63 Trial
Neither of you is qualified.
"I'm not selling it anymore."
After Feng Zhe finished speaking, the bodyguards paused briefly and looked at each other in bewilderment.
However, the rules of this world were not as simple as Song Qinggui had imagined. Once the game started, it wasn't as simple as shouting "stop" and getting away unscathed. The Saxon bodyguards remained loyal to their duties, and Song Qinggui and Feng Zhe were taken back to the villa together.
The two days of waiting for the Saxons to return were agonizing.
Song Qinggui's cheeks and forehead were injured, but she ignored the redness and bruises and just helplessly bit her nails.
She was completely unaware that her fingernail had broken and her fingertip was bleeding.
As she waited, she began to hallucinate: Would the Saxon rape her? Or... kill her?
For some reason, after seeing the woman's appearance that night, Song Qinggui felt that perhaps murder wasn't such a big deal for a Saxon.
If her life is hanging by a thread, would a scumbag like Feng Zhe save her?
Ha... She actually had such wild ideas, hoping to rely on Feng Zhe... How ridiculous...
When Saxon returned, Song Qinggui was on the verge of collapse.
Saxon arrived at the studio, and Song Qinggui and Feng Zhe were brought before him.
“Mr. Saxon, I don’t…”
Feng Zhe had just opened his mouth when Saxon raised his hand to interrupt him.
He walked towards Song Qinggui, looked at the battered girl, and frowned: "Qing, remember, you are a work of art, and you must never hurt yourself."
Song Qinggui raised his dark circles and stared at Saxon: "I am not a work of art, I am a human being."
Saxon remained noncommittal, then turned to Feng Zhe: "I heard that Mr. Feng has changed his mind and no longer wants to do this deal?"
"Yes." Feng Zhe forced a smile and said, "I can return the money to you. After all, she is my sister whom I have raised for ten years. I only realized how reluctant I was to let her go after she left home."
Saxon's lips curved into a smile as he gently stroked the head of a humanoid sculpture beside him.
Upon hearing Feng Zhe's words, Song Qinggui felt his stomach churning and waves of nausea washing over him.
Saxon's words interrupted her physical reaction: "Qing, don't you want to come with me? To a world where life is comfortable, respected, and free?"
Song Qinggui smiled wryly: "Your understanding of respect and freedom is really shallow."
Saxon looked at the girl who was spouting nonsense and couldn't help but laugh: "You're still young. When you grow up, you'll know that the respect and freedom that money and power bring are the most unbreakable."
"What do you want from me to let me go?" Song Qinggui didn't want to waste any more words.
"Are you trying to negotiate with me?" Saxon's smile deepened. "Then tell me, what price are you willing to pay for your so-called freedom?"
Song Qinggui lowered her head and thought for a moment, then clenched her fists: "Anything but this life."
Upon hearing this, Saxon was momentarily lost in thought.
Twenty years ago in Mexico, he said the same thing to his adoptive father.
He was very young then, only fifteen or sixteen years old, and it was the first time he had ever seen his adoptive father kill someone.
He was terrified and ran for his life, but was quickly caught and brought back.
"Want to leave?" his adoptive father asked him.
He nodded.
"Why?" the adoptive father asked again.
"For...freedom." He thought for a long time, and freedom was the most accurate word.
"Freedom?" The foster father laughed too. "Are you willing to pay the price for it?"
The Saxon replied, "Anything but life."
That time and that moment are just like this moment.
That year, his "negotiations" failed, and he was subjected to days of beatings, during which he chose to submit.
During his subsequent years in Mexico, he integrated into gangs and experienced the unparalleled pleasure brought by blood and money. As a result, he committed murder, robbery, and many other evil deeds.
Three years later, he took the revolver his adoptive father had given him and shot him in the head, thus ending the gang's rule.
Saxon snapped out of his reverie and looked at Song Qinggui; she really did resemble him.
If he had managed to leave the gang back then, would he have led a completely different life?
Saxon unusually lowered his usually proud head, and when he looked up again, the smile on his face was one of benevolence.
