He gave her a thousand taels of silver simply to repay her life-saving debt.
Duan Heng watched that scene with a splitting headache, a strong sense of foreboding rising in his heart.
When the girl finally left the mansion, she was still wearing the beautiful blue dress that "he" had given her when she arrived, and she was also wearing a large pearl flower in her hair. She was dressed in a magnificent manner, her face covered with thick powder, and she walked down the street with a numb look in her eyes.
On the street scene, people stared with disdain and greed at the richly dressed, yet lonely young woman.
When I walked out onto the street, a light drizzle had started to fall, with large raindrops hitting the dry ground and stirring up wisps of white smoke.
Duan Heng looked on in despair at Zhou Shiwei, the familiar face of someone who liked Jiang Lingya, who stood in the street with an arrogant expression, surrounding the girl, "So it was you who bullied Miss Jiang?"
The girl stared at him blankly, without saying a word.
The noble young man in brocade robes smiled contemptuously, while the servants beside him diligently held an umbrella for him. He looked at the disheveled girl in the rain with eyes as if she were trash.
At this moment, Duan Heng wished he could kill Zhou Shiwei, but his invisible body could only pass through the boy's shadow.
Even worse things were happening during the torrential rain.
The men glared menacingly at Lin Erhua, pinning the girl firmly to the ground. Their large hands casually searched her body for anything valuable—the precious pearl hairpins and ornaments in her hair, the thousand taels of silver clutched tightly in her palm…
Everything was taken away. Duan Heng watched helplessly as the girl, stripped bare, lay on the ground, white streaks of mud and grime mixed with rainwater sliding down her cheeks.
Those people left.
"Ahua, Ahua..." Duan Heng called out silently on the ground, trying to wake the girl on the ground.
Perhaps heaven heard his plea, for two young, handsome men, who seemed vaguely familiar, approached.
One of the men, who had an effeminate appearance, squatted down, gently patted the girl's face with his fingers, and lightly wiped away the dirt on her face with a handkerchief: "Oh dear, how pitiful, Miss Lin, I can't bear it."
"Stop playing around and hurry up," another man with a respectable appearance urged, his brows furrowed.
The effeminate man didn't care and said contemptuously, "What's there to be afraid of? Our fourth prince is very indifferent anyway, and he doesn't care about a poor woman."
"Alright, hurry up."
"All right."
Upon hearing this, Duan Heng knew things were getting even worse.
He watched as the man casually hoisted the girl up, used his light-footed skills to throw her into the deep mountains outside the capital.
They broke the girl's legs and left.
Forced to wake from her coma, 'Lin Erhua' wailed and rolled on the ground in agony, pebbles sinking into her skin, the smell of blood slowly spreading.
Duan Heng's eyes were already filled with tears as he watched the girl being attacked by wild beasts because of the strong smell of blood. The beasts were gnawing at her body.
The girl no longer had the strength to wail; her eyes were filled with fear and pain, yet she was still alive.
For seven days, Duan Heng watched in agony as the girl's legs were devoured by a ferocious beast on the first day, and as venomous snakes and insects gnawed at her body on the second. Yet, the girl stubbornly clung to life; she wanted to live.
She mustered her courage and crawled on the ground with her pitted, blood-stained fingers, stuffing dirt in her mouth to stave off hunger, and chewing up some leaves to apply to her body to mask the smell of blood.
On the third day, the girl had no strength left, and her bloodied and mangled body was completely unharmed.
On the fourth day, the fifth day... the seventh day, Duan Heng watched as the girl ate dirt when she was hungry and chewed on leaves and bark when she was thirsty. She couldn't figure out the cause of the pain in her stomach and the pain in her wounds. He watched as the girl numbly yet consciously picked at the maggots growing on her body, in pain and lifeless.
Duan Heng knelt on the ground and begged God to give the girl a chance to live, but the girl was not so lucky.
She died, falling in the deep mountains she feared, the deep mountains she didn't want to return to. Her flesh and bones were devoured clean by the poisonous insects and ants of those mountains. Only the soil, a shade darker than the earth, bore witness to the girl's gruesome death.
In dreams and in reality, memories from two lifetimes washed over Duan Heng's mind. In reality, his face was contorted in extreme pain, as if he had seen what he feared most, and his voice was torn with agony: "No, no, Ah Hua, Ah Hua..."
The old steward knew who Ah Hua, the one his master spoke of, was, and everyone in the palace knew as well. The old steward silently wiped away the tears on his face.
His Highness is truly deeply in love with Miss Lin.
Suddenly, the man who had been lying comfortably on the bed sat up abruptly, vomited a mouthful of blood, and then collapsed due to weakness.
The scene immediately descended into chaos once again.
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