Then one day while she was coming back from delivering incense to a neighboring village, trouble struck.
Rongyi was hurrying back to her village, so as not to stay stranded outside after the dark, she was already at the outskirts of her village when she was surrounded by a group of men with masks. Her heart sank, there had been numerous rumours of thieves at the outskirts of the village but she never knew that she would encounter one herself. She hurriedly brought out all the money she had on her, so that the thieves don't get angry and attack her, but contrary to her expectations, the men were not interested in her money. Rather they were interested in her, when she noticed it, she quickly made to run and kept calling out for help.
But she could not last against a group of seasoned men, they quickly caught up with her and held her down.
"Please don't do this. I'm begging you, please take all the money, I even have more at home. Please!"
But her pleas fell on deaf ears, the leader came and touched her face, seemingly admiring her appearance, Rongyi felt disgust from the depth of her soul, but she was completely powerless and couldn't do anything as the man took advantage of her time and time again. She eventually fainted from exhaustion.
When she later opened her eyes, it was already dark and she was alone with her money pouch the same place she kept it. Realization dawned on her as she saw blood on her lower body. She hugged herself as tears fell from her eyes, she really missed her parents. She felt resentful that they left her all alone in the world and went away together. She cried for quite sometime, before gathering herself up and slowly made her way to the village. Nobody even asked why she was coming back at that late hour and why she seemed sad, they simply didn't care.
After that incident Rongyi locked herself away from the world, not even setting up her incense store, just staying alone in her house waiting for death. The entire village turned a blind eye to her, not even one person coming to check up on her, but surprisingly the person that kept showing up to her house was her former Suitor Junhao. He was always checking up on her and even bringing for her food and all. Gradually Rongyi fell in love with him and accepted to be his concubine, after all she thought it was better than just lying around to die. She did not make any attempt to remind him of his promise to make her his secondary wife, she thought after all she was already a used goods.
The marriage ceremony was done in a fast and quiet manner, and Rongyi officially became the concubine of Junhao. The period after her marriage was the happiest period of her life after the death of her parents.
But there's a saying, "Good times hardly last"
The bubble of happiness was burst open when Rongyi discovered that she was pregnant and from the looks of it, Junhao was not the father, rather it was the rapist from the village outskirts. She was very scared and even considered aborting the baby, but she knew it wouldn't even make sense because Junhao would still discover it. She braced herself and decided to tell Junhao everything including how she was raped. She felt the worst case scenario was that she would be sent back to her father's house.
But contrary to her expectations, Junhao not only did not divorce her, instead he was understanding and even promised to take care of the baby. Rongyi was very happy, but she couldn't help feeling ashamed. She wondered why she didn't just agree to marry Junhao when he first proposed, then maybe all these things would not have happened. She blamed her pride for her downfall, but she still felt lucky that she did not end up wasting her life.
From when they decided to not hide her pregnancy, Rongyi's life became even better. Many people said she was very lucky ending up pregnant even before the main wife, but Rongyi did not care about all these things.
Time passed by peacefully and Rongyi was almost ready to give birth, she was heavily pregnant.
One day as Rongyi was resting in her chambers, there was a commotion outside her door, she instructed her maid to go and find out the cause of the noise. The maid did not come back, but instead her mother-in-law and the main wife strutted into her room.
Rongyi struggled to stand up with her pregnancy, she was confused with their arrival to her room, but she still bowed in respect to them, "Mother, why did you have to walk all the way to my room? You could have just sent the word and I would have come to you instead."
The mother-in-law sneered "I don't dare to send for you, after all you are pregnant."
Rongyi remained silent at her words, right from when she got married to Junhao, she always felt that his mother did not like and she never hid it, so Rongyi always tried to please her and not make any mistake, so she did not even understand what brought her here.
The main wife hesitated as if she did not know how to start talking. "Rongrong if I'm not mistaken, it's only been 6 months since you got married in to this family?"
Rongyi nodded although she was already having a bad feeling about all these things and Junhao was not even around, he had traveled to the neighboring village earlier in the morning.
The main wife continued "So if we are to calculate your pregnancy, you should be 5 months pregnant. But why did the physician say you're 8 months pregnant?"
Rongyi froze, she thought that with telling Junhao she would have covered up her tracks but she completely forgot about the physician, now feeling both scared and guilty she found herself unable to say a word in her defense. She watched as the main wife and her mother in law both condemned her, and called her foul names, somewhere at the back of her mind she felt she deserved all of that besides she was no longer pure.
