Chapter 185: Blocking The Way
Those two guys took so much silver from him, yet they couldn’t even handle a woman. Useless!
“Oh, you’re awake.” A familiar yet strange voice came from the right. The youth turned his head to look, and Shang Wan was leaning against the tree trunk, arms crossed, smiling at him.
But that smile looked cold no matter how he saw it, making his back tingle. Zhong Chenghong’s arm couldn’t help but break out in layer after layer of goosebumps.
Standing next to Shang Wan was an acquaintance. The blue-robed, black-haired youth stood tall and graceful, his expression indifferent, his demeanor even more striking than before.
Jealousy involuntarily flashed in Zhong Chenghong’s eyes.
He opened his mouth to speak, but with the cloth stuffed in his mouth, he could only make “mmph mmph mmph” sounds.
Shang Wan stepped forward and removed the cloth from his mouth, then without any warning punched the youth in the stomach.
The youth’s curses caught in his throat, turning into a cry of pain that startled the birds in the forest.
Shang Wan used her toe to lift his chin, looking down directly into the youth’s somewhat dazed eyes from the pain. “I ask, you answer. Understand?”
Naked threat of force.
Cold sweat from the pain dripped along his jaw. Zhong Chenghong angrily jerked his chin away, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Are you crazy? I’ll report you to the officials!”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the youth was kicked flying sideways. With a “bang,” he crashed into a nearby tree trunk, his back arching in pain as his whole body curled up like a shrimp.
Shang Wan strolled over, grabbed him by the hand and yanked him up, her eyes and brows brimming with coldness. “I have no patience for those who try to harm me. I don’t want to repeat the same words a third time. Understand?”
Zhong Chenghong had never suffered such treatment. Every part of his body hurt, and he bit through his lips to swallow the cries of pain that were about to burst out.
Bone-chilling killing intent enveloped his whole body, crawling up his spine like a venomous snake about to strike. The youth’s body trembled involuntarily, and he said hoarsely, “U-understand.”
Shang Wan released him and asked coldly, “First question: why did you hire someone to murder me?”
“I didn’t.” Zhong Chenghong denied it outright, his eyes flickering. “Wanwan, I was just short of cutting out my heart to prove my feelings. How could I hire someone to kill you? Why are you wronging me?”
The youth’s eyes quivered with grievance, just like before. His two eyes looked tenderly and deeply at the woman in front of him, as if she were his everything.
Shang Wan: …Eye-searing!
“With your chicken nest head, unwashed face and unbrushed teeth, eye gunk in the corner of your eyes, leaves and mud in your hair, who are you disgusting here?”
Shang Wan openly showed her disgust and quickly turned her head to look more at Lu Chengjing to wash her eyes.
—Her own fox was still the best-looking.
Lu Chengjing, who had been about to walk over, silently adjusted his pose to make sure his wife could look at him with pleasure.
Zhong Chenghong: “…”
Requesting a do-over!
“Put away those disgusting expressions.” Shang Wan flexed her wrist and asked coldly, “Tell me, why did you hire someone to murder me?”
Zhong Chenghong: “I didn’t. I’m innocent. Wanwan, believe me.”
Shang Wan narrowed her eyes. Not shedding tears until he sees the coffin. She just liked dealing with tough nuts like this.
The next quarter hour was the darkest moment of Zhong Chenghong’s life.
Fists and precise control of strength.
Layers of pain accumulated. His cries had long gone hoarse, and in the end he didn’t even have the strength to twitch, becoming a puddle of mud on the ground.
Even the wind gently brushing his skin sent sharp stabs of pain through his mind.
Damp side hair stuck to his temple. The youth made uncomfortable “heh heh” sounds from his throat but couldn’t say a word, left only with the strength to roll his eyes.
At this moment, he would rather be dead.
Shang Wan rotated her wrist, satisfied that the skills honed in the apocalypse hadn’t regressed.
—Death is nothing. The most terrifying thing in the world is wishing for death but not getting it.
“Niangzi, you’ve worked hard.” Lu Chengjing walked over with the water skin, his gaze lightly sweeping over the limp youth on the ground, his eyes cold as if looking at a dead object.
The murderous aura still churned in Shang Wan’s chest, her cold and stern killing intent almost tangible. She took the water skin and silently drank two mouthfuls.
The cool spring water slowly suppressed the last trace of murderous aura in her heart. Her eyes shifted, and the faint red glow at the bottom disappeared.
Lu Chengjing took her hand and gently massaged her wrist with just the right pressure, his voice mild. “Niangzi, rest for now. Shall I take over the questioning?”
Shang Wan nodded. Her current state really wasn’t suitable for questioning.
This body surprisingly still had some remnant consciousness of the original owner. She hadn’t noticed it before; it only emerged when she was beating Zhong Chenghong just now.
Under the influence of the intangible murderous and resentful aura, she had nearly beaten Zhong Chenghong to death.
Now that Zhong Chenghong looked so miserable, that baseless resentment had also vanished without a trace and shouldn’t cause trouble again.
“Zhong Chenghong, if you confess truthfully, you can suffer less.” Lu Chengjing’s voice was as cold as his expression. He looked down at the youth on the ground, dark turmoil churning in his eyes.
“Ha!” Zhong Chenghong sneered coldly, spitting out bloody foam that stained his sharp chin.
He forcefully lifted his head and stared up at the person looking down at him, mocking word by word, “Does the green hat look good?”
Lu Chengjing’s eyes sharpened, his expression growing even colder as he lifted his foot and stepped on Zhong Chenghong’s left hand.
As the moon-white cloth shoe ground down, the sound of finger bones cracking could almost be heard.
“Ah!!!” Zhong Chenghong let out a shrill scream, frantically shrinking back. “My hand!”
His most treasured hand!
Lu Chengjing pressed down hard, unmoved by the youth’s screams, and said coldly, “If you don’t answer, next time it will be your right hand.”
As fellow scholars, he knew exactly where to strike for maximum pain.
Lu Chengjing had experienced that kind of pain before; perhaps Zhong Chenghong wanted to try it too.
“N-no, don’t! Don’t!” Ignoring the pain all over his body, Zhong Chenghong’s obsession burst forth with strength. Veins bulged on his neck as he desperately tried to tuck his right hand under his belly, as if hiding it would keep it safe.
“Speak.” Lu Chengjing lifted his foot, releasing the bloody, mangled left hand, his dark eyes staring straight into the youth’s pupils, which were dilating from the pain. “Why hire someone to murder?”
With the source of pain removed from his foot, the agony from his shattered left hand bones eased slightly. Under the threat of losing his right hand, Zhong Chenghong gasped twice and said shakily, “B-because… because… she was blocking my path.”
Lu Chengjing pressed, “What path?”
“I-I’m about to become betrothed to the daughter of Marquis Wu’an.” Once the dam broke, the words flowed easily. Zhong Chenghong said, “I worried that Marquis Wu’an would find out about my past involvement with Wanwan, so in a moment of confusion I hired the killers.”
His voice was low and hoarse. “I regretted it as soon as I sent them out. I tossed and turned all night without sleeping, I—”
Shang Wan, now recovered, ruthlessly interrupted, “I saw you sleeping soundly, snoring as loud as a pig in the pen.”
He didn’t even know someone had entered the room, snoring like a pig.
