Chapter 113: Chapter 113

Ji Shuying’s phoenix eyes blazed with authority. Her gaze swept the wreckage-strewn floor, then the wild-haired, hate-twisted figure of Ji Yuande. Her chest rose and fell rapidly.

Shen Xiuhan followed in silence, his expression unreadable, and stood behind her.

The maidservant took one look at the household head and nearly fainted from fright. She dropped to her knees with a thud.

Ji Shuying’s lovely eyes burned with fury. She stared at Ji Yuande on the bed, her voice cold as black ice.

“You… if you take back what you just said and offer a sincere apology, I will pretend I heard nothing. The family will continue your treatment.”

“Treatment? Ha ha ha…”

Ji Yuande’s bloodshot eyes brimmed with tears that spilled uncontrollably, trailing down gaunt cheeks.

His voice was a raw, broken rasp.

“Is there even anything left to treat? How long are you going to keep lying to me? I’m already a cripple! A cripple!”

Ji Shuying’s voice was ice.

“Doctor Wen says that although your spine is broken and martial arts are no longer possible, with careful rehabilitation you may eventually walk and stand like a normal person…”

“Can’t practice martial arts… how is that any different from killing me!!!”

Ji Yuande looked as though she’d struck a nerve. His face went mottled purple, veins writhing across his neck.

But after the eruption of fury passed —

A thread of abject, groveling pleading crept across his face.

He gritted his teeth, dragged his limp upper body forward — worming along the bed’s edge like a maggot — inch by agonizing inch. Then he toppled to the floor with a THUD.

His body wouldn’t obey. He couldn’t even hold a kneeling position. All he could do was sprawl flat, craning his face upward.

“Household head… household head!”

“If you truly care about me, then marry the Second Young Lady to me!”

His voice trembled, choked with sobs, every word a plea.

“I may be crippled, but that’s actually… actually perfect — it kills any wandering thoughts once and for all!”

“I swear, for the rest of my days, I’ll devote myself entirely to Miss Xue! If a single word of that is false, let heaven strike me dead!”

“Household head, I’m begging you… Yuande is begging you…!”

The wretched display drew a quiet shake of the head from Shen Xiuhan.

Pitiable and contemptible in equal measure…

At a time like this, and still lost in fantasies of riding a great family’s coattails.

Predictably —

Every trace of pity vanished from Ji Shuying’s eyes. Her voice held no warmth at all.

“I will not agree. Xue’er will never consent. Give up this dream.”

Each word fell like a hammer, smashing Ji Yuande’s last illusion to dust.

He froze in place. His mouth opened and closed, but no coherent sound emerged — only tears flowing in silence.

“I acknowledge that you served the family. What you said just now — I will chalk it up to the shock of your injury and let it pass.”

“Rest and recover. Do not raise this matter again.”

With that, Ji Shuying’s phoenix eyes half-closed. She flicked her embroidered robe and turned to leave.

At that instant, Ji Yuande’s voice slithered out from behind her — cold, venomous, tinged with lunatic spite.

“Heartless bitch! If you won’t show mercy, don’t blame me for showing none!”

“You think I don’t know about your filthy little secret? You and that Mei Hall master — behind closed doors, polishing the mirror for each other’s pleasure…”

SWISH!

Ji Shuying’s steps locked. Her eyes flew wide, and in their depths, a tidal wave of killing intent erupted.

“You’re asking to die!”

Before the words had fully left her lips —

Ji Shuying’s figure blurred into a ghostly afterimage, closing on Ji Yuande in an instant.

That small, embroidered-slipper-clad foot — deceptively dainty — lashed out with a shriek of torn air and slammed into Ji Yuande’s body.

BANG!

The prone figure launched off the floor like a hurled sack, crashing into the sandalwood bed.

CRASH!

The bed shattered, splinters flying.

The force bounced his body off the wall with a heavy, muffled impact.

SHUNK!

Ji Yuande sprayed a mouthful of blood — mist laced with fragments of organ — that spattered across the floor in a horrifying display.

Then he crumpled, limp, eyes unfocused. Whether he was alive or dead was impossible to tell.

Shen Xiuhan stood a few paces away, pupils contracting slightly.

The force packed into that single kick — even at this distance — pressed against his chest like a wall.

Beside him, the maidservant let out a piercing shriek, then clapped both hands over her mouth. Her teeth chattered. She shook like a leaf in a storm.

Ji Shuying’s chest heaved. She drew a deep breath, forcing down the qi-blood churning inside her. Her voice was low.

“Xiao Lu… get up. Call a few people. Have this madman… sent back to the country estate.”

“Y-yes, household head!”

