Just a Wet Nurse, Just a Plaything? Everyone Wept After My Death - Chapter 67
Chapter 67
The night was as deep and stagnant as a pool of dead water.
The woodshed offered no shelter from the elements. The howling north wind drove snow through the broken window lattice and gaps around the door.
Shen Yingyue lay sprawled on a pile of damp, moldy straw like a heap of discarded rubbish.
The wounds on her back had gone untreated. Blood had dried together with the torn fabric of her clothes, forming a hard crust. With every faint breath she took, excruciating pain swept over her in waves, leaving her struggling between consciousness and oblivion.
Her entire body was burning with fever.
“Nuannuan… Nuannuan…”
Her cracked lips moved faintly, releasing a delirious murmur too soft for anyone but herself to hear.
Just then, the battered wooden door creaked open.
A shaft of warm light pierced the darkness of the woodshed. Along with it came the pungent fragrance of rouge and powder, utterly at odds with the stench of mold and blood filling the room.
Shen Yingyue struggled to lift her heavy eyelids. Through her blurred vision, she saw a pair of exquisite embroidered shoes. The East Pearls adorning them gleamed beneath the lantern light.
Her gaze slowly traveled upward.
Liu Ruyan stood over her in a thick, luxurious white fox-fur cloak, a warm hand brazier cradled in her arms.
She looked at Shen Yingyue as though she were a dying insect, her eyes brimming with the contempt and smug satisfaction of a victor.
“My, my. Sister Shen, how did you end up in such a miserable state?”
Liu Ruyan waved a hand, signaling for Cui’er to close the door and shut out the freezing wind. Then she approached Shen Yingyue with dainty steps. Covering her nose with a handkerchief, she feigned surprise.
“Oh dear, those wounds on your back… They look truly dreadful. That salt water must have hurt terribly, didn’t it?”
Shen Yingyue did not even have the strength to move a finger. All she could do was glare at the venomous woman and force hoarse, rasping sounds from her throat.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s frightening.”
Liu Ruyan chuckled and crouched beside her. She leaned close to Shen Yingyue’s face, which remained breathtakingly beautiful despite being smeared with filth, and lowered her voice, every word dripping with malicious triumph.
“Shen Yingyue, you must be furious, aren’t you?
“You think my cousin is blind, don’t you? You think he’s a fool for failing to see through my little trick and blaming you instead?”
Shen Yingyue’s pupils contracted slightly.
Liu Ruyan extended one meticulously cared-for finger and gently traced it across Shen Yingyue’s feverish cheek. Her body shook with laughter.
“Silly Sister Shen, you’re wrong.
“My cousin is the Grand General. He devises strategies and commands armies on the battlefield. How could he possibly be a fool?
“Nothing escapes his eyes.
“The truth is… he understands everything perfectly well. He knows you could never have harmed Huzi, and he has probably already guessed that I was the one who tampered with the safflower.”
Shen Yingyue’s eyes flew wide as she stared at Liu Ruyan in disbelief.
He knew?
Huo Xiao… knew all along?!
“Surprised?”
The light shattering in Shen Yingyue’s eyes filled Liu Ruyan with even greater delight. She enunciated each word slowly, driving them into Shen Yingyue’s heart like poisoned blades.
“My cousin may believe you, but he cares more about his mother’s health and the Huo Family’s reputation!
“His mother was convinced you did it. If he didn’t punish you, she would become ill with rage, and the Huo Family would know no peace.
“As for me, I am a young lady of the Minister’s Estate, his own cousin, and his mother’s most beloved darling.
“And you?
“You’re nothing but a lowly wet nurse, a helpless plaything with no one to rely on.”
In your cousin’s eyes, sacrificing your chastity and your life in exchange for peace for the entire family was an incredibly profitable bargain.
So no, he isn’t stupid. He’s ruthless.
Whatever little affection he had for you means less than nothing when weighed against the family’s interests!”
Pfft-
A sharp pain tore through Shen Yingyue’s chest, and the metallic taste of blood once again surged into her throat.
So that was it… So that was it!
This was the truth!
He had not been deceived. There had been no misunderstanding. It had all been a cold calculation of gains and losses! To Huo Xiao, she, Shen Yingyue, was nothing more than a disposable pawn!
“Oh, right.”
As though she still had not inflicted enough pain, Liu Ruyan rose and brushed nonexistent dust from her skirt. Then, as if something had suddenly occurred to her, she said casually, “There’s one more thing I think you ought to know, so you can die knowing the whole truth.
“That precious daughter of yours, Nuannuan…”
At the sound of her daughter’s name, Shen Yingyue’s unfocused eyes instantly sharpened. She struggled to lift her head.
“My cousin did order her sent to an estate in the countryside and left there to fend for herself.”
Liu Ruyan bent down and leaned close to Shen Yingyue’s ear, delivering the cruelest words in the gentlest voice.
“But I’ve already had a word with the personal guard responsible for taking her there.
“An estate? Please. Keeping her there would only waste the Huo Family’s grain.
“Tomorrow morning, the guard will sell your daughter to the human traffickers outside the city.
“I hear they specialize in selling little girls deep into the mountains as child brides for simpletons. If she’s unlucky… Tsk, tsk. They might just break her arms and legs and send her out to beg in the streets.
“She is an ‘ill omen,’ after all. That’s simply her fate.”
Boom!
The last thread of sanity in Shen Yingyue’s mind snapped completely.
Sold into the mountains…
Human traffickers…
Her arms and legs broken…
“Liu Ruyan! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”
Shen Yingyue let out a feral roar. Summoning strength from some unknown place, she lunged up from the floor, opened her mouth, and tried to sink her teeth into Liu Ruyan’s ankle!
“Ah!”
Startled, Liu Ruyan hurriedly stumbled back and kicked Shen Yingyue viciously in the face.
“Mad dog! You really are a mad dog!”
Liu Ruyan wiped her shoe in disgust. Shen Yingyue had been kicked back to the floor, her mouth dripping with blood, yet she continued glaring at Liu Ruyan with eyes like a vengeful ghost. An inexplicable chill crept into Liu Ruyan’s heart.
“Cui’er, we’re leaving! This place is cursed!”
No longer daring to stay, Liu Ruyan pulled her fox-fur cloak tightly around herself and hurried away.
Bang!
The woodshed door slammed shut once more, and the lock clicked into place.
Darkness swallowed everything again.
Shen Yingyue lay sprawled on the freezing floor, her cheek pressed against the filthy straw.
Her body had already reached its limit, but her eyes blazed with terrifying brightness in the darkness.
They burned with an all-consuming hatred.
Huo Xiao.
Liu Ruyan.
You destroyed my chastity and trampled on my dignity. Now you even want to sell my daughter!
If there is no justice in this world, if you refuse to leave me a path to survival, then I will become a ghost, a vengeful ghost!
I will crawl out of this hell and drag every last one of you down with me!
“Nuannuan… wait for Mother…”
Shen Yingyue dug her fingers deep into the dirt. Her nails bent backward, leaving her hands drenched in blood.
She could not die.
Even if she lived only to kill, she had to survive!
