I had no idea what spell the military - uniformed man had cast.
All I felt was that my internal organs were on fire!
I never expected this man could cause me such excruciating pain...
I thought it might have been better to be struck by lightning. Maybe it wouldn't hurt this much!
"Ugh!!"
I couldn't help but let out a shrill scream. Then I bit down hard on his neck!
This bastard wanted me dead!
I wouldn't let him off easily either!
The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. I heard him grunt. I clung desperately to his neck, not allowing him to break free.
But my consciousness gradually faded, and finally I plunged into a deathly darkness...
...
"Yo, what's this thing?!"
In a daze, I seemed to hear a woman's voice, exclaiming in surprise, "It's a human! A woman!"
I suddenly opened my eyes and saw a woman in her twenties, holding a yellow piece of paper in her hand and looking at me in horror.
"Where... am... I?"
My throat was as dry as if it was on fire. I tried to get up from the ground.
To my surprise, my hands and feet were tightly bound with a raven - blue cloth. There were strange bows tied around my neck, chest, waist, thighs, knees, and ankles, making me look like a mummy.
"Are you a monster?!"
The young woman had curly hair like wool. Her face was caked with thick lead powder, and her lips were outlined in bright red, making her once - beautiful face look extremely tawdry.
"You... you're the monster!"
Vaguely in my mind, I remembered that A Wen and I had escaped from home and had been on the run for a long time...
But why we had escaped, I couldn't remember at all.
"Why do you have a talisman on your face?"
The young woman wiggled her two fingers. Sure enough, there were vermilion patterns on the yellow paper she was holding. "I woke you up by removing the talisman. If you're not a monster, what are you?!"
"I don't want to talk to you. Where's A Wen?"
I've always disliked dealing with nagging women, just like those concubines at home who couldn't understand me.
As I asked, I looked around at my surroundings.
It was a shabby little room, even worse than the servants' quarters where A Wen and the others lived.
The floor was made of rough earth. The brick walls were unplastered, showing ugly brick seams.
A wooden bed took up a third of the room. In this freezing weather, there was a pink mosquito net with a coarse mesh supported by four yellowing bamboo poles at the four corners of the bed. One side of the mosquito net was hooked with a copper hook, revealing the outline of a man under the pink satin quilt.
"A Wen?!"
I was a bit angry. Why was A Wen allowed to sleep in the bed while I was thrown on the cold ground? I shouted hoarsely, "Wake up, A Wen! Someone's robbing us!!"
I vaguely remembered that when A Wen took me out, we had my pocket money with us. Originally, we wanted to sneak out to buy snacks, but somehow... our journey of escape began.
"Ugh!!"
Hearing my voice, the man in the bed seemed to struggle to get up. But as soon as he propped up his elbows, he spat out a mouthful of filthy blood, staining the cheap satin quilt.
"Oops!! What are you doing? I was kind enough to let you sleep in the bed, and you... you've made my bed dirty?!"
The young woman in the tawdry outfit got up in a hurry. Only then did I notice that in this cold weather, she was wearing a lined cheongsam, showing her blue - tinged calves.
She dragged the man in the bed to the edge. Only then did I see his face clearly. He was thin - faced with a high nose bridge. His slightly squinted eyes were slanted towards me, and his irises were blood - red.
"... Monster!!"
I felt a sudden pang of fear for no reason.
The man in the bed wasn't A Wen. He was a man in his twenties... no, he was a red - eyed monster!!
I struggled desperately to get away from the guy in the bed.
"Hey, don't go near him!! He's the real monster!!"
I warned the curly - haired woman. While the red - eyed monster was sick, why didn't she tie him up like she did to me?!
"Don't talk nonsense! This gentleman is a military officer! Maybe a high - ranking official!"
The curly - haired woman didn't believe me at all. While wiping the black blood the man had vomited with a towel, she pointed at the blood - stained military uniform hanging on the wooden hanger. "See? This fabric is woolen! He must be a high - ranking official... If I've saved him, maybe he'll fall in love with me at first sight and take me as his concubine!"
"You fool! He's going to bite you!!"
From my position looking up, the man's pale, thin lips were slightly parted, and his two canine teeth were already showing.
I became even more frightened and rolled towards the door.
The man had lifted his head and took a bite at the curly - haired woman's wrist.
The wrist was where the pulse was located.
It was the manifestation of the heart's beating driving the blood flow in the body. If the woman was bitten by the monster, she might be doomed!
"Aaaaah..."
Blood gushed from the woman's wrist. Her face contorted in pain as she tried desperately to push the man away.
By now, I had rolled to the door. Suddenly, a hand reached out from outside the door and quickly untied the blue cloth that bound me, undoing the bow on my chest.
"Miss, I'm here to rescue you!"
A Wen's bald head peeked out from the crack of the door.
He deftly untied the ropes that bound me one by one.
"Where have you been? Why was I tied up? Where is this?!"
As A Wen was untying me, I bombarded him with questions.
"This is a brothel! That woman is a prostitute. That bastard wanted to take you back to the Si family. He was seriously injured and passed out, and was rescued by that prostitute!"
A Wen explained clearly, but I couldn't understand at all. What prostitute? What Si family? What did these have to do with me?
"I don't know him. Why does he think he can take me away?!"
I had wriggled out of the layers of blue cloth and crawled out of the door.
"Miss, he's the man your father has arranged for you to marry. Your fiancé!"
A Wen glanced up at the handsome man on the bed who seemed to be entangled with the prostitute. A Wen had followed him for a while and had already found out his background.
"How is that possible?! How could my father marry me off to a monster?!"
The man not only had red eyes, but he was also a man - eating monster!
"Um..."
A Wen was stunned for a moment, then made a "shush" gesture. "So, I took you to escape! Miss, you mustn't be caught by the Si family, and definitely not by the Du family!"