Shen Jianqing was insane. That was the only thought in my head.
I don’t know where the strength came from, but I pushed his hand away and recoiled backward. However, behind me was a deep, bottomless cave, with nothing to lean on.
“Don’t come any closer! I’ve already rejected you!” I said, my voice hoarse, trying to put on a brave front.
Shen Jianqing stood up, his tall frame casting a huge shadow that enveloped me. His face was blank, and he said coldly, “My patience is limited. I spent half a month playing harmless and gentle with you, but since that doesn’t work, I’ll just have to find another way to keep you.”
As he spoke, he reached out and grabbed me like a chick. My right leg couldn’t bear any weight; touching the ground brought excruciating pain.
“Ah! My leg!”
Shen Jianqing saw me wince in pain, lowered his eyes slightly, showing not an ounce of sympathy, his voice enchanting yet uttering malicious words: “How pitiful, a lame leg—serves you right! Weren’t you going to leave?”
With that, he mercilessly continued dragging me out of the cave. I couldn’t keep up; my left foot stumbled, my right leg was immobile and he was practically pulling me with brute force.
As soon as we exited the cave, my eyes teared up due to the intense light. Shen Jianqing loosened his grip, and I fell to the ground.
I covered my eyes with my hand, but he pressed closer. Just as I was confused, Shen Jianqing’s pale hand reached for the collar of my windbreaker!
In an instant, I understood his intention. This little lunatic, this pervert, he actually wanted to!
I grabbed his hand with all my might, my voice trembling: “You’re insane!”
Shen Jianqing brushed the loose hair from his face, sweeping the silver ornament in his hair back as well. He bared his teeth in a brilliant smile, his beauty dazzling me, but fear gripped my heart.
“I’m not insane. Didn’t you ask me to save you? I just want fairness.”
With that, ignoring my struggles, he seized both my wrists with one hand and pulled down the zipper of my clothes with the other.
I never knew Shen Jianqing was so strong. No matter how much I struggled, he didn’t budge. I didn’t want to cry, because books said a victim’s screams couldn’t stop anything; they only fueled the abuser’s darker desires.
But tears still streamed uncontrollably down my face.
My windbreaker was violently torn off, then my shirt, buttons scattering everywhere. His eyes flickered, suddenly noticing something. He paused, then reached out to grab it.
It was the sachet that had fallen from my pocket during the struggle.
Seizing this brief opening, my hand seemed to touch something hard. Without thinking, I instinctively swung it, using all my strength to hit Shen Jianqing on the forehead.
Shen Jianqing’s body stiffened, and blood immediately flowed from the wound.
My heart pounded wildly, my breathing tearing at my lungs. Pushing Shen Jianqing away, I scrambled up and hobbled two steps when suddenly a sharp pain shot through my lower back. I was sent flying forward with immense force, tumbling into the grass.
Shen Jianqing twisted my arm from behind, yanking me up from the ground.
I turned to look at him. Blood streamed down Shen Jianqing’s forehead, half his face covered in it, looking like a ghost risen from hell. In the vibrant red blood, the red mole on his eyelid appeared even more bewitching and vivid.
I had never witnessed such a scene in my twenty years, and I was instantly terrified.
He gritted his teeth and said, “Neither of us should be picky now, Li Yuze!” He almost bit out those last three words, as if trying to chew my name into pieces.
Shen Jianqing pushed me down onto the unfolded windbreaker, then reached for a vine hanging from an old tree and tightly bound my wrists together.
My arms were twisted painfully, and no matter how I struggled, I couldn’t move them an inch.
Shen Jianqing looked down at me, enjoying my powerless, furious squirming like a worm. Only then did he flip me over, take a silver chain from his hair, thread it through the sachet he had picked up, and intimately hang it around my neck.
“According to our customs, accepting a sachet means accepting affection. You kept my sachet, so do you have feelings for me too?”
“I quickly shook my head, “Please let me go. We’re both—ah!”
Before I could finish, a piercing pain suddenly erupted. It was a torment I had never imagined. I arched backward in agony, feeling as though I was being split in half from the middle. For a moment, my mind went blank with nothing but pain. It felt like dying.
It took a while for my vision, which had turned black, to finally clear. Shen Jianqing was staring at me with a strange, vicious look. Seeing me look at him, he leaned down, trying to kiss me intimately.
I turned my head away, but he didn’t seem to care either and kissed the corner of my mouth instead. I heard his low voice, somewhat hoarse, filled with an indescribable satisfaction: “Li Yuze, look at me.”
He seemed to have reverted to the pure, kind Shen Jianqing, his eyes filled with innocent affection, but this version of him now only disgusted me.
Shen Jianqing softened his voice, “Just get used to it this time; it’s my first attempt too. Next time, next time it will definitely…”
“Get lost…” I gasped, my bound hands numb and senseless. My injured leg scraped against the ground again and again, aching fiercely. My entire body hurts.
Even harder to bear was the mental anguish. I never imagined experiencing any of this today; it was too terrifying, worse than the most horrific nightmare. It felt as if I was suddenly shattered by an external force, but what fell away in pieces was my dignity. All the education I had received and all the principles I had learned forbade such a thing from happening to me.
