The Prisoner of Beauty - Chapter 123

Chapter 123

Upon returning, Xiao Qiao sat down and immediately fell into a daze, remaining completely motionless.

Just moments ago, she had met Zong Ji in the corner courtyard beside the side gate and inquired about the battle situation at Lingbi. Nanny Chun, who was also present, had finally grasped a bit of what had transpired.

Zong Ji said that when he departed, Yang Xin was attacking the territory of Xiao, and Xue An had also caught wind of the news and arrived once again. However, he urged the Lady not to be overly anxious. The territory of Xiao was easy to defend but difficult to attack, and Bi Zhi frequently employed ingenious strategies in his military operations. Furthermore, Yang Xin and Xue An were also mutually wary of each other, so Lingbi should be safe for the time being.

Zong Ji also mentioned that his purpose in arriving here yesterday was to deliver a written letter from Bi Zhi to the Lord Marquis. However, the Lord Marquis had offered no reply.

Although he did not know the contents of Bi Zhi's letter, he knew it must be related to the battle situation at Lingbi. Still hoping that the Lord Marquis might provide a reply, he had taken it upon himself to ask the Lady for assistance in pressing for an inquiry once more.

The news they heard filled Nanny Chun with deep worry.

Although Zong Ji claimed that Lingbi was safe for the time being, even Nanny Chun could tell that the current safety of Lingbi was, in truth, already hanging by a thread.

The fact that the Lady had reacted so drastically when reading the letter just now was undoubtedly due to her worry over the battle situation at Lingbi as well.

Nanny Chun surmised that the contents of the letter Bi Zhi had written to the Lord Marquis must be a plea for help.

The contents of Da Qiao's letter to the Lady must be the same.

Returning now and seeing her sitting there with a rigid expression, Nanny Chun grew even more worried. She stepped forward to comfort and advise her, saying, "Lady, do not worry. Last time Xue Tai attacked Yanzhou, the Lord stepped forward to help and dissolved the difficulty. Now that Lingbi is in danger, if the Lady speaks properly to the Lord, the Lord should also help dissolve it..."

"Nanny Chun, go call Jia Si here to me!" Xiao Qiao suddenly commanded.

Her words interrupted, Nanny Chun looked at Xiao Qiao.

The Lady's face appeared considerably more composed compared to just moments ago.

Hesitating slightly, Nanny Chun gave a word of assent and hurriedly went out to relay the message.

After Nanny Chun went out, Xiao Qiao closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath.

...

Suddenly hearing the Lady's summons, Jia Si dared not delay and rushed over in a hurry. He waited below the steps outside the inner door of the Lady's residence.

He waited for a long time, and just as his heart began to feel anxious, he suddenly heard the faint, rustling sound of footsteps.

Lifting his eyes, he saw a familiar, slender and graceful figure emerge from the other end of the corridor. His heart skipped a beat, and not daring to look any closer, he hurriedly lowered his head.

Xiao Qiao came to a halt on the steps of the door. After Jia Si paid his respects to her, her gaze fell upon his face, and she uttered not a single word.

Being looked at by her caused Jia Si's heart to thud wildly, and combined with his guilty conscience and the hot weather, sweat even began to break out on his forehead.

After a long while, he finally heard the Lady's voice carry over from above his head: "General Jia, the letter I entrusted you to send to Lingbi last time has failed to yield a reply for a long time. Perhaps it was lost on the road. Because the matter is of grave importance, I thought about it and wrote another one. I must trouble General Jia to deliver it for me again."

Jia Si first breathed a sigh of relief.

Immediately following that, a shred of guilt welled up in his heart.

Hesitating, he saw that the Lady had already extended the letter cylinder toward him, so he hurriedly stepped forward and received it with both hands.

"Thank you, General Jia."

Xiao Qiao flashed a slight smile at him, turned, and walked away.

Jia Si watched the Lady's departing figure gradually fade into the distance, his hand tightly clutching the letter cylinder that felt somewhat scorching to the touch. Recalling her smile from just now, his mood suddenly became incredibly downcast. After standing beneath the steps for a long while, he finally turned and slowly departed.

...

In the evening, Wei Shao returned. Dismounting and entering the interior, Jia Si went up to greet him.

