Caiyu was scooped into his arms. Sensing his extraordinary rage, her stubborn nature flared up, and she struggled desperately all the way.
"What are you doing! Let go of me!"
"Song Yinghuai!"
Han Fen and the others lagged behind and didn't dare to follow any further. They were shocked to hear Caiyu boldly call the prince by his name. They were even more terrified when they saw her hanging in the air and biting the prince's waist.
Song Yinghuai clamped Caiyu around the waist with one hand and strode forward. Feeling her extreme resistance and wild struggles, he grew even more annoyed.
He took large strides and crossed the Hanmei Hall in no time. With a kick, he opened the door of the study!
Caiyu was forcefully thrown in front of the desk. Stumbling, her abdomen hit the edge of the table.
A sharp pain shot through her, and cold sweat instantly broke out.
But in his fit of rage, Song Yinghuai didn't notice. He was fully focused on rummaging through the bookshelf for the Liuxiang Ink.
That ink didn't need to be ground; it was in liquid form.
As Caiyu lay on the desk, trying to ease the pain, she saw a pool of ink as black as an abyss being poured into the Duan inkstone in front of her. Immediately, a wisp of delicate ink fragrance wafted into her nostrils.
While Caiyu was still puzzled, her body was lifted into the air again.
She flailed her limbs and clung to Song Yinghuai's neck and waist. Angrily, she punched him hard.
"Put me down!"
With her puny strength, Song Yinghuai scoffed. "You know to cling to me when it's dangerous?" After saying that, he said coldly, "I'll ask you one more time. Have you reflected on your mistake?"
Caiyu, who was being forced to admit her mistake again, said with a cold face, "I have. But it's just a trivial matter. If you insist on being so picky, I can't do anything about it."
"General Sheng is upright and aboveboard. He would never covet your private seal. It's you who's so dirty-minded. That's why you think everyone is the same. You just think that if he gets your private seal, he'll give you trouble!"
"You're also extremely petty and vindictive. You used this trivial matter to confine me and punish the servants at will. If you ever become the emperor, you'll be a tyrant!"
Song Yinghuai didn't expect her to be so stubborn and talk more and more outrageously. The anger that had already been burning in his heart flared up even more.
He laughed out of sheer anger. "Fine! I'm dirty-minded. I'm petty. I'm vindictive! Let's see how I'll take revenge on you today!"
The more Song Yinghuai thought about it, the angrier he got. His eyes were cold and menacing. He said word by word, "I'll give you one more chance. Do you know you're wrong or not?"
Although he was extremely angry, deep down, he still hoped that Caiyu would soften up again.
If only Caiyu had softened up and said a few words to him, he wouldn't have done what he later regretted.
But Caiyu was also furious at that time.
After days of worry and anxiety, and witnessing with her own eyes today that so many people were implicated because of her, she only hated herself for being a bystander while all the innocent people had to bear the consequences.
She simply and resolutely spat out a sentence, "I'm not wrong! I'm not convinced!"
She was truly unruly and hard to tame, like a wild horse. As Song Yinghuai held her in his arms, he felt an emptiness in his heart. He felt that if he didn't hold on to something, he would be completely controlled by this little girl for the rest of his life.
After a long while, he sneered. "You're right. I'm a tyrant. And you're just my servant girl. How dare you provoke a tiger? You'd better experience the taste of angering me!"
With that, he jolted his arm and threw Caiyu down again. He pressed her down on the desktop and reached out to untie her clothes.
Caiyu was shocked and angry. "Song Yinghuai! What are you doing!"
Caiyu thought that this man was going to punish her body in that way again, just like before.
She enjoyed the pleasure of being with Song Yinghuai, but she hated the feeling of being used as a means of punishment.
However, she guessed wrong. After Song Yinghuai stripped off all her clothes, revealing her curvy back, he only pressed her down with one hand. With a cold and sarcastic look on his face, he said,
"Why are you struggling? Although I'm a tyrant, I'm not a brute. Relax. I'm not interested in you at the moment."
But his big hand pressing on Caiyu's back didn't move an inch. He made her lie on the cold desktop, her skin touching the hard wooden surface.
Caiyu felt that this humiliation was even worse than when Song Yinghuai had forcibly flirted with her before.
At least before, when the man had forcibly flirted with her, she would also be unconsciously drawn in.
But at this moment, only she was being humiliated.
A sense of panic welled up in her heart. Finally, tears welled up in her eyes again. She just bit her lip stubbornly and turned her head to glare at him.
