Chapter 2

“Why are you at the Heavenly Immortal Pavilion?” Li Jinmu asked me.

He was suppressing his anger.

I didn’t know what he was angry about.

Before I could speak, my tears rolled down, drop by drop, like pearls from a broken string.

Li Jinmu seemed to have a thousand words to say, watching me with hesitation.

I knew clearly that at this moment, my only chance to leave this brothel relied on this playboy, Li Jinmu.

Without holding anything back, I told him everything I knew and everything I had suffered.

He was my only hope.

Li Jinmu’s expression shifted—anger, shock. Ultimately, he smashed the mahogany table next to him with a single punch.

“You…”

I reached out and grabbed his sleeve. “Lord Heir, I beg you to show mercy and take me away from here.”

“I am willing…”

With that, I undid my belt, preparing to take off my clothes.

Li Jinmu pressed my hands down. Flames seemed to dance in his eyes, but his voice was deep and cold. “I may not be a good person, but I am still human.”

“You were blind. Out of all the men, you picked someone so vicious and heartless.”

“I won’t hide it from you. Your son died a long time ago.”

“…”

Shock, disbelief, and profound grief surged violently in my eyes.

“Are… are you joking?”

My voice was as hoarse as a broken drum.

My throat burned with pain.

It felt like someone was repeatedly slicing my heart with a knife.

There was nothing but pain. Endless pain.

“It’s been almost a month. They claimed he caught a sudden severe illness. After all, it’s normal for infants to not survive. But seeing you here now, perhaps that child didn’t die of a normal illness.”

“Of course not!” I screamed out.

“He was a healthy child. He was very healthy!”

I roared.

My body was so weak I couldn’t stand.

I slumped to the floor, my heart full of hatred but with nowhere to vent it.

Li Jinmu glanced at me.

He turned and walked out, and soon I heard the madam begging for mercy outside.

I slowly walked out and saw him kicking the madam.

Kick after kick, vicious and full of force.

The madam kept begging for mercy, “This slave truly didn’t know she belonged to you, Lord Heir. Rest assured, from this moment on, this slave has never seen her.”

I was taken out of the Heavenly Immortal Pavilion by Li Jinmu, but he didn’t send me back to the Xuanping Count’s estate. Instead, he kept me in an outside courtyard.

I was in a daze, lying in bed as if I were about to die.

Li Jinmu had been leaving early and returning late these past few days. Today, he came in and said, “Get up, I’m taking you out. There are some things I can’t explain clearly to you; you have to see and understand them for yourself.”

I put on a veiled hat and followed behind Li Jinmu, my soul wandering.

I sat by a window on the second floor, watching a carriage arrive at the gold and jade shop across the street.

Familiar insignias, familiar people.

“Mother.” I anxiously stood up.

But I saw the woman who had always doted on me holding another woman’s hand affectionately.

Even if they looked somewhat similar, how could a biological mother not recognize her own daughter?

Li Jinmu was able to recognize me when I wore a veil and only showed my eyes. But my mother…

“Ren Ruiyi, according to the information I found, the two people who just walked into that shop are the real mother and daughter, and you…”

Hearing this, I glared fiercely at Li Jinmu and reached up to cover his mouth.

To stop him from saying anything crueler.

He grabbed my wrist, pinned it behind my back, and whispered in my ear, word by word, “You might be your father’s daughter, but you are absolutely not that woman’s daughter. Also, your son’s body has been found. It’s at the secondary estate. The coroner is waiting there. He will tell you your son’s cause of death.”

Suddenly, I didn’t want to go back. I was too afraid to go back.

I wanted to find a shell to hide in, find a hole to bury myself in.

I was terrified.

What did it mean to have nothing?

This was having nothing.

I had practiced medicine to save lives, fought against injustice, and given endless charity even to street beggars.

“Why?”

I asked Li Jinmu in a hoarse voice.

“Why treat me like this? What did I do wrong? If they felt I was in their way, they could have just told me. I would have left cleanly. I would never be a stumbling block.”

But he gave me no answer, forcibly taking me back to the estate.

That room was right in front of me.

But it looked like a devil’s den.

More like a wild beast with its bloody maw wide open, ready to tear me apart and swallow me whole.

I began to struggle, pleading aloud, “I won’t go in. I won’t go in.”

Crying tears, I begged bitterly, “Li Jinmu, I beg you. Let me go. Let me go. I don’t want to go in. I don’t want to…”

He said that some deep abscesses must be dug out and the wound cleaned thoroughly before they can heal.

“That’s not an abscess. That’s my son. The son I carried for ten months and risked my life to birth. I don’t dare… I don’t want to.”

“Li Jinmu, I beg you, I won’t go in. I was wrong. I was wrong for refusing your marriage proposal back then. I’ll kowtow to you. Don’t make me go in. I’ll listen to everything you say from now on. I’ll listen to everything.”

No matter how much I begged.

Li Jinmu still pulled me into the room.

And I saw the tiny white bones on the floor, the unrotted flesh emitting a horrific stench.

Perhaps it was the innate connection between mother and child.

I knew at a single glance that it was my son.

I didn’t know who his father was, but I knew he was my son.

“Ah…”

I covered my eyes, too afraid to look.

But I couldn’t help it. I slowly crawled over.

I took off my priceless clothes and spread them on the floor.

With tears streaming down and trembling hands, I reached out to cradle his white bones.

His skull was shattered. His arm and chest bones were broken…

Everything before my eyes turned a bloody red.

The tears that dripped onto my hands and onto his white bones were red.

“From the remains, it appears to be a premature infant. The head suffered a heavy blow, likely from a blunt object. The broken bones in the chest were likely caused by being thrown to the ground. The infant did not die instantly, so…”

The coroner’s words were the most vicious words in the world.

After hearing them, I coughed violently.

It felt as though my heart, liver, spleen, and stomach were going to be coughed out of my mouth.

Blood sprayed onto the tiny remains.

It hurts. It hurts so much.

Even breathing felt difficult.

My body slowly collapsed, but Li Jinmu shook me vigorously.

“Ren Ruiyi! Your son died such a tragic death. Are you just going to let it go? Aren’t you going to avenge him?”

I suddenly opened my eyes wide.

Looking at Li Jinmu in front of me.

“Revenge.”

“Revenge.”

“I want revenge.”

He gently pulled me into his embrace, kissed my forehead, and said in a hoarse voice, “Yes, you want revenge. So you must live well. Do you remember that?”

I want revenge. I want to survive.

I want to make the murderers who killed my son pay the price.

I want the entire Lin and Ren families eradicated…