The maid scrambled to her feet and bolted out without daring to utter another syllable.

Ji Shuying stood in silence for a long time, then reassembled the cool, composed dignity of her usual bearing. She continued escorting Shen Xiuhan to the gate.

The night breeze blew. Ji Shuying’s voice carried a thread of weariness.

“Little Six… you must think that was quite the spectacle.”

Shen Xiuhan halted and spoke in a measured tone. “Don’t say that, Auntie Ji. No one could have predicted he’d lose his mind to that degree.”

Ji Shuying’s lips twitched. She hesitated, then ventured.

“What he said just now…”

“Auntie Ji, rest easy.”

Shen Xiuhan raised a hand, cutting the thread short. His voice was frank.

“A madman’s ravings. Not worth a second thought.”

Relief softened Ji Shuying’s features. She nodded her farewell.

After Shen Xiuhan’s figure disappeared down the lane, a commotion stirred at the Ji estate’s side gate.

Two household guards drove out an ox-cart bearing the unconscious Ji Yuande.

His face was corpse-white, dried blood crusted at the corners of his mouth — but his chest still rose and fell. He was alive.

Ji Shuying stood in the shadows, watching the cart recede into the darkness. A flicker of cold ruthlessness passed through her eyes.

She shifted her footing, and her figure melted silently into the wake of the cart — swallowed by the vast night.

…

The hour grew late.

The long street lay quiet. Every household on either side had doused its lamps.

Shen Xiuhan walked the empty lane and stopped before his own front gate. He reached up, took hold of the copper ring, and knocked three times.

TAP. TAP. TAP.

The crisp sound carried far in the stillness.

A moment later, Madam Zheng’s wary voice came from within.

“In the dead of night… who’s out there?”

“Ma. It’s me.”

A beat of silence. Then a burst of joy.

“Dalang?!”

The bar scraped free. With a soft creak, the wooden gate swung inward.

Madam Zheng stood in a thin outer robe, her hair slightly disheveled — clearly she’d already been in bed.

She held an oil lamp. Firelight played across her face, full of delighted surprise.

“Why so late getting back?”

Shen Xiuhan smiled.

“I got back this afternoon, but had to stop at the master’s house first. Got held up a while. Let’s talk inside, Ma.”

“Yes, yes — come in, quick!”

Madam Zheng looked him over from head to toe, her gaze lingering on his face. She took his hand, her eyes soft with tenderness.

“Coming all that way — you haven’t had supper yet, have you? Go sit in the hall. I’ll boil some water and poach you a couple of eggs with a bowl of hot noodles!”

She bustled off to the kitchen, stoking the fire and setting water to boil.

Shen Xiuhan walked to the courtyard well, hauled up half a bucket of cool water, bent to splash his face, and dried his hands on a cloth. Then he drifted to the kitchen doorway and watched his mother’s busy silhouette.

“Ma, where’s Momo?”

SIZZLE…

Madam Zheng tossed a pinch of scallion into the hot wok. Oil spattered, and the fragrance bloomed instantly.

She answered without turning.

“Asleep already.”

“A few days ago, your master and your senior sister came by for a bowl of noodles. Must’ve liked the taste, because they’ve been dropping in for lunch quite often since.”

“You know Momo — bold as brass and never met a stranger. Once she got to know them, she started insisting she wanted to learn martial arts too, just like her big brother.”

Madam Zheng shook out the hand-pulled noodles and dropped them into the rolling water. White ribbons tumbled through the boil, steam billowing.

“But your master said learning martial arts means learning to read first — otherwise you can’t even make sense of the manuals. So she found a private tutor in the inner city for Momo to study classics and characters.”

“Nowadays, the girl spends eight hours a day there. By the time she gets home, she drops straight to sleep. No energy left for mischief.”

Shen Xiuhan pictured the tiny figure, dazed and blank-faced, perched in a schoolroom while a tutor droned through the classics. He couldn’t help but laugh.

Before long, a steaming bowl of plain noodles — topped with two golden poached eggs — arrived on the wooden table.

Bright green scallion. Fragrant broth.

Shen Xiuhan cradled the bowl and ate without caring that it burned his mouth. Great, hungry gulps.

The noodles were springy, the broth savory, and each egg burst with a molten yolk that warmed him from the inside better than any rare delicacy in the world.

After the meal, Shen Xiuhan returned to his room and lay down fully clothed.

Listening to the occasional, faint bark of a dog drifting through the deep alley beyond the window, Shen Xiuhan slowly closed his eyes.

In this treacherous, cloud-shadowed world where human lives were cheaper than grass —

Only here, inside this courtyard that smelled of hearth-smoke and home cooking —

Did his heart feel solid.