Chapter 63. He playfully nibbled at her neck. ...
The room on the ground floor of the attic was locked. She hadn't been inside since she and Leng Zhen moved in. The landlord said that it contained some old and dilapidated farm tools.
She walked up the stairs directly to the second floor of the attic.
"Zhenzhen, are you inside?" She knocked on the door a few times and waited with her hands behind her back.
After a moment, the door was pushed open from the inside.
Leng Zhen pursed her lips, her cheeks half-dry from tears: "Mother, what's wrong?"
Leng Cuizhu didn't rush to answer. Her gaze shifted downwards, and she caught sight of Leng Zhen's hand braced against the doorframe.
My fingertips were covered in a sticky, wet slime, and the back of my hands were stained red with blood. Threads of slime dripped from my hands.
She smelled a strong stench of blood emanating from the house; even though Leng Zhen was standing at the door, the smell was unmistakable.
"...I came to see you." She hesitated for a moment. "May I come in and sit for a while?"
Leng Zhen shrugged, her face expressionless: "Of course."
He stepped aside to make way for her.
She stared at the dark room before her, then turned to gaze at the brilliant sunlight outside for a moment before turning back and walking inside.
Once inside, Leng Zhen closed the door, lit several candlesticks, and finally brought some light to the room.
She looked around and found a chair to sit down: "Why don't you open the window?"
“The window is broken. I plan to fix it tomorrow when I have some free time.” Leng Zhen sat down next to her and wiped her hands with a rag draped over the armrest. “Let’s just make do for today. Anyway, the room isn’t fully lit even with the window open. The old banyan tree outside blocks most of the light.”
“I’m used to not opening the windows. If I open them, mosquitoes and other insects will always come in.”
Leng Cuizhu nodded: "Where's the glutinous rice?"
Leng Zhen paused in wiping her hands: "She's resting in her cage."
"...I see." She changed the subject. "Are you angry? Or sad? Because of that Xiao Du?"
“Xiao Du is indeed an orphan, and I am his only friend, so naturally we are closer…he likes to come and see me.”
"No father or mother?" Leng Zhen sneered. "How can he be considered to have no father or mother? Mother, you are so close to him, as if you were mother and son."
“If you really want to have a child with Yin Yuan or another man, that’s fine, I can accept it, but I can never accept him.”
"Mother, I'll just ask you one question: is he really your biological child?"
Leng Cuizhu was immediately stunned: "Huh? What did you say? What makes you think he's my biological son? He's not, he's just more dependent on me..."
A strange, inexplicable fear filled her heart, and she didn't dare to look up at the expressions of the people around her.
"No? You're really kind, raising someone else's child, letting him eat and use our food, and he still refuses to leave our house."
"The bowl he uses for eating was a gift you bought for me when I turned eleven. Have you forgotten? I usually cherish that bowl, afraid of breaking or damaging it. Do you think it's just an ordinary bowl?"
"Why have you forgotten everything? How did you become like this? Why have we drifted apart?" Leng Zhen choked up. "Just six months ago, we were planning to escape all of this and live somewhere where no one knew us. Now you're doing it willingly."
"Have I changed?"
She looked up and said, "But Leng Zhen, I'm not the only one who's changed. If you hadn't repeatedly disappointed me, how could we have drifted apart like this?"
“You accuse me of favoring an outsider, but Xiao Du is not an outsider to me. He has been with me for many days and nights. He is more obedient than you and cares for me more from the bottom of his heart than you do, unlike you who only talks the talk but always hurts me again and again.”
“He’s more like my child than you are.” She frowned, her tone indifferent. “At least he wouldn’t push me out to shield you from danger, nor would he drag me down with him when I’m down, and he wouldn’t despise my poverty and ignorance…”
Leng Zhen said urgently, "Impossible! Mother, don't you understand? No one loves you without a reason; he must have ulterior motives towards you."
"Just like that Si Qing, who kept saying she loved you, but didn't she almost get you killed?"
“I don’t care if you have ulterior motives.” She looked up and met his gaze. “Don’t you have any ulterior motives? Do you think your feelings are so pure and innocent? How ridiculous. Stop deceiving yourself. You’re the most cunning one.”
Her words struck Leng Zhen like a heavy hammer, shattering his carefully maintained facade into a pile of mangled flesh.
"Stop lecturing me. Can you reflect on this yourself first?" Leng Cuizhu said calmly. "Or you could use this time to learn a few more characters; it would be very beneficial for you."
After a few words, Leng Zhen was already at her limit, glaring angrily and nodding repeatedly: "Okay, okay."