Jia Si's father had formerly been a general under the banner of Wei Jing and had later died in battle. Jia Si had entered the Tiger Brave Imperial Guards at the age of sixteen. Since two years ago, Wei Shao had entrusted him with the rank of Commander of the Tiger Brave Imperial Guards, which showed his trust. Seeing him come to greet him, Wei Shao casually asked as he walked inside, "Has anything occurred today?"

"Reporting to the Lord Marquis, nothing occurred today..."

Wei Shao nodded, striding forward with large steps.

Jia Si stared at the Lord Marquis's back, a battle between heaven and man raging within his heart. Suddenly recalling the oath of loyalty he had sworn when first entering the Tiger Brave Imperial Guards ten years ago, his palms grew slick with sweat. In the end, he chased after him for a few steps, went up, and said, "There is only one thing. The Lady instructed me to send another letter to Lingbi."

With both hands, he finally presented the letter cylinder.

Wei Shao stopped his pace, his gaze resting on the letter cylinder for a moment before he took it, entered the Sheyang Residence, and went straight to the study.

He had naturally already read the previous letter that he had intercepted.

In the letter, his wife had primarily asked about the battle situation between the green-eyed refugee leader and Yang Xin and Xue An, and then inquired about the daily lives of the couple and the recent state of that little baby. All of these were automatically ignored by Wei Shao. What drew his attention was a passage she had written about her own daily life, which mentioned him.

She wrote, "...Xindu is the place where my husband and I first met and held our grand wedding. Revisiting this old haunt today, aside from feeling filled with emotion, I also experience quite a bit of joy. My husband and I once ascended to the peak of the Tan Platform at night; the brilliant Milky Way reflected across the dome of the sky. The scene at that time remains unforgettable after all this time..."

It was precisely these few lines that Wei Shao, hidden from others, had read back and forth several times.

His intention in ordering Jia Si to intercept his wife's correspondence was naturally that he did not wish for her to find out what he was doing behind her back to her refugee leader brother-in-law.

By simply severing her communication coming and going with that side, it would be impossible for her to know the details, thereby avoiding future troubles.

Yet he had never expected to accidentally read such a passage of content in the letter.

At that time, he had felt a sense of thrilling excitement, as if he had peeked into the hidden secrets of his wife's heart.

She would never speak of these things to him normally.

He had originally intended to burn her letter, lest keeping it cause trouble if she happened to see it in the future.

But because of this passage written in the letter, he could not bear to burn it and had hidden it away in the study.

Today, he had intercepted another one of her letters.

Wei Shao's mood at this moment was a mixture of curiosity and a faint hint of anticipation.

He wondered what she would say in the letter she sent out this time?

...

Wei Shao took a small knife to pry open the letter cylinder, and a piece of snow-white silk slipped out from inside, rolled up neatly and bound around the middle with a green silk ribbon.

Wei Shao began untying the silk ribbon. Unable to undo the knot for a moment, his impatient nature flared up, and he snapped it with a forceful tug, unfolding it eagerly.

His gaze fell upon the silk, and his eyes instantly froze.

Right in the center of the silk stood only a single column of four large characters: Have you no shame, Wei Shao?

The characters were dipped in thick ink, the ink marks penetrating deeply into the warp and weft of the fabric, blurring outward shred by shred.

It was apparent how immense the force of the brush strokes must have been when the person wrote these four characters at that time.

Wei Shao's gaze was fixed dead upon these four characters, his entire person seemingly frozen. Suddenly coming to his senses as if pierced fiercely by a needle, he leaped up abruptly. His movement was far too hurried, and his knee slammed into the low desk in front of him. The desk bounced from his impact, and a stack of bamboo slips piled on the surface slid off entirely, clattering loudly as they fell to the floor.

Wei Shao's knee also throbbed with pain from being struck by the hard wood of the desk. Unable to spare a moment to rub it, he hopped down from the seating couch on one foot and walked forward at a flying pace. He had just taken a step toward the doorway when the two closed doors of the study gave a sharp creak, pushed open forcefully by someone.

Xiao Qiao appeared at the doorway, her face masked in rage, her gaze falling upon Wei Shao's hand.

Following her line of sight, Wei Shao looked down and only then realized that he was still clutching that piece of white silk in his hand, whereupon he hurriedly hid it behind his back.

Xiao Qiao stepped inside, letting out a cold laugh. "Is my handwriting still pleasing to the eye, Husband?"

