After the Alluring Beauty Was Forced into a Political Marriage - Chapter 21

If Su Rina’s earlier appearance before Shen Lianzhi felt as though he were treading on clouds muddled and dazed, the moment he was pinned down with his hands twisted behind his back in front of so many people, he truly realized the catastrophic scale of the disaster he had caused.

Su Rina’s attendants pressed their stone-hard kneecaps into his back. Shen Lianzhi had lost all feeling in his arms, and his legs had gone numb from kneeling. His thin chest was pressed nearly flat against the ground, and a churning pain gnawed at his stomach as if a rod were being stirred inside him.

The domed tent of Su Rina was packed with people. Though Lianzhi recognized none of them, the fact that their Hu-style clothing was more opulent than that of commoners adorned with vibrant feathers or precious gemstones, marked them clearly as the Great Xia nobility.

These nobles possessed no sense of hierarchy regarding him. Even with Shen Lianzhi, the Yanzhi, kneeling so wretchedly before them, they showed not a flicker of trepidation, only cold indifference. Ultimately, they simply did not respect Lianzhi, a man who had come from afar with a body deemed different.

Beyond the nobility, the interior and exterior of the tent were lined with hulking men carrying massive sabers or long whips, presumably Su Rina’s executioners. Every one of them looked fierce and terrifying.

Su Rina stood at the highest point, looking down with disdain at Shen Lianzhi, whose face was nearly pressed to the dirt. Her sharp, narrow eyes were icy, making her appear all the more aloof and heartless.

She shouted a phrase in the Xia language that Lianzhi could not understand, likely meaning “Bring them all in,” for as soon as she finished, two strong Xia men dragged in Xiao Anzi and the Xia man who had delivered the letter for Lianzhi.

Both were bruised and battered, their faces stained with blood. It seemed Su Rina had spared Lianzhi some modicum of dignity by comparison, though truly, it was not much.

If a person’s resentment could take physical form, Shen Lianzhi would have been incinerated by the torrent of fury in Su Rina’s eyes. She even graciously considered that he could not understand the Xia tongue, switching to Han Chinese to demand accountability.

“Yanzhi, you have a lot of nerve!”

“Secretly corresponding with the Great Zhou, what is your intent? What was the Zhou Emperor’s intent in sending you here?”

“Speak! Are you a spy sent by the Great Zhou?”

Shen Lianzhi was terrified. Under such aggressive interrogation, a cold sweat immediately broke out across his back. He knew that coming to the grasslands for a political marriage while maintaining secret correspondence with the Great Zhou was a violation of the rules, but he never expected Su Rina to pin the label of “spy” on his head.

Heaven knows how wronged he felt! A spy? Even if he had the heart of a lion and the gall of a bear, he would not dare be such a thing.

Scared out of his wits, Lianzhi’s tongue felt knotted; he could not squeeze out a word for a long time. Beside him, Xiao Anzi glanced at him, crawled forward two steps, and wailed to Su Rina, “Princess, Princess, this is an injustice!”

“Our Yanzhi, how could the Yanzhi be a spy? The Yanzhi is just thousands of miles from home and missed his birthplace, so he…”

Su Rina pointed at him and roared, “Shut up! Does a lowly slave like you have the right to interrupt?”

She muttered something darkly in the Xia language, and a burly attendant behind her stepped straight to Xiao Anzi and delivered two vicious slaps to his face.

The Xia man was as strong as a bull; after those two blows, Xiao Anzi’s face was covered in blood. Shen Lianzhi turned deathly pale and frantically crawled toward him, ignoring the fact that his arms felt like they were being wrenched from their sockets. “Stop hitting him, stop hitting him!”

“Big Sister, no, no, Princess!” Lianzhi cried. “I broke the rules, I know I was wrong. I just missed home, it was just a family letter, a family letter!”

His heart hammered wildly with fear. The blood flowing from Xiao Anzi’s nose and mouth stung his eyes. In the chaos, Lianzhi suddenly remembered the letter from his Royal Aunt, the one he had not even had time to open before it was snatched away.

“Princess!” Shen Lianzhi panted. “If the Princess does not believe me, she can simply take that letter and read it!”

With a lingering sense of dread, Shen Lianzhi thought that it was fortunate he had read his cousin’s letter first, and that Lu Jingce’s letter had been burned and the evidence destroyed. Otherwise, even if he were not a spy, he would certainly face death.

Su Rina did not know there had been two letters; she thought there was only one. Yet even so, Shen Lianzhi could not completely put his heart at ease. He did not know what his Royal Aunt had written, or if she had mentioned things she should not have, for instance, the matter between him and his cousin.

He was not a spy, but Lianzhi harbored another secret, and that secret was equally fatal.

However, no matter how uneasy he felt, he could not show it on his face. He forced himself to remain steady as Su Rina narrowed her eyes at him. Her piercing, hawk-like gaze made his entire body tremble.

She clapped her hands, and a female servant stepped forward. Hearing the footsteps, Lianzhi found them strangely familiar. He looked up with difficulty, and with just one glance, he froze as if struck by lightning.

He recognized this servant; he knew her.

Lianzhi felt as though he had stepped out of a narrow, dark cave into a bright, open space. Suddenly, everything was clear. He remembered: this servant had entered the Royal Tent a few months ago, right after things had ended poorly between him and Su Rina at the banquet.

