Xu Da’s panic and loss of composure was only momentary. Very quickly he was gasping and laughing at Song Chuyi. Although his jaw had been dislocated by Lai Chenglong, although his face was covered in blood and he had now become fish on a chopping block, his spirit didn’t fall in the slightest.
Qing Ying watched with furrowed brows, feeling that mocking smile made her entire body uncomfortable. She desperately wanted to step forward and teach him a lesson so he could never smile again, but as soon as she extended her hand, she was stopped by Qing Tao. Qing Tao pointed her finger toward Lai Chenglong nearby and lowered her voice: “Didn’t Commander Lai say he was like a dead man before? Now he’s come alive.”
Dead men don’t speak, but living people always have moments when they open their mouths.
Lai Chenglong had long since grown accustomed to Song Chuyi’s ability to always pick out people’s soft spots to attack. Seeing Xu Da’s expression, he stepped forward in a few movements, lifted his chin upward, and with a crack sound, reset his jaw.
Xu Da could speak now, but what he said wasn’t very pleasant to hear. His gaze swept over Song Chuyi’s body, his tone carrying some frivolity along with some faint superiority: “The Grand Princess Consort still has the mind to threaten me?” He spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the ground. Feeling his mouth was somewhat more comfortable, he used his tongue to lick his dry, already broken and bleeding lips, and snorted: “If you have this kind of leisure, I’d rather advise you to think more about yourself… Don’t think that just because of this, you’ve won. The good show is still ahead.”
These three words “still ahead” were like a poisonous snake’s forked tongue—wet, slippery, and slimy—making people feel an instant chill. But Song Chuyi wasn’t angry in the slightest. She held the iron tongs and stirred the charcoal in the basin. From beginning to end, her gaze never fell on Xu Da. She casually said “oh,” very studious and inquisitive: “What, besides beside His Highness the Grand Prince and the Heavenly Master, you still have other people?”
She finally cast her gaze on the person before her, mercilessly extending the iron tongs to Xu Da’s face. The sizzling sound of flesh meeting fire abruptly rang out. By the time Xu Da reacted, his face already carried the smell of burning. Caught off guard, he couldn’t help but cry out in pain.
“So you still feel pain…” Song Chuyi laughed once, looking at Xu Da’s face twisted in pain: “I thought the people around Han Zhengqing all had copper skin and iron bones. Whether the good show is ahead or not, that’s all future business. And even if there is a good show, what does it have to do with you?”
“Regardless of whether Han Zhengqing has other arrangements in the future, right now you’ve botched things up—that’s set in stone. That you’ve become a discarded chess piece is also beyond doubt. Whether we’ll be unlucky in the future as you say, I don’t know, but I do know that right now, if I want to make you unlucky, it’s effortless.”
Xu Da’s left face was burned until his skin split open and flesh tore. Even if he could endure pain, he couldn’t help but have a ferocious expression, his features contorted as he howled in a low voice for a while.
Her movements had truly been extremely fast, and there had been no signs beforehand, so this pain came completely suddenly. Xu Da hadn’t made any preparations at all. The pain made him grimace, and even his tongue was inadvertently bitten through.
Song Chuyi turned a blind eye to his suffering. Today, if she hadn’t been prepared early on, then right now her fate would only be more miserable than Xu Da’s. Toward people who wanted her life, she truly couldn’t harbor much sympathy.
After following Shen Qingrang for so long and dealing with Han Zhi so much, her heart had become harder than before. Seeing such scenes, she only treated them as if she hadn’t seen them. When she spoke again, her voice was still cold: “Do you believe it or not—if I deliberately have people attribute all the reasons for your plan’s failure to you, saying that you were the one who leaked information, which made Han Zhengqing’s plan fall short of success, Han Zhengqing will definitely believe it? You’ve followed him for so long, you should be very clear about his character, right? Even if he doesn’t believe it, he’ll still be furious. And the consequences of his fury…”
Xu Da wasn’t afraid of anything. The only thing he feared was Han Zhengqing. But after this, he felt that the Grand Princess Consort before his eyes, who looked much younger and much more frail than Han Zhengqing, was actually somewhat more terrifying than Han Zhengqing.
She was clearly forcing someone to their death, but she looked as calm and light as if she were saying the weather was nice today. Xu Da almost couldn’t catch his breath. After looking at her for a long time, meeting her plain and indifferent eyes, he suddenly deflated—this girl looked at him as if looking at a dog by the roadside or a stone, with no distinction whatsoever. If she said it, she could do it. Once she couldn’t obtain the clues and intelligence she wanted from him, she absolutely wouldn’t hesitate for even a moment to destroy him.
This girl’s gaze was simply too similar to how Han Zhengqing looked at people. Having grown accustomed to Han Zhengqing’s ruthlessness toward enemies, he absolutely didn’t dare gamble on how merciful the person before him might be. Spitting out a mouthful of blood and enduring the pain of his flesh being burned, after a long while he finally asked: “What do you want to know?”
Lai Chenglong stood to the side with furrowed brows. What Song Chuyi had said wasn’t any different from what he had said to Xu Da, and his methods were much more sophisticated than Song Chuyi’s. The fact that Xu Da had now lost a layer of skin but still retained a breath was proof. But when Xu Da faced him, he still stubbornly refused to open his mouth, yet偏偏 after Song Chuyi asked just a few questions, he confessed. It was truly somewhat infuriating.
“It’s nothing much, just a small matter for you.” Song Chuyi finally curled the corners of her mouth in a half-smile: “Give me a complete list of all the people Han Zhengqing planted in the capital, all his old subordinates and old connections in the capital. As long as you know them, not a single one can be missing.” Having said this, she stood up and with a bang threw the fire tongs into the charcoal basin, watching the flying ash and turning her head toward Xu Da: “Academician Chen said you’re a household-born servant of the Han family. I checked your household registration. It seems you have a son who was freed and went to be a soldier? Your other family members all seem to have gone with Han Zhengqing to Datong to serve, right?”
Without her needing to ask further, Xu Da already understood the deeper meaning in Song Chuyi’s words. He pressed his lips together, dripping with sweat, his eyes full of struggle and conflict. Finally, he still said: “Since Your Highness knows, please spare them a way to live…”
Song Chuyi nodded quite readily: “If you die like Academician Chen and the others, Han Zhengqing might possibly show mercy to your family. But that’s also future talk, and moreover it’s so far away that I truly can’t reach. The only thing I can guarantee you is to spare your son’s life. Don’t negotiate conditions anymore. You should know that what you’ve committed is a crime warranting the execution of nine familial relations. Being able to leave a bit of bloodline is already showing leniency. Moreover, if you don’t cooperate, neither you nor your family will be left—not a single one. So, think about the pros and cons here. Better to save both of us some trouble. Even if you feel that Han Zhengqing might perhaps win in the future, that’s still future business. But your family’s lives—I can hold them in my hand right now. Don’t you agree?”