The humiliating and cruel words still echoed in her ears, pinching Shu Yao's heart painfully.
At that moment, her broken arms hung limply at her sides, and Huo Jingsha ignored them, continuing to violently violate her. Her eyes were filled with humiliation and intense hatred, but she could only watch helplessly as he continued to mercilessly play with her body.
Finally, utterly despondent, she gave up all resistance, closed her eyes, and became a puppet to be manipulated at will. After venting his anger, he shattered her heart meridian with a single blow, leaving her to die naked, without a shred of dignity!
In each of her rebirths, these painful memories haunted her like an inescapable nightmare, or like a thorn deeply embedded in her heart, impossible to remove. Every thought of them caused her nerves to throb with pain.
Perhaps it was the repeated failures that ignited her indomitable spirit as an assassin, deepening her obsession. The more she failed to kill him, the more resentful she became, and the more she schemed to kill him. It was a vicious cycle, and she was even willing to use her body as a weapon to assassinate him, solely to fulfill her long-cherished mission. But in this life, she only wanted to survive. Only by using this as a breakthrough, letting go of all her resentment, could she break free from the norm and escape the tragic endings of her previous nine lives.
Now, she was unwilling to give him the chance to ruin her again; even if she was destined to die, she wanted to die with dignity.
This was her first time challenging Huo Jingsha's authority, and she acted completely willfully. Of course, she had the right to decide her own body. Because of her heartfelt rejection, she couldn't care less about anything else, nor could she seriously consider what the consequences would be after rejecting him.
Huo Jingsha narrowed his eyes and scrutinized her, his eyes flashing with a sharp light. The atmosphere in the carriage was as tense as a string that could snap at any moment!
Neither of them was willing to back down first, and they remained locked in a stalemate. She was waiting for him to lose his temper and give her a quick death, but apart from a deathly silence, he didn't utter a word, like a beast in the dark night ready to pounce and tear her to shreds at any moment.
Just then, a flash of inspiration suddenly crossed her mind, but it was too fast for her to catch.
But Shu Yao was, after all, a well-trained assassin, and also had a woman's instinctive keen intuition. She slowly traced the mark upwards, and it seemed... it seemed that she had overlooked something. What could it be?
Suddenly, it dawned on her! She finally realized something was amiss... Huo Jingsha was too composed!
What does someone under the influence of an aphrodisiac look like? She remembered that in that life, his face was flushed and his breathing was disordered, but now? He was still holding her tightly in his arms, but the feeling between his legs was soft and still, and his complexion was normal, and his breathing was even more steady than hers.
So that's how it is! The vague clues from before gradually became clearer, and an idea truly surfaced in her mind. Shu Yao had an epiphany... He was faking it!
Huo Jingsha, that cunning old fox, wasn't drugged at all. Or perhaps he was drugged but had taken the antidote while waiting for her. Such a trivial trick couldn't possibly harm someone as skilled in martial arts as him; he could even force out the venom of a poisonous scorpion.
Moreover, he has always been meticulous and cautious in his actions, so how could he easily fall into the trap set by Princess Gu'an? When Huo Jingsha was plotting to frame someone, the princess was still nursing in her wet nurse's arms!
Unless he did it voluntarily, and there's only one possibility for him to do so, it's to turn the tables on them.
Sigh! He called himself a thousand-year-old fox, but who knew he was the one who wrote Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio! No wonder I died at his hands in nine lifetimes, no wonder I could never escape the fate of being killed no matter how hard I tried. The aphrodisiac, the escape from the palace to hide from Princess Gu'an, it was all an act!
He had already planned and set a trap, waiting to catch them like turtles in a jar.
You Shuyao felt a chill rise from the bottom of her heart, as if she had fallen into an ice cave.
It seems he couldn't escape her suspicions after all. So even after being transferred, he still dragged her back. This was his real purpose in having her accompany him.
The belated realization made her blood run cold, her heart clench, as if her lifeline was being tightly gripped, leaving her helpless as her body stiffened and her limbs went numb.
Under Huo Jingsha's probing and solemn gaze, she instantly became wary, fearing that she would once again die tragically at his hands in this life. She truly couldn't understand it; even if she did her utmost to avoid him, not to oppose him, and to abandon the idea of assassination, was her fate still unchangeable?
Utter despair was the only feeling she had at that moment.
Shu Yao was locked in his arms, unable to do anything or say anything, just frozen there, until a voice came from outside the carriage.
"Sir, we've arrived!"
You Shuyao was stunned for a moment. That voice... her heart, which had been ice-cold, suddenly warmed up, as if a drop of spiritual spring had been poured in.
She recognized Qi's voice—wonderful! Her senses returned, her heart, which had stopped beating, began to pound again, and Shu Yao felt a strange sense of exhilaration, as if she had been given a second chance at life.
When the time is right, just follow my orders!
The words Qi had once told her flashed through her mind, and she regained hope for life.
"Get out of the car!" Huo Jingsha ordered in a deep voice.
Shu Yao looked up and saw that his eyes were no longer as sharp as before. She immediately got off his lap, knelt back on the car floor, lowered her head and lowered her eyelashes, and continued to be subservient.
Huo Jingsha gave her a cold look, opened the carriage door, and got off the carriage first.
A moment later, having regained her composure, she followed behind and quickly glanced at the man beside her.
A man dressed as a guard stood beside the car, waiting for her to get out. As she looked at him, he happened to look at her too, their eyes meeting in mid-air. In that single glance, You Shuyao knew he was Qi, and in that brief moment of connection, his eyes conveyed a message… he was waiting for an opportunity to kill Huo Jingsha!
You Shuyao lowered her gaze, her face calm on the surface, but her heart was already churning with turbulent waves.
Qi's eyes told her that once he found the right opportunity and was ready to act, she had to be flexible and cooperate fully with him.
Shu Yao was caught in a dilemma. If she could defeat him in one move, that would be great, but what if she couldn't kill Huo Jingsha? Wouldn't all her previous hard work be wasted? To be honest, she didn't dare to kill him, but if she didn't, would Qi Hui forgive her? And if the news got back to the organization, how would the leader deal with her?
She held her breath, feeling as if she were walking on thin ice with every step, as if she were a wandering soul. She looked up and peered at Huo Jingsha walking ahead of her. Even though he had his back to her, she suspected that this man had a third eye on the back of his head, monitoring everything. He could retaliate immediately at the slightest sign of trouble, making people afraid to make any rash moves.
Huo Jingsha arrived at Hongfu Inn, entered the door, and sat down in the middle of the lobby. The once bustling hall instantly fell silent because of his imposing presence, and everyone was too shocked to look up.
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