《禁。慾》2《Live by Desire》
Chapter Twenty-One: Blood-Colored Observance
1、【The Helpless Spirit Body】
Shen Manor’s backyard, the air congealed with a nauseating sweet stench of blood.
The modern Sun and Lu Yuan, in a semi-transparent spirit form, were forced to stand at the very front of this human hell.
Sun trembled as she reached out to touch the pale, barely breathing “past-life self” inside the cage, but her fingertips passed through the wooden bars again and again, grasping only empty air.
“Why…… why can’t we do anything!” Sun screamed in despair, her voice echoing in the void yet reaching no one’s ears.
Lu Yuan beside her was seething with rage; he stared at the legless, maggot-infested version of himself inside the cage, a century-old mix of humiliation and fury raging in his chest.
He tried to shatter the whip in Shen Yan Zhi’s hand with spirit power, but the energy that had been overwhelmingly strong in the modern era was now suppressed by some ancient law, unable even to stir the sparks on the torches.
“Don’t waste your strength.” The mysterious elder appeared behind them at some point, leaning on his bamboo staff. His murky eyes watched everything with a coldness that seemed to belong to another world. “These debts were incurred by you, and chosen by you. Remember this pain, remember the sound of every lash. The time has not yet come; your souls have not fully merged. Right now, you are merely observers of this tragedy.”
“How long do we have to watch!” Lu Yuan grabbed at the elder’s collar, but his hand passed through empty air.
“Until your resentment is enough to burn through these hundred years of time and space,” the elder said flatly before his figure dissolved into the rain and mist.
2、【The Final Lingering Death】
Shen Yan Zhi ordered the two wooden cages to be dragged to the center of the execution ground.
It was a rocky slope, surrounded by villagers whose expressions were cold or even excited.
“Adulterers carrying a bastard, shameless!” Shen Yan Zhi sat in the high seat and waved his hand; this was no longer a simple execution, but a carnival to destroy dignity.
The first stone struck Sun’s forehead, blood instantly blurring her vision. Then countless stones rained down. Lu Yuan in the neighboring cage slammed against the bars like a madman, trying to shield her with his own body, yet he could only watch Sun collapse into a pool of blood.
“Ah——! Save the child…… save my child……” The past-life Sun curled on the ground, hands desperately protecting her belly.
Shen Yan Zhi sneered as he stepped down, personally lifting a huge rock and walking toward Sun. He glanced at the nearly dead Lu Yuan beside her, his gaze filled with extreme mockery. Then he slammed the rock onto Sun’s swollen abdomen.
“No——!”
The modern Sun screamed and fell to her knees in the void. She felt a devastating tearing pain in her abdomen; the agony synchronized with her past-life body made her spirit form flicker violently, as if about to vanish into nothingness.
After that kick, Shen Yan Zhi watched the fresh blood gush from between Sun’s thighs before waving his hand with satisfaction: “Finish it, behead them.”
The blade fell, blood splattering into the rain. In the moment of utter despair, the two souls finally clasped hands in the blood pool on the ground.
“No matter how many lifetimes…… I will definitely find you……”
3、【Explosion of Energy】
The instant the final blade fell, the modern Sun and Lu Yuan jolted awake in their apartment.
“Ha——! Ha——!”
Both were drenched in cold sweat, as though they had just been pulled from water.
Sun frantically touched her own abdomen until confirming it was still flat, then collapsed into Lu Yuan’s arms.
The pain of being struck by stones and beheaded still throbbed madly at every nerve ending.
“I’m going to kill him…… Lu Yuan…… I must kill him……” Sun gritted her teeth, a terrifying red light blazing in her eyes.
Lu Yuan looked at Sun; he finally understood what the elder had meant by “resonance.”
It was not merely the overlap of hatred, but the complete fusion of souls.
He flipped over and pinned Sun beneath him. This time, his eyes held no hesitation, only a destructive, fervent love.
“Sun, give me all your hatred. Together we will burn away these hundred years.” He seemed like a different person now.
Lu Yuan’s movements were wilder and more dominant than ever.
He roughly tore open Sun’s nightgown and thrust in deeply, again and again.