Chapter 76 Deepest Affection, Shen Yun, You Win
Each sob was muffled in her throat, and no matter how she tried to escape, Shen Yun held her even tighter.
It seemed as if she was being swept away by the waves, so she could only cling helplessly to the corner of the table, but fortunately Shen Jun held her waist, preventing her from falling.
But Lin Shutang simply couldn't take it anymore.
Shen Yun appeared gentle, but he was deliberately tormenting her. Her face flushed red from the kisses, and the more uneven her breathing became, the more unrestrained and deep his embrace became.
Clutching the tabletop, she tried desperately to crawl forward, but the hand around her waist pulled her back in each time.
Shen Yun's voice seemed to echo in her ears. She vaguely heard him ask her where she was going.
Lin Shutang was unaware of this; as his movements gradually quickened, she instinctively and frantically wanted to escape.
Tears flowed even more freely without my noticing.
Outside the window, thunder roared and lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the dimly lit inner room in an instant. Clearly reflected in the glass mirror, he turned her over, bent her legs and draped them over his arms, then leaned down to kiss her taut neck.
The rain poured down, the branches and leaves outside the window swayed, and the wind and rain drowned out all sounds, washing away the mud splashing up on the bluestone road.
Lin Shutang opened her misty eyes, and occasionally a flash of lightning pierced through the window, flashing white light before her eyes.
Her voice was hoarse as she laughed mockingly, each word filled with resentment, "Chen Yun, you're so pathetic."
"Besides humiliating me in this way, what else can you do?"
He paused, lifted his head from beside her neck, and his dark eyes fell on her red and wet eyes. He smiled indifferently, "But it's very effective, isn't it?"
A tear slid down Lin Shutang's cheek. He wiped it away with his fingertip, then lowered his head to kiss her lips again, gently covering them and patiently drawing her into the moment.
Surprisingly, she didn't hide anymore and closed her eyes.
Their clothes were piled high, their necks intertwined in a tender embrace, filling the room with an enchanting atmosphere...
-
Since that day, Yujing has been experiencing continuous rain, with a downpour followed by several days of continuous autumn rain.
Lin Shutang seemed to have become lazy, spending all his time sleeping in his bedroom. When he was occasionally awake, he would just sit by the window and watch the rain pattering on the banana leaves.
Osmanthus blossoms fell to the ground, carpeting the bluestone path in gold.
As servants passed by, their shoes would be covered in osmanthus blossoms. Crushed osmanthus flowers, broken and fragmented, would occasionally swirl lightly on the ground when the wind blew by, only to be quickly set back down by the moisture they carried.
Lin Shutang watched as the petals fell from the branches, and as the servants swept them away. Day after day, autumn arrived in the blink of an eye.
Shen Yun still did not remove the chains from her feet, and the gate of Jingyuan Residence remained tightly closed all day long.
Even Shen Yan rarely comes here.
It was probably because the old lady's attempts to persuade Shenyun had failed, and she knew her temperament, so she wouldn't let the child appear in front of her easily, lest Shenyun, if she were resentful, speak recklessly and hurt the child.
Lin Shutang didn't care; he couldn't leave this courtyard anyway, so it didn't matter who came.
Are you resentful? It seems not entirely so.
The current situation is no different from the past three years. Song Ying has left Yujing, Shen Xiuyan is under house arrest in Xuanyouyuan, and she is isolated and helpless. Everything has simply returned to square one...
She began to sleep excessively all day long, and ate less and less at each of her three meals. Eventually, she would only drink a couple of mouthfuls of porridge when she was awake. If you forced her to eat, she would vomit it all up in no time.
She rarely remembered the days clearly and needed the servants around her to remind her before she vaguely realized that another day had passed. Occasionally, when she woke up from a deep sleep, she would see Shen Yun sitting by her bedside.
The room was pitch black; not a single lamp was lit.
Shen Yun's figure was blurred and lonely in the darkness, with only the moonlight floating between the fluttering curtains. Occasionally, a sliver of light would seep in and cast a shadow on his drooping, weary brows, giving him an illusion of being emaciated.
His shoulders were slightly hunched, and the man who was usually as tall and imposing as a mountain appeared hunched to Lin Shutang at this moment.
Noticing that she was awake, he finally lifted his eyelids to look at her. His dark eyes were like the surface of a river under the night sky, churning with suppressed, turbulent emotions.
Lin Shutang couldn't figure out what was inside, and she had neither the mind nor the energy to guess anymore.
Their eyes met silently, and the air around them seemed to stand still.
She just stared blankly at the person in front of her, her eyes unblinking, until his hand reached into the brocade quilt and his cool palm caressed her ankle.
Lin Shutang tensed up instantly, instinctively lifting his leg to step back, but then, as if remembering something, he restrained his taut instep and remained still, letting his toes slide across his ankle.
But there was a hidden fear in his eyes, and his deliberately held breathing was clearly disordered.
Like fish waiting to be slaughtered, their deathly despair couldn't hide their trembling fear.
Her reaction was so clearly reflected in Shen Yun's eyes, pricking him like needles. His breathing became heavy for a moment, and he almost awkwardly turned his head away, lowering his gaze to gently remove the chain from her ankle.
“Ji Huaiyi and the others have returned to the capital. You haven’t seen Zhao Mingzhu in a long time.” His voice was low and hoarse as he struggled to suppress the rising bitterness in his chest. “She asked you to meet her at Yin Cui Lou.”
He looked up again, concealing all the emotions in his eyes, his tone cautious without even realizing it.
Lin Shutang blinked slowly, as if slowly understanding his words. Then, under his hopeful gaze, she withdrew her foot from his grasp, wrapped the quilt around herself, turned her head indifferently, closed her eyes, and looked bored, as if she was sleepy again.
