Chapter 12: Killing Hu Wu

These years, Feng Zhu had not never resisted.

On the contrary, she had resisted many times; she had escaped, and even tried to kill him when Qin Fu was asleep or drunk, but she failed every time, paying the price with her crippled right leg and several missing fingers.

In this endless darkness, Qin Fu gradually grew in her heart into a terrifying, hateful, immovable black mountain.

This mountain that had weighed on her for years suddenly collapsed before her eyes; her tense, crawling body finally stood upright, she lifted her head, as if truly seeing countless stones and ashes falling rustlingly before her, and in every speck of dust was reflected the torment, torture, and humiliation she had endured for years...

Countless terrible, hateful memories roared wildly; Feng Zhu suddenly clutched her head and screamed hoarsely, losing the last shred of reason.

Shaowei knelt beside her mother, calling uneasily: "Mother..."

Hearing this call, Feng Zhu lifted her head, revealing a face twisted by hatred and pain.

Shaowei was always overly cautious, only never guarded against Mother.

From being thrown down and landing on her back, her head striking the cold hard ground, to her neck being tightly gripped by a pair of hands, Shaowei never came to her senses, nor thought of resisting.

"Bastard... you bastard! You should never have come into this world!"

"Giving birth to you... was the most arrogant and foolish mistake I ever made!"

Shaowei stared blankly at her mother's painfully shifting face, for a moment not knowing how to react.

Mother's emotions were unstable; occasionally when grief, shock, and anger flared, she had shown her a cold expression... but a look wanting to kill her like now was the first time.

Shaowei was stunned for a long while, until her breathing became increasingly difficult, before she instinctively raised her hand, wanting to pry her mother's hand open.

Feng Zhu was already frail, and now injured; Shaowei surely could break free, but for some reason, Shaowei's hesitation far outweighed her strength; she only clutched her mother's wrist, looking at her mother's face.

Her mother's face also had many wounds; where tears of hatred fell, Shaowei felt it hurt more than being cut by a blade.

Shaowei's eyelashes trembled, and tears rolled from her eye corners into her hair; she suddenly felt wronged—she had only died once, dying hurt terribly, and before dying it also hurt terribly; after great difficulty she saw Mother again, she had many things she wanted to say to Mother, only fearing that saying them all would frighten Mother, make Mother worry... but now, did Mother actually want her to die again?

Shaowei had never hurt like this before, a hundred times more painful than when she fell ill; and she had a bad temper—when wronged and hurt, she would get angry, and when angry, revenge would arise; being harmed, she wanted to return it double—

Shaowei, wronged and hurting, felt she should be angry.

So her grip on her mother's wrist began to tighten; just as she was about to fling that hand away hard, she suddenly realized that wrist was pitifully thin.

Shaowei's movement suddenly stalled again; in her buzzing mind many unrelated things surged up, such as what she had heard women in the zhai say: women giving birth passed through the Gate of Ghosts, and almost every year women in the zhai died in difficult labor.

She was hurting very much now... but what about Mother giving birth to her?

How much pain, how much danger, how much helplessness had Mother endured then?

Yet Mother still chose to give birth to her, raised her, and gave her a good name.

Her experiences in the Feng Family also flew before Shaowei's eyes like old dust and withered leaves—cold mockery among siblings, her uncle's earnest words... in short, that she was a stain was always undisputed.

Shaowei thought at this moment that she could accept no one's accusation that she was a stain, except Mother.

Mother was the only person in the world qualified and reasonable to regard her as a stain.

So her mother had only done one thing wrong: she should not have let her be born, or should have strangled her immediately after birth—if she were Mother, she would surely do so.

Since this was so, it was not too late for Mother to think of doing this now.

Then let Mother do what should have been done long ago: end everything related to this filthy place, go home without attachments, to her father and mother who missed her, cared for her, loved her, and looked forward to her return.

Shaowei held back her tears, closed her eyes decisively, and the hand clutching her mother's wrist also loosened.

Besides the jumbled thoughts that made Shaowei suppress her survival instinct, there was even an unspeakable self-esteem—if you want to take back the life you gave me, then I will return it to you.

The girl closed her eyes, but still shed more tears because she could not breathe.

But just before she was about to lose consciousness, the pair of hands that wanted to take her life suddenly let go.

Cold air surged again into Shaowei's suffocating, painful chest.

Feng Zhu knelt with head bowed, trembling hands propping on the ground; the pain in her cries was ten thousand times greater than before.

Outside the room, wind and snow still raged.

Feng Zhu closed her eyes and cried loudly; Shaowei opened her eyes and lay quietly.

Until the sound of fine accumulated snow moving reached Shaowei's sensitive ears.

Someone was coming.

Today the snow was heavy; there was nothing in the zhai, and people in the zhai rarely dared to disturb the drunken Qin Fu unless there was urgent business.

The one who came was Hu Wu; he wore an old vermilion outer robe, a wind hood to keep off snow, and a string of long waist bells at his waist rang urgently as he walked; his panicked voice followed the bell sound: "Dang Jia, a great evil will happen today! Please Dang Jia..."

The moment Hu Wu lifted the curtain and entered, his voice suddenly cut off, and his feet suddenly stalled.

The muddled Feng Zhu was still crying loudly; Hu Wu had heard it when approaching this tall house; in this place, women's crying and shouting were too common, nothing to care about; what made him stop and change expression now was what he saw before him...

The room was full of blood; the bloody smell, half covered by wine aroma, now slowly poured into Hu Wu's mouth and nose; he looked trembling at Qin Fu's mangled, shapeless corpse, and even more terrifying was that the only girl standing in the room had now drawn her bow toward him—

It was the long bow hung high by Qin Fu; this bow was a Changshao Dagon, the bow body almost as tall as the girl; she did not yet have the arm strength to draw this bow, but she now stood there, raising her right leg to brace the bow arm straight, her right hand hooking the string, her left hand holding the arrow nock, all ten fingers working together to pull the heavy string almost fully back, the arrow aimed straight at him...

Colder and more dangerous than the arrow was that pair of childish eyebrows and eyes.

Hu Wu's face turned deathly pale; he stiffly retreated a step, muttering a sentence of Xiongnu speech Shaowei did not understand; he knew all pleas were useless—this child was no different from a wild beast; when a beast had murderous intent, it would not be persuaded or scared away by words, only startled and enraged.

Hu Wu could only retreat another step, fantasizing that he could slowly withdraw from the other's attack range like this.

"He was looking for you just now," the girl said. "You should follow him quickly."

Hu Wu, retreating to the curtain edge, turned and fled.

With his movement, the lifted cloth curtain behind him had just fallen halfway, blocking his upper body, but could not block the sharp arrowhead.

The feather arrow first pierced the cloth curtain, then pierced his back heart.

Hu Wu fell to the ground hit by an arrow; Shaowei lowered her leg and put away the bow, turning to look at her mother who was still crying and trembling.

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【Attached: Shaowei drawing bow reference image:】

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(Chapter End)