Chapter 74: Reconciliation
The doctor hesitated, as if weighing his words. "Madam... her vital energy has been severely damaged, her Qi and blood are extremely deficient. This isn't just due to the trauma. She... was probably pregnant, but couldn't keep it. She recently... had a miscarriage, and it wasn't even completely aborted."
The two words "miscarriage" exploded in Cui Junji's ears like thunder.
His body lurched, and an old injury in his ribs suddenly erupted with sharp pain, nearly knocking him off his feet. He instinctively reached for the bedpost, his knuckles turning white from the strain. A fishy, sweet smell rose to his throat, which he forced down.
Pregnancy? Miscarriage?
When did it happen? In the dungeon! Under the torture of his Cui family!
A huge feeling of dizziness came over me, and everything in front of me began to spin and blur.
He seemed to be able to see her in that dark and damp dungeon, enduring whipping torture, with the flesh and blood in her belly, which might not even have taken shape, quietly flowing away... None of them even knew.
That's his child.
The child he had been looking forward to and even dared not force came suddenly and left suddenly.
His heart felt like it was being gripped tightly by an invisible hand and then torn apart with such force that he couldn't breathe.
It was not the pain of swords on the battlefield, nor the pain of infighting in the court, but a dull, sour pain that seeped from the bone marrow.
Cui Junji opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He only felt the blood surging in his chest, and the murderous intent was like a raging tide, instantly drowning his reason.
He wants to kill someone.
He wanted to rush back to the Cui Mansion and tear apart the jailers who had tortured Wen Youqing and the retainers who had followed his orders! He wanted to rush to his grandfather and demand to know why he was so cruel! He even wanted to kill himself, the fool who had been blinded by the family's glory and oblivious to the danger around him and the sorrow in her eyes!
A crimson blood color surged in the depths of his eyes, and the hostility emanating from his body frightened the doctors and confidants beside him. They knelt down involuntarily, wishing they could bury their heads in their collars.
Cui Junji clenched his teeth tightly, and there was a heart-pounding sound between his teeth, as if he was chewing someone's bones.
"Young Master..." the attendant summoned up the courage to call out in a low voice.
This soft cry barely managed to pull back a shaky sanity from his body. He suddenly closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and swallowed the fishy sweetness in his mouth. When he opened his eyes again, the bloodshot in his eyes faded slightly, but the bottomless pain and icy murderous intent were even stronger.
He couldn't lose control, at least not now. Wen Youqing still needed him.
"Can it be cured?" he asked the doctor, his voice hoarse as a broken gong.
The doctor replied cautiously, "Qi and blood depletion... Moreover, Madam's body is extremely weak and hasn't been properly healed before. Coupled with this miscarriage, it's likely that her foundation has been severely damaged. In the future... it may be difficult for her to recover..."
Cui Junji could no longer hear the rest of the words.
The child he longed for so much might never come to him again.
"Do your best to save her," he interrupted the doctor, each word coming out as if it had been pulled from an ice cellar. "Use the best medicine, at any cost. I want her to live in good health."
His gaze fell back on Wen Youqing's face, and the crazy murderous intent gradually settled into a kind of almost desperate stubbornness.
He slowly sat down on the edge of the bed, reached out his hand, and very gently brushed away the hair stuck to her forehead by the cold sweat. The faint warmth from his fingertips was the only thing he could hold on to at this moment.
"Also, those medicines you prescribed for her before, that's all...we'll talk about it later."
The old wounds still hurt, the pain in his heart even worse. But he simply sat there quietly, like a statue that had been drained of all life. Only those bottomless eyes stared at the dying woman on the bed, surging with remorse, gnawing heartache, and a forcibly suppressed madness that threatened to erupt at any moment, threatening to destroy the world.
As the night deepened, the candlelight flickered, stretching his shadow long and casting it on the wall, lonely and heavy.
All he could think about was how he and the female doctor wiped and bandaged Wen Youqing's body today. He wiped off all traces of his child with his own hands. The child was so small that he couldn't even find which blood clot it was in.
For Cui Junji, this night was much longer and more torturous than the game in the dungeon.
This gloomy atmosphere, like that before a rainstorm, spread in Cui's mansion for several days, and finally turned clear on the third day when Wen Youqing woke up.
As soon as Wen Youqing opened her eyes, she saw Cui Junji.
Cui Junji ignored his own health and hurriedly got up to pour water and take care of her. He said happily, "You're awake. Where do you feel uncomfortable?"
