Chapter 16: On their wedding night, Xie Hong vomits blood...

Night fell, and the starlight was sparse.

After the guests had eaten and drunk their fill, they returned to their hometowns, and the noise gradually subsided.

Zhu Mingyue, who was drowsy with her eyelids drooping, suddenly woke up when she heard several men with lewd voices making a fuss about making a ruckus in the bridal chamber.

What's coming will come sooner or later; the thing Zhu Mingyue feared most is about to happen!

Although he likes men, it doesn't mean he can accept going to bed with a complete stranger on their first meeting!

As death loomed, a look of anxiety appeared on Zhu Mingyue's face, and her heart pounded in her chest like a drumbeat.

The rope he couldn't break free from completely extinguished his last hope. Zhu Mingyue stared at the wooden door, thinking that the man might push the door open and enter at any moment, and helplessly closed her eyes.

I kept telling myself: It's better than staying at Nanfeng Pavilion...

The door was kicked open with a bang, and the candlelight flickered in the wind, casting huge shadows on the window paper. The shadows slowly approached, like a monster with a gaping maw, about to devour people at any moment.

A strong, unpleasant smell of alcohol wafted over. Under the red veil, Zhu Mingyue frowned, her face tense and trembling slightly.

Finally, the veil was lifted, revealing a face as beautiful as a peach blossom, which was even more breathtakingly beautiful against the backdrop of a red dress.

Xie Hong's throat bobbed up and down, and in the silent room, the sound of him swallowing saliva was particularly clear.

He casually picked up the water on the table and drank it all in one gulp, barely relieving the itching in his throat.

Zhu Mingyue was suddenly pushed down, a rough hand impatiently caressing his face, while the other hand slithered around his waist like a snake.

In a moment of panic, Zhu Mingyue opened her eyes and saw her husband's face for the first time.

The man had a square face, thick eyebrows, and round eyes. If you ignored the lewd look in his eyes, he could be considered an honest farmer.

In addition, by the candlelight he also saw that the other person's face was pale and his lips were white and bloodless, which was completely inconsistent with his body shape. These two things alone made him look like a weak person suffering from an illness.

An inexplicable sense of unease arose, but he quickly had no time to think about it, because the other person's lips were already close to touching his neck.

Along with that, his clothes were torn to shreds. Fortunately, the ropes binding his hands and feet had not been untied, so his clothes were barely hanging on his body and could not be completely removed.

Zhu Mingyue turned her head slightly, quickly avoiding the other person's urgent kiss.

"Wait a minute," Zhu Mingyue stopped abruptly when she saw the other person's face, only halfway through her refusal.

Xie Hong's expression suddenly changed, becoming as gloomy and terrifying as the sky before a storm.

The hand that was on Zhu Mingyue's face slowly moved down, and with a forceful movement, it grabbed his slender neck, trapping Zhu Mingyue. As the force increased, the feeling of suffocation intensified.

Just as her consciousness was fading, Zhu Mingyue heard a sinister voice in her ear: "You don't want to have sex with me, are you disgusted by me?"

Driven by the instinct to survive, Zhu Mingyue instinctively tore at her suppressed vocal cords and begged for mercy, "No, no!"

As the pressure on his neck gradually disappeared, Zhu Mingyue took deep breaths of fresh air. His throat felt like it was being crushed by a boulder, and every breath was filled with intense pain. He tried to open his mouth to speak, but found that he had temporarily lost his voice.

It was terrifying. Zhu Mingyue concealed the deep fear in her eyes and curled her body into a ball as tightly as possible.

Without a doubt, this person is a thoroughly sensitive, insecure, and dark violent maniac.

Zhu Mingyue vividly remembered the look in his eyes just now; he seemed to have no doubt that if he didn't beg for mercy, he would be strangled to death.

Several men's voices could be heard outside the window, as they crowded around the paper window as if they were spying.

"Old Xie, it's been so long and we still haven't heard a sound. Is something wrong with you?"

"Yeah! I thought I might hear something!"

"This is boring! This is boring!"

The frivolous words of the group reached the two people's ears through the thin window. Before Zhu Mingyue could react, Xie Hong's anger rose again.

Men in rural areas are mostly vigorous and energetic, and they are skilled in both work and sex.

Xie Hong was no exception a couple of years ago. He would go to brothels with his buddies, and the loudest noises came from his room. The young women were screaming and groaning from his ministrations.

He didn't know when it started, but his body gradually started to have problems. His eyes were bluish, and he sometimes walked unsteadily, as if he had been drained dry. Halfway through sex, his girlfriend would start complaining that she had no energy.

He felt a great sense of panic; he knew in his heart that there was something wrong with his sexual function.

He lost the only thing he could be proud of, and he felt like the whole world was laughing at him.

When he walks in the fields and is glanced at by men his own age, or when he drinks with his friends and they ask him about the duration and frequency of his encounters, he feels that they know he has a problem and are using this to mock him.

From that time onward, my sensitive and irritable nature grew rapidly like a vine entwining my heart.

Looking at the handsome young man before him, this was the first time his wife had been completely his own. Just one glance was enough to ignite his lust, yet he couldn't get an erection.

The rejection from the person beneath him angered him, and the casual remarks from his brother outside the window made him even more defensive.

Xie Hong glared at the window with murderous eyes, then returned to Zhu Mingyue's body.

