Mowen did not dare to look back again. He hurried forward, heading straight for the Xiāngjī Kitchen. Yet the further he walked, the more hesitant and uncertain he felt; the fleeting sense of relief in his heart vanished in an instant.
After delivering the food box to the Xiāngjī Kitchen, Mowen dazed out in a nearby corner. The figure he had just seen in the wine cellar kept floating before his eyes. The scene from that year when Zixiu lashed him with a long whip in the wine cellar surfaced once more in his mind. Even after so much time had passed, it still made his heart pound with fear.
Back in his room, Mowen sat beneath the lamp and gently rolled up his sleeves. Scars like venomous snakes coiled around his arms—old wounds yet unhealed, now joined by new ones. The old wounds had been left by Zixiu's long whip that year, while the new ones had been inflicted by Kaijie over the past two years.
Chapter 553