Chapter 31: What an Ultimate Insult!

The Shen family's inner courtyard used to be a bustling place.

Back then, even before dawn, cleaning women would weave back and forth with wooden buckets. The kitchen stoves would blaze red, and maids would carry copper basins to help the masters rise. Every corner teemed with the warmth of human life.

Now, however, the inner courtyard was as deathly silent as a graveyard.

The bamboo clumps by the courtyard wall were mostly withered, their yellow leaves scattered across the ground, left unswept. The hired maids and gardeners had gradually departed in the month following the Yang family's first visit. The only ones who remained in the courtyard now were a few of the Shen family's house-born servants.

Shen Liu leaned against the moon gate, his sole remaining eye half-squinted as he gazed at the pine tree in the courtyard.

Standing behind him was a young servant boy named Lucky. At just fourteen, Lucky was an orphan Shen Liu had picked up from the streets. Holding a bowl of medicine, the boy's hands trembled slightly.

"Sixth Uncle, this medicine..."

"Take it inside." Shen Liu waved a hand without turning around. "Don't ask too many questions, and don't look at anything you shouldn't."

Lucky murmured an acknowledgment and walked toward the bedroom with the bowl.

The bedroom door was slightly ajar, allowing the scent of medicine to slip through the crack, mingled with an indescribable stench of blood. Pushing the door open, Lucky kept his head bowed. He set the medicine bowl on the table and quickly retreated, not daring to lift his eyes the entire time.

The bedroom was dim.

The curtains were drawn, and only a single oil lamp had been lit. Shen Zheng lay on his stomach on the bed, his face buried in the pillow so that only half of his profile was visible. He remained completely silent.

Shen Qingci stood at the foot of the bed, holding a baby. Her fingers gently patted the swaddle. She stared at her younger brother with a deeply complex expression.

Mrs. Shen sat on a chair by the bed, her eyes red. She fixed her gaze on the elderly, goatee-sporting doctor across from her. The moment he rose from the bedside, she asked impatiently, "Doctor, how are my son's injuries? Please, give me a straight answer!"

The old doctor's surname was Hu. Having run a clinic in Qingzhou City for twenty years, Doctor Hu had seen all kinds of wounds—cuts from knives and swords, blunt trauma, and even the shameful diseases caught in brothels.

Yet, at this moment, his expression was incredibly strange.

His lips trembled for a long time as his fingers stroked his goatee, as if trying to concoct an appropriate response.

"Well..." He tugged at his beard, his fingers unconsciously applying force.

Mrs. Shen grew frantic. "What is it? Please, just say it!"

Doctor Hu finally squeezed out a sentence. "The young master's injuries... are in his rear passage."

Mrs. Shen froze, her face instantly turning pale.

His rear passage?! She wasn't an ignorant child; how could she not understand what that meant?

Seeing her silence, Doctor Hu threw caution to the wind and finished his thought in one breath. "There shouldn't be any major complications, but I'm afraid there might be some minor issues when he goes to the privy in the future.

"I have already prescribed some medicine for both external application and internal use. After resting for some time, it should... it shouldn't be too unbearable."

Tears instantly welled up in Mrs. Shen's eyes. "That godforsaken Yang Qinghe! How could he... how could he subject my son to such suffering! May he die a horrible death!"

From beginning to end, Shen Zheng, still lying face down on the bed, didn't make a sound.

Shen Qingci took in her mother's tearful curses and her brother's silence. She pulled a piece of broken silver from her sleeve, walked over to Doctor Hu, and handed it to him. "This is your consultation fee. Thank you for your trouble, Doctor Hu. As for today's matter..."

Doctor Hu hurriedly accepted the silver, nodding profusely. "I understand, I understand. Today, I only came to treat the young master for a cold. I know nothing else."

With that, he picked up his medical box and fled the bedroom.

The room descended into silence once more. Mrs. Shen's cursing had ceased at some point. She sat there, tears falling drop by drop.

After a long while, she stood up, stumbled to the bedside, and bent down to wrap her arms around Shen Zheng's shoulders. "Oh, my son, my poor son, you've suffered so much..."

Shen Zheng didn't lift his head, but his body began to tremble uncontrollably. A moment later, no longer able to suppress his emotions, he burst into loud sobs.

"Mother... that Yang Qinghe... he's not human..."

His voice was muffled and slurred against the pillow, but Shen Qingci heard him perfectly clearly.

"He locked me in a dark room... Every day, every single day, he had... seven or eight... seven or eight burly men..."

He couldn't go on.

Mrs. Shen jolted as if she had been punched in the chest. She opened her mouth, her lips trembling, but couldn't utter a single word.

Shen Qingci's expression shifted as well. Though she had already learned from Shen Liu that her brother had been humiliated, hearing the details firsthand still sent a chill through her body.

As if sensing the heavy atmosphere, the baby in the swaddle let out a loud WAAAH.

The crying shattered the suffocating silence in the bedroom. Shen Qingci gently patted the baby. She shifted her gaze from her mother's paper-white face to Shen Zheng's back.

"Mother, now is not the time to cry." Her voice snapped Mrs. Shen back to reality. "We need to figure something out right now."

Shen Qingci's expression grew serious. "What exactly is Father guarding? Why would he rather watch his second son suffer such humiliation than spit it out?"

With red eyes, Mrs. Shen gripped Shen Zheng's shoulders and asked urgently, "Son, do you know? Where did your father hide that person the other day? As long as we find their whereabouts, we still have a glimmer of hope!"

Shen Zheng stopped crying. "If I knew... I would have told them already," he said hoarsely. "Then I wouldn't have had to..."

Mrs. Shen's face fell, and she sat blankly on the edge of the bed.

"Mother," Shen Zheng said. He paused before continuing, his voice raspy and cold. "Let's leave."

Mrs. Shen froze. "What did you say?"

"I said... let's leave!" Shen Zheng abruptly pushed himself up on his elbows, the muscles in his face contorting. "Father would rather watch our entire family die than reveal that person's whereabouts! He doesn't care about us at all!

"Pack our bags. We're leaving Qing Province! We'll go far away and never come back! Let him guard that shameful secret all by himself until he dies!"

Mrs. Shen stared at her son in a daze, tears rolling down her cheeks once more. Her lips trembled. She wanted to say that the Shen family's ancestral motto had always been about loyalty and righteousness.

But when the words reached the tip of her tongue, she couldn't utter a single syllable. She knew in her heart that her son's words, though seemingly heartless, weren't without reason. What kind of father could watch helplessly as his own child suffered such profound humiliation?

Shen Qingci looked at her mother's expression, then at the strange yet familiar resentment on her brother's face. After a long, long time, she finally let out a soft sigh.

Without another word, she turned and walked toward the door.

Outside, the sky had already grown dark. The autumn wind swept through the corridor, blowing the loose strands of hair at her temples against her face with a chill.