That night, in the chilling autumn wind, a waning moon hung in a sky permeated with dark clouds.
A heart-wrenching scream resonated from a nearby residence, the haunting sound striking fear in any who heard it - as if it were a specter writhing in the fiery depths of hell itself.
It was enough to send shivers down one's spine!
A girl of fifteen or sixteen, both hands and feet shackled by iron chains, her clothing tattered and torn, her body covered with bright red whip marks.
Two maidservants held onto her frail arms, within the crevices of her ten fingers, which were little more than skin and bones, more than a dozen long needles had been inserted.
Each needle was buried deep into the nail bed.
Even the slightest touch provoked a pain that felt as if it were gnawing at her marrow, akin to having one's flesh brutally torn by bare hands!
The girl was in disarray, hanging onto life by a thread, her face as pale as a sheet of paper without a trace of blood. Beads of sweat dripped from her as though she had just been pulled from water.
Blood mingled with sweat that ran down her body, pouring like a rain of blood, a sight too horrible to behold!
Faced with such a terrifying scene, a woman known as Seventh Aunt sat nonchalantly, and light-heartedly questioned, "Wei Yanwei, are you going to marry or not? If you decide not to, I have a hundred ways to torment you till you wish you were dead!"
One of the servants, holding a long needle, directed it at the girl's index finger and ruthily pierced it through.
"Ah..." Another blood-curling scream emerged from the girl's lips, seemingly consuming the last strands of her strength. Her chained body collapsed, bereft of any remaining support.
Seventh Aunt rose, grasping the girl's gaunt chin, "You are just like your mother, never heeding a warning until it's too late, isn't it? Marrying into General Li's home as a concubine is far better than living like a dog in the Chancellor's mansion, isn't it? Look at yourself, born from your mother's illicit affair, even a maidservant in the Chancellor's mansion can step over you. Wouldn't it be great to marry into Li Mansion, to live a life of comfort and luxury?"
The girl, her eyes out of focus yet filled with an unmistakable hatred directed at Seventh Aunt, somehow found the strength to croak, "Why not have your daughter marry instead? Why must I be the replacement?"
Upon hearing this, Seventh Aunt flew into a rage, splashing all her tea onto the girl's wounds.
The scalding hot water poured onto the split wound made the woman's body convulse uncontrollably. The intense agony contorted her face into a monstrous, frightful expression.
"Wei Yuanwei, I've lost all patience with you. Since you refuse to yield, I have to resort to the most despicable method!" The eyes of Lady Seven were full of fierceness, "Force this sleeping potion down her throat. Let General Li directly take your innocence later. Then you will have no choice but to marry him."
When Lady Seven finished speaking, a maid brought a medicine bowl and tried to pour the sleeping potion into the woman's mouth while holding it open. However, the woman struggled desperately, not opening her mouth. Bloody red had already pervaded her scattered, ethereal eyes.
Seeing that they could not pry open her mouth, the servants simply pinched the woman's fingers which were stabbed with needles, directly on the fingernails.
The heart-wrenching pain nearly made the woman faint instantly. When she opened her mouth to scream in pain, a large dose of sleeping potion was immediately poured in.
It wasted no time traveling down her esophagus into her stomach. The woman, who had not eaten for several days, could only feel a burning pain. It hurt so much that she could open her mouth wide but not make any sound.
All she could do was stare hatefully at Lady Seven's self-satisfied face, which gradually became blurry and eventually disappeared.
Wei Yuanwei was awakened by the pain in her body!
She opened her eyes and found herself pressed down by an old man full of wrinkles, who was overstepping his boundaries.
"Get lost…" Wei Yuanwei instantly felt nauseated, but found her hands and feet tied to the bed, unable to move.
Moreover, her fingers felt as if they had been soaked in kerosene, causing extreme pain.
"I like your wildness like this!" An ugly old man let out a lecherous laugh, showing off his yellowed teeth that were nauseating to look at. His rough hands abraded her skin causing pain, and with a strong yank, Wei Yuanwei's clothes were torn like a thin piece of paper, instantly revealing her bright red bellyband.
General? Wei Yuanwei realized something was off only after a closer look. The man in front of her was wearing a long robe and had a head full of grey hair. Even the decoration in the room had an antique flavor.
Was it possible that she had time-traveled after surviving that plane crash?
In an instant, countless unfamiliar images flooded Wei Yuanwei's mind!
Turns out, the natural mother of this body was formerly a noble and legitimate daughter of the Prime Minister's mansion, but because she bore a child out of wedlock, she was tragically jilted by the prince. The Prime Minister's mansion was deeply discredited, and the Prime Minister immediately severed the father-daughter relationship and exiled her from the mansion.
Shortly after she gave birth to her daughter, she departed from this life. The Prime Minister's wife could not bear to see her destitute and starve to death outside. So she finally procured the Prime Minister's agreement to take her in and raise her in the mansion. But inside the mansion, no one saw her as a human. Though she was accommodated inside the Prime Minister’s mansion, she lived and slept with the horses. She spent a dozen years without a step outside the stable!
Aunts, mother-in-law, cousins, even the maids and servants all belittled her like an ant, allowing themselves to trample and humiliate her.
The female servants often dragged her out from the stall, riding on her for fun. At feeding time, they purposely spilled horse feed all over her, letting the stable horses lick her with their stinky tongues.
Usually, punished or frustrated servants would vent their anger on her in the stable. Hence, her body often had one bruise or another, and new injuries were always added just as the old ones healed.
These aunts, mother-in-law, cousins, needless to mention, they wouldn't lower their dignity by going to the stable to humiliate her. On holidays and festivals, though, they would tie a rope around her neck and make her mimic dog crawling or horse neighing, demonstrate how a horse ate as a source of amusement. But that only happened after the Prime Minister's wife passed away when the Prime Minister was out having a feast at the royal palace.
Just a few days ago, a fifty-year-old lieutenant general came to the Prime Minister's mansion to propose a match, but he was interested in his seventh daughter born to a concubine. She, the seventh daughter, was desperately unwilling to marry him. The seventh mother then thought of her instead.
Thus, they cleaned her up and presented her to the fifty-year-old lieutenant general.
Her mother was a well-known beauty in DongChu country and after proper laundering and dressing up, her beauty that could outshine the moon and eclipse the sun immediately caused the fifty-year-old lieutenant general to salivate.
Initially, the wicked seventh aunt tried to persuade her with kind words followed by cruel tortures. But the original host was very unyielding, refusing to consent. In the end, when the seventh aunt was out of methods, she drugged her into unconsciousness, then bound her hands and feet to the bed, intending to let the general directly take her innocence. Once that happened, even if she didn’t agree, there would be no way out, and the Prime Minister would naturally have to approve this marriage!