He was greeted by Wen Youqing's cold gaze. It wasn't hatred. Hatred still carried warmth, a lingering power. It was a complete, empty indifference, as if he were just a shadow on the wall, a speck of dust in the air.
She cooperated with the medicine, swallowed the liquid food, and let the maid wipe her body, but her eyes remained empty.
Any form of approach to Cui Junji - whether it was a heart-wrenching confession, or the smashing of objects in a rage, or the humble crying and begging while curled up beside her bed late at night - was met with absolute silence and disregard.
"Youqing, look at me! If you hate me, just kill me!" One day, Cui Junji finally couldn't bear it anymore. He didn't even care about her injuries. He grabbed her thin shoulders and forced her to face him. His eyes were bloodshot and the wound on his chest ached with his emotions. "It's me, the Cui family, who harmed you. Kill them all, okay? I just ask you to pay attention to me."
Wen Youqing was too lazy to even close her eyes, just staring at him, yet looking through him, into some endless void.
This disregard was like slow slicing, slowly and methodically cutting away at Cui Junji's sanity, blade by blade. He felt he was going mad. He would rather she pounce on him, bite him, curse him with the most vicious words, than this indifference that could drive him mad.
The turning point happened one afternoon. Cui Junji brought Shen Laixi over. Cui Junji thought that no matter how much she hated him, the child was innocent and the child might be the only hope to wake her up.
"Aqing, look who's here?" Cui Junji tried his best to sound gentle. He gently pushed Shen Laixi to the bed, "Your son is here to see you."
Wen Youqing, who had always been like a clay sculpture or wooden carving, suddenly froze the moment his gaze met the child's face.
It wasn't a motherly tenderness, but an extremely complex one, mixed with shock, scrutiny, and... a gradually rising icy chill. Her gaze was like a knife, scraping across Shen Laixi's face, especially her eyebrows, her lips... How could she not notice it before?
Cui Junji was startled and thought, "Oh no!" He was desperate and tried every possible means to cure his illness.
Suddenly, Wen Youqing seemed to be stabbed by something, and she sat up straight! She stretched out her trembling hands, not to hug, but almost roughly held Shen Laixi's face, staring at her intently, her breathing becoming rapid and chaotic.
"Mom?" Shen Laixi, who hadn't seen his mother for a long time and was already worried about Wen Youqing, was frightened by his mother's abnormal behavior. The soup he had carefully prepared was also knocked over on the ground, but when he met his mother's gaze, Shen Laixi could only murmur softly.
"Aqing, your son has been worried about your health..." He took a step forward and tried to comfort her.
"roll!"
Wen Youqing let out a shrill roar of rage. She pushed the naive Shen Laixi away fiercely. The child stumbled and fell to the ground, lying in the broken pieces of porcelain bowl, terrified. His mother had been telling him a bedtime story just a few days ago, but why was his mother now...
Wen Youqing looked like a madman, pointing at the child on the ground and glaring at Cui Junji with bloodshot eyes. The dead silence that had accumulated for many days erupted at this moment, transforming into a devastating hatred: "This is the shame you forced upon me!"
But when she saw Shen Laixi's tearful gaze, Wen Youqing's heart was still hurt. She didn't dare say anything more excessive to irritate Shen Laixi. She swallowed the word "bastard" and those more insulting and cruel words, and let them rot in her stomach.
What was the child's fault, but what was her fault?
But the word "get out", with its endless malice and the madness and hatred that had never been seen in his mother's eyes, still made his little body tremble violently, and he even forgot to cry.
Cui Junji felt as if his heart had been ripped out and crushed by a cold hand. He saw the undisguised murderous intent in Wen Youqing's eyes, directed at the child. It wasn't just hatred for the Cui family's bloodline, but also a desire to cleanse the mark of his own shame!
"He is your child! You can vent your anger on me, please..." Cui Junji rushed over and tried to protect the child behind him.
"My child?" Wen Youqing laughed so hard that tears came out, but those tears were ice-cold. "Every time I see him, it reminds me how you trampled on and insulted me! I wish..."
Wen Youqing was really stimulated by Cui Junji. As she spoke, she actually ignored her remaining pity for Shen Laixi and pounced on the frightened Shen Laixi again.
Her fingers curled, aiming directly at the child's neck! That posture was a complete suicidal move!
"No!" Cui Junji was so frightened that he hugged her around the waist with all his strength.
Wen Youqing struggled frantically in his arms, biting and kicking with astonishing strength, and kept spitting out the most vicious curses.
Shen Laixi sat slumped a few steps away, his eyes wide open in horror, watching everything in front of him that overturned his cognition.
