Spring Drunk Chang'an

Liu Changan fell onto the rockery next to the hot spring. Her body collided with the rock and she groaned in pain.

Under the cherry tree next to the hot spring, a burly mute slave appeared. He half-knelt on the ground, saluted Xiao Chuo, and then reached out to grab Liu Changan like a chick.

"Your Highness! I was wrongly accused and barged in unintentionally. I beg Your Highness to spare my life." Liu Chang'an's voice trembled. He ignored the severe pain and quickly crawled into the hot spring.

He hugged Xiao Chuo's neck tightly.

The mute slave was stunned and knelt on the ground in silence.

Xiao Chuo grasped her chin with her large hand, her gaze fixed on the rouge mole on her lip. She asked playfully, "Were you sent by the old lady of the Duke of Ningguo?"

Recently, Duke Ningguo has been repeatedly reported for the war and begged for his help, but he refused.

So the dog is desperate and resorts to such tactics?

Throw yourself into his arms, at least give him a daughter, give him a maid, are you despising him?

"She does look a bit like her, the Duke of Ning's Mansion, my uncle..."

He chuckled, his eyes cold and smoky.

"Guessing your mind, damn it!"

"You too."

"Pull it down."

The mute slave crawled on his knees and dragged Liu Chang'an's legs ferociously.

"No, no, Your Highness, I was not sent by the old lady. I am a servant in the Ningguo Mansion. I was ordered to deliver the allowance to the eldest lady's courtyard. She framed me and ordered me to be beaten with a stick. I was so scared that I ran to you in a panic."

"This servant was truly unintentional. I beg Your Highness to forgive me."

Seeing that he was about to be dragged out of the hot spring, Liu Changan explained hurriedly while trying hard to think of a way to escape.

"Beaten? Slandered?" Xiao Chuo pinched Liu Chang'an's chin and forced her to look up, looking at her swollen cheeks and bloody nails from being hit in the mouth.

"How pitiful." He frowned, as if with pity, and when Liu Changan's eyes suddenly showed joy, his face turned cold, "But what does it have to do with me?"

He no longer called himself the mute slave. Instead, he grabbed Liu Chang'an's neck with his big hands and slowly tightened them.

Liu Changan suffocated instantly and struggled with his face flushed.

The hot spring water was stirred up by her hands and feet, and splashed onto Xiao Chuo's naked chest and handsome face.

He is laughing.

He is indeed a murderous and capricious tyrant!

Is she, is she going to die?

He escaped disfigurement but couldn't escape being strangled to death?

Why?

Why?

Liu Changan struggled desperately, vaguely recalling his past life in his mind.

Her adoptive parents were the servants of the Ningguo Mansion. Sixteen years ago, they picked her up from the banks of the Yan River when she was freezing to death. They raised her like a treasure until she was sixteen years old, and only then did they let her work in the mansion. However, she had been working there for less than two months when she was beaten in the face by Liu Qingru.

She was scared to death. Her adoptive parents felt sorry for her and kept her at home, raising her like a beautiful girl.

Unexpectedly, just a few days later, the government suddenly said that her adoptive parents were dishonest and tattooed and cut off fingers to sell them. The eldest brother went to appeal for justice and was beaten with a hundred boards, leaving him disabled. The youngest sister was punished to work in the laundry room, washing clothes in ice-cold water in the cold winter.

She was assigned to pour the night incense.

For three years, the three siblings endured the hardship together. Suddenly, the steward took her to the Linglong Pavilion, where the singing girls lived. She waited there for half a month in a daze. Then the Duke's wife came and hugged her, crying bitterly, calling her, "My poor daughter!"

The lady said: She is the eldest daughter of the Ningguo Mansion.

Liu Qingru was born out of wedlock to Aunt Lai.

They were born on the same day of the same month of the same year. However, when the Duke's wife was giving birth, a wet nurse played a trick and gave Liu Qingru to the wife. She was then thrown into the river by the wet nurse, who intended to drown her.

