Chapter 17: Be More Careful in Your Next Life
Lu Yanzhi stepped forward. "Princess, you must be tired after shopping for so long. There’s a teahouse ahead. Let’s go rest our feet."
"Alright," Xiao Li agreed readily. Then, with a casual point of her finger, she said, "Shopkeeper, wrap all of these up. This princess will take them back to choose from at my leisure."
Staring at the pile of translucent, lustrous white jade, Lu Shu nearly coughed up blood. ’How much is all this going to cost?’
Taking in their pained expressions, Xiao Li felt a surge of delight.
’They came back with an agenda, expecting to make up with me just like that? There’s no such thing as a free lunch. They have to pay a price, don’t they?’
’Even if it hurts, they’ll just have to suck it up!’
Lu Yanzhi had been in a half-dead mood, but to stop Xiao Li from emptying the Lu family’s coffers, he had no choice but to rally his spirits and try to distract her.
The effect was, of course, excellent.
Not only was her attention diverted, she herself was damn well taken away.
The moment she sensed danger, she put up her guard, but her opponent’s martial arts skills were clearly on another level. She couldn’t defend herself at all and was knocked unconscious in a few moves.
Xiao Li was jolted awake by a splash of water. As consciousness returned, she snapped her eyes open, her blurry vision making out what seemed to be the courtyard of a house.
Her body was tied tightly to a pillar. Nearby was a well, and someone was slowly drawing up water.
Even after seeing Xiao Li was awake, the person didn’t stop. Instead, he dumped another bucket of water straight over her head.
FUCK!!!!
As the curtain of water subsided, Xiao Li could finally open her eyes properly and see the man standing before her, his face filled with malice.
"Gu Ling!" Xiao Li bit out.
Gu Ling was quite pleased that Xiao Li recognized him. "The Princess is finally awake. I bet you never thought you’d fall into my hands, did you? But none of that matters. All you need to remember is that I will be the one to send you to the Yellow Springs."
Xiao Li stared at him for a long moment, then suddenly burst out laughing. "Oh, I’ll remember. I’ll definitely remember. So why don’t you kill me now?"
’Do I look like I’m afraid to die? If he has the guts, he can just kill me right here.’
Gu Ling’s expression turned utterly foul. He viciously grabbed Xiao Li by the throat. "You think I don’t dare to kill you?"
Xiao Li sneered. "You already dared to try and assassinate me, so what wouldn’t you dare? You want me dead, and I want you dead. I just happened to be one step behind and lost this round."
"You’ve got some nerve." Gu Ling’s grip suddenly tightened, as if he wanted to strangle her on the spot. "I was the one who tried to assassinate you! If you have a problem, come after me! Why did you have to bully Xue Yin and cause her to miscarry? How can you be so vicious?"
Xiao Li was utterly speechless. Suppressing the pain in her nearly crushed throat, she continued to mock him.
"Gu Ling, you pathetic worm. You love Liu Xueyin, but you don’t dare to confess. You can only stand by and watch her marry Prince Chen and be tormented by him. Ha... You say I caused her miscarriage? Why don’t you go find out how she *really* miscarried?"
"Prince Chen raped her again and again against her will until she miscarried! What does that have to do with me?"
"She’s covered in bruises, but you don’t see a single one. Prince Chen abuses and humiliates her time and time again. Are you fucking blind?"
"You like her, you adore her, you’d make an enemy of the whole world for her, so why don’t you dare to assassinate Prince Chen?"
"If Prince Chen were dead, Liu Xueyin would be free, and you could live happily ever after with her, couldn’t you?"
"But you don’t dare. Prince Chen’s martial arts are formidable, and he’s powerful and influential. You’re a goddamn coward who preys on the weak and fears the strong, only daring to raise your blade against women. You coward!"
’I’m so sick of these trashy male side characters. They talk about love, but they’re completely insane.’
Gu Ling was so furious the veins on the back of his hands bulged, and the hand gripping her throat trembled with force.
