The Imperial Music Bureau.
This name is taboo throughout the entire shelter.
The Jiaofangsi (Imperial Music Bureau) was hidden in a secluded corner deep within the palace, sealed off by high walls and black-armored guards.
Its existence is more like a chilling legend that circulates only in the shadows.
When Li Man was dragged through that heavy iron gate like a dead dog by two expressionless guards.
The first thing she smelled was a nauseatingly sweet odor, a mixture of cheap perfume, disinfectant, blood, and decay.
The light here is always dim. On both sides of the passage are not prison cells, but small, cramped stone chambers separated by heavy iron bars.
In each stone chamber, one or more women huddled together. They were all dressed in uniform, coarse gray prison clothes made of hemp, their hair shaved to varying lengths, their eyes vacant, like soulless puppets.
When they saw newcomers being dragged in, they merely raised their eyelids indifferently. In their eyes, there was no sympathy, no curiosity, only a deathly stillness, a numbness that seemed to have seen through everything.
"Lock her in room number seven of section C," a stout female steward, holding a leather whip, ordered in her hoarse voice.
Li Man was roughly pushed into an empty stone chamber.
The iron gate slammed shut with a clang, a sound like the closing of the gates of hell, completely severing her connection with the outside world.
The stone chamber contained only a hard stone slab bed and a toilet that reeked of a foul stench.
The cold, damp air felt like countless icy hands creeping into the gaps in her tattered clothes, making her shiver uncontrollably.
The first few days were filled with pure fear.
She huddled in a corner, crying day and night, her mind replaying Lin Feng's utterly cold face and the horrified expressions of everyone in Chengtian Hall. She finally realized, belatedly, that she had been sent to a place more terrifying than death itself.
However, the human survival instinct is ingrained in our bones. When pure fear cannot change the situation, fantasy becomes the only lifeline.
"He's just too angry... Yes, he must love me too much to hate me like this..."
Li Man began to tell herself, "He just wanted to scare me and teach me a lesson. Once he calms down, he'll remember how good things were between us, and he'll come to take me away."
Once the thought arose, it grew wildly like weeds, quickly taking over her entire mind.
She began to imagine her situation as a dramatic, abusive love story.
She is the female protagonist who made a mistake and is waiting to be redeemed, while Lin Feng is the domineering king who is cold on the outside but warm on the inside and uses punishment to express his love.
Under this pathetic self-hypnosis, her mentality strangely returned to "arrogance".
Every day, the steward would herd them into the yard like livestock to perform arduous labor—washing the mountains of guard uniforms, stained with blood and sweat, with icy well water.
While the other women were busy working, Li Man was lazy and even dared to complain in public: "Is this kind of rough work for humans? My hands are for playing the piano, not for washing this dirty stuff!"
The female steward raised her whip, about to strike, but Li Man raised her head and said in a superior tone, "You dare to touch me? Let me tell you, I'm the leader's ex-girlfriend! He's just throwing a tantrum right now. Wait until he comes to pick me up, and you'll be in for a world of hurt!"
The words "the leader's ex-girlfriend" were like a curse, causing the female manager's raised whip to stop abruptly in mid-air.
The women around her also stopped what they were doing and looked at her with complicated expressions.
In the brothel, everyone knew of Lin Feng's cold-blooded ruthlessness.
But precisely because of this, they dared not speculate on the king's thoughts. What if... what if what this woman said was true? What if the leader truly still harbored feelings for her and was merely "testing" her in this way?
Nobody dares to gamble.
Thus, a bizarre situation arose.
Li Man became the most unique person in the Jiaofangsi (a government-run entertainment institution).
She can be lazy, she can complain, and she can even get an extra serving of black bread than others.
The female manager turned a blind eye to her, and the other women kept their distance from her, afraid of getting involved in any trouble.
Li Man was smug. She became increasingly convinced that her judgment was correct.
Look, even these vicious dogs from hell are afraid of her. Lin Feng, he must still care about her!
She even began to dream about her life after she got out of the stone chamber.
She wanted to be the leader's wife, to live in the most magnificent palace, and to have everyone kneel at her feet.
Just as her fantasy reached its peak, Su Wanqing arrived.
It was a cold, gloomy afternoon. Su Wanqing, dressed in a well-tailored black trench coat and gleaming high-heeled riding boots, descended upon this filthy hell like a queen, surrounded by a squad of black-armored guards.
Her clean and sharp aura, belonging to the core of power, formed a stark and glaring contrast with the corruption of the Jiaofangsi (a government-run entertainment institution).
All the women were so frightened that they knelt on the ground, trembling, not daring to even breathe.
Only Li Man, after her initial shock, straightened her back.
She recognized the woman; she had seen her in the Chengtian Palace. She knew she was one of Lin Feng's closest women.
"She must have been sent by Lin Feng to pick me up!" Li Man was overjoyed.
Su Wanqing's gaze, sharp as a sword, swept across the entire courtyard, finally landing precisely on Li Man, the only one still standing.
She waved her hand, signaling the others to step back. Then, with elegant yet aloof steps, she walked up to Li Man.
"You are Li Man?" Su Wanqing's voice was soft, but it carried a condescending scrutiny.
"It's me." Li Man nodded, feigning modesty, but her tone carried an undisguised smugness: "Lin Feng...did he send you to pick me up?"
Su Wanqing smiled.
Her smile was like an ice flower blooming in the dead of winter—beautiful, but devoid of any warmth.
"Pick you up?" She shook her head slightly, as if she had heard the biggest joke in the world. "No. I just came to tell you to stop dreaming. Lin Feng, he won't change his mind."
She paused, then took a step closer and spoke, word by word, in a voice only the two of them could hear:
"Because he is mine."
