neither particularly large nor particularly small. As long as they both kept their bodies rigid and refrained from turning over or shifting around, they could avoid touching each other.

Once they fell asleep, however, that was no longer something they could control.

Sheng Zhaoning had always been a light sleeper, waking at the slightest sound.

Yet for some reason, whenever she lay beside Wei Heng, she slept deeply until dawn and rarely even dreamed.

The result of sleeping so soundly was that Sheng Zhaoning sometimes woke in Wei Heng’s arms.

Upon closer inspection, she would discover that she had nearly pushed him to the very edge of the bed, leaving him on the verge of falling off.

Meanwhile, a vast expanse of empty space lay on her other side.

That could only mean that whenever this happened, Sheng Zhaoning had been the one to inch closer and burrow into Wei Heng’s embrace.

She found that conclusion rather difficult to accept.

Worse still, Sheng Zhaoning noticed that it happened more and more frequently as the days passed.

What had begun as an occasional occurrence eventually happened almost every night.

Wei Heng, on the other hand, gradually grew accustomed to it.

Whenever Sheng Zhaoning unconsciously nestled closer in the night, he would even adjust himself into a comfortable position and gather her fully into his arms. With each passing night, the movement became more practiced.

And so, Sheng Zhaoning went from flustered embarrassment and futile resistance to giving up entirely and accepting it with perfect composure.

Half a month later, when she once again opened her eyes in Wei Heng’s embrace, she calmly lifted the covers, turned to look at the man beside her, and said, “Good morning, Your Highness.”

Feeling his arms suddenly empty, Wei Heng sat up as well and smiled at her in the morning light. “Good morning.”

By the time they had folded the bedding, Jin He had already prepared breakfast.

The three of them ate together at the same table, then each took on whatever chores they could manage.

Some chopped firewood, while others washed clothes.

No one put on airs or ordered the others around.

They got along like a family, with everyone contributing and sharing in the fruits of their labor.

They were far from the splendor of Capital City and free from its treacherous schemes.

Wei Heng began to cherish this place and every day he spent here. He even found himself wishing these days could last a little longer-and then longer still.

If not for the sudden sound of hoofbeats outside the courtyard, perhaps they could have continued stealing a little more peace here instead of being swept so soon back into those turbulent undercurrents.