Wei Shao's face flushed slightly, his expression awkward. After staring at Xiao Qiao for a moment, he suddenly bared his teeth in a smile, tossed aside that piece of silk in his hand, and walked quickly to stand before Xiao Qiao. Raising his hands to embrace her, he said, "It is entirely this husband's fault! Manman must absolutely not be angry; it is not worth ruining your health over anger! In the future, this husband will never dare do it again..."

Before his words could even finish, he was met with Xiao Qiao gritting her teeth and pushing him away with a forceful, desperate shove.

Under normal circumstances, how could Wei Shao be pushed aside by her? At this moment, however, she was burning with rage and exerted the strength of her entire body. Combined with Wei Shao being caught off guard, he was actually pushed backward by her palms, retreating four or five steps in succession before finally coming to a halt.

Stopping his feet, Wei Shao blanked for a moment, then went up to her again as if nothing had happened. Extending his arms, he scooped her into his embrace with a firm grip, lowering his head to kiss her. Amidst Xiao Qiao's struggles, he kissed her by force. Suddenly, a sharp pain flared across his cheek; with a loud slap, he was actually struck across the face by Xiao Qiao raising her hand to deliver a blow.

He ignored it entirely, simply pushing Xiao Qiao to pin her against the wall as he continued to lower his head to kiss her, speaking indistinctly from his mouth, "Manman, do not be angry... This husband knows he was wrong; I shouldn't have privately intercepted your letters... It will never happen again in the future..."

Xiao Qiao was forcibly pinned to the wall by his two arms and his pressing body as he kissed her. Unable to break free, she felt an absolute hatred in her heart. Finally managing to free one arm, she struck him across the face with another vicious slap.

This time the strike was heavy, leaving several red fingernail marks and finger prints on his face, while her own palm also began to throb with a burning pain.

Wei Shao's face was slapped to one side by her. He slowly turned his face back, rubbing his cheek himself, a look of awkwardness and irritation surfacing within his dark, pitch-black eyes as he looked at Xiao Qiao. "That should be about enough, right? You've already given me two slaps. Isn't it just that I didn't send your letter out? I will have someone send it for you right this instant, how about that?"

"Wei Shao, even at a time like this, you actually still want to deceive me?"

For the first time, Xiao Qiao called him straight by his name to his face. Her beautiful eyes were extraordinarily bright because of her rage, as if sparks were splattering within them.

"Do you think I don't know that Yang Xin has long been acting according to your commands? It was clearly you who instigated Yang Xin to attack my brother-in-law! When I inquired with you last time, you actually still had the face to put on an act and spout utter nonsense in front of me!"

Wei Shao stared at her, the look of vexation and awkwardness on his face gradually fading away as he suddenly knit his brows. "How do you know all this? Who told you?" His voice had already taken on a touch of chill.

Silence settled over the study.

Beside Xiao Qiao's ears, there remained only the sound of her own breathing, which had become rapid due to her fury.

Her back was still pressed tightly against the wall. She closed her eyes, and after a long while, she slowly opened them, tilting her face slightly to meet Wei Shao's two streams of gaze.

"This was precisely your purpose in intercepting my letters, wasn't it? You didn't want me to know that you were already dealing with my family."

Her voice was hoarse.

"I know that in your heart, you can never let go of the feud over your father and brother. If you want to take action to deal with my family, you can; I have no right to stop you. But you shouldn't have deceived me in this manner! On one hand, you repeatedly claim to love me, making me think you would be magnanimous toward my family and causing my heart to harbor gratitude and hold onto illusions. Yet on the other hand, turning your back, you do such things with the intent to harm them! In your eyes, what exactly do you take me for?"

The fire of rage within her eyes had already died down, turning bleak and lusterless.

"Wei Shao, you disappoint me greatly. Truly disappointed."

Xiao Qiao gazed intently at him, speaking finally, slowly, word by word.

Wei Shao stared at her, his breathing gradually becoming heavy and coarse. Suddenly executing a turn, he cast her aside and strode with large steps toward the doorway. Reaching the door, he paused once more, turning his head to say, "The Xu and Huai region possesses crucial geography, and I am determined to obtain it! How can I allow anyone else to covet the prize within my purse? If it were not for the sake of your face, I would have ordered Yang Xin to use his full strength to drive that refugee leader out and kill him to the last man long ago! How would it have reached the point where he was allowed to grow powerful until today, sufficient to contend with Yang Xin?"

With that, with a loud clang, he slammed the door and departed.