When Song Yinghuai saw the tears that refused to fall in her eyes, he suddenly thought of all the countless arguments they had had.
He had made one concession after another, even to the point where he didn't recognize himself anymore.
He had even tolerated the fact that this girl still had a fiancé hovering around her.
But she was still pushing him further and further.
She had casually thrown his feelings to her childhood fiancé!
She didn't even realize that she had hurt someone's heart. She just kept running away to visit that man.
He felt that his dignity as a man had been trampled into the mud!
Thinking of this, the anger in his heart was uncontrollable. When the twin snakes in his body sensed his rage, they excitedly swam through his blood, crazily stirring up his sanity.
Without saying a word, he reached out his other hand and picked up a writing brush. He dipped the tip of the brush into the ink in front of Caiyu.
Caiyu was slightly stunned. Watching the writing brush stir in front of her, she had a bad feeling. "What are you going to do?"
Song Yinghuai stood behind her. One hand was pressing her down on the desktop, and the other hand was stirring the extremely fragrant ink. With a cold face, he said,
"This ink is called Liuxiang Ink. Once you draw with it, it can't be washed off with water, and soapberries won't work either. The writing will stay on the canvas forever, and it will emit a faint ink fragrance for a long time."
"Since you don't know you're wrong, I'll write the character for 'wrong' on your body. I'll make you remember your mistake from now on. You'll see the writing every time you change your clothes, and the fragrance will also remind you of the consequences of provoking me today!"
Wasn't this the same as a criminal being tattooed?
Caiyu was immediately struck like by lightning. Her face turned pale, and her eyes were filled with panic. She struggled frantically.
"You're crazy! You're crazy!"
"Song Yinghuai! Do you have to humiliate me like this?"
Finally, she understood what Song Yinghuai meant when he said he had other ways to subdue her!
Was this man crazy?
Facing Caiyu's frantic struggle, the man, who was blinded by rage, didn't feel it at all.
He just sneered. After grinding the ink, he dipped the writing brush in the thick ink. Then he lifted the brush and landed it on Caiyu's waist.
As soon as the cold ink and the soft writing brush touched Caiyu's waist, the frantically struggling girl suddenly stopped moving as if she had been acupunctured.
Caiyu lay on the desktop in a daze, her eyes wide open. She stared blankly at the overlapping books in front of her, like a small mountain piled up in front of her nose.
Her parents and brothers had either been exiled or arrested. Some of her relatives in the family had gone missing, and some had died. She had drifted alone to a foreign land, endured humiliation, and offered herself to the Prince of Yan's Mansion, just hoping for a chance to clear the name of the Lan family.
But things didn't go as she wished. She had fallen in love with the target of her mission. She had betrayed the crown prince at the risk of implicating her whole family. The future was uncertain, but she had to suffer such a humiliating branding. What had she done wrong?
Why had she ended up like this? And why did she have to suffer such humiliation?
She was a human being, but she was being forced to lie here, living like an object.
As Song Yinghuai outlined stroke by stroke, Caiyu felt her dignity gradually fading away.
For a proud girl like her, she would rather endure physical torture than mental humiliation. Song Yinghuai's actions were like slow torture to her.
Suddenly, big tears welled up in Caiyu's eyes.
At this time, on her beautifully curved waist, the thick black ink had been painted into winding lotus leaves, and a lotus flower emerged vividly on her snow - white skin.
He had said he would write the character for "wrong" on her body, but in the end, Song Yinghuai wasn't that cruel. Instead, he painted a lotus flower about half the size of a palm on her waist.
That was the birthday gift Miss Lan San had given him when they first met as teenagers.
Song Yinghuai put down the brush. He reached out his hand and wiped the lipstick off her lips. He mixed it with a little ink and dotted it on the center of the lotus, dyeing it into red stamens.
Finally, he let go of the hand that was pressing on Caiyu. He said coldly, "Take a good look at the mark on your back. From now on, you'd better remember to be obedient."
How could she see what was painted on her lower back? Song Yinghuai was just humiliating her.
In ancient times, there were beauty urinals; now, there's a beauty "paper".
Caiyu buried her head in her arms. Tears fell one by one, uncontrollably, like red plum blossoms in the rain and crabapple flowers weeping with dew.
After Song Yinghuai finished painting, his mind gradually cleared up. Hearing the muffled wailing from under the little girl's arms, he suddenly stood still on the spot.