Leng Cuizhu muttered as she got up: "I'm leaving."
"Wait!" Leng Zhen suddenly grabbed her skirt, forcing a smile. "Mother, wait a moment before you go. I have something to show you."
"You'll definitely like it."
He hadn't wiped the sticky substance off his hands, and when he pulled, most of it was smeared onto her skirt, turning the pale blue fabric a deep green.
It was somewhat disgusting, but more than disgusting, it was horrifying. The glistening, slimy substance, mixed with blood-red slime, seemed to be wriggling lifelike.
“…Okay.” She thought for a moment, then sat back down in her chair.
Leng Zhen walked into the inner room in a daze and did not return for a long time. She sat on the chair and waited, using her sleeve to wipe the sticky liquid off her skirt. Seeing that she could not wipe it off, she silently put down her skirt and looked around.
Even with candles lit, the room remained dark and indistinct. The outlines of tables, chairs, and benches were all discernible, and the room's overall layout was impossible to imagine.
She touched the knife wound on her arm and heard a scream.
The screams were right next to us.
She lowered her head.
A bloody snake tail wrapped around her ankle.
"hiss……"
The white snake poked its head out from under the chair, revealing a bright red tongue. Its scales had fallen off, and its snakeskin clung precariously to its body.
The white snake struggled to rub its head against her skirt, weeping and hissing incessantly.
"Ah...you, what happened to you?"
She quickly knelt down to stroke the snake's head, then tenderly picked it up from the ground and held it in her arms.
The python was too big; she could only hold its head and a small part of its upper body. As she reached out to hold its lower body as well, she touched its empty belly.
It was empty.
Nothing was left.
This should never be the case.
She tried to touch it, but only felt a layer of skin.
Beneath the snakeskin, there was no flesh or bone.
I recall that last month, the white snake's belly was still swollen, as if it were pregnant.
What about its children?
"Where is the child in your belly?" she asked the white snake.
"Here."
The voice was very soft and came from behind her.
She closed her eyes tightly.
The chill behind her grew closer and closer until her cold hair fell down to her chest, rustling across her skin.
She heard that mournful weeping again.
It seemed both near and far, close yet distant, enveloping her like a thin mist—a mist so fine it was impenetrable, suffocating her.
In a daze, Leng Zhen leaned on her shoulder and smiled.
"Mother, I'm here."
He presented a nest of baby snakes to her.
“This is your child,” he whispered, “I fed him with your blood.”
“Didn’t you despise me? Now that you have younger siblings, you won’t need to go find Xiao Du to be your youngest son anymore, and you won’t need to find other men…” After saying this, he burst into tears, his sleeves soaked with tears. “I adopted Nuomi for this reason.”
“Not only do I feed Nuomi your blood every day, but also mine—your blood isn’t enough, so I only feed it a little each time and then use my blood to make up the difference. That’s why my younger siblings were able to be born safely.”
"...My blood?" Her gaze was fixed on the handful of baby snakes in front of her.
Several white-pink baby snakes were intertwined, wet and covered in mucus.
"Yes, there's blood on your wrist."
"That night, I used a dagger to cut your wrist, and I used that blood until yesterday."
Are you saying all this to get me to praise you?
She turned her head and looked at him calmly, her eyes devoid of any emotion: "I can't bring myself to praise you, I just feel disgusted."
nausea.
Leng Zhen's smiling face instantly twisted and stiffened.
Leng Cuizhu said calmly, "Stop using these methods to gain attention. Find something to do."
"I thought you really liked glutinous rice." She picked up the white snake and was about to leave when she was suddenly pulled back.
"You can't leave!" Leng Zhen cried out hoarsely, "You can't leave!"
He still held the baby snakes in his hand, squeezing them tightly in his palm until they hissed in pain, like headless flies crawling out from between his fingers.
He hugged her tightly from behind, filled with remorse: "How did we end up like this..."
She tilted her head and chuckled.
Are you going to blame me again?
“Leng Zhen, I admit that I am not a good mother, but what about you? You are not a good child either. Many times, I don’t want to expose you, or rather, I’m too lazy to do so. It’s not that I can’t, it’s just that I don’t want to. Don’t provoke me again and again.”
She raised her hand to wipe away the tears that dripped from the corner of his eyes: "When you were little, you could bury your face in your mother's arms and cry when you were sad. Your mother would not blame you. But things are different now."
Then, he slapped the person behind him across the face.
"You no longer have that privilege."
She was holding the snake, and he was holding her.