It was her adoptive parents who rescued her and raised her.

"It's good to have it back, child. Mother will definitely compensate you." The Duke's wife burst into tears.

Liu Changan thought about his adoptive parents who were sold, and his younger brothers and sisters.

compensate?

How to compensate?

Her family was destroyed.

She numbly put down the night-scented incense bucket and followed the Duke's wife. She was the eldest lady for thirty-eight days, and then was sent to a Taoist temple in the suburbs by Duke Ning and the old lady.

"The Empress intends to find a good marriage for Qingru. The concubine's affairs cannot be exposed. We cannot have a legitimate daughter who has been a night lover and a singing girl in our family!"

"Changan, I'm sorry, please go."

The Duke tied her up and put her on a carriage. The Duchess chased after the horse and lost her shoes. Her feet were covered in blood.

It was a road to chasing girls paved with blood.

Liu Changan finally burst into tears. She went to a Taoist temple, lived there for five years, and was finally fed to wolves.

"Do you want me to die too? Why? How have I offended you?"

"I just hid in here. I just wanted to hide for a while."

"I've been begging you, begging you all the time, why won't you let me go? What did I do wrong?"

Liu Chang'an murmured, tears flowing like a spring. She grabbed Xiao Chuo's hand and bit it hard.

Blood flowed into her mouth, filling it with a fishy smell.

Xiao Chuo frowned, grabbed her hair and forced her to look up.

The little girl, with tear marks all over her face, cried miserably. Her bright eyes were filled with moisture and her face was pale, like a dog that was forced into a desperate situation.

"The little girl is quite old, but she's quite aggressive and has sharp teeth."

Liu Changan bit him tightly, tears streaming down his face.

The blood slowly dripped into the hot spring pool.

There are those of Xiao Chuo and those of Liu Chang'an, which are hard to tell apart and mixed together.

Xiao Chuo looked at her face covered with tears and water stains, and the bright red rouge mole at the corner of her lips. It overlapped with the little girl in her memory who was holding her waist and looking very proud.

"You have the same bad temper and love to bite people." His sword-like eyebrows suddenly curved, a faint smile appeared in his smoky gray eyes, and he raised his hand to throw the man to the edge of the pool.

He got up.

At this moment, footsteps were suddenly heard outside.

"That little hoof flipped in? How come you useless things can't even catch a little girl!"

"This is the prince's residence."

"Miss, what should we do?"

"The monk can escape, but the temple cannot. Even if Liu Changan escapes, she still has her parents!"

There was a noisy sound.

Liu Changan's face turned pale. She remembered the cries of her adoptive parents when they were tattooed, had their fingers cut off and sold off, and couldn't bear to leave their children behind.

I remembered that when my eldest brother went to seek justice, he was beaten with a hundred boards, his legs were broken, and he suffered the humiliation of becoming a eunuch.

I think of my little sister’s hands, which were thick with joints and covered with chilblains from washing clothes.

She also thought of the Duke, the old lady and her brothers, who blamed her for doing menial work as a maid, for pouring night incense, and for serving the singing girl.

They said that she had disgraced the family and tarnished the name "Liu".

They said that she was willing to be lowly. She was already the daughter of the Duke's Mansion, but she still wanted to recognize lowly slaves and sisters-in-law. They also said that Liu Qingru had the temperament and decency that a girl from the Duke's Mansion should have.

That is the darling daughter of a noble family.

Bright as the moon.

What about her?

Is she a lowly insect?

Liu Changan hugged his shoulders tightly with both hands, and his bloody nails finally broke under the weight.

The blood soaked the grass around the hot spring pool red.

Xiao Chuo lowered his smoky eyes, his heart suddenly trembled, and he raised his hand.

The mute slave handed over the cloak and black robe.

Xiao Chuo put it on slowly and sighed slightly, "Well, it's your blessing to look a bit like her."

"Take her in to treat her injuries, and then send Liu Qingru in."