A Lifetime of Peace - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I wiped Lu Shi’an clean and applied medicine to his wounds.

Before I could finish tidying up, someone came to the door.

It was the man who had broken Lu Shi’an’s legs over a personal grudge.

Song Cheng raised his brows and looked me up and down. “You’re the one who bought Lu Shi’an?”

I lowered my eyes and bowed my head, answering yes.

He gave a derisive snort, shoved me aside, and strode in as if he owned the place.

“You’ve got some nerve.”

Once inside, Song Cheng made himself right at home, sitting down on the only chair beside the bed. He reached out and toyed with the edge of Lu Shi’an’s robe.

“Little lady, you’re awfully generous. Even putting medicine on a cripple like him. Throwing silver into the water, aren’t you? Doesn’t it hurt?”

His gaze slid over Lu Shi’an’s fair skin, and something flickered in his eyes.

“You siblings really are born good-looking. I remember that girl Mingxi was all pale skin under her clothes too, smooth as silk…”

With a bang, Song Cheng was caught off guard as Lu Shi’an punched him in the face, sending both him and the chair toppling to the floor.

But Lu Shi’an was in even worse shape.

That punch had drained every bit of strength he had. Now he could only collapse at the edge of the bed, gasping hoarsely, his eyes webbed with red as if soaked in blood.

“Beast…”

Song Cheng wiped at the corner of his mouth and rose with a smile. He seized Lu Shi’an by the hair and forced his head up.

“Young Marquis Lu really hasn’t learned a thing. You beat me up last time, and even now, several of my bones still ache.”

At last year’s Lantern Festival, Song Cheng had run into Lu Shi’an’s younger sister after she snuck out of the manor.

The girl was young, her features tender and beautiful. He had drunk too much, heat rising in him, and he no longer cared that she was Marquis Lu’s precious daughter. He pinned her down in an alley and tried to have his way with her.

But just as he had tugged Lu Mingxi’s clothes loose, Lu Shi’an found them.

The moment Lu Shi’an saw his own sister with her clothes in disarray and two swollen red handprints on her soft, fair little face, his mind went blank with a buzz.

Song Cheng had nearly been beaten to death.

If Song Cheng had not had an aunt who was a Noble Consort pleading for him, even his title as heir might have been stripped away.

Thinking of this, malice crept into Song Cheng’s expression.

“I’m buying this man.”

He threw me a piece of silver, then dragged Lu Shi’an by the hair, yanking half his body off the bed by force.

From the look of it, he meant to drag him all the way back to his manor like this.

He wanted to throw Lu Shi’an’s dignity onto the ground and grind it to dust along with the man himself.

The white inner robe I had just changed Lu Shi’an into fell to the floor and was stained with filth.

In the shadows, darkness pressed in layer upon layer. A sudden restlessness rose inside me.

I suppressed the agitated vines and reached out to clamp down on Song Cheng’s wrist.

Song Cheng frowned. “What, not enough money?”

I looked at Lu Shi’an. “My lord, you are a learned man. You must know better than I do. When a life-saving debt is too great to repay, what comes next again?”

As soon as I finished speaking, I tightened my grip.

Song Cheng let out a shriek.

Clutching his limp, dangling left hand, he dropped to his knees in pain, cold sweat covering his forehead.

I took out a bottle of poison and poured it into his mouth, sighing. “I’ve lived all these years and never killed anyone before. So I’ll have to trouble you to die on your own.”

Song Cheng stared at me in terror, but no matter what he did, he could not break free of my hand.

He could only die quietly, his eyes still open.

In my heart, I murmured a Buddhist prayer.

Forcing a demon to break the precept against killing. He really deserved to die.

I had earned more merit today.

I turned to Lu Shi’an, who was frozen in place, and gently pressed him. “My lord, what comes next?”

Lu Shi’an looked somewhat astonished. He stared at me blankly for a long while, then answered something else entirely.

“Miss, there is… grass growing on you.”

I looked back and saw that restless little vine swaying left and right on my shoulder, as if trying to seduce someone.

I shoved the vine back in and gave a dry laugh.

“You saw wrong, my lord.”