The Sin of Ludwigs

The flickering candlelight reflected the earl's interested eyes as he observed me.

I have seen a similar look once, at a ball given by Madame Robert in Ludwigsburg, the Marquis Breton, known for his vulgar behavior, looked at a brewer with a similar look. Daughter, he forced the poor girl to sit on his lap, first kissed her, then slapped her a dozen times in a row, and then pushed her off his knee.No one dared to stop him, and I will never forget the way the girl was crying.

It was the look in the eyes of a very bored person when he finally saw a prey that aroused his interest.

The priestess of love dried the earl's hair, smiled coquettishly and twisted her graceful figure towards a small door on the side of the flower hall and disappeared.

The count stood up, walked up to me, and looked down at me.

"It's the first time in this land that someone has the guts to say 'FUCK' to me. Before XXXX, do you have anything else to say?"

This time he used English, and I didn't understand a few words in the middle, but I guess it wouldn't be a good thing.Behead?Hanged?Or exile?I guessed it bitterly, I hope it is a relatively happy way to die, it is best not to beheaded, it is very painful, and it has to be stuck on a wooden pole to be exposed to the wind and sun, for a nobleman It would be disrespectful to say that!

“I demand treatment commensurate with who I am, and beyond that, I have nothing more to say.”

Well, that's right, a true nobleman has requirements even in the face of death.

If the count meant to see me weeping and hugging his lap, begging for life under the threat of death, he was miscalculating.In any case, half of my own blood flowed in my body from my own father, who, despite his flamboyance, was a true duke with impeccable noble character.

Even my nominal father, Viscount Edmund, knew that the duel would be death, but he still refused the dissuasion of others, and went to the appointment on time for his suspicious courtesan lover, and then was struck by his opponent Pierced the spleen to die.People carried him back home, and he died in front of me and my wife. Even until the moment of death, he maintained the pride and demeanor that a nobleman should have.

"God knows all and will judge justly." I added at the end.

I originally intended to say that sentence in English, but halfway through the sentence, my poor English vocabulary couldn't remember how to spell the word "judgment", so I had to say it in French.

——No way, learning a French is enough to deal with nobles from all over the world, and even the nobles in Britain speak French. Is it because of the contract signed between Württemberg and Britain that I can speak a little English? !

Two squires in livery came up and pressed my shoulders, and I thought the earl ordered me to be dragged out, and my 24 years of life ended on the gallows.

— but no.

The beautiful priestess came out again from the side door carved with golden roses, still in that hot and graceful attire, only wearing a blue almost transparent cashmere shawl.She respectfully delivered the ball of silvery white in her hand to the earl. The silvery white glowed strangely under the candlelight, like a hibernating snake.

The silver-white snake snaked down from the count's hands, and my pupils constricted for a moment.

"no, you can not……"

I, who can accept even death, struggled in panic for the first time, but the hand on my shoulder was like an eagle's claw grabbing prey, firmly holding me down.

It was a silver-white whip that was as thick as a thumb and more than one meter long.

I can accept death that comes quickly, but I cannot accept being whipped and humiliated like an inferior in front of so many people!

"You devil, Satan, fiend of hell, impudent murderer, bullying savage!"

I even cursed out loud.

The count flicked his whip and looked down at me.

He said in soft French: "I originally thought that after I captured you, I would immediately hang you and the slaves who made a wrong judgment, but I changed my mind now. You thought you died as a nobleman. You need to have a clear understanding of your own identity, and today I am happy to teach you personally, since there are four people here, then I will give you forty lashes."

"Including your own ten lashes, the total is fifty lashes. You should be happy about it. If it were someone else, I would order a hundred lashes and hang him."

As he spoke, he walked around behind me.

When he uttered the last syllable, I was caught off guard, and severe pain spread from my back to my whole body, and then came the sound of a whip hitting me.

It's hard to describe the feeling at that moment, like lightning falling on my back, I almost jumped up in pain, but the two male servants held me firmly.I felt that my bones might have been broken, and there was a scream that I had never heard before rushing out of my throat, it was extremely strange, it didn't sound like my voice at all.

My eyes turned black, my ears were full of buzzing sounds, my mouth was full of blood and rust, and I couldn't even confirm whether my tongue was directly bitten off by myself in severe pain.

The second whip fell.

Someone put a torn piece of cloth in my mouth—or something else, I don't know—to prevent me from making myself dumb, but even so, my screams broke through the barrier and echoed in the flower hall.

The third whip.

I almost swallowed what was in my mouth.

Fourth whip.

I must have fainted briefly.

Fifth whip.

The pain that went deep into the bone marrow woke me up again.

The person holding me loosened his hand for some reason, and in fact he didn't need to guard me anymore.

The sixth whip did not come down for a long time, and my whole body was paralyzed on the carpet, and I didn't even know if I was still alive.

It seemed that someone squatted down and dug out what was stuffed in my mouth, preventing me from suffocating to death.The fresh air choked in, and I didn't even have the strength to cough. The burning pain in my back took away all my cognition, and even the lightest breath could involve heart-piercing pain.

It didn't take long before the blackness in front of my eyes faded away, and the blond man with blue eyes who brought me such a nightmare reappeared in my vision.

The count squatted on the ground, looking at me with interest, and there was a terrible light like a burning fire in his blue eyes.

"It's so pitiful. Tears are streaming all over your face. Surely no one has ever taught you this before?"

He lifted my chin with the handle of the whip.

“How about, are there any more lessons you need to learn about who you are?”

I can't make a sound at all, I can only beg him with horror and pleading eyes.

I have never experienced such terrible torture. Before that, I thought that the whipping when the tutor punished me was the most terrible thing in the world. Until today, I didn't know what the really terrible whipping looks like. In the face of the pain brought about by the nightmare, all the so-called codes were destroyed.

Continuous physical torture is more terrible than a momentary death.

I give in.

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Edmund: Handsome for less than three seconds

This is a manuscript, I can actually have a manuscript hahaha (suddenly confident)