He bit her neck hard.
Unlike her mother's lovers, Leng Zhen wouldn't flirtatiously nibble at her neck. He only hated her, accumulating hatred as he bit her neck until the skin and flesh were torn apart and hot blood gushed out.
How could she be so cold? Leaving him alone to be hysterical.
She's become just like the man she hates most. Why?
Was it his own wicked schemes that ruined him, ruined her, and ruined everything?
Leng Zhen had always understood that it was all his fault; he just didn't want to admit it.
He was just fantasizing that he could drag her down with him.
"I'm sorry..." One by one, the young snakes crawled out from between his fingers and fell onto the cold, damp floor. He then placed his sticky hands on her lower abdomen and slowly tightened his grip.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."
“You did nothing wrong,” she said. “You just followed your heart and have a clear conscience, so you don’t need to apologize to me.”
"I'm leaving now. You should get some rest."
His blood-stained lips suddenly parted wide: "No!"
"You can't leave!" He knelt down, clutching her sleeve tightly, crawling on the ground like a small snake beside his knee.
"open."
Seeing that the person behind her wouldn't listen to her advice, Leng Cuizhu pulled out the hairpin from her hair and stabbed it straight into his chest.
Leng Zhen's eyes widened in terror. Her hand, which had been clutching her sleeve, trembled as she withdrew it. She curled up on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. "Mother...Mother..."
He still reached out his hand hopefully to grab her, but he couldn't even grasp the shadow of her.
Leng Cuizhu stumbled and ran towards the door.
Unexpectedly, she stepped on a hollow floorboard, which cracked open and she fell through it without warning.
In a dizzying moment, she fell to the ground.
All around was silent. She struggled to get up from the ground and looked up at the large hole in the ceiling—the hole through which she had fallen.
Leng Zhen's shouts from above suddenly ceased, apparently because she had been knocked unconscious by her.
She looked around, clutching her bleeding neck: "Where is this... the first floor?"
This was the first time she had come to the first floor since moving here, and she never expected it to be in this way.
"right."
Someone answered her from the darkness.
That weak female voice sounded somewhat familiar.
Following the sound, she turned around to look.
He met those gleaming eyes in the corner.
"……Who are you?"
The girl didn't answer her, but simply said, "You're his mother, right?"
“We’ve met before.” Her eyes were like deep, still pools of water, calm and undisturbed.
“That night, I almost killed you and your husband.”
The girl tilted her head back and leaned forward slightly, revealing her face hidden in the shadows.
Leng Cuizhu recognized that face.
That face is worth eight hundred taels of silver.
The missing person notices on the street all featured that face.
She tentatively called out, "...Princess?"
Are you the county princess?
Upon hearing this, the girl frowned slightly, her wary eyes glazed over, and her dark circles twitched incessantly.
She countered, "Should I be?"
"……I have no idea."
It's been a long time since anyone has called her that.
Or rather, she hadn't seen anyone who knew her identity in a long time.
She has been in this dark and gloomy place for almost half a year.
She also planned to stay here for the rest of her life, with Young Master Leng.
At first, she simply met him by chance by the lake in winter and said a few disdainful words to him.
After that, she was inexplicably drugged and tied up in this place.
Young Master Leng said that this would be her home from now on—no, their home. As he spoke, a faint smile played on his lips, gentle yet cruel.
She resisted him, desperately trying to escape, but each time she tried, all she got was pain that spread throughout her body and even to her bones.
Furthermore, he held her in his arms and silently bandaged her wounds.
She could see his beautiful eyes and his pale face as soon as she looked up.
As the bandages were applied more frequently, she even dared to reach out and touch his cheek.
It's so cold and slippery.
Just like that winter day, when I was pressed against the fragile ice, it was exactly the same.
With a mix of reluctance and acceptance, she gradually began to forget some things.
For example, their vastly different social statuses, the suffering she endured... Young Master Leng said that bad memories should not be recalled, but should be left behind forever, so that their love would have less bitterness and more sweetness.
He said he couldn't bear to hurt her.
He also said that they would stay together for life.
To spend her life with the man who has trapped her? It's absurd, but she has no other choice.
So she learned to be a virtuous wife, and perhaps in the future, a good mother.
Why did Young Master Leng choose her instead of other women?
Was it because of the casual sarcasm she made to him back then?
Or is it because she gave in so easily and was obedient enough?
She didn't know.
One night, after drinking too much, he quietly snuggled into her arms.
He looked into her eyes and said, "Mother, I am suffering so much, so neither of us should have an easy time."
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