He pointed to the paintings around him and said to Song Qinggui, "Pick a few poses you like. Once I finish painting them, you can leave."
Song Qinggui then looked around. There were sculptures and many oil paintings in the studio, as well as several palettes, some of which were dry and others still glistening with moisture. The air was filled with the unique aroma of paint.
The oil painting contains many portraits, all of them beautiful men and women, all naked, their skin glowing white in the brushstrokes of the oil painting. It is beautiful, but also desperate and desolate.
Song Qinggui's shoulders began to tremble slightly.
"Scared?" The Saxon voice sneered. "Didn't you say you'd give anything but your life?"
Song Qinggui gritted his teeth and finally said, "Okay."
“You should learn a lesson. When you’re young, you shouldn’t be so arrogant.” At this point, Saxon changed the subject and made a promise: “I promise you, your painting will not be published; it will only be kept in my private collection.”
"Why?" Song Qinggui asked, still suspicious.
She didn't understand what Saxon said next.
“For you, like me,” Saxon said.
Saxon painted for three whole days. Apart from eating and sleeping, he and Song Qinggui stayed in the studio.
These three days were shameful for Song Qinggui, even though she was wearing the gauze dress that Saxon had given her, and even though the gauze dress made her body appear hazy rather than completely naked.
Saxon, on the other hand, was quite relaxed. He even asked her in a teasing tone, "What? Feeling humiliated?"
Song Qinggui was certainly humiliated, but she knew she had no other choice: "You should feel more humiliated than I do."
Saxon smiled, as if explaining, or perhaps comforting: "In the eyes of an artist, there is no gender."
Song Qinggui's gaze was icy: "Is this how you deceive those models?"
“They all volunteered, unlike you.”
"I don't want to talk to you anymore. Please finish your drawing quickly, I have to go to school."
Saxon chuckled softly, feeling that his decision seemed correct; this little girl, who resembled a wolf cub, should return to the forest.
Three days later, Saxon finished the painting. To be precise, he had only completed the outline; there were still many details to fill in. But he knew that Song Qinggui had lost patience, and he also had many important things to do. He couldn't really stay in the studio and be a painter who couldn't afford to eat.
So he put down his paintbrush and said, "You can go now."
Song Qinggui reacted for a moment, then quickly put on her clothes, and Saxon went downstairs with her.
Feng Zhe was already waiting in the entrance hall. He bowed to Saxon and said, "Thank you, Mr. Saxon. I will bring you your money, or if you are not comfortable with that, you can have your men come with me to get it."
However, the next second, with a single glance from Saxon, the bodyguards around him rushed forward and pinned Feng Zhe to the ground.
“Mr. Saxon?” Feng Zhe asked in alarm.
“She can leave, but you can’t.” Saxon’s smile turned cold again: “I’m a businessman, and I never go back on a deal. My goods are gone, and simply returning the money isn’t enough.”
"What...what do you want to do?" Feng Zhe felt a chill run down his spine under the Saxon king's condescending gaze.
The Saxon just smiled and remained silent.
"Qingqing." Feng Zhe turned to Song Qinggui for help: "Please help me persuade Mr. Saxon, please help me persuade him."
Feng Zhe could tell that Saxon liked Song Qinggui very much. He was a man, and he could read a man's eyes.
Song Qinggui looked at Saxon and asked expressionlessly, "Would you kill him?"
Saxon did not answer, but his expression told Song Qinggui that this was not her business.
Song Qinggui glanced at Feng Zhe, who was kneeling on the ground like a dog, and a sarcastic smile curved his lips: "Then do it cleanly."
After saying that, she left the villa without looking back.
Song Qinggui thought Feng Zhe was going to die, and that's what she told Meng Yuxing.
She was disappointed in Meng Yuxing because she had actually agreed to let Feng Zhe sell her. But her feelings for Meng Yuxing were ultimately different; during those impoverished and difficult years, she and Meng Yuxing had shared a bond of mutual dependence.
So she didn't dwell on her disappointment; she chose to "let it go."
But Feng Zhe returned, much later. When he returned, he had lost all his teeth and nails, his ears had been cut off, and only scars of soft flesh remained on both sides of his head.