His mother, the one he relied on most, had turned into a demon trying to kill him; his beloved master was wrestling with his mother. How could the family he had tried so hard to fit into become like this?
The extreme fear made him lose the ability to react and he was stunned.
The child's dullness and Wen Youqing's madness of wanting to die together were like the last two straws that broke the camel's back, completely crushing Cui Junji's shaky nerves.
He couldn't lose her, let alone let her die in hatred, or become the murderer who killed her own flesh and blood! If memory is the root of pain, the catalyst of madness... then, let this root disappear!
A dark, cruel thought, yet one that seemed to him the only way out, completely dominated his mind. The last glimmer of light in his eyes faded, leaving only desperate madness and cold determination.
"Ying!" He held the struggling Wen Youqing tightly and shouted loudly towards the outside of the door.
Ying came in and was speechless when he saw the scene inside the house. Why did they need to call him out for such a family matter? But his expression did not show at all.
"Take the child out! Let the eldest lady take care of him!" Cui Junji ordered, his voice extremely calm, so calm that it was frightening.
Ying immediately picked up the frightened Shen Laixi and quickly retreated.
After a long time, Wen Youqing exhausted all her strength and collapsed in Cui Junji's arms. The wounds on both of them were broken open, and their bodies were covered in blood, like two red-tailed fish entwined in each other's arms.
But those eyes still stared at Cui Junji, full of deep hatred, as if they wanted to cut him into pieces with their gaze.
Cui Junji looked down at the face he both loved and hated so deeply, his heart numbing with pain. He reached out, his hand trembling as he caressed her tear-stained, hateful cheek. His voice was low and distorted, "Aqing... you're in pain, aren't you? You hate me, and you hate the child who carries my blood... You hate me so much that you want to destroy everything, including yourself..."
Wen Youqing spat at him.
Cui Junji didn't dodge or evade, letting the blood foam fall on his face. His eyes were filled with a tenderness that was almost insane: "What if... I forget everything? Forget who I am, forget the hatred, forget the origins of this child... forget all the pain... and start over, okay?"
Wen Youqing's pupils suddenly shrank, as if she realized something, and she struggled to break free from his control, but she was already at the end of her strength.
"I will treat you well," Cui Junji whispered in a dreamy voice, as if trying to convince her, and even more so, himself, "It's just the two of us. No Cui family, no hatred, no dirty past... You are my wife, and I am your husband... We are a match made in heaven..."
He raised his head and gave a firm order to his attendants outside the door, as well as to his fate: "Go! Call the doctor! Have him bring the 'Forget Worry Powder'! Now! Immediately!"
The medicine was brought up quickly, a brown soup that gave off an ominous smell.
Cui Junji took the medicine bowl, his hand surprisingly steady. He looked at Wen Youqing, and fear finally appeared in her eyes, the fear of having her memories ripped away, of having her self erased. She struggled desperately, shaking her head and trying to close her lips.
But Cui Junji used his strength to pinch her jaw, pinched a point, and forced her to open her mouth. His eyes were painful and crazy, with a desperate desperation.
"Drink it, Aqing," he coaxed softly, like the whisper of a devil, "Drink it, and the pain will go away... forget everything... we can start over..."
The medicinal juice was forced into Wen Youqing's mouth, mouthful by mouthful.
"Yes, you have already taken a lot of conditioning medicine in preparation for this. Don't be afraid, it won't hurt you." The gentle voice was like a maggot clinging to the bone.
Wen Youqing struggled at first, tears streaming down her face. But as the drug took effect, her eyes gradually blurred and her struggles grew weaker. Finally, her body completely softened, and she stared straight at Cui Junji, as if she could see through him.
Soon, Wen Youqing's vision became weaker and weaker, and finally his consciousness sank into the endless darkness.
Cui Junji held the unconscious woman in his arms, as if holding a fragile dream. He gently placed her back on the bed and tucked in the quilt for her, his movements as gentle as if he were handling a rare treasure.
Then, he slumped down to his knees beside the bed, buried his face deeply in the quilt, his shoulders trembling violently, and suppressed, desperate sobs echoed softly in the silent room.
He knew that he had just killed Wen Youqing, the person he loved and who also hated him. He had created a blank puppet, a phantom that belonged only to him and had no past.
Outside the window, the night was dark, without a single star. Cui Junji raised his head, tears still stained his face, but his eyes were cold and desolate.
He leaned over and placed a kiss stained with blood and tears on Wen Youqing's unconscious lips.
"Go to sleep, have a good sleep," he murmured to himself, his voice hoarse, "everything will be fine when you wake up tomorrow."
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