It's all ruined, who cares about the chastity arch

Eunuch Jiang was stunned, obviously confused by this order: "Your Majesty, why is this?"

The emperor frowned and said sternly: "No need to ask any more questions, just execute it immediately!"

"Yes... Your Majesty."

Eunuch Jiang nodded in response, secretly speculating in his heart that His Majesty seemed different tonight than usual, with an indescribable solemnity and resoluteness.

The emperor specifically warned: "Also, remember, don't let the princess know about this."

Eunuch Jiang lowered his eyebrows and responded softly, "Yes, Your Majesty."

The emperor narrowed his eyes, his fingers tightly grasped the armrests of the dragon throne, his gaze piercing through the empty hall, and said in a cold voice: "Zheng Chengyan, if you dare to torture my sister, don't blame me for giving you a taste of your own medicine."

It was a dark and windy night in a narrow alley. Zheng Chengyan was half asleep and half awake when he was suddenly awakened by a deafening noise. The door of the room was violently slammed open and broken wood chips flew everywhere.

He jumped up from the bed in horror, only to see a group of men in black rushing into the house silently like ghosts. In the night, their faces looked particularly mysterious.

Zheng Chengyuan was also awakened by this sudden change. He widened his eyes and asked loudly in a trembling voice: "Who are you? What do you want to do by breaking into my house in the middle of the night?"

The leading man in black had a fierce look in his eyes and swung his arm, hitting Zheng Chengyuan's neck hard. He fell to the ground with a cry of pain, and his struggling body gradually fell silent.

Zheng Chengyan's heart was beating violently, and an ominous premonition hung over his heart.

He quickly got out of bed, trying to rush out and escape from this horrible place.

However, the men in black seemed to have anticipated this. They exchanged subtle glances, and their figures flashed like ghosts, quickly closing in and surrounding Zheng Chengyan in the center.

"Second Young Master Zheng, my master wants to see you."

A voice sounded in the darkness, cold and majestic.

"Master... Master? Who exactly is your master?"

Zheng Chengyan spoke incoherently, fear making his voice sharp and broken.

"You'll know when you see it!"

The man in black answered impatiently, skillfully put a sack over Zheng Chengyan's head, grabbed his collar and dragged him forward with force.

The other men in black followed closely behind, like ghosts in the night, disappearing into the darkness in the blink of an eye.

When he opened his eyes again, Zheng Chengyan found himself in a luxuriously decorated and magnificent palace.

The emperor, wearing a dragon robe, sat on the noble dragon throne, looking down at him condescendingly, with a meaningful smile on his lips: "Second Master Zheng, are you awake?"

Zheng Chengyan was stunned and couldn't help but shrink back.

Looking around, the guards were tight and the gleaming swords reflected cold light in the candlelight.

He looked at the emperor in panic, his heart filled with doubt and anxiety: "Your Majesty, why did you summon me so late at night?"

"Why?"

Although the emperor had a smile on his face, his tone revealed a chilling chill, "It is time to settle past grievances."

"Clear... settle accounts? Where is the grudge?"

Zheng Chengyan seemed at a loss, and his already haggard face looked even paler and weaker.

The emperor walked slowly in front of him and said in a calm but heavy voice: "To settle accounts for what happened to your sister."

Hearing this, Zheng Chengyan's knees suddenly softened and he knelt on the ground involuntarily: "Your Majesty, although the princess is not valued in the Zheng Mansion, she has not been treated unfairly. Why should there be a reckoning? Besides, the Zheng family now..."

When he said this, he clenched his fists, his eyes filled with unspeakable sadness and desolation: "The family has long been broken up and the land is desolate."

"Hearing what Mr. Zheng said, it seems that he is unwilling to give up?"

The emperor turned his back to him and sneered, "Unwilling? Why are you unwilling? The pain my sister endured in the Zheng Mansion is a hundred times, a thousand times what you can feel right now."

Zheng Chengyan was even more confused. He stared blankly at the emperor's back, wanting to argue something.

"Do you think I know nothing? You and your parents have been planning how to force my sister into a desperate situation since the time you entered the Jiang family."

The emperor approached step by step, with a cold light in his eyes, foreshadowing the coming of an ominous storm.

Zheng Chengyan was shocked. This was a secret conspiracy between him and his parents. How could the emperor know about it?

Recently, the images that had recurred in his dreams had come flooding back.

In the dream, he imprisoned Su Wanyu in a dark and damp dungeon, with cold iron chains tightly wrapped around her body, like a trapped beast.

She crawled on the ground, her eyes empty and desperate, like an orphan abandoned by fate, gnawing on the leftovers thrown on the ground, and every chew was like a silent accusation against fate.

But at the other end of the dream, he gained some kind of twisted pleasure from her suffering, as if only by trampling her into the mud could his soul find a trace of false dignity in front of her.

"Are those dreams all true?"

He muttered to himself, his heart filled with incredible panic.

"I, I really did that?"

Every time he woke up from a nightmare, Zheng Chengyan always told himself that it was just a dream and there was no need to feel guilty or blame himself because it was just a dream.

But the emperor's next words were like a bucket of cold water, extinguishing the last glimmer of luck and fantasy in his heart.

"Everyone praises the Zheng family for their kindness, but I never thought that for a mere fortune, they would use such cruel means on an innocent woman. Is this what you call kindness? Zheng Chengyan, how cruel are you to torture my sister, whom I have been looking for for ten years, in your mansion in such an inhuman way?"

The emperor's voice gradually became low, and every word was like a heavy hammer, hitting Zheng Chengyan's heart hard.

Veins bulged on his forehead and his eyes burned with flames of anger, as if he was going to tear the person in front of him into pieces in the next moment.

He suppressed the anger in his chest, took a deep breath, and said in a cold and calm voice: "Zheng Chengyan, tell me, how do you plan to repay this blood debt?"

Zheng Chengyan's eyes were empty, as if his soul had drifted away. He stared ahead for a long time and called out again, almost begging: "Your Majesty, I am willing to bear all the responsibilities that should be borne! Now I am a waste and have no other abilities. I only ask for your Majesty's mercy!"

The emperor just sneered and shook his head: "Not enough, far from enough."

After saying this, he threw a sharp order to the guards standing in the room, his voice like a cold wind piercing through the bones: "Quickly, hang this man on the beam. I want to witness with my own eyes his unbearable pain, his miserable state of being worse off than death!"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The guards were startled, and then they moved swiftly and well-trainedly to carry out this unusual order.

This was not a hanging punishment in the general sense. Instead, the guards cleverly used a thin and tough rope to wrap around Zheng Chengyan's fragile little finger, leaving his body half-hanging under the roof beam, in an extremely painful and unstable state.

Zheng Chengyan's toes struggled to touch the cold and hard ground. Every slight struggle seemed to increase the pulling force of the rope on his little finger. The pain seemed to tear his flesh and bones, penetrate his heart and lungs, and wrench his soul.