His complex feelings for Song Qinggui finally came to a head: he hated her.
He felt that she had bewitched him, deceived him, and abandoned him, which led to his abuse.
It was as if all his tragedies were caused by her.
He dragged Song Qinggui away from the desk like a madman, and grabbed her neck tightly with both hands.
"Bitch!" he mumbled, cursing her. "It's all your fault, it's all because of you."
Meng Yuxing tried to pull Feng Zhe away, but he seemed determined to kill Song Qinggui, holding on tightly with both hands.
Song Qinggui's face gradually turned cyanotic. She kicked her legs with all her might, and in the struggle, her right hand finally had a free moment. She stabbed the ballpoint pen in her hand hard at Feng Zhe, piercing through his face.
The excruciating pain made Feng Zhe release his grip. He touched his bleeding cheek; the spot where the pen had pierced his skin was the very spot where Song Qinggui had kissed him.
Song Qinggui scrambled up from the sofa, panting heavily: "Feng Zhe, you and Meng Yuxing raised me for ten years, I remember that kindness. Now that you're in this state, we're even about the debt of selling me. If you behave yourself, live well and wait for me to repay your kindness. If you don't behave yourself, I've said it before, even if I kill someone, it'll only be a few years in jail..."
Feng Zhe laughed angrily: "Even? What kind of evenness is this?!"
He was about to fight with Song Qinggui again when Song Qinggui picked up a vase from the coffee table and smashed it hard on his head, causing Feng Zhe to fall to the ground.
Feng Zhe was not dead, he had just fainted.
Meng Yuxing took him to the hospital. Feng Zhe's injuries aroused the doctors' suspicions, and they called the police.
During the police investigation of Feng Zhe, the higher-ups discovered the chaotic state of public security in Cangcheng and sent an investigation team to Changli Island. Feng Zhe's vase injury and ballpoint pen injury were also attributed to criminal gangs.
In just a few days, all underground venues, including Dayun Hongsheng, closed down, the island's chamber of commerce disbanded, and Andrew and several foreign businessmen were arrested. However, from beginning to end, Song Qinggui never heard any more news about the Saxons.
She bought the Cangcheng Evening News for a whole month, searching for all the news about the "crackdown," but she never saw the word "Saxon," as if he had never existed and was just a nightmare.
After Feng Zhe was discharged from the hospital, Song Qinggui knew that she could no longer stay on Xingfu Road, so she went to the dock to find Aunt Sun.
Aunt Sun's house is very small, and since she and Xiaotian's stepfather are in a blended family, it would be very inconvenient for Song Qinggui, a girl, to live in the house.
So Aunt Sun partitioned off a space for her in the noodle shop, putting in a desk and a bed. Song Qinggui spent the last six months of her high school years there.
"I don't need to tell you what happened after that, do I?" Song Qinggui looked at Xue Lu: "Now you know my past. How about it, are you satisfied? Isn't it as dirty and despicable as you imagined?"
“The rules of conduct…” Xue Lu groaned as he called out this name.
He knew from the beginning that loving someone means experiencing the same pain as them. This pain is not a figment of imagination; it is a real, dual pain, both mental and physical, that he was in so much pain that he could hardly breathe.
"Qinggui, I know I hurt you." Xue Lu's eyes reddened. "I shouldn't have investigated your past so casually, but that wasn't my intention. I just wanted to protect you. I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."
A look of sorrow crossed Song Qinggui's face for a moment, then he turned to look at Saxon: "After all these years, you haven't improved at all. All you can come up with to deal with women is this kind of despicable trick."
Saxon remained as composed as ever: "But it worked, didn't it? Don't tell me you don't care about your reputation."
Song Qinggui: "I remember you told me that you are half Chinese. There's an old Chinese saying, 'Better to be a broken piece of jade than a whole piece of tile,' have you heard of it?"
Saxon frowned. He had heard this phrase before, but he didn't understand what it meant when Song Qinggui said it.
Song Qinggui's eyes revealed a resolute determination: "No one can judge me. Lawyer Xue, Saxon, neither of you is qualified."
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