Chapter 2: Ten Years of Torture!

Too late! Everything was too late!

Something began to bloom slowly before Mu Xinnuan’s eyes, like a white peony, growing larger, thinner, and paler!

Through that thin layer of white mist, she seemed to see her mother curled up in agony, her younger brother being pushed into the lotus pond, and her grandfather and uncle—all of them decapitated, blood everywhere!

Did she hate them? How could she not? But Mu Xinnuan could barely breathe now; she could even feel her pupils gradually dilating! What could a person on the verge of death possibly do?

A self-deprecating, bitter smile touched her lips. Mother, brother, grandfather, uncle, I have failed you all! It was my mistake to mistake fish eyes for pearls, and in doing so, I brought ruin upon you! If there is an afterlife, I will certainly not be blind enough to fall for this wolf in sheep’s clothing again!

The images before Mu Xinnuan’s eyes gradually dissipated, and her consciousness finally began to fade. When Jin Hui and Mu Xinyao approached, Mu Xinnuan’s eyes were still wide open, as if she had died with a grievance she could not close her eyes to!

Mu Xinyao seemed startled. "Oh my!"

Feeling the delicate body in his arms tremble, Jin Hui looked at the corpse on the ground with even more disgust. "Hmph! You were unlikable in life, and even in death, you still want to come and cause trouble for me?"

"Someone, throw this corpse into the river to feed the fish!"

"Yes, Marquis."

No one saw a transparent Mu Xinnuan standing beside her own corpse. She watched helplessly as her body was tossed into the river, bobbing along with the current. By now, she could no longer feel pain! It wasn't that she had no heart left, but when a person’s pain reaches its absolute limit, it either turns to numbness or extreme hatred!

Watching Jin Hui and Mu Xinyao acting all lovey-dovey, Mu Xinnuan finally understood what it meant to be shameless! What it meant to be heartless and ungrateful!

Mu Xinnuan’s wandering soul had truly remained in the world of the living. Her face no longer showed any pain or anger! She could only watch everything helplessly, unable to do a single thing! Because she was a ghost, a wandering soul!

She watched with her own eyes as Jin Hui gained power over the next ten years, rising from Marquis of Dingyuan to Duke of Dingyuan. She watched as Mu Xinyao was promoted from Marchioness to a first-rank Duchess. She watched their son grow day by day!

She watched as Mu Xinyao’s younger brother, Mu Qingyuan, inherited the Mu family’s estate, his official career soaring and rising steadily! And all of this was supposed to have belonged to her own brother! And now? In the end, it was nothing but a scam, a joke! And what of her own honest father? Was it not the same for him? Dying at the hands of his own biological son—Father must have hated him too, right?

Not only that, but it was only after her death that she learned that the reason she had been childless for five years of marriage was because she had been poisoned by that bitch, the Song woman!

She had actually fed her a sterility decoction when she was only fifteen! This vicious woman deserved to die! It was a waste that, after her mother’s death, she had sincerely treated her as her own mother. It turned out that everything about her had been plotted by that mother and daughter long ago!

If not for that, why would she have always felt so indebted to Jin Hui? Why would she have felt so inferior in front of Mu Xinyao while she was alive?

Mu Xinnuan could no longer feel pain! Knowing she had been schemed against by the Song woman to this extent, she only gave a bitter laugh. It was her own poor judgment; who else could she blame? She had treated the woman who killed her mother like her own mother! She had treated the vicious woman who stole her husband like her own sister!

She was foolish! She was stupid! She deserved it!

But her grandfather’s family—how innocent were they! They had become stepping stones for Prince Ming and Jin Hui!

Mu Xinnuan felt nothing but hatred! Ten years!

Ten whole years! It would have been one thing if she had just died! It would have been one thing if she hadn't been left with a whole corpse! But to have her soul unable to enter the underworld, forced to watch how happy and carefree these enemies were in the world—what could be more agonizing than this?

If someone were to appear before her now and promise to help her take revenge, she would gladly let her soul be scattered just to avenge the murder of her mother and the destruction of her clan!

But how could that be? She was a ghost! No one could possibly hear her words! How could anyone come to help her?

She drifted alone once more to her mother’s grave, which was already dilapidated and overgrown with weeds! Even if she had the heart to tidy it up for her mother, she had no strength left to do so!

She reached out her hand again and again, passing through her mother’s tombstone. Mu Xinnuan wanted to cry, but she was a ghost and had no tears! This pain had been torturing her for ten years!

She had watched the corpses of her grandfather and the others with her own eyes; she had watched her father be murdered by Mu Qingyuan and the Song woman; she had watched her former friends and relatives die one by one at the hands of those wretches! Yet she could do nothing!

What could be more painful than this? What could make her blame herself more than watching the corpses of her loved ones left exposed in the wilderness? What could be more helpless than watching her father drink that poisoned wine while she was powerless to stop it?

As she watched one relative and friend after another die before her eyes, witnessing their tragic states while being unable to do anything, there was nothing left in Mu Xinnuan’s heart but hatred!

Mu Xinyao, Jin Hui, you heartless, ungrateful things! If there truly is an afterlife, I will make sure you die a miserable death! If I cannot personally end your bright futures and personally destroy your beautiful dreams, then my name is not Mu Xinnuan!

Mu Xinnuan’s eyes stared straight at her mother’s tombstone, where her mother’s surname was already barely visible.

Mu Xinyao, Mu Qingyuan, the Song woman! Just you wait. In this life, I could not kill you with my own hands, and I did not turn into a vengeful spirit to haunt you! Then just wait—I will never forget the hatred of this life, not for all eternity! Even when I reach the Naihe Bridge, I will never drink that Meng Po soup! I will make you taste the pain I feel today a hundred times over!

"Mother, you always taught me to be kind to others, but your daughter has been kind her whole life. Even when I helped that wolf in sheep’s clothing scheme against his own brother, I never used any truly vicious tactics! Why must your daughter suffer such a fate? Grandmother was kind her whole life, but in the end, what did she get? Mother, your daughter understands now. Being kind to good people is virtue, it is a good thing! But being kind to evil people is no different from aiding a tyrant and trapping oneself! Mother, your daughter swears, if there is a next life, I will only be a wicked woman, and I will never show kindness again! Even if I fall into the eighteenth level of hell after I die, I will be even more wicked than those villains!"

Mu Xinnuan no longer had tears, but her eyes still felt sore. Suddenly, she felt as if her mother’s tombstone swayed, and then she lost consciousness. Before she fainted, she thought, could it be that she was finally going to the underworld? Had the ox-headed and horse-faced demons finally come to take her on her way?