With her wrists firmly grasped by Liang Yuzhou's hands, Song Wanchu's sobs suddenly stopped. She looked at him with red - rimmed eyes.
The tears at the corners of her eyes were wiped away by his rough fingers. Liang Yuzhou looked down at her intently. There seemed to be a hint of tenderness in his eyes, but his tone was aggressive. "Answer me."
The words "status" always touched Song Wanchu's sensitive nerve. She was supposed to be a concubine, but sometimes seemed like a wife.
In the past, she always overestimated herself and assumed the role of a wife, longing for a harmonious relationship with him.
But from beginning to end, she was the only one immersed in the play.
He was reminding her to always remember her own status. Some words were not for her to ask; it would be an overstep.
"Thank you, Second Master, for always reminding me. This concubine shouldn't have inquired about your matters with Miss Yu."
She gave the answer according to his will, but Liang Yuzhou didn't seem happy. His eyes darkened, his eyebrows twitched, and a hint of anger flashed across his face.
The fingers that had just wiped her tears still retained a bit of moisture. He suppressed the anger in his heart and tried to smooth out her thorns. "Do you want to be my legal wife?"
His voice was hoarse, and his deep eyes looked extremely affectionate, like a kind of temptation.
Tempting her to voice her deepest desire.
But her heart had been shattered into pieces by him and could never be put back together.
"I did want to in the past, but now, this concubine knows her own place."
He already had the perfect candidate for his legal wife in mind. Asking this deliberately seemed more like an excuse to mock her.
Liang Yuzhou's expression turned even colder, and the stuffy air in the carriage suddenly became a few degrees cooler.
None of the words she said today pleased him.
She could smile brightly at Du Yong and treasure the letter from Shi Luohan, hiding it under her pillow.
But the peony flowers he had searched all over the city for her were discarded in a corner of the yard, left to the mercy of the wind and rain.
Although her body was in his arms, her heart seemed to have flown far away.
Suddenly, the strong arm around her waist tightened, and Song Wanchu was pressed tightly against Liang Yuzhou's body with no space in between. The two seemed to be merging into one.
Liang Yuzhou hooked her chin and kissed her again, this time with more urgency and roughness.
Her lips and tongue were captured. Song Wanchu was wrapped in his hot and strong body. She couldn't struggle free or escape. Liang Yuzhou's hand roamed over her body, as if it carried flames, igniting the spark of desire.
"Wanchu, let's have a child."
He clearly hadn't drunk any wine, but he sounded like he was talking nonsense in a drunken state.
Song Wanchu's body suddenly stiffened, as if she had returned to that freezing winter night.
Her husband had sent charcoal to Yu Huiyan from afar, while she was lying in the snow, bleeding profusely, but never waiting for the warmth she had prayed for.
"Slap!"
She raised her hand and slapped Liang Yuzhou hard across the face.
The passion quickly faded from his handsome face, and gloomy clouds gathered between his eyebrows.
There was hatred glinting in Song Wanchu's eyes, and her voice was already choked with sobs. "This slap is for my unborn child. Liang Yuzhou, I won't have your child anymore. You don't deserve it!"
The carriage fell into complete silence. Liang Yuzhou's face instantly lost its color.
"Then who do you want to have a child with? Your elder brother, the crown prince, or Du Yong?"
"Definitely not you."
The straightforward answer was like a sharp knife, cutting off the last few threads that tied them together.
It seemed as if a storm had passed over Liang Yuzhou's face. Anger surged in his eyes.
Suddenly, he lunged forward. One hand easily controlled Song Wanchu's wrist and pressed it against the carriage wall. With the other hand, he tore open her belt, and his calloused hand invaded roughly from under her skirt.
"Song Wanchu, don't even think about it. You can only have my child!"
Maybe to suppress his anger, his voice was overly hoarse. He opened his mouth and bit her red - hot earlobe, grinding it punishingly in his mouth.
Song Wanchu gasped, resisting the tremors in her body. She felt like a plaything without any dignity.
While he was kissing her collarbone, she bit down hard on the thin flesh on the side of his neck. She bit with all her might. The sweet and fishy taste filled her mouth, mixing with the saltiness of her tears, brewing her hatred to the extreme.
Normally, Liang Yuzhou wouldn't have cared about this bit of pain, but the place she bit happened to be where the whip marks hadn't healed yet.
The tearing pain and itch spread, overriding the amorous thoughts.
He pinched her cheeks and wiped away the bloodstains from the corner of her lips. Liang Yuzhou let out a low laugh, as if joking. "When did you grow dog teeth?"
"I grew them after coming out of the lake. From now on, if anyone dares to wrong me, I won't say a word. I'll just go up and bite them."
It turned out that when a beauty got angry, she could be so aggressive.
Liang Yuzhou almost forgot that she used to be a wild rose growing freely. But after marrying him, she was like a flower that had lost sunlight and rain, losing her vitality and becoming increasingly cold. All that was left was her thorns, which she used to prick him.
The continuous pain on his neck was really annoying. Liang Yuzhou gently touched it and his hand was covered in fresh blood.
He pointed at the wound, looked at Song Wanchu, and said playfully, "Whoever caused the trouble should clean it up."
Only then did Song Wanchu notice that there were two deep tooth marks on his neck. One row of the marks overlapped with the whip marks, and blood beads were constantly oozing from the torn wound.
He was wearing a cyan - white robe today, and the bloodstains on it were very eye - catching.
Deep in her heart, it was like being pricked by a very thin needle, evoking a long - lost pain.
Song Wanchu felt a bit guilty, but she stubbornly pursed her lips and refused to touch his wound.
"If you don't treat my wound well, I'll say I was bitten by a dog when we go out."
Song Wanchu didn't want to owe him anything at all. She took out a silk handkerchief from her sleeve and gently wiped the blood around the wound.
Yu Huiyan had said that Liang Yuzhou was beaten by the old master because of her.
But now she had to treat his wound.
It was really ironic.
During the time of treating the wound, neither of them spoke, but Liang Yuzhou's deep gaze never left her face.
His gaze was calm and complex, hiding emotions that Song Wanchu couldn't understand.
"Do you like Shi Luohan that much?"
Song Wanchu's hand paused while wiping the wound. She was caught off guard by the question.
She heard a hint of unfriendliness in his tone.
"By what right did you intercept the letters my elder brother wrote to me?"
"A strange man writes letters to my wife. As her husband, shouldn't I know the content of the letters?"
He said it with full justification.
"Elder brother is not a strange man!" Song Wanchu didn't expect him to act so shamelessly. She spread her hands towards him. "Give them back to me!"
"I burned them." Liang Yuzhou's expression became very cold.
"You..."
Liang Yuzhou didn't regret intercepting those letters at all.
After seeing the "lucky survivor" under her pillow, he had also placed a spy in the Qi family. From now on, Shi Luohan's letters would never reach Song Wanchu through Wen's hands.
At first, intercepting Shi Luohan's first letter was an accidental event.
But Shi Luohan had said in the letter that he suspected there was something fishy about Song Hengyi's sacrifice and that he would find out the truth.
Fortunately, his ability was not very good. He had investigated for three years but hadn't found out much useful information, while Liang Yuzhou had already found out the truth.
Liang Yuzhou didn't plan to tell Song Wanchu. It would be best if she never knew the truth in her lifetime.