These words struck Li Man's illusions like a bolt from the blue.
All her pride and expectations were shattered in an instant.
"No! Impossible!" Li Man screamed, her feigned composure completely gone. "You're lying! He's my ex-boyfriend! He loves me!"
"Ex-boyfriend?" A cruel sneer curled at the corner of Su Wanqing's lips. "An ex-boyfriend whose value you squeezed dry, and then discarded like trash?"
She reached out her hand, gloved in black leather, and gently pinched Li Man's chin, forcing her to raise her head and look directly into her cold eyes.
"You're wrong. He doesn't love you. He hates you. He wishes he could grind you to dust."
Su Wanqing's voice, like the forked tongue of a venomous snake, burrowed into Li Man's ears: "The reason he didn't kill you is that he felt it would be too easy for you to die so easily."
Su Wanqing's eyes turned incredibly vicious, and the emotions that had been distorted by long-term repression and jealousy found a perfect outlet at this moment.
“You abandoned him, while I was there for him when he needed me most, supporting him and watching him become a god step by step.”
“Your pathetic past with him is just a dirty stain. But I…” She tightened her grip, her nails almost digging into Li Man’s flesh, “I will personally wipe that stain clean. I will make you die here.”
Li Man was chilled to the bone by the madness and venom in her eyes. She tried to break free, but found herself powerless to resist.
"Let go...let go of me..."
Su Wanqing abruptly shook her off, and Li Man fell to the ground in a disheveled state.
"Your good days are over from today onwards."
Su Wanqing coldly announced, then ordered the terrified female steward beside her, "Keep a close eye on her. Her workload is three times that of everyone else. She'll only be given swill and black bread. She'll sleep on the muddy ground in the yard. If she dares to slack off, or if anyone dares to help her..."
Su Wanqing's gaze swept over all the women kneeling on the ground: "Then let's all enjoy her treatment together."
After saying that, she turned around and left without looking back.
From that day on, Li Man's true hell began.
Su Wanqing's bullying was not just simple punches and kicks, but a meticulously designed form of torture aimed at destroying a person's entire will.
While others wash 100 pieces of clothing, she washes 300.
The icy well water quickly covered her hands with chilblains, which became red, swollen, and ulcerated. Every time she touched the water, it felt like being pricked by countless needles.
Not enough washing? The steward's whip would lash her back mercilessly, leaving her skin lacerated and bleeding.
She was also responsible for cleaning the dirtiest toilets in the entire Jiaofangsi (a government-run entertainment district), and without any tools, she had to use her own hands to scoop out the disgusting filth.
Su Wanqing would occasionally "inspect" the area, standing in a clean spot, covering her nose with a handkerchief, looking down at Li Man struggling in the filth, and humiliating her with the most vicious language.
"Look, you and the things you're cleaning are such a perfect match."
Lin Feng hates unclean women the most. Do you think he'll even give you a second glance?
While others were served coarse but filling black bread, Li Man received only a bowl of sour, murky water with a few rotten vegetable leaves floating in it.
Hunger, like a wild beast, gnawed at her internal organs day and night.
She once tried to steal other people's food, but was beaten half to death by everyone who ganged up on her.
At night, everyone can return to the stone chamber and have a tattered but warm blanket.
Li Man was locked in the empty courtyard, huddled on the cold, muddy ground. The night wind cut like a knife into her thin prison uniform, making her feel as if her blood was freezing.
Su Wanqing stripped her of her last and most illusory weapon—the identity of "the leader's ex-girlfriend".
She made everyone see that Li Man was nothing but trash, despised to the core by the leader, and unworthy even to die.
The women who once kept their distance from her are now venting all their pent-up resentment on her.
They would deliberately throw her the dirtiest clothes, trip her up when she passed by, and spit into her bowl of stale water when she drank it.
Li Man was completely isolated. She became the lowest rung of the food chain in the Jiaofangsi (a government-run entertainment institution), a person who could be bullied by everyone.
On a night of torrential rain, Li Man had a persistent high fever, her body burning hot. She curled up in the muddy water of the yard, her consciousness beginning to fade. She felt she was about to die.
Just then, the iron door of the stone chamber opened, and Su Wanqing, holding a black umbrella, slowly walked up to her.
Li Man used her last bit of strength to raise her head, her eyes filled with a pleading look.
"Help...help me..."
Su Wanqing squatted down, her face still bearing that cold, victorious smile.
She reached out, not to help her up, but to shove something cold into her hand.
It was a small, delicate mirror.
“Look at yourself,” Su Wanqing whispered in her ear, “look at the way you are now.”
Li Man trembled as she held the mirror up to her eyes.
What a terrifying face was reflected in the mirror.
His hair was shaved so badly it looked like a dog had chewed it, sticking haphazardly to his forehead. His cheeks were sunken, his cheekbones were high, and his lips were cracked and bleeding.
Gone were the charm and arrogance of the past in his eyes, replaced only by endless fear, despair, and numbness. This was not a person at all, but a hideous living corpse that had crawled out of its grave.
"ah!"
Li Man let out a shrill scream and smashed the mirror to the ground.
The last vestiges of her fantasy about "beauty" and "past love" were shattered at this moment by the reflection in the mirror.
Su Wanqing smiled with satisfaction. She stood up and looked down at Li Man, who was collapsing in the mud, as if admiring her most perfect work.
"Do you regret it?" she asked softly.
Li Man's cries turned into intermittent, desperate sobs.
"I...I regret it...I shouldn't...I shouldn't have lied to him..."
"Too late." Su Wanqing's voice was gentle, yet incredibly cruel: "Your regret is worthless. Enjoy it, this... is just the beginning."
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