Lady of a prominent family
Later, Jin Xilu really went to the mountain to plant a tree in front of her grandmother's grave. She planted a white camellia, hoping that the camellia could replace her and stay by her grandmother's side. This was her wish.
Tonight, she cannot back down, nor will she admit defeat; she will continue to struggle against fate.
That day, she stayed at her grandmother's grave on the mountain, carefully wiping away the dust and mud from her grandmother's tombstone with a damp cloth. Finally, she kowtowed three times heavily in front of her grandmother's black and white photo. By six o'clock in the afternoon, it was already dark, and Jin Xilu returned to the old house.
At 6:15, Jiang Lianyin walked in, pushing the door open and entering her room without knocking. From the moment she heard his footsteps, Jin Xilu became highly tense.
He was unrestrained, and she even had to be careful when she breathed.
"Little Xilu, count how many times you've cried these past few days. Your pretty little face is all wrinkled from crying. It's so pitiful." The tall Jiang Lianyin squeezed into her small room, stroked the wallpaper with his large hand, glanced at her vaguely, and clicked his tongue with a half-smile.
"What did you want to talk to me about, clan chief? Didn't you say you wanted me to come to the ancestral hall at nine o'clock tonight?" Jin Xilu sat on the bed, not daring to move, because the scissors were under her legs.
Hearing her words, Jiang Lianyin inexplicably became excited. Sallow, dark circles under her eyes clung to her skin, and when she laughed, wrinkles appeared at the corners of her eyes, yet her voice was very young: "Little Xilu, Little Xilu, still so stubborn! You remember the clan leader's words so clearly; you're truly a pitiful little girl."
He closed the door, his steps unsteady, and in a few steps he reached her. His delicate, smooth hand approached her face, and just as Jin Xilu was waiting for him to touch her, her fingers hooked onto the edge of the scissors, ready to plunge the sharp scissors into his hand, he stopped.
Those hands, more meticulously maintained than a woman's, slowly caressed her from top to bottom, from her eyes to her nose. Kim Hee-ro endured the nausea and dared not close her eyes, because if she did, it felt as if he could grab her throat and strangle her to death on the bed the next second.
"Why are you so nervous?" Jiang Lianyin scrutinized her face closely, but couldn't find any resemblance between her and his wife, He Min. He couldn't understand why his son would fall for such a woman.
However, since she was the woman Jiang Yilin liked, Jiang Lianyin was still interested in playing around with her. What he couldn't have, Jiang Yilin didn't deserve either.
“Little girls are idiots, trash, but women are different. Women are flower petals, dew, chili peppers, wheat.” Before Jin Xilu could answer, Jiang Lianyin began talking to himself again. His gaze never lingered on one place for long. His swaying body and foul-smelling soul constantly pressured him. He needed a new way to play to make him feel alive in this world. He tossed his hand towards Jin Xilu expectantly and asked, “What are you?”
"Chieftain, I don't understand." Jin Xilu tried to remain calm, but her palms were already sweating.
Jiang Lianyin was very dissatisfied with this answer. His face darkened, and he looked more than ten years older in an instant. However, he was even more eager to hear Jin Xilu's words. He originally disliked Jin Xilu for being dirty and disgusted, and did not want to touch her skin, but now he had no choice but to resort to some means.
Jiang Lianyin stepped forward, her sharp nails digging into Jin Xilu's flesh, gradually increasing the pressure. Just as Jin Xilu felt her jaw was about to be twisted off, she heard Jiang Lianyin's greedy voice again.
"I'll ask you one more time, what are you?" His voice, like a venomous snake coiling around her neck, was defiant. Jiang Lianyin withdrew her hand immediately after asking, took out a silk handkerchief she always carried, and carefully polished her long nails, completely oblivious to her madness. Her tone suddenly became light and gentle, mimicking Jiang Yilin's voice: "Jin Xilu, how did you manage to hurt yourself again? Sigh, I just can't do anything with you."
Before Jin Xilu could answer, Jiang Lianyin, like a lady from a prominent family, slightly tiptoed, as if he were wearing low-heeled Mary Jane shoes, and stood in a standard T-stance, with his hands crossed in front of his body, his head held high and his chest out, his gaze calm and composed, and a soft smile on his face as he looked at her, as if he wasn't looking at her as a person, but treating her as an inanimate object.
“Miss Jin, see you at the ancestral hall at ten o’clock tonight. I will be waiting for you. I hope you won’t be late. Thank you.” Jiang Lianyin changed his voice again, this time imitating the voice of his deceased wife, He Min.
After saying that, he gently brushed aside the stray hairs that weren't even near his ears, gave a slight bow and left, making sure to close the door quietly as he went.
Kim Hee-ro sat on the bed, her eyes fixed firmly on the closed door, biting her trembling lips as she said, "I am Kim Hee-ro, not a thing."
Jiang Lianyin has gone mad. He's now a complete psychopath in human skin. She knows Jiang Yilin won't be back tonight. The time and place are all set by Jiang Lianyin. Whatever he says, everyone has to do.
Jin Xilu was very dissatisfied. According to her original plan, she would have encouraged the people in the town before going to the appointment, telling them that there would be an event at the ancestral hall that night and asking them to come to the ancestral hall around 10 p.m., so that she could expose Jiang Lianyin's shameful nature on the spot.
But she couldn't outsmart Jiang Lianyin. Just today, when she was buying saplings, she heard that the clan chief had invited people to show free movies at the stage tonight as a reward for everyone. The stage and the ancestral hall were located in the south and north of the town, respectively. The ancestral hall, which was rarely visited by people to begin with, was even more deserted tonight.
