After the Alluring Beauty Was Forced into a Political Marriage - Chapter 22

“Three other letters?!”

Shen Lianzhi had never been this terrified. Even back in the Zhou Palace, when the deposed Crown Prince had gripped his throat until he nearly suffocated, he had not felt such primal fear.

Su Rina did not have her hands around his neck, but he felt as though his very spine were being snapped.

Those letters had long since turned to ash. How could he produce them now? Su Rina stood above him, watching his face turn pale and then ashen. She curled her lips in a cold, mocking sneer. “What? You cannot produce them?”

“They were only family letters,” Lianzhi stammered, a desperate struggle for survival.

One look at his face told Su Rina that the letters had been burned or destroyed. Regardless, they could not be found now, which was actually better.

If the person was gone, there was no testimony; if the letters were gone, who could say what was written in them?

“Burned? Torn up?” she demanded.

Lianzhi closed his eyes, tears streaming down his face. “Burned.”

Su Rina erupted in fury, as if she had captured the ultimate proof of his guilt. “If you were truly innocent, why would you burn them? Tell the truth, what exactly was written in those letters?”

“Hiding and concealing, you are certainly a spy from Great Zhou!”

Lianzhi was speechless. Su Rina was dead set today on labeling him a spy sent by the Zhou. When one is determined to pin a crime on someone, any pretext will do. “I am not.”

“Then bring the letters here!”

Lianzhi suddenly remembered the Consort who had perished years ago. The Empress Dowager had called her dissolute, and so she had to be dissolute. Lianzhi felt as if he had been stripped naked and thrown into the freezing snow; he could no longer find a single word to say.

Su Rina pressed him, “Are you a spy?”

Lianzhi said, “I am not.”

She wanted to force him to admit it with his own lips.

Su Rina could not move against him directly. Actually, she could have simply killed him. She was convinced he was a spy, and who in this tent would dare stop her? But Su Rina had not forgotten she had a brother.

She was not sure how deep Siqin Bari’s feelings for Shen Lianzhi went, but if he went mad for this man, it would be a catastrophe. That was no exaggeration.

Su Rina did not want to invite such trouble, but if Shen Lianzhi admitted it himself, that would be different. With so many eyes and ears under this dome, how could he later deny it?

“Fine, fine.” Su Rina glanced at him, her eyes suddenly sharpening as she pointed at the merchant. “Whip him to death.”

She spoke in the Xia tongue. At first, Lianzhi did not understand, but the meaning became clear soon enough. Several large men dragged the merchant into the center of the tent like a piece of livestock. They violently tore off his clothes and began to strike his back with a dark, glistening whip.

The sound was sharp and repetitive.

Bloody welts crisscrossed the man’s back. With every lash, skin and flesh tore open until bone was nearly visible. The merchant screamed piteously.

The guards carrying out the sentence were iron-fisted. They did not stop even when the screams became blood-curdling. After about twenty lashes, a large amount of blood gurgled from the merchant’s throat, and then he stopped moving entirely.

He was dead.

Such a robust man had died after only twenty lashes. Lianzhi looked up at Su Rina in utter horror. She wore a smile of extreme cruelty. “Are you a spy or not?”

Lianzhi’s teeth chattered with a rhythmic clacking sound. He could not speak a word. Su Rina wanted his life; she was forcing him to speak. But even if he succumbed to the torture and confessed, would he live?

Either way, the end was death.

Lianzhi remained silent, and Su Rina’s face darkened again. She snorted coldly. “You brought this on yourself.”

She looked at Xiao Anzi, who was beside Lianzhi with a head covered in blood. Lianzhi felt the blood in his veins go cold. “No, no, you cannot do this! I am not a spy, I am not! Stop!”

Su Rina smiled a ghoulish smile. Her finger was like a guillotine blade; whoever she pointed at, died. “Whip him to death!”

Lianzhi understood those words, the same command as before. He watched as Xiao Anzi was dragged next to the dead merchant. His clothes were torn away in the same manner. The guard holding the whip raised his arm again, and the lash was about to fall!

“Stop!”

“Whip him!”

The whip cracked.

“Ah! Ah!” Shen Lianzhi twisted his body frantically. He watched as lash after lash fell upon Xiao Anzi. Xiao Anzi’s body was small and frail; after two strikes, he was vomiting blood, yet he still forced a smile for Lianzhi. “Prince, Your Highness, no.”

It does not hurt.

He did not call him Khatun. He called him Prince.

Shen Lianzhi screamed like a madman, his eyes nearly bursting from their sockets. The circle of Xia people surrounding him watched his screaming frenzy as if they were watching the slaughter of an animal. Those gazes, some pitying and some contemptuous, made thorns grow from deep within his flesh, piercing through bone and skin.

“Ah!” Shen Lianzhi never expected he could burst forth with such strength. His arms felt as if they had snapped, but he did not care. Like a silent volcano finally erupting in flames, he rushed forward. He, who was so afraid of pain, threw himself over Xiao Anzi’s back. “Stop hitting him! Stop hitting him!”

Lianzhi’s tears fell, scalding, near Xiao Anzi’s ear. He thought, “This is not my servant; this is my brother.” They had been together since childhood, huddling in the dilapidated Chang’an Palace to share a single steamed bun during the years they went hungry.

