Pan's original words were to find a few people, have them tie her up when the opportunity arose, beat her up and throw her out of the city, and warn her never to set foot in the capital again.
Their original intention was to keep her away from their son. However, after seeing Liu Shushu, the two men changed their minds and decided to sell her to a brothel to earn extra money.
Liu Shushu was never the kind of person to be bullied. She tried to escape several times along the way, but was caught each time. The two men knew martial arts and had given her a muscle-relaxing drug, so escaping was not an easy task for her.
She managed to escape after arriving at the brothel.
She used a lot of internal energy to quietly neutralize the effects of the muscle-softening powder in her body. Those people locked her in a small room, tied her to a wooden stake, and branded the word "prostitute" on her back shoulder with a red-hot iron.
Despite the pain and humiliation, Liu Shushu escaped when everyone's guard was down after nightfall.
Fortunately, her identity was fake, and they did not obtain her indenture. After escaping, she disguised herself and successfully evaded their pursuit.
"Do you know how I survived that period? I didn't have a single penny on me, and I couldn't afford the medicine for disguise. I hid here and there, and only dared to come out at night."
She didn't mention that she went to the clinic at night to steal medicinal herbs and that she killed someone to use their skin for disguise. However, everything she said was true.
Seeing the look of heartache on Liu Chengfeng's face, she knew she had made the right bet.
With tears welling in her eyes and her voice choked with sobs, she said, "Brother, do you know that I have not consummated my marriage with His Majesty since we got married? It is because he despises my past."
As she spoke, she turned her back to Liu Chengfeng and ripped off her clothes.
Liu Chengfeng instinctively turned his head and lowered his eyes to avoid looking away. "What are you doing?"
“Take a good look at the suffering I have endured, and you will understand why I did what I did.”
Liu Chengfeng hesitated for a moment, then slowly turned his head to look over.
Upon seeing this, his pupils constricted sharply, and his heart skipped a beat.
On the back of her fair and smooth shoulder was a scar the size of a bowl, grotesque, twisted, and ugly.
He slowly approached with trembling fingers, and as soon as he touched Liu Shushu's skin, she couldn't help but flinch, like a startled fawn.
"How...how did this happen?"
"Back then, to erase that humiliating experience, I used a dagger to cut away this part of my flesh." She closed her eyes in pain.
"It must hurt a lot..."
“How could it not hurt? I tore off a piece of my sleeve and stuffed it in my mouth to numb my arm, but it still hurt so much that I almost bit my tongue and committed suicide. Blood gushed from my throat but I swallowed it back down.” She slowly put on her clothes and whispered, “At that moment, I hated Pan to the core.”
Liu Chengfeng could not hide his struggle. His Adam's apple bobbed, and his voice was slightly hoarse when he spoke: "But she is, after all, your birth mother."
Liu Shushu turned around, her misty eyes looking at him, and said in a trembling voice, "But she wanted to kill me."
"She didn't do it on purpose; she just didn't know your true identity at the time."
"What if I weren't Liu Shushu?"
"Wh-what?"
“If I weren’t Liu Shushu, I would probably have died eight hundred times over. Even if it wasn’t when she first attacked me, even if it was later, if I had stolen Liu Qingying’s lover as a member of the Meng family, she would have secretly disposed of me for the sake of the Liu family’s interests.”
Liu Chengfeng opened his mouth, but couldn't find the words to refute it.
Yes, even though Mother didn't like Liu Qingying, she still raised her well for the sake of the bigger picture and played the role of a loving mother for so many years.
If Liu Shushu were not her daughter, but just a helpless orphan, she would definitely eliminate her just like she did with "Ayan".
Just as Liu Chengfeng was hesitating, Liu Shushu suddenly smiled at him and said gently, "Brother, don't worry. I still remember Mother's kindness in giving me life, and I would never do anything rebellious. I called you here today to explain that everything I did was out of necessity. I don't want you to misunderstand me and drift apart from me."
"I know you had no choice in what happened before, but what happened afterward? Why did you pretend to be Ayan and deceive me after you returned to the Liu family?"
“At first, I just wanted to spite my mother, but later…” She looked up at Liu Chengfeng and suddenly took a step forward.
The distance between them instantly closed to less than a fist's width. She was half a head shorter than Liu Chengfeng, and he could smell the faint fragrance in her hair.
She tiptoed closer to his ear and whispered in a voice only the two of them could hear, "I can't control my feelings for my brother."
Liu Chengfeng's body trembled, and he froze on the spot.
Liu Shushu smiled, took a step back, looked at him and said, "I hope that you can forgive and forget, and that we, brother and sister, can be as close as before."
“Just like before…” he murmured, his ears burning slightly.
What does my brother think?
He looked back at the woman in front of him, and her delicate face gradually overlapped with another face in his memory.
Yes, what initially attracted him was never her physical appearance...
After a moment, he replied softly, "Okay."
...
At this time, Baoyi Palace.
Qingying was sleeping soundly on the inside of the bed, but it was a hardship for Wei Huaixu beside her.
I can't sleep, I feel suffocated, and I'm afraid to move.
An hour ago, Qingying seemed determined to fight the dragon and phoenix red candle to the death, so he suggested, "I can use my internal energy to add fuel to the fire and make it burn faster."
Qingying didn't really intend to sit until dawn, so she glanced at him and obediently moved to the side, saying, "Then I'll trouble Your Majesty."
So he sat in Qingying's original spot, his palm facing the red candle, and used his internal energy to ignite it. The red candle visibly burned faster.
However, these are special red candles made by artisans in the palace, using exquisite and carefully selected materials. Even if the process is sped up, it will still take some time for them to burn out.
Finally, after a long and arduous process, the fire was finally lit. He was exhausted and drenched in sweat, while someone else was already fast asleep, clutching their blanket.
Wei Huaixu looked at her resentfully, knowing that this was just a little trick she used to avoid the wedding night.
He extinguished all the candles in the room, returned to the bed, pulled up the brocade quilt that she had kicked to her feet, covered her tightly, and then lay down helplessly.
"Never mind, there's always another day."
He knew what Qingying was scheming about.
But he didn't regret doing it. Only by severing ties with her could he ensure her safety.
Qingying was unaware that he had secretly saved her from assassination several times. Only during the autumn hunt did he fall into a trap, giving his adversary an opportunity.
He later discovered that it was actually Yan Xiuji who bribed the people at the Brahma Temple to assassinate Qingying.
The reason was simply to prevent Wei Huaixu from getting on the Liu family's big ship.
Even the ambush he suffered on his way back to the capital, and the incident of him falling into the water, was orchestrated by Yan Xiuji.
Wei Huaixu died because of this; he couldn't let her be in danger any longer...
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