"You’re courting death!"
Xiao Li truly felt like she was about to die. Her brain went blank from the lack of oxygen as she suffocated, unable to breathe, let alone utter a single word.
And yet, just as she was about to pass out, Gu Ling let go.
"Letting you die like this would be too easy for you."
Gu Ling’s hands trembled as he slowly backed away, staring at her with hatred. "I should rip out your tongue, gouge out your eyes, and break all your limbs, leaving you in a state where you can neither live nor die!"
But would Xiao Li be afraid?
She smiled, her torn, raspy voice as low and bewitching as a mountain spirit. "Well then, when you do it, you’d better make me look pretty. Because when I become a ghost, I’ll be sure to haunt Liu Xueyin. You wouldn’t want to frighten your beloved, would you?"
Gu Ling thought Xiao Li was a complete lunatic.
She wasn’t afraid of death, and it seemed she wasn’t afraid of pain either.
Looking at her, you wouldn’t doubt for a second that she would become a vengeful ghost to haunt the living after she died.
Gu Ling slowly backed away, then drew his longsword.
’I never should have said so much to Xiao Li. Kill her, and it will all be over.’
Xiao Li watched him approach with his sword, her eyes narrowing slightly. There was no fear in her expression. In fact, she seemed almost pleased, as if joyfully welcoming her own death.
"Just in case I die and there’s no one to clear things up for you, I’ll tell you in advance. Quzhou is my fiefdom. When your family gets there, they’ll be robbed by mountain bandits, stripped of their status, and sent to build the city walls, never to rise again for all eternity."
"Of course, I know you don’t care about your scumbag father’s family. You probably even resent your own mother for abusing you at every turn. But that’s not important. Dealing with them is just my way of making sure you can never use the Gu family to make a comeback."
"Furthermore, I’ve left letters for my Brother, the Emperor, and for Prince Chen. As soon as I’m dead, they’ll learn all about the history between you and Princess Chen—the love, the hate, the whole tangled mess laid bare for all to see. And your beloved Liu Xueyin? She’ll find out what a cruel, evil, murderous monster you are. Do you think she’ll ever let you get within ten feet of her after that?"
Gu Ling’s eyes looked ready to burst, and his killing intent surged. "Xiao Li, you deserve to die!"
The longsword in Gu Ling’s hand glinted with a cold light as he ruthlessly thrust it toward Xiao Li.
But Xiao Li, who had been tied to the pillar all this time, suddenly leaned aside at that exact moment, dodging his sword and lunging into his arms.
Using the momentum, she rolled across the ground, evading the hand Gu Ling swiped at her. Gu Ling himself, however, froze in place, looking down in disbelief at the golden hairpin embedded in his chest.
It had pierced him directly in the heart, without the slightest deviation.
He wasn’t dead yet, so Xiao Li didn’t dare get any closer. She had managed to ambush Gu Ling by catching him off guard, but if he counter-attacked, she would be no match for him.
She slowly backed away to a safe distance to await his death, not forgetting, of course, to toss out a few taunts.
"Villains always die from talking too much. Try to remember that in your next life."
As expected of a rare martial arts master, Gu Ling didn’t die immediately even with a golden hairpin in his heart. He just froze for a moment, then suddenly charged at Xiao Li again.
Xiao Li might have been acting cocky, but she had been on guard against him the whole time.
’A side character like this, who can survive until the final act, isn’t that easy to kill.’
She had already put some distance between them, so she was able to react in time, quickly turning to run and evade him.
Suddenly, someone grabbed her by the back of her waist and pulled her aside. A long blade blocked Gu Ling’s sword, then stabbed straight into Gu Ling’s heart.
This blow, finally, was the one that took Gu Ling’s life.
SQUELCH!
The long blade was pulled free, sending a spray of fresh blood into the air.
Gu Ling propped himself up with his longsword and slowly sank to his knees. He raised his head to stare fixedly at Xiao Li before finally succumbing to his life fading away, collapsing to the ground with a THUD.