After the Alluring Beauty Was Forced into a Political Marriage - Chapter 37

“Thirsty, so thirsty,” Shen Lianzhi lay powerless on the ground, his vision a murky gray. His head spun so violently that he could not lift a single finger. “Water, water.”

Lianzhi’s once clear, bright voice was now like sandpaper, coarse and hoarse, laced with a sob. “I want water.”

“Is anyone there? Someone, come! I am so hungry, so hungry!”

His stomach felt as if a fire were burning within, searing through his bones and flesh. That scorching thirst drove him nearly to madness. Lianzhi’s fingers clawed at the animal hide rug beneath him as he rolled in agony. The ends of his hair, cut short by a scimitar, pricked his neck like countless fine needles.

He curled into a ball, his hair soaked into matted clumps by his constant stream of tears. Clutching his abdomen, he whimpered, “Someone, save me.”

It had been two full days since he last saw Shiqin Bari. Lianzhi vividly remembered the expression on Shiqin Bari’s face when he left the King’s tent that day.

Shiqin Bari had slowly raised his head, his eyes bloodshot. His voice was low and raspy. “What did you say?”

“Your servant, your servant was incompetent. I failed to capture the Prince of Chu of the Zhou Kingdom.”

The scimitar was suddenly level with his throat. Before Xurigan could finish his sentence, Shiqin Bari had taken a step forward. The blade could have sliced his windpipe. “Say that again.”

Xurigan looked down at the cold, glinting blade, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He pressed his lips together and remained silent.

The scimitar trembled slightly, or perhaps it was the hand gripping the hilt. Shiqin Bari suddenly took a massive step back, the blade slicing a wide arc through the air. “I will capture him myself.”

He turned slightly, casting a sidelong glance at Lianzhi on the floor. That look was cold and contemptuous, devoid of any affection, as if he were looking at a piece of discarded, repulsive filth.

“From this day forward,” Shiqin Bari said coldly, “you are no longer the Khatun of my Great Xia.”

Leaving only that sentence, he left with Xurigan without looking back. Lianzhi struggled to lift his head, watching Shiqin Bari’s back grow more distant until it vanished.

Shen Lianzhi was no longer the noble Khatun of Great Xia; he had become a nameless, lowly slave. For two days, neither water nor food had passed his lips. He finally understood the meaning of “longing for life but unable to live, longing for death but unable to die.”

Shiqin Bari’s methods of torture were truly masterful.

Lianzhi shivered all over. He suddenly felt so cold that he could hardly breathe. He closed his eyes, and the red rimmed, sorrowful look Lu Jingce gave him as he departed appeared before him. Lianzhi asked himself in his heart if he had chosen wrong.

Had he chosen wrong?

So hungry, so thirsty, so cold. He felt as if he were dying. In his delirium, he seemed to hear the rustle of leather boots on the animal hide rug. Struggling to lift his head, he saw a cold, deep featured face.

Two lines of tears flowed from Lianzhi’s beautiful willow leaf eyes. He called out in a small voice, “Great King, I know I was wrong.”

“I am so hungry, I want to eat something. I want water.” Lianzhi crawled toward Shiqin Bari like a lamb with broken limbs, reaching the side of the cruel young Chanyu. “Let me go, please let me go.”

A cold hand gripped his jaw, forcing his face up. The grip was so powerful that Lianzhi was forced to open his mouth.

With a grim face, Shiqin Bari poured a jug of rice milk into his mouth. The rice milk was warm, sweet, and fragrant. Finding relief like parched earth meeting rain, Lianzhi opened his mouth to reach for the jug’s spout. Shiqin Bari watched with half lidded eyes as those bright red lips licked at the spout, his chest suddenly heaving.

He violently threw the bronze jug aside. His hand clamped around Lianzhi’s slender neck. Shiqin Bari spoke through gritted teeth, his voice trembling slightly. “Slut.”

“Where exactly did he go?”

Lianzhi grasped his wrist, feeling Shiqin Bari’s steady, powerful pulse beneath his fingertips. He shook his head sorrowfully. “I do not know, I do not know, Great King, Shiqin Bari.”

“Do not treat me like this, I am so afraid,” Lianzhi said, shivering. “Let him go. My cousin and I,” he started.

Lianzhi lowered his head weakly, his falling tears landing on Shiqin Bari’s hand like molten lava, searing the Chanyu’s heart with sharp pain. “It is all in the past.”

Shiqin Bari gritted his teeth. “Let him go?”

“What right do you have to ask me to let him go!”

Shiqin Bari suddenly released his grip, and Lianzhi fell unsteadily to the ground. Shiqin Bari asked coldly, “Where did Lu Jingce go?”

“I do not know, Shiqin Bari.”

“I told you not to call me by my name!” Shiqin Bari glared at him fiercely. “Do you truly want me to tear your mouth apart?”

Lianzhi flinched and spoke no more.

Shiqin Bari looked at his bloodshot eyes with a mixture of hatred and pain. He had searched the grasslands for two days with nearly a hundred men, two full days, and yet had not found a trace.

How was it possible?

Was Lu Jingce truly that capable? This was Great Xia, Shiqin Bari’s own domain. What path could Lu Jingce have possibly taken to escape right under his nose?

“Speak! Where exactly did he go?”

Lianzhi bowed his head, his thin shoulders trembling. One could vaguely hear the sobs he was desperately trying to suppress.

It felt as though a stone were weighing on Shiqin Bari’s chest. He gave a cold laugh. “Fine, very well.”

