Chapter 181 The Child
Bai Li slowly stepped into the main hall of the Chen residence, the blood-red vines on her wrist moving silently in her sleeve.
Madam Chen sat upright in the main seat, her fingertips lightly tapping the rosewood armrest, her eyes filled with disdain.
"Kneel down!" Granny Li shouted sternly.
Two rough-looking old women immediately stepped forward and made a move to press down on Bai Li's shoulders.
Just as they reached out, a bloody shadow suddenly shot out from Bai Li's sleeve!
The vines coiled around the old woman's wrists like venomous snakes, and instantly pierced her armpit.
Before the two old women could even scream, they collapsed to the ground, their faces turning blue and purple.
Madam Chen was so startled that she knocked over her teacup: "Someone come quick!..."
Before she could finish speaking, the vines had already wrapped around her neck.
Bai Li stepped forward slowly, looking at Madam Chen's face, which was flushed red from suffocation: "Madam, didn't you want to see what right I have to come here?"
The vines suddenly loosened slightly, allowing Madam Chen to catch her breath.
Bai Li leaned down and whispered in her ear, "Just because of this."
Madam Chen's clothes were torn to shreds by the strangling vines, and her jade hairpin fell from her hair, breaking in two.
"This is the child I truly conceived."
Bai Li's voice was so gentle it was chilling.
The vines seemed to understand her words and happily tightened their bodies.
With the final, crisp crack of a broken neck, Madam Chen's meticulously cared-for head drooped at an eerie angle.
The vines, however, did not loosen their grip, continuing to entwine and press, until those once arrogant eyes bulged out of their sockets, and the tongue dangled outside the lips painted with lip rouge.
Bai Li gently stroked the vines, as if praising a sensible child.
Master Chen hummed a little tune as he strolled into the mansion, carrying a newly purchased cricket cage in his hand.
As soon as I crossed the threshold, a strong smell of blood hit me.
He looked closely and saw the corpses of servants lying haphazardly in the front yard, each with a bluish-purple face and black blood seeping from the corners of their mouths.
"Help! Someone, come here!"
Master Chen staggered backward, the jade pendant at his waist jingling.
He turned to flee, but saw a bloody shadow flash from behind a pillar.
The vines coiled around his limbs like venomous snakes, suspending him in mid-air.
"It's...it's you!"
He stared wide-eyed at Bai Li as she emerged from the shadows.
The vines moved and tightened as if they were alive, and Mr. Chen's joints made a teeth-grinding "crackling" sound.
Bai Li stepped forward slowly, the vines on her wrist affectionately brushing against her fingertips.
“Chen Wendong,” she said softly, “I remember you said that if your first wife hadn’t been infertile, a lowly person like me wouldn’t even be worthy of carrying your shoes.”
The vines writhed excitedly on her wrist, as if they understood her mother's hatred.
The first vine, like a venomous snake, coiled around his right arm and slowly tightened.
"ah--!"
His piercing scream had barely escaped his lips when the vines suddenly tightened their grip, crushing his flesh inch by inch.
After the cracking sound of bones breaking, his right arm was ripped off like a withered branch, leaving a trail of blood in the air.
It slammed against the wall with a thud, its fingers still twitching nervously.
Before he could catch his breath, a second vine had already wrapped around his left knee.
"No...don't..." Chen Wendong pleaded, tears streaming down his face, but the vines began to slowly rotate.
With a terrifying creaking sound, his knee joint was twisted and broken, the white bone fragments piercing through his flesh.
The vines continued to tighten, finally tearing the entire leg off, and arterial blood splattered onto the pillar, making a sizzling sound.
"Spare me, spare my life...!" Chen Wendong pleaded weakly, blood continuously spilling from the corner of his mouth.
Bai Li gently stroked the vines: "Don't rush, good child, take your time."
The third vine wrapped around his neck, but instead of tightening immediately, it loosened and tightened as if playing with prey, bringing him to the brink of suffocation time and time again.
Finally, all the vines exerted their strength at the same time.
His left arm was twisted into a pretzel shape, and his right leg was torn off from his hip.
As the vines finally snapped around his neck, Chen Wendong heard Bai Lijing's quiet voice: "How does it feel to have your life and death in the hands of a lowly commoner like me?"
Bai Li gently stroked the vines on her wrist, the blood-red tendrils affectionately brushing against her fingertips.
"Good boy, we should go now."
She whispered, but her gaze unconsciously drifted to the sleeping baby in the wet nurse's arms.
The vines seemed to sense her intentions, slowly emerging from her wrist and reaching towards the baby like a gentle arm.
The wet nurse was hired after the child was born and was already paralyzed with fear.
She watched as the vines gently lifted the swaddling clothes.
The baby babbled among the vines, its little hand unconsciously grasping a vine.
Bai Li reached out her hand, trembling, and the vines immediately placed the child in her arms.
The baby still smelled of milk, and had a round and cute face, completely unlike the bloody newborn she remembered.
The child suddenly opened his eyes, his dark, round eyes staring straight at her, and he grinned with his toothless little mouth.
Bai Li took a deep breath. "Take him away... If he becomes like his father in the future, Man'er, you can kill him for me."
The vines wrapped tightly around the swaddling clothes, rubbed against her cheeks, and then wrapped around the child and tied it to her back.
As she left, she took one last look at the plaque in the main hall of the Chen family mansion that read "A Family of Good Deeds".
The vines coiled around and shredded the large, gilded characters to shreds.
...
The casino's chaotic atmosphere was disrupted by the sudden opening of the door.
A frail woman carrying a baby stepped in, looking out of place.
The noisy gambling table fell silent for a moment, then erupted into a burst of vulgar laughter.
"Hey, young lady, you've come to the wrong place, haven't you?" A gambler with a face full of scars grinned, revealing his yellow teeth. "Are you here to redeem your gambling husband, or to sell yourself to pay off your debts?"
Bai Li slowly raised her eyes, the cold light in them freezing the gambler's smile on his face.
Only then did everyone notice that her tattered clothes were soaked in blood, turning dark red, and that each step she took left sticky, bloody footprints on the floor.
The crowd unconsciously parted to make way for each other.
Beside the sandalwood gambling table in the innermost room, the creditor who had once instigated Zhu Tongwei to pawn his wife was smoking a pipe, his stubby fingers fiddling with the chips.
Hearing footsteps, he casually looked up: "This lady..."
He froze on the spot before he could finish speaking.
He recognized Bai Li, and he also recognized the murderous intent in her eyes.
The vines shot out like lightning, but did not immediately take his life.
It first shredded the creditor's right hand, the hand that had cheated the Zhu family out of all their money.
Amid the creditor's agonizing screams, Bai Li asked softly, "Remember you said that selling wives is a good business?"
Chaos reigned in the casino, but no one dared to step forward.
The vines hoisted the creditor to the roof beam, slowly crushing every inch of his bones as if displaying merchandise.
Before he died, the creditor saw Bai Li break off a tender sprout from the blood vine and plant it where the blood had dripped. In an instant, the sprout grew thick and strong.
“Remember,” she said, her voice neither too loud nor too soft, as she surveyed the trembling gamblers, “my vines will take root and sprout here. If you dare to engage in the sale of wives again…”
The gamblers were horrified to see that the thin, blood-red tendrils, as fine as hair, had begun to stir and reach out towards them.
"They will remember each of your scents." Bai Li gently stroked the sleeping baby in her arms. "As long as you harm another woman..."
"They will find you no matter where you are in the world."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
