Chapter 13
The Swine-Person in the Dungeon
The dungeon is actually the place to punish concubines, palace maids and eunuchs who had committed mistakes. A lot of people entered them but few managed to leave with their lives intact.
Eunuch Hai personally lead Xia Hou Shang Yue there. He had followed the emperor for so many years, he really has no idea why the emperor hates the empress whose beauty can ruin a city so much.
“Your Majesty, you must not continue to leave things between you and the emperor like this. His Majesty is the one who sits in the imperial throne. You-ah, should be a little gentler. You should’ve care for him more, if not, the things that happens today wouldn’t have happened.
Xia Hou Shang Yue quietly listens to Eunuch Hai, secretly thinking to herself, is she really the one at fault?
Since she was little, she never knows how to initiate contact with other people. This cold personality of hers has been there since birth. She treats everybody the same. But Xia Hou Shang Yue forgot one thing, the person she is facing right now is a monarch who rules the country and not her imperial father who loves her.
“This back palace is the most powerful place in the world, when you are favored, everybody else is busy to curry favor with you. The moment you lose favor, let’s not talk about getting coal during the winter, people who can’t wait to throw insults at you will appear one by one. If things continues like this with the emperor, the one losing at the end will be Niang Niang yourself.”
Eunuch Hai seems to not care whether Xia Hou Shang Yue is listening or not as he continues mumbling. Xia Hou Shang Yue raise her eyes to look at the eunuch who is spouting advice, even though she does not know why he is saying such a thing to her, she is thankful he did.
Inside the palace, when times are good for you, there will be flowers on top of silks, but when times are bad for you, there will be a barrage of people waiting to throw stones at you. A sneer appears on Xia Hou Shang Yue’s lips.
The few slaps from Bai Yu Chen helped her see things clearly, in Yue Kingdom, she is no longer the beloved Princess Yue Feng. In here, she is just a woman abandoned by the emperor.
“No way. The emperor sent the empress to the dungeon?”
“It’s true. Can you see the slap marks on the empress’ face?”
“I heard the empress poisoned the grand empress dowager and the princess. Once His Majesty found out, he send her to the dungeon.”
“But everyone who enters the dungeon is likely to die!”
“I say, the empress is too arrogant! Using her princess status to poison the empress dowager thinking the emperor won’t punish her!”
…..
…..
Even though those words were spoken in low voices, they all can be heard by Xia Hou Shang Yue. She bit her lips and b.a.l.l.s her first, telling herself to endure. She will definitely come out of the dungeon alive!
“Niang Niang, we have arrived. I hope you can take really good care of yourself here.” After Eunuch Hai said that, he speaks a few words with the eunuch in charge of guarding the dungeon and left.
Xia Hou Shang Yue has never spoken a word on the way from Ci Ning Palace. What can she say? The sour plum cake and the chicken porridge contains You Xiang, that is a fact she can never deny.
If anything, she can only blame herself for being too careless. For thinking that just because she does not partic.i.p.ate in any fight, she can live in here peacefully. She forgot that her existence here is an eyesore to someone else, a thorn in the flesh.
“Niang Niang, please!”
Just like Eunuch Hai said, after the emperor sent her to the dungeon, even a little eunuch in charge of the dungeon spoke to her with indifference.
Xia Hou Shang Yue did not say anything and enters with a light smile. Just as she walked past the threshold, the door behind her closes immediately.
The dungeon really lives up to it’s name. It is pitch black inside with only few glimmer of lights.
The smell of mold rotting is all over the place. Xia Hou Shang Yue covers her nose, but some of the rotten odor can still be smelled. From the dim light in the room, she can see something moving in the corner.
“Who is it?”
Xia Hou Shang Yue was never afraid while facing Bai Yu Chen. But now that she is left to face an unknown ent.i.ty that moves in the shadow, she can’t help but fear what is to come.
It is in the natural instinct of people to be afraid in things they don’t know after all.
“Someone is sent to the dungeon again.”
That voice sounds like someone has used knife and cut open the person’s throat. It sounds so hoa.r.s.e and unclear.
Xia Hou Shang Yue frowns. It takes her a while before she finally understand what was said. She tells herself not to be afraid and forces herself to calm down and walk over to the source of the voice.
The moment she takes a good look, she froze. The person in front of her, if still counts as a person, has no limbs. Whatever remains of that person leans against the wall, the person’s long messy hair draped across the face.
Xia Hou Shang Yue can tell that the clothes the person wore is of good material, the kind of people who gets to wear them in the back palace is definitely not of low rank. She wonders what crime that person committed to be tortured to this degree.
“Who are you? What happened to you?” Xia Hou Shang Yue’s voice contains a rare trembling. No sane person would be able to keep calm when facing someone who has been tortured to that length. No matter how level headed she may be, how cold she may appear, she is still a normal woman. It is hard not to be afraid in this situation.
“Me? Who am I? Right, who exactly am I? How about you? Who are you?”
From the voice, Xia Hou Shang Yue can finally tell that the person who had been through h.e.l.l in front of her is a woman. She crouched in front of the woman, and clears the long hair from covering her face. Upon a closer look, she gasp in shock and retreats a couple of steps.
The other half of the face no longer has skin. You can only see the rotting flesh and bones.
“Your face…..”
“Scared? True, the me right now is worse than a ghost.” Her voice is exceptionally cold. Xia Hou Shang Yue realized that she may have offended her, so she forced herself to calm down and smiles embarra.s.sedly.
“I am just not used to this.”
“Ha ha, n.o.body can ever get used to my face.”
Xia Hou Shang Yue does not know what to say, she only stands there. Don’t tell her Bai Yu Chen purposely send her to the dungeon to see this person?
Even though she does not really knows Bai Yu Chen, she can tell that Bai Yu Chen will try to find ways to treat her miserably.
A swine-person. Don’t tell her he plans to make her into a swine-person?
That method is too fearsome. If he really intends to turn her into a swine-person, she’d rather choose death than to live so miserably.
“You…. How did you end up like this?”
“’Like this’? This is called a swine-person, don’t tell me you don’t know that. An existence that is the same as death- no, is worse than death. This is the token of love for me from the man I used to love! The token of love that forever disallow me to die.”