The world spun, my stomach began to cramp and churn, and a chill permeated my blood. But Shen Jianqing remained buried on top of me like an animal. Oh, no. I tilted my head back, my vision blurring, my consciousness slowly drifting away. Finally, in my haze, I thought maliciously, He’s just an animal.
I slept for a long time after that, but eventually, I woke up. When I opened my eyes again, I was in a familiar room, it was Shen Jianqing’s stilt house.
I was in a daze, as if everything that had happened was just a dream. No abrupt departure, no cave, nothing at all; it was as if none of it had ever occurred. I shifted my body, and all the pain instantly caught up to me.
“Hiss—”
My back ached, my foot hurt, my forehead throbbed, and my whole body was wretched. Nothing felt normal. It was like being repeatedly run over by a large truck, my flesh and bones crushed into fragments and dust.
“Damn you, Shen Jianqing.”
I cursed under my breath, but it didn’t alleviate an ounce of my anger at all. However, what I hated most was myself. We were far too naive. If we hadn’t been so careless with him, believing the false facade he presented, how could we have ended up in this state? If I had known this would happen today, I would rather have gotten lost and died in Shidi Mountain than follow him to this Shidi Miao village!
Just then, slow, unhurried footsteps echoed from outside the door. My heart panicked, so I simply lay back down and continued to feign sleep.
Soon, the sound of a lock turning came from outside, and then the door was pushed open. Shen Jianqing walked step by step to my bedside.
I kept my eyes tightly shut, not wanting to face Shen Jianqing. I truly didn’t know how to confront him. Should I jump up and attack him? But with my current physical state, I’d probably just end up getting beaten by him. Should I cry out about his brutal actions? But I couldn’t bring myself to make a scene.
A knot of anger was trapped in my chest, unable to escape or be swallowed. It was like I had swallowed a thorn, it couldn’t go up or down, stuck in the middle and painfully pricking me.
In the past, I used to disdain comforting words like “treat it like a dog bite” or “it was just a dream,” believing one should always take up arms to defend oneself. But in my current situation and environment, it seemed there was no other way to comfort myself. Yet, I also loathed this powerless version of myself, like an Ah Q[mfn]A character from Lu Xun’s novella.[/mfn] relying on spiritual victories.
Shen Jianqing sat down by my bed, and goosebumps instantly rose on my skin. He softly said, “You’re not very good at pretending to sleep.”
My heart immediately sank, slowly submerging as if in water. He wouldn’t even give me space to avoid him.
I helplessly opened my eyes and met his steady gaze.
The moment our eyes met, all my mental defenses crumbled. If only I had Xu Zirong’s physique, or if my physical condition were better, I would rush at Shen Jianqing and fight him to the death already. But ai, I’m not an athlete, and now I’m both sick and weak.
When you’re under someone else’s roof, making a scene is useless. I didn’t want to bring more suffering upon myself.
I could only endure.
Shen Jianqing’s forehead wound wasn’t bandaged, but it had already scabbed over, no longer showing the terrifying, blood-soaked appearance from before. Yet, my forehead was covered in herbs.
Meeting my hesitant gaze, Shen Jianqing’s eyes curved as he touched his forehead, smiling. “This is the first gift you gave me; of course, I must cherish it forever and not let it disappear.”
My breath hitched. What was he saying? A gift? He must be out of his mind!
He paused, then added, “Oh, I originally wanted to keep the wound on your forehead too, so we could match. But I was afraid you wouldn’t like the scar, so I bandaged it for you first. I’ll collect my reward later, though.”
His natural attitude left me bewildered. “Reward?”
“That’s right. The previous… incident,” Shen Jianqing said, smiling shyly like a young man in love, “that covered me saving you. But the bandaging, of course, has to be calculated separately.”
He was truly driving me mad.
What on earth was going on in Shen Jianqing’s mind?
This was his true face: a pervert, a lunatic. It was regrettable that I was only just realizing it now.
I endured the pain and struggled to sit up, finally tearing off the polite facade. “Shen Jianqing, stop being crazy. I’m a man!”
Shen Jianqing nodded very seriously. “I know. I’ve personally verified it.”
I said hatefully, “If you like men and want to find one, don’t bother others, and don’t come looking for me either, okay? I have a normal life; it’s impossible for me to waste it with you! You’ve had your fun now, can you let me go? I can pretend nothing ever happened, and I won’t tell anyone the secrets of this place either. Just let me leave!”
Shen Jianqing’s expression instantly darkened. He sneered, “You’re feverish and talking nonsense. Now that you’re here, do you think you can still leave?”
I glared at him.
But then, he seemed to suddenly remember something. The gloom on his face vanished, replaced by a sinister smile. “Oh, and your three friends. Do you think they’ll be alright?”
“What do you mean?”
“The Miao Gu has already taken root. Their minds may already be getting eaten away by the Gu insects, leaving them as mindless puppets under the Gu’s control. No one can live to expose the secrets of this place.”
Shen Jianqing finished, playfully patting my cheek. I felt as if I’d fallen into an ice cave, finally understanding the reason behind Qiu Lu and Xu Zirong’s strange illnesses. The nights they suddenly had fevers, only to recover eerily the next day. We hadn’t thought much of it, or rather, even if we had, there was no solution.
It turned out we had been mired in this mess all along.