“It does not matter where he is, whether he is still on the grasslands or has already escaped through Yanmen Pass. It no longer matters.”

Lianzhi suddenly snapped his head up, his pupils shrinking in terror. “No!”

Shiqin Bari held a silk scroll in his hand. Lianzhi recognized it; it was the truce agreement between Zhou and Xia. Lianzhi felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over him. He lunged forward recklessly to stop Shiqin Bari. “Do not tear it, do not tear it!”

His slender fingers gripped Shiqin Bari’s hand, his nails unconsciously digging into the skin. Shiqin Bari frowned. “Let go!”

“You cannot tear it, you cannot,” Lianzhi screamed. “How can you go back on your word? How can you send troops against Great Zhou again?”

Shiqin Bari narrowed his eyes. He asked Lianzhi, “Shen Lianzhi, is it the safety of your home country you truly worry about, or the life of your cousin?”

“Answer me!”

Lianzhi’s lips trembled uncontrollably. He knew he should not mention his cousin again.

But under Shiqin Bari’s deep, piercing gaze, he could not bring himself to say that he was only worried for his country.

He did not have such grand ambitions; he was simply afraid. He was afraid that his Brother Jingce would become a prisoner of a fallen nation.

Shiqin Bari stared at him for a moment, then curled one side of his lip in a mocking sneer.

He stood up and suddenly kicked the ox hide chests piled in the tent. The force caused the mountain of chests to collapse onto the rugs, a rain of gold and silver spilling out.

“Lu Jingce, what is so good about him that even in this state, you still think of him! Shen Lianzhi,” Shiqin Bari closed his eyes, the corners of his eyes twitching slightly. “Now, you are not even willing to lie to me.”

He laughed again with self mockery. “I am so pathetic. I saw you embracing him with my own eyes, and yet,” he paused.

He still could not bear to lose him.

“What is so good about you!” Shiqin Bari roared in madness. He drew his scimitar and brought it down in front of Lianzhi, shattering the jade hairpin that had fallen there.

He hacked at the dowry items Lianzhi had brought from the Zhou Palace as if venting his rage. Then, his gaze shifted and fixed on a gold crown nearby.

Shen Lianzhi looked so beautiful wearing that gold crown, as beautiful as a celestial being. Sadly, that beauty was not meant for him; it was for Lu Jingce.

Shiqin Bari’s eyes widened slightly. Lianzhi followed his gaze and suddenly held his breath. He watched Shiqin Bari raise the blade to strike the gold crown. Lianzhi’s eyes nearly burst from their sockets as he shrieked, “No!”

He threw himself over the gold crown, using his own body to shield it from the falling blade. Lianzhi sobbed, “No, you cannot hack this, you cannot.”

Shiqin Bari’s face was cold and rigid, his eyes stinging. Seeing Lianzhi cherish this gold crown so much, what was there left for him to not understand? Shiqin Bari asked stiffly, “He gave it to you, did he not?”

Lianzhi whimpered with his head down, offering no answer.

“Since he gave it to you, you hold it in your palms and cherish it like a rare treasure. But when I give you things, you throw them into the corners, leave them on the ground, and despise them to death!”

The crumpled snow fox fur, the wolf tooth left on the floor; it was all like his heart, worth nothing. Shiqin Bari finally understood. He finally understood why he had always felt a barrier between himself and Shen Lianzhi.

He had thought it was because he had not done enough, or because he had been too harsh in the past, causing Lianzhi to dislike him. But it turned out that there was already someone in his heart.

Shen Lianzhi’s heart was filled to the brim by Lu Jingce. Where was there room for him? Where?

He was the youngest Chanyu of Great Xia, the hero of the grasslands. He was Shiqin Bari. How could Shen Lianzhi, how did he dare treat him this way?

Shiqin Bari panted, his face flushed. He reached out and yanked Lianzhi away. Under Lianzhi’s terrified gaze, he raised the crescent scimitar high and brought it down with all his might.

“No!”

The metal clanged.

The gold crown shattered into two, the intricate patterns completely ruined. Lianzhi stared blankly at the broken crown, falling slumped to the ground. Tears flowed, yet he let out a couple of soft, maddened laughs. “Heh, haha.”

“Haha.”

It broke just like that, as fragile as a human heart. Lianzhi remembered how lonely and sad he had been when he first arrived at the grasslands; he had survived by holding onto this gold crown.

Now, it was broken.

Shiqin Bari threw the blade aside and turned back to Lianzhi. He silently took out the truce scroll and, right before Shen Lianzhi’s eyes, tore it apart.

Lianzhi watched blankly, like a lifeless doll.

“I should have done this long ago,” Shiqin Bari said. “I should have done this from the very beginning, when Great Zhou sent a neither male nor female shuang’er like you for the marriage. It is a bit late now, but not too late.”

Lianzhi looked at him coldly. He looked at Shiqin Bari, this man who could now say he was a neither male nor female shuang’er without changing his expression, yet not long ago, he had called him Subuda and said he was as beautiful as a pearl.

Which words were true? Which were false?

“I will kill him,” Shiqin Bari said. “But before that, I will tie him to the front of the bed and let him see with his own eyes how I possess you.”

Lianzhi laughed softly, unable to stop himself, then looked up and spat at Shiqin Bari.

“Do you know?” he said warmly. “You were never my first man. I made a lifelong commitment to Lu Jingce long ago.”

“I gave him everything: my body, my love, and you are only fit to pick up what he left behind.”

“Every time I lie with you, I have to force myself to think of him. Only then can I keep myself from being so disgusted that I vomit.”

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