She was unwilling to communicate.
Shen Yun knew this.
She has rarely spoken in recent days.
The physician said that the pent-up emotions in the body had not been fully expelled, and now the extreme joy and sorrow had further depleted the heart energy.
A mental illness can only be cured by mental medicine; even the best herbal remedies will be of no use.
His throat tightened, and when he exhaled, he felt a bitter taste rising in his throat. He could only cautiously ask again, "If you don't want to leave the manor, I'll have her come to the manor to keep you company, okay?"
Lin Shutang remained silent.
She closed her eyes, feeling utterly exhausted. Suddenly, a weight pressed down on her; it was Chen Yun leaning on her shoulder.
She felt his warm breathing was unusually disordered, and his voice sounded terribly hoarse. "Ah Tang, can you forget all that? I'll grant you anything you want."
"I just want to be with you properly." His tone was tinged with resentment, as if he didn't understand why Lin Shutang was so stubborn.
Now that everything has settled down, they should be living as before.
He is her husband, so why does she consider everyone else but never think of him at all?
But he could disregard all of this; he didn't even expect Lin Shutang to treat him the way he had in Yizhou.
Does that mean I'm being greedy?
"I want to restore my senior brother's eyes."
Unexpectedly, she spoke in his ear, her voice clear and cold, devoid of any emotion. Lin Shutang stared blankly into the void, tears streaming silently down her face, "I want all those you killed to live."
“I want to go back to Xi County, to be with my father and my fellow disciples. I miss Xiaohua next door; her hairstyle is the most beautiful in Xi County. She said she wants to be a makeup artist, and she was the one who styled my hair on the day I married my fellow disciple…”
Lin Shutang murmured to herself, and Shen Yun froze the moment she opened her mouth, as if a bucket of snow water had been poured over his head.
Lin Shutang seemed completely oblivious, continuing to talk about her wedding with Song Ying, remembering every single detail.
Shen Yun looked up from her shoulder and neck, her chest feeling as if it were being ripped apart, her bloodshot eyes staring at her with pain and disbelief.
It seems that at this point, Lin Shutang's choice to say such hurtful things is a very stubborn thing to do.
He was already willing to let go of everything. If Lin Shutang had even the slightest place for him in her heart, she should make concessions, and they should both back down a little.
But Lin Shutang seemed completely oblivious to his gaze, only whispering about her past in Xi County, when she had family and friends by her side, and the past that Song Ying had once boasted to him about. These were pasts that Shen Yun had never been a part of, leaving her only with painful and bloody memories.
"Stop talking..." he began to interrupt her, his eyes bloodshot as if they were about to bleed.
Lin Shutang's thoughts hadn't been this clear in a long time. She wasn't affected by Shen Yun at all and continued to mutter to herself.
He pleaded, his voice trembling, begging her to stop talking...
Lin Shutang's unfocused pupils finally focused into a single point as she listened to the voice slowly turning towards Shen Yun. The icy words were like sharp knives, inch by inch tearing away the last vestiges of decorum between the two.
"And I never want to meet you."
A hot drop of water quickly burned her cheek; Lin Shutang didn't know whose tear it was.
She thought it must be her own; how could someone as high and mighty as Shen Yun possibly shed tears?
The sky darkened far too quickly. With the bed curtains fluttering, even though the two were so close, she could hardly see Shen Yun's face clearly. She could only sense that the person in front of her seemed to have even stopped breathing.
A self-immolating flame burned within her chest; she desperately craved someone to rot away with her.
“Shen Yun, you can’t save those people, and I can’t change Zhou Ziyang’s death. You hate me for having an affair with Xi Yue and harming the Lin family, and I hate you for causing the deaths of all my relatives because of my own mistakes.”
“Now, Madam Zhou sees you as a venomous scorpion, and my fellow disciples regard me as a monstrous threat.” She recalled the way her fellow disciples looked at her outside the city gate that day, a stark contrast to the gentle, smiling figure she remembered.
Large, hot tears streamed down her face in resentment, but a wild smile bloomed on her lips. "Chen Yun, you win. We all deserve to suffer, we all deserve to rot in the mud."
Tears flowed like a burst dam, and Lin Shutang's emotions, suppressed for months, burst forth like a raging fire, sweeping through his entire being. He thought that a new life would follow, but beneath the ashes lay large, festering sores.
Over the years, she deliberately tried to forget those things, thinking that this would allow her to deceive herself and live a muddled life.
If you don't remember, you won't hate, and you can gloss over the truth.
If you don't remember, you won't feel pain, and you can be at ease.
But those familiar, smiling faces, full of earnest expectations and blessings, would always appear in her dreams, only to turn into twisted, blood-stained, rotting corpses in the blink of an eye.
They surrounded her, asking her how she could stay by Shen Jun's side with peace of mind.
Her eyes were burning hot, but the smile on her lips grew wider and wider. In the darkness, it was like a blooming poppy, alluring and seductive. She laughed so hard she could hardly stop, and her whole body trembled violently.
Tears soaked her temples, splashing into her lips and teeth, salty, bitter...
That night, Lin Shutang's smiling yet tearful face lingered in Shen Yun's mind.
Shen Yun never regretted what he had done. He never bothered to look back. He brought her from Xi County to Yujing and used a military merit to make her rightfully stay by his side, even if it meant his career would come to an end and he had to endure the criticism and insults of others.
Just knowing that she was by his side made him feel that everything was worthwhile.
It was clearly Lin Shutang who betrayed him first. He thought, what's wrong with him taking a little from Lin Shutang?
This is what she owes him.
But now, even Shen Yun, who has always been calculating and self-proclaimed a master strategist, is beginning to wonder why the two of them have ended up like this...
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