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Marriage of the Di Daughter Chapter 119 Part 4: Father
What could deserve miss cousin to kneel down? Or could miss cousin’s knee felt unwell after walking so she stumbled down?
But very soon Ah Shun denied his own conjecture. He stared blankly as Jiang Li reached her hand out, supported that dirty convict and turned him slowly around, exposing his whole face.
Butcher Zhang and Ah Shun both opened their eyes wide.
The face of the person was so thin that it could not be called human. The cheeks were sunken, the bones protruding and the body supported by Jiang Li was as thin as a matchstick. It’s not that Ah Shun had not seen a prisoner before. Most of the time, they were born fierce and vicious, with sharp mouths and monkey cheeks, and would cut a sorry figure. However, not one looked as shocking as the person in front of him.
His entire hair had turned white, a layer of snow white. With a glance, people thought it was the snow in Tongxiang covering the person’s head. Yet, the whiter the hair, the body seemed darker and thinner. Similar to a candle flame about to be extinguished, soon to be blown out with just one breath.
Butcher Zhang muttered, “Master Xue…..”
Ah Shun looked unconsciously at butcher Zhang, such an unusually thin man, an old man who seemingly has one foot on the grave, is the popular County Deputy Xue that was said to be vigorous and benevolent?
Unexpectedly, County Deputy Xue is in such dire circ.u.mstances? It should be known that anyone who saw this prisoner would not doubt that he did not have long to live. This prisoner was going to die.
Seeing such a person, miss cousin should be afraid, right? Ah Shun was thinking like this when immediately afterwards, he saw Jiang Li hold her hand out and slowly pulled Xue Huai Yuan’s sleeve.
With her back on him, Ah Shun could not see Jiang Li’s expression. He only felt that this miss cousin seemed to be suffering, just like a repressed wounded beast, whimpering while its blood continued to flow. Drop by drop, it did not stop flowing.
The moment the sleeve was pulled out, butcher Zhang beside him gasped lowly.
The faint light from the torch could not conceal the scars on this pitiful man. Those scars resembled injuries from whiplash, also resembled injuries from knife wounds. Perhaps there were also scaldings caused by soldering irons pasted onto the skin. Those wounds were piled up layer upon layer. Before the old injuries healed, new injuries were added. Some injuries were already rotten and produced pus, emitting stench, with maggots slowly climbing on the wounds. Ah Shun felt nauseous and felt stuffy in his chest.
He felt terrified by Feng Yu Tang’s methods.
So to speak, even prisoners on death row did not receive such punishments. This wanted people to live no better than death, not willing to make the other person happy. Jiang Li only pulled up one sleeve, exposing the other party’s arm. Just one arm was like so, one could well imagine how many more scars were on Xue Huai Yuan’s body.
In this kind of dark prison which the bottom could not be seen, day in day out, without interruption suffering repeated torture. Unable to live, unable to die, no wonder Xue Huai Yuan went insane. Ah Shun even felt that if Jiang Li had not come to rescue this person, the sentence a few days later was perhaps a kind of expatriation for County Deputy Xue.
Such days were really too hard to bear, really too hard.
At the same time, he had doubt in his heart. Such a County Deputy Xue, even if saved, how much longer could he still live? Even if he could survive, a person who had lost his mind lost everything. What’s the point of living for someone who was like a walking corpse?
As he was thinking, a low howl was abruptly heard in the prison.
Ah Shun was startled and looked towards the direction of the sound. However, he discovered in surprise that the person emitting the sound was no one else but miss cousin, Jiang Li.
The person who was always calm and smiling gently, who could be serious in the face of the crazy crowd in Li Zheng Tang, was kneeling on the ground and let out a voice that seemed both happy and sad. She slowly bent down and held Xie Huai Yuan’s shoulders, crying bitterly and loudly.
Ah Shun stared blankly, butcher Zhang also did not say a word. The originally noisy prison full of the voices of the young and old shouting their grievances due to their arrival, had calmed down at an unknown time. Only the sound of the girl crying bitterly could be heard.
The sound of weeping was like an infection. In the dark cell, the faint light swayed. As if after tasting all the happiness, anger, sorrows and joy after many years had pa.s.sed, there was an opportunity to start again, painfully crying tears of joy. Also felt as if standing before the surging Yangtze River, the time that had pa.s.sed could not return, there’s a sorrow of missing out on worldly affairs.
It made people feel sad and distressed upon hearing.
The girl was not afraid of the stench and maggots on the prisoner’s body. She still held him tightly, like a little girl who got lost in the crowd and finally saw her father, clutching at the last straw, without any worry, crying loudly with ease.
Jiang Li’s heart was in so much grief.
Xue Huai Yuan was a few years older than Jiang Yuan Bai. In those days, Xue Huai Yuan was also a handsome man. Although he could not be compared with Jiang Yuan Bai’s sophistication, he had strength of character. The lofty father became old this quickly, so fast, he had not even yet reached old age, yet his hair had all turned white. If it were not because of encountering a huge shock, what’s the reason for this?
His body was full of scars. Those unbearable days, if Jiang Li thought of this, she felt pain like a knife twisted in her heart. If she had quickly returned to Tongxiang when she had just become Jiang Li, would her father had received less torture? Perhaps, if she did not attract Shen Yurong at that time, there would be no Princess Yongning, and she would be able to stay in Tongxiang peacefully with Xue Zhao and her father until they were old.
The world messed with people, the messed up people applauded.
The bones of the person under her were so prominent, as if his body was only bones without any skin and flesh. Even for meals, Feng Yu Tang only gave a little food to Xue Huai Yuan, letting him endure the cold.
Suddenly, in the midst of Jiang Li’s painful voice, a weak voice sounded like it was in a dream.
“Ah Li?”
What a hard and painful chapter to translate, especially this part, both the lamenting and the description.
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