Shen Lianzhi felt as if his entire body were soaked in ice water; his complexion was ghastly. Su Rina glanced at him, saw that he had figured it out, and gave a mocking laugh.

As the old saying goes, the priest climbs a foot, but the devil climbs ten. It was true.

Xiao Anzi had been clever enough, waiting a long time in Great Xia before selecting this messenger. This Xia man had a special status as a traveling merchant; it was not strange for him to travel to and from the Great Zhou. Furthermore, every time Xiao Anzi went to retrieve a letter, he feigned buying goods, playing the part perfectly.

He even had Lianzhi burn the letters to leave no trace. It should have been a flawless plan. Who would have thought that Su Rina had planted an informant in the Royal Tent specifically to watch Shen Lianzhi?

With so many eyes on him, even a flawless plan would eventually show a seam. Initially, when Su Rina heard reports that “the Yanzhi’s Zhou servant is in close contact with a traveling merchant,” she was fuming but did not dare move rashly.

It was not until the female servant kept watch for over a month and finally saw it clearly—that the merchant was secretly delivering letters for the Yanzhi—that Su Rina brought her people.

Caught red-handed!

With both human testimony and physical evidence present, it was only natural for Su Rina to bring Shen Lianzhi in for interrogation. When Su Rina had seen that letter in Shen Lianzhi’s hand, her eyes had practically spat fire.

Years of resentment were rekindled. Su Rina would never forget how, years ago, she had intercepted a similar letter, only to discover that the youth she had loved as her own son was actually a spy.

By the time she had rushed to apprehend him, it was too late. That spy had killed her son. Right in front of her, he had killed her child.

Such deep-seated hatred was something she would never forget until the day she died. Intercepting Shen Lianzhi’s letter today felt as if the events of the past were playing out before her eyes once again.

At this moment, Su Rina did not realize that the interrogation of Shen Lianzhi was no longer a pure inquiry, but a personal vendetta. She wanted to pour all the hatred she felt for that Zhou person onto Lianzhi.

Dazed and with reddened eyes, Lianzhi listened as the female servant recounted the events of the past few months to Su Rina. She spoke in the Xia tongue, which he could not understand. When she finished, Su Rina crooked her finger at her. “The letter!”

The servant handed the letter over. Su Rina took it, glanced at it, and then handed it to the translator beside her who was proficient in Han Chinese. One had to admire Su Rina’s meticulousness.

Most Great Xia nobles could speak and recognize Han Chinese, though they could not write it. Su Rina could naturally read the words on the letter, but she was not satisfied; she insisted the translator read it.

The translator held the thin paper and read the sentences aloud in the Xia language with a booming voice. Lianzhi was drenched in cold sweat. Every word being said could determine his life or death, yet he could not understand a single one.

He tried to glean something from Su Rina’s expression, but until the reading was finished, he gained nothing.

Su Rina’s chest heaved. Suddenly, she reached out, grabbed the paper, and threw it in front of him. The letter drifted down before Shen Lianzhi. He craned his neck to see it. He held his breath as he finished reading: it was all mundane family matters. Nothing was mentioned. Nothing!

Lianzhi closed his eyes, a raspy sound escaping his throat. His face was stiff, and he was on the verge of tears. The weight in his heart finally lifted. He choked out, “It is just a family letter, just a family letter!”

“Princess,” Shen Lianzhi now understood. What “Yanzhi”? It sounded so noble, but he was like a weed, meant to be trampled upon. This Su Rina, princess though she was, was the truly formidable figure here, a figure like the Empress Dowager in the Zhou Palace.

He stopped trying to claim kinship by calling her “Big Sister”; survival was the priority. “I know I was wrong. I will not do it again.”

Su Rina stood with her hands behind her back, silhouetted against the light so her face was hard to see. She did not speak, leaving Lianzhi in a state of agonizing suspense. It was then that he heard a clear female voice: “Princess,”

“The Yanzhi has come from a great distance. It is only natural to miss home. He has been punished already; let this matter, let it end here.”

Lianzhi never expected that in this foreign land, someone would speak up for him. For a moment, his heart was filled with gratitude. He looked up, only to see that the woman speaking for him was actually Princess Saren.

Saren happened to look over as well, her concern appearing genuine. Lianzhi was truly moved. The petty difficulties she had caused him in the past vanished like mist at the sound of those words.

He thought the matter would end there, perhaps with some minor punishment. Even if Lianzhi was unwilling, such a penalty was nothing compared to losing his head. However, he had truly underestimated Su Rina’s loathing for him.

It was a compounding of old and new hatreds: her disgust for his identity as a shuang’er, her resentment over him causing the old Chanyu’s death, her anger at the banquet, and most importantly, that profound psychological transference.

She did not truly want to investigate anything; she simply wanted to use this as an excuse to eliminate this abomination.

Before the eyes of everyone, Su Rina walked toward the Xia merchant. She asked coldly, “How many times did you deliver for him?”

The merchant muttered something in the Xia tongue. Lianzhi could not understand, but the hair on his neck stood up, because after hearing the answer, Su Rina gave a vicious smile.

“Four times. Good.” Su Rina turned back, her frigid gaze turning into two blades meant to run Lianzhi through. “Yanzhi, where are the other three?”

“Hand them over.”

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