When he read, Xiao Anzi read; when he learned to write, Xiao Anzi learned too. Xiao Anzi had accompanied him here; they had foolishly tried to escape together only to encounter wolves. Xiao Anzi had found someone to deliver a letter just to make him happy.

How could he watch Xiao Anzi die for him?

No one expected Shen Lianzhi to suddenly pounce. Even Su Rina was stunned. She slammed the table and stood up, pointing at him. “What are you doing!”

“Do not hit him, do not hit him!” Lianzhi cried out shrilly. “I was the one who told him to send the letter! If you want to whip someone, whip me!”

“I am a spy,” Lianzhi said, closing his eyes and sobbing. “I am.”

“Let him go. It is all my fault. I beg you, let him go.”

Su Rina stared at him with dark, predatory eyes. Perhaps the sight of hot blood could turn a person into a beast. A smile spread across her lips, stiff and terrifying. She pointed at Shen Lianzhi and looked around at the Great Xia nobles, saying in the Xia tongue, “You all heard him.”

“He said it!” Su Rina trembled neurotically. “He said it!”

Everyone was terrified; no one dared to respond. Su Rina shrieked, “Whip him to death!”

But she did not let Xiao Anzi go either. She pointed at the master and servant together. “Whip them both to death!”

This sentence was in the Han tongue. Lianzhi understood it.

He looked up at Su Rina, tears falling. “No, let him go.”

“I beg you, I beg you!”

No one pitied him. His tears fell like shattered glass. Shen Lianzhi remained sprawled over Xiao Anzi as the whip struck his own back. He smelled the scent of iron. Lianzhi vomited blood, which mixed with his tears.

Shen Lianzhi convulsed. For a moment, he suddenly felt an intense hatred for his own cowardice. It seemed that besides crying, he knew how to do nothing else.

In his blurred vision, he looked up and caught Su Rina’s gaze from her high position. That look was cold, contemptuous, mocking, and disgusted. That single look suddenly overlapped with the thousands of gazes he had endured since childhood.

That one look was like a giant axe falling from the sky, like a bolt of lightning, shattering his rotten bones and clearing the fog from his muddled mind.

On what basis?

On what basis was he to be so bullied? Why did he have to swallow his grievances? Why was he looked down upon wherever he went? Why did the heavens treat him this way?

What had he actually done wrong? Why did Su Rina hate him so much? Even as a Khatun, he had to suffer such humiliation. He had humbled himself to the extreme, yet he was still stepped upon.

He was timid and weak, separated from his old love in this place where he received no warmth, only mockery. He only wanted a few letters from home for comfort. Was that too much? Was it?

Was it too much?

He wanted to go home! He did not want this political marriage! The Xia people stabbed him with words like cold arrows, wantonly tearing open his scars, while he had to use all his strength just to speak up, forced to swallow his own blood. Was he in the wrong?

Lianzhi thought, “I am so pathetic.”

“I am already this pathetic. Do you still want to bully me?”

He had given up everything, left everything behind, separated from the person he loved most to come to this desolate grassland only to be insulted. He should have been the most noble Khatun, yet he was slandered as a spy and whipped.

He gave everything, and in return, he got his father’s words, “Blessings and disasters come hand in hand.”

Was this a blessing?

Was he even a person? From the Zhou Palace to the grassland, did anyone treat him like a human being?

They looked down on him for being a shuang’er, yet they relied on him to replace Huining in marriage to save the Great Zhou. Lianzhi had not realized that so much resentment was hidden deep within his heart.

Why was his life so bitter?

Why?

Why? Why? Why?

“Ah!” Lianzhi’s eyes were blood red. He could no longer feel any pain. He suddenly turned his head, uncaring if the whip struck his face. He lunged at the guard like a suicidal animal and bit down hard on the man’s wrist.

He bit with such force he nearly tore the flesh off. The guard screamed in pain and his grip loosened; the whip fell. Lianzhi was quick and grabbed the whip in his hand, staggering to his feet.

There was blood everywhere on the animal hide rugs, a sea of red. He was covered in blood himself. Looking around, everything was a fiery crimson. Clutching that whip, he suddenly felt a surge of confidence. He was like a general leading a million soldiers; he was not a coward, not a loser, not a piece of filth. He was a general bathing in fire.

The whip swept forward. Shen Lianzhi gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to let a single tear fall. Like a madman, he swung the whip wildly, smashing the objects in the tent to pieces.

Every Xia person in the tent likely felt the sting of his whip. Su Rina stared, wide eyed, and reached for her blade to strike him. But as the saying goes, even the fierce fear those who do not value their own lives. Shen Lianzhi stepped onto a table and lashed out at her with a vicious strike!

“Ah!”

“Ha, haha!” Lianzhi stood on the high ground, swinging blindly, his eyes bloodshot. “This is for you, for that knife you threw at me before!”

The tent was a shambles. Having vented his fury, Shen Lianzhi suddenly chuckled. Suddenly, there was the sound of hooves behind him. He turned with the whip in hand, only to see a massive crowd of people standing outside the pulled back tent flap.

Lianzhi squinted, counting them one by one. He saw a terrified Saren and the silent Xurigan. The man on the far left was tall with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, but he was backlit, and Lianzhi could not see his face clearly.

As the man gradually walked closer, Shen Lianzhi saw him clearly, dark green, wolf like eyes and two sharp white teeth.

“Oh, it is him,” Lianzhi thought dizzily before losing consciousness.

“The little barbarian.”

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