Chapter 4: Childhood Adventure

"What?" Tang XiXi flared up instantly upon hearing this. A few days ago, she had heard her elder sisters mocking her with cold words, saying their father intended to marry her off to the fool in the city. At the time, she thought her sisters were just deliberately trying to provoke her; now it seemed it was all true.

Du LiNiang was anxious as well, but being ever gentle and submissive, she never dared defy the patriarch's will. She merely said timidly, "Master, XiXi is still young. Can we not wait two more years?"

Tang YouMeng's eyebrows shot up, his anger evident. "The Tang family is not a place for a mere concubine like you to make decisions!"

Du LiNiang shut her mouth immediately, lowering her head and eyes. Yet her hand clutched her daughter's tightly, terrified her daughter might cause further trouble.

Tang XiXi suppressed her rage and looked up. "Who is the groom? I have a right to know, don't I?"

"It is Wang ZhiYou, the youngest son of the Wang Family Cloth Shop," Tang YouMeng replied coldly.

Sure enough, it was that idiot Wang Tang—both foolish and dull. The fire in Tang XiXi's heart surged upward. After a long pause, she gritted her teeth. "I won't marry him. If you want him so badly, you marry him yourself!"

"You!" Tang YouMeng had long anticipated his daughter's attitude, but hearing her speak with such arrogance firsthand sent him into a towering rage. His finger trembled as he pointed at Tang XiXi. "You will marry whether you like it or not!"

At that moment, the Matriarch, who had been sitting silently on the side, her eyes fixed on Tang XiXi, suddenly spoke. "XiXi, we have already finalized the agreement with the Wang family. In three days, they will come for you in a grand red bridal sedan."

"Do you think that leaves me no choice? Let me tell you, Tang YouMeng. From childhood to now, you have never liked me, your daughter. You stuck my mother and me in the most remote, dilapidated courtyard in the Tang manor, and you indulged the household staff in bullying us at will. I endured all that. But now you want to casually marry me off to a fool? I'm telling you, even a cornered rabbit will bite."

"Fine! I want to see just what trouble this wretched girl can stir up!" He finished with a furious roar: "Guards! Lock this ungrateful wretch in the woodshed!"

Two servants immediately stepped forward, twisted Tang XiXi's arms behind her back, and escorted her to the woodshed.

To the side, Du LiNiang fell to her knees with a thud. She looked up at the patriarch through tears. "Master, please don't lock XiXi up! Let me take her back; I'll talk to her properly!"

Tang YouMeng's face darkened. He glared. "This girl's behavior is entirely because you, her mother, spoiled her. And now you want to take her back? So she can come back and test my patience? You get out of here too!"

Du LiNiang didn't leave. She kept kowtowing on the ground, hoping to move the patriarch to mercy and free her daughter.

Tang XiXi had taken a few steps when she heard the crisp, heavy sound of her mother's head striking the floor. Her heart ached. Tears filled her eyes as she turned and shouted, "Mother, get up! We don't need to beg him. He never treated me as his daughter, and I long ago stopped seeing him as my father..."

Before she could finish, XiXi was dragged out of the ancestral hall. At the woodshed, the servants shoved her hard, sending her sprawling onto a pile of firewood.

The door was quickly locked. XiXi didn't resist; she knew she had no ability to fight back. Who told her to be born a good-for-nothing, utterly devoid of spiritual power? That was one of the reasons she was bullied by everyone in the Tang family.

There were no windows in the woodshed. Once the only door was shut, the interior grew dim. Tang XiXi sat up from the ground, walked to the door, and pulled on it from the inside. The tightly shut door revealed a gap two fingers wide. She saw the lock hanging on the door was quite large. It seemed the old man Tang had specifically instructed the servants to use a heavy lock on her.

Because she had no talent for martial arts, she had instead become an expert lockpicker. Every time, she managed to pick the lock and escape. But the consequence of every escape was being caught and subjected to family law—twenty strokes of the heavy rod.

She wasn't afraid of beatings. From childhood, unloved by her grandmother and father, she had grown up under the rod.

As for why she didn't fear pain, it went back to an incident when she was six. Her elder sisters had lured her to the outskirts of the city and abandoned her there.

Dusk was falling. She was terrified, running along a narrow path while wiping away tears. The surroundings were deathly quiet, not a soul in sight. Although she was a transmigrator, the bizarre circumstances of her arrival had made her originally bold self become timid and fearful.

As she ran, she suddenly heard what sounded like agonized cries. She was petrified. She didn't dare approach the source, her nerves stretched tight. As she passed a bamboo grove, the cries grew louder, as if coming from within.

She instinctively looked up. That single glance froze her steps. At the edge of the bamboo grove, a boy of about ten was leaning against several bamboo stalks, his whole body convulsing, drenched in sweat, his face a ghastly red as he groaned in agony.

She steeled herself and approached the boy. Up close, she saw the fingernails on the hand clutching his chest were actually black. Even his lips were tinged black. "Hey, what's wrong with you?" she asked weakly.

The boy didn't answer; the poison ravaging his body had already clouded his consciousness.

"Are you poisoned?" Tang XiXi's mind raced. Based on the symptoms of poisoning she'd seen in TV dramas in her previous life, she deduced this boy had been poisoned.

The boy nodded weakly amidst the torment.

XiXi was in a bind. She knew no detoxification techniques. Judging by his symptoms, it had to be a virulent poison. What to do?

Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck her—like a sudden brainwave. When she was little, the old man Tang, annoyed by her loud mouth and worried she would complain to the only one who pitied her, the Old Master Tang, once he emerged from seclusion, had ordered someone to force her to drink a poison that would render her mute.

XiXi had been powerless to resist and swallowed it. Who knew she would be fine afterward? She opened her mouth and continued cursing Tang YouMeng, that old man, for being cruel enough to poison his own biological daughter mute.

Tang YouMeng thought the poison had failed. He immediately made a servant drink a sip. The servant lost his voice instantly. So they forced a large bowl of it down XiXi's throat. The result was inexplicable: XiXi's throat remained perfectly fine.

Thinking of this, XiXi raised her hand, bit her finger, and let the blood bead up. She pressed her finger to the boy's lips, letting him suck her blood. Perhaps her blood had detoxifying properties, she thought naively.

The boy, struggling in agony, seemed to grasp a lifeline. Scenting the blood on her finger, he seized her hand and sucked greedily on the blood welling from her fingertip—blood that exuded a rich fragrance and power.

XiXi frowned, enduring it!