Falling After Marriage - Chapter 19

Chapter 19: You Are Mine, So You Must Obey

It was likely the lingering cold, compounded by the brutal beating from the thugs, that made Cheng Sangluo’s voice not just hoarse, but her spirit increasingly wilted.

The crazy woman’s humiliating cruelty, like the final straw, extinguished the defiance in her spirit, leaving only overwhelming fatigue.

Cheng Sangluo lowered her head and gave a bitter smile, mocking Lin Jin’s endless schemes. None had managed to banish the deep-seated pride in her soul until the moment tonight when she bent down to pick up the money—that moment completely crushed her self-proclaimed integrity into dust.

Her rigidly maintained spirit was like a rapidly wilting rose. Simply asking the question about the transaction exhausted all her mental energy.

Her fingers tightly gripped her trouser leg, her nails dug into her flesh, yet she felt no pain, as if her nerve endings were dead—or perhaps the pain was so intense that it caused numbness.

Lin Jin froze, taking a moment to respond. In the puppy’s quiet, submissive inquiry, the whole world fell silent.

The howling wind, the crashing waves on the shore—all seemed muffled, leaving only the echo of her heart beating wildly.

The ripple that spread wasn’t just in her heart, but also extended into the thick blackness of the night sky, subtly pulling the crescent moon from behind the tattered clouds.

This feeling of watching the clouds part to reveal the sky was hard-earned. It required orchestrating an entire grand scheme, with the participation of both good and bad people.

This was the ‘difficulty’ she often lamented.

“You can neither escape nor save them. This is a personal purgatory just for you.” Lin Jin sighed, her eyes slowly curving into a smile, sparkling with scattered light. Then she put on the expression of someone who finally got what they wanted: “Hard-boned puppy, you’ve finally reached the end of your rope.”

Cheng Sangluo was indeed less rigid than before. Her once straight back was slightly hunched from the beating, and her shoulders drooped.

She remained silent, waiting for Lin Jin’s condition for the transaction.

Lin Jin met the dull eyes, noticing the wound above her brow that had mostly stopped bleeding. Her face showed a flicker of pain, which she quickly concealed: “You are poor, have a criminal record, and are saddled with a family of vampires. What do you think you have to trade with me?”

What cruel words. Each one stabbed at Cheng Sangluo’s heart, leaving her speechless. Yet, it was as if she had become tolerant of humiliation, showing no immediate fury.

“I said what I want is very simple: you, the person.” Lin Jin grabbed her collar, placing her lips near Cheng Sangluo’s ear: “I’ll pay three million for your cheap life. I am the only one losing money in this deal. You cannot refuse, and you have no way to refuse.”

Cheng Sangluo tightened her brows but still didn’t reply. Half of her heart was dead. The flesh trade that had tormented her countless times was finally becoming a reality after moving past an initial ‘impossible.’

Just as Lin Jin said, she was poor, left with only her life. If someone was willing to pay to resolve her troubles, she truly had no reason to refuse.

After a moment of silence, she finally parted her lips and spoke: “Before I agree to your terms, I need you to answer one question: Was everything that happened tonight orchestrated by you or Xu Songheng?”

Lin Jin raised her eyebrows knowingly, aware of what the puppy was concerned about, as Cheng Sangluo had always suspected her relationship with Xu Songheng.

She gently brushed the stray hair from the puppy’s face and asked with a smile: “Do you know about Matryoshka dolls?”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything tonight is a chain reaction stemming from past events, like Matryoshka dolls nested layer upon layer.

For example, because you went to prison and lost your retirement money, your brother gambled recklessly for his marriage funds. For instance, Xu Songheng has always feared your existence. To get rid of you, he set up the debt trap for your brother, and to prevent your resistance, he had your parents kidnapped.

I, however, stand above these predicament, privy to every single development.

I know more about your past than you can imagine. It was easy to find your family; it was just a matter of whether the price was generous enough.

Do you remember the pool party? I was so certain you would come to me because I was prepared.

Because, even back then, your brother should have had his fingers chopped off by the creditor, but Xu Songheng didn’t dare to defy me, which is why this matter was dragged until today.”

Lin Jin was always so patient with the puppy, patiently explaining the origin of the seven-day bet.

As she spoke, her face grew helpless—the helplessness of being unable to deal with the puppy.

“Cheng Sangluo, I greatly admire your integrity. Even now, you haven’t truly submitted.

I thought I would win this bet hands down, that you would yield to me under duress. The fact is, I achieved my goal of having you belong to me, but I didn’t win.

Of course, it’s not because you’re so formidable, but because I lost due to being too soft-hearted towards you.”