The bed shook violently with the movement, accompanied by shouts and jeering from outside the window, making Zhu Mingyue blush with embarrassment.

"puff!"

Zhu Mingyue felt a warm current spray onto his face, and soon the smell of alcohol in the air was replaced by the smell of blood.

Blood? Zhu Mingyue felt the liquid sliding down her face, sticky and heavy. After realizing what it was, her face turned pale and her hair stood on end.

"What's wrong with you?" Zhu Mingyue propped herself up with her hands, pushed the man who had collapsed on top of her aside, and asked him in a trembling voice, "What's wrong with you?"

"Cough! Cough cough cough—" Xie Hong responded with a violent cough, blood still spurting from his throat.

Zhu Mingyue had only one thought in her mind: Xie Hong must not die, at least not on their wedding night, not in his bed, otherwise he would be finished.

For a time, he developed a strong interest in ancient customs and borrowed some related materials.

The text included a section explaining ancient punishments for women who were considered "husband-killers," which left a deep impression on him.

The widowhood of a newlywed is called "entering the door as a widow," and she is considered to have a "husband-killing" fate, and her husband's family will use private punishments, such as branding her with a "bad luck mark" or drowning her in a pig cage.

When he first saw this account, he thought the claim that the husband was cursed was extremely absurd, blaming the death of a man solely on his spouse, which he considered an oppression of the vulnerable.

He thought that, given Xie Hong's maternal grandmother's character, he might be stuffed into a bamboo cage and drowned overnight.

He compromised to this extent just to survive; he's suffered so much, he can't just die in vain, that would be too much of a loss.

"Help! Someone is vomiting blood! Come quick!"

Zhu Mingyue shouted for help at the top of his lungs, knowing that there were still people standing outside.

"What's going on?"

"Did you vomit blood after having sex?"

"Stop dawdling and go inside to check the situation!"

The group was staring intently at the figures intertwined on the bed inside the room when they suddenly heard cries for help. They were stunned for a moment before reacting, then rushed into the room, picked up the candlesticks, and looked closely before exclaiming in unison.

Xie Hong's chest was stained with large patches of blood, a shocking sight.

Zhu Mingyue wasn't in much better shape. Although she was dressed in red, her snow-white face was stained with mottled blood. The extreme white mixed with the extreme red gave Zhu Mingyue an extra touch of demonic evil, making her look like a monster that seduces people and then drains their blood.

Although the men were momentarily stunned by her beauty, they also felt a chill run down their spines and a sense of fear rose in their hearts.

Zhu Mingyue raised her bound hands to show her innocence, indicating that Xie Hong's vomiting blood had nothing to do with her. Then she looked at Xie Hong, who was lying on the bed with a weak breath, and said, "He suddenly vomited blood for no reason. I don't know what happened. Please take him to the hospital for treatment as soon as possible."

"Okay, okay!"

Several people echoed in agreement.

Zhu Mingyue hesitated for a moment, then pretended to be troubled: "The night road is not easy to walk. If we are not careful, it will delay the rescue. Otherwise, please untie the ropes on me, and I will hold the torch for you and go with you."

The men shook their heads repeatedly: "You should stay at home. Don't worry, we'll make sure Old Xie gets to the town clinic safely."

Zhu Mingyue feigned grief and anger: "This is my newlywed husband, how can I not worry?"

"Don't make things difficult for us brothers. Old Xie already told us that we wouldn't dare let you go without his permission."

If they let the person go, what if Old Xie comes back to life and demands something? Where are they going to find such a beauty? To put it another way, they can't even afford to repay four bushels of rice.

Seeing that her plan was futile, Zhu Mingyue decisively gave up and stopped arguing with the group.

After Xie Hong was carried away, Zhu Mingyue didn't sleep all night. The candle had long since burned out, and the people who left in such a hurry had even forgotten to close the door. In the latter half of the night, the cold wind blew the door creaking, and the pitch-black night and the howling wind constantly devoured Zhu Mingyue's reason.

Zhu Mingyue is afraid of the dark. Whenever it gets dark, the ghost movies he watched as a child will pop into his mind. Under the influence of his psychological state, he feels that there are ghosts standing behind him, staring at him and laughing, or tickling the soles of his feet.

So no matter how frugal he was, whenever he lived alone, he would always leave the lights on at night.

At that moment, he desperately longed for the night to end.

Filled with endless fear, Zhu Mingyue waited consciously as the first rays of dawn streamed into the room.

Xie Hong's brothers returned, and Xie Hong was also tempted to go home.

The town's doctor was woken up in the middle of the night. After examining the symptoms, he said that the vomiting of blood was caused by stagnation of liver qi.

After a moment's thought, the group suddenly realized why Xie Hong, who had always been healthy and had never been seen vomiting blood, had suddenly started vomiting blood.

Upon careful reflection, it became clear that Xie Hong's temper had indeed been getting worse day by day lately. He would even get into arguments with people for no reason while walking down the street. It turned out that he had liver qi stagnation, which made sense.

Xie Hong was given several needle pricks and prescribed several doses of medicine. The doctor then sent them home to rest and recuperate.

Zhu Mingyue breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this. He didn't care what was wrong with Xie Hong, as long as the problem wasn't pinned on him.

After the group finished their report, they were about to leave when Xie Hong, who was lying on the bed, called them back. He was extremely weak, as if he had vomited all his blood at once, and his face was ashen.

“You, untie him.”