After coming down from the mountain, her timidity and cowardice remained hidden in her heart. After calming down and analyzing the situation, she decided that today was not a good day to have a direct confrontation with Jiang Lianyin. She decided to let it go, as she did not want to implicate Jiang Yilin.
Just now, Jiang Lianyin barged into her room and crushed her hopes with his own hands. He came to warn her not to try to escape. He had already begun to take an interest in her. This madman, was he really crazy or just pretending?
Kim Hee-ro pulled out the scissors she had been hiding under her leg. Looking at the clean scissors, her hand involuntarily gripped them. As the sharp blade touched her wrist, she thought that with just a gentle touch, it would all be over. But her hand remained still as she thought this.
Jin Xilu was certainly not as crazy as Jiang Lianyin. She was very open-minded, and no one was more open-minded than her. If she died, at most Jiang Yilin would cry the most, and Ya Nan would wipe away her tears and come to visit her on the mountain every year. The bad guys would still laugh happily and might even spit on her tombstone. That would be too much of a loss.
Let's give it a try. Jin Xilu is the most persistent grass carp in the lake covered with green algae. She will swim desperately to the surface. As long as she can get oxygen by surfacing, she can endure the loneliness and dive back into the garbage-filled water with oxygen, waiting for the next exchange before suffocation.
"I won't suffocate." Jin Xilu sat on her small bed, her eyes fixed on the direction of the Jiang family's house.
When the nine o'clock electronic clock rang in the town square, lively people gathered there, bringing their children and their own stools, watching intently as the beautiful actress on the white screen smiled and gestured.
Jin Xilu walked to the entrance of the ancestral hall. A breeze picked up, and the newly replaced red lanterns made her shadow sway back and forth. Despite her tense body, she still stepped over the threshold and went inside.
The ancestral hall was filled with all kinds of flowers inside and out just after the New Year. The flowers were in full bloom, and the incense and candles were shining brightly. It was so crowded that it was difficult to even walk in. In the end, there was only a small path left. When she walked up the steps, the candlelight in the main hall burned her eyes, and she could not see very clearly. Under the layers of brocade curtains and embroidered screens, the guardian deity of this town was enshrined. The statue of the Jiang family ancestor stood on deer antlers and looked majestic.
"Little Xilu, you've arrived! You're right on time. You've been waiting for the clan leader so early. That's wonderful."
Jin Xilu, who had been standing on the steps and had not yet stepped into the main hall, heard his voice but could not find him. She silently lowered her clenched fist, unable to utter a sound.
"Why are you so nervous? I, the clan leader, won't eat children, haha." His inscrutable voice reached her ears at the same time as the wind blowing in through the door. In the dim light, the plants around her trembled in the moonlight, and fresh green leaves drifted down to her feet.
"You're so afraid of me because of my ignorant son. He looks like me and has a useless, naive heart. He can fool anyone."
His voice shifted direction, now coming from beside her feet. Jin Xilu lit the oil lamp on the shelf next to her and looked down. There was nothing there, only several large pots of red and purple orchids at her feet. She wondered if she was seeing things. Otherwise, how could she see the egg-shaped triangular buds swaying their surrounding round petals, like a mouth opening and closing, continuing to chant: "Poor little Xilu, she doesn't even know she's being watched!"
"No," Kim Hee-ro answered softly.
"Tell me secretly what bad things my wretched son did to you, and I'll avenge you." The voice changed again, now coming from the roof tiles in the yard. Jin Xilu was so anxious that she didn't even look up. She quickly looked down to look at the flowers at her feet. By this time, the beautiful and precious Phalaenopsis orchid had long been broken into pieces of purple and red, leaving only bare stems stuck in the reddish-brown porcelain pot, like a headless person, the body separated, and it was impossible to tell whose head was whose.
"Oh dear! Xilu, what have you done? You've ruined all the flowers the villagers offered to the gods! What are we going to do? What are we going to do? The gods won't let you off so easily like I do for you."
Jin Xilu closed her eyes, trying her best to ignore his voice, but the more she tried to ignore him, the more his voice seemed like a thorn growing inside her, constantly pushing upwards. This thorn grew wildly along with Jiang Lianyin's voice, until it pierced her heart, forcing her to open her eyes and accept everything before her. The voice in her heart reminded her that this was all real, and she shouldn't try to forget the pain.
"Get out of my way!"
Jin Xilu picked up a pot of Phalaenopsis orchids and smashed it against the other flowers on the steps. The fragile porcelain pots bumped and collided with each other when they touched the other flower pots. Finally, the spilled soil covered her shoes, and the broken porcelain shards overlapped indistinguishably. The sounds around her finally faded away.
She was right. Jiang Lianyin himself wasn't here. He had been interfering with her consciousness and exhausting her strength by controlling these plants. He thought she would be scared and hide away, reluctantly being dragged to the ancestral hall.
But he didn't expect that Kim Hee-ro was not afraid of him at all. She even came to the ancestral hall an hour early to wait for him. It was this incident that made Kim Hee-ro realize that she was really being watched by him.
Time was of the essence, and since no one else was going to pass by here anyway, Jin Xilu picked up the heavy flowerpot and started smashing it randomly. The more she smashed it, the clearer her mind became. The smell of soil mixed with nutrient solution was not pleasant, which reminded her of something.
She used to find it strange that the people in the town respected the Jiang family so much. Was it simply because they were rich?
Jiang Yilin, who was just a junior high school student at the time, whispered mysteriously in her ear, "Actually, no. I'll tell you a secret: I don't like my dad. Once, I saw him eating flowers in the middle of the night."
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