Lin Jin’s eyes held an unprecedented tenderness, as if she had finally obtained the doll she had long coveted.

She used her fingertips to trace Cheng Sangluo’s face. The touch wasn’t hot like it was that day, and she smiled contentedly: “It’s good that the fever is gone.”

Cheng Sangluo’s expression didn’t change, but her eyes brightened for a moment in the darkness, betraying her astonishment towards Lin Jin.

She knew the crazy woman’s mind was cunning, but the net-like complexity was still unexpected.

She turned her head, avoiding Lin Jin’s hand, and looked towards Xu Songheng and his group, demanding: “I agree to your condition. I will bear this debt. First, let them release my family.”

“No rush. I still have one more lesson to teach you today.” Lin Jin waved her hand, building suspense, then looked at the tightly bound couple, her eyes cold as ice: “As far as I know, you could have attended a very good university, but to save family expenses, they tore up your acceptance letter and made you join the military so they could use your retirement fund for your brother’s wedding. Now, they want you to repay a huge debt. Don’t you hate them? Don’t you resent these leeches at all?”

This rhetorical question exposed Cheng Sangluo’s most unwilling pain point.

She often imagined a different, wonderful life when she couldn’t sleep late at night.

On a lush university campus, studying her preferred major, making good friends, working part-time to pay for living expenses, taking beautiful graduation photos in her gown, and then wearing a crisply ironed professional suit for her first job interview.

Those fantasies were repeatedly shattered by the emergency assembly calls. She thought she would try to test again after retirement, surely she would go to her dream university, stroll along the sycamore tree-lined avenue in summer, listen to the cicadas, and enjoy the carefree evening breeze.

Later, that dream was shattered, difficult to mend, and impossible to complete. That dream could only ever remain a dream.

Cheng Sangluo opened her eyes wide as if just waking up, then shook her head, lost in thought.

She suddenly realized that no matter what stage of life she was in, she couldn’t gather any nostalgic, beautiful memories. All she could have were fantasies in the dark night.

Yes, if she hadn’t experienced it, how could she find it?

She covered her face with her hands, concealing her painful and complex emotions. These feelings were like tangled ropes, twisted and binding her, simultaneously bundling all the torment that wasn’t hers.

This inescapable pain coexisted with her. Until today, someone finally stood up and told her that this feeling was called hate—an emotion that could grant her great power.

Cheng Sangluo was familiar with hate because she detested Xu Songheng, who had framed her.

But for her so-called family, she complained about unfairness, yearned for affection, but never considered hate.

After a moment of hesitation, she muttered to herself, asking: “Hate? Can hate solve the problem? Can hate take me back to the past?”

In this moment, she resembled shattered glass that had been carelessly pieced back together. Every crack indicated that she couldn’t go back to the past, nor could she become new.

Lin Jin was the only one capable of overturning her fragility, always using methods of harm disguised as help, yet mixed with tenderness she didn’t want revealed.

The puppy’s counter-question made her laugh: “You hate Xu Songheng, and you hate me. Of course, you also hate your disappointing brother and your unloving parents. Since fate is unfair, why not hate them more completely?”

Lin Jin led Cheng Sangluo by the hem of her shirt, walking arrogantly in front of Cheng Xing. Looking at the somewhat similar face, an unprecedented disgust swelled in her heart.

She wanted to order a dagger and personally flay the skin from Cheng Xing’s face, simply because this person did not deserve to resemble her beloved puppy.

To her, that single ray of moonlight could not be tainted by the slightest flaw. Yet, she felt the flesh was too dirty and truly didn’t want to touch it, so she forcefully suppressed the evil thought.

Lin Jin didn’t speak, but signaled her subordinate with her eyes to bring something over.

In a moment, someone presented a baseball bat.

She took the bat, pointed it at Cheng Xing, then at Cheng Yongqiang and Zuo Lan, patiently instructing the puppy: “They ruined half your life, yet you haven’t uttered a single complaint. This weakness truly doesn’t match your integrity. This is the last lesson I’ll teach you: even if they are blood relatives, when you are treated unfairly and hurt, you must learn to personally cut them off to prevent future troubles.”

With that, Lin Jin offered the baseball bat to Cheng Sangluo: “Since you are mine now, you must obey me.”

Cheng Sangluo stared at the coldly gleaming bat, understanding Lin Jin’s intent, but hesitated to reach out and take it.

“You, oh you. If only you were this soft-hearted towards me.” Lin Jin sighed internally, calling the puppy a soft-hearted deity. But she didn’t withdraw the bat, commanding again: “Come on, break his leg.”

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