The main wife sneered at Rongyi's helpless face and instructed some people to bring a medicine bowl to Rongyi. "I don't even want to go into how this bastard you're carrying came about but since it's already done, we have to fix it. This is medicine to get rid of that thing, the doctor said it's safe and will not harm you."
Rongyi's mother in law rolled her eyes "You're too nice, I'd say you should strip her off and finish her off."
The main wife gently held the older woman and frowned "Mother, that is too harsh and besides exposing this to the public will turn our household into a laughingstock, it's not worth it."
Rongyi struggled, she did not want to take the medicine, she pleaded that the two women wait for Junhao to return before forcing her to take the medicine, but no the medicine was forced down her throat amidst her cries.
Shortly after the medicine entered her body a sharp pain erupted in her abdomen and in a little she started bleeding. A strong wave of dizziness came over her and she fell down. In that state of panic and pain, she saw a cold smile on the face of the main wife, then slowly everything blacked out.
Fusheng woke up with a gasp, tears streamed down her face and she was breathing heavily. A light laughter sounded by her ears and she looked up and saw Rongyi. The very same person she watched die, Rongyi smiled and asked, "How was the experience? Do you think what they did was harsh?"
Immediately her voice sounded, Fusheng recalled why she was there in the first place. They had come on a cultivation mission and she fell in to a well and lived the life of this Rongyi in front of her and saw how extremely pitiful she was. But this also means that this was the spirit behind whatever is happening in the Fu county. Fusheng gathered herself together and tried to reason with Rongyi, "I can understand how you're feeling, but doing this is throwing away your chance at rebirth and you're also attacking innocent people."
The shrill laughter immediately stopped, Rongyi looked at Fusheng straight to her face, "You don't understand how I feel. Wait do you think that this is all those vile people did to me? Heh!"
Immediately Rongyi said that, Fusheng froze because she was transported back to Rongyi's life and she lived through some very disgusting and disturbing memories…
In those memories, Fusheng saw that it was Junhao that hired the bandits that robbed Rongyi's father and also led to her parents death. It was also Junhao that hired the men that ambushed her at the village outskirts and also the same person that took advantage of her.
Fusheng started crying again, but this time out of anger she had sincerely thought that Junhao was one of the good guys and was grateful that someone at least loved Rongyi. She never expected him to be the biggest villain. "Why?" Fusheng asked through her tears.
Rongyi's cold voice sounded "I kept wondering about this, I kept trying to remember if I had ever committed a serious crime against Junhao that made him ruin my life like that.
I couldn't come up with any reason, other than the fact that I rejected him when he came to court me. Was it my fault that I was born beautiful? Or was it a rule that I must accept everybody that came to court me? Was it a crime to reject Junhao's advances?"
At this point, Fusheng was lost in her own thoughts, her mind was in clouded with fury, instead of seeing Rongyi, she saw herself being poisoned, being maltreated, falling from her past glory and success. Why? All because she was the legitimate Di daughter of the Meng Household, because her scum of a father couldn't keep his eyes out of her family's wealth. What part of everything was her fault? She never asked to be born talented, she never asked to be the Di daughter. So why? Why Did she have to suffer so much?
Rongyi's voice sounded again, "So why don't you join me and get revenge on all of them?"
Fusheng didn't say a word but her eyes were already covered in a cloud of white…
***
Meanwhile in the Fu County, thick clouds had gathered over the county, and covered the moon. Fusheng lay on a bed in the Mayor's house in a deep sleep. Next to her on the bed was a small silver dragon in the same state. Across from them in the brightly lit room was the First Prince, even through the mask it was evident that he was in a very dark mood. He spoke up softly "Why isn't she still waking up?"
A deeper voice replied out of nowhere "She is alright."
The First prince sounded worried, "How is she okay? She is burning up."
The deep voice continued "She has to do this herself. She is currently battling with herself and a vengeful spirit, so at the very least an increased temperature is normal."
The First Prince sat down on a chair beside the bed and touched Fusheng's hair, "Why did you have to go out all by yourself?"
The deep voice said to him in a comforting tone "It's not her fault, even if she did not leave this room, the vengeful spirit will still come after her. Haven't you realized that this whole thing is targeted at her? Whatever is behind the incident in the Fu county is mostly after the little girl."
The First Prince sighed, but before he could even say anything, Fusheng's eyes opened.
The First Prince was overjoyed and wanted to ask about how she was, but stopped when he noticed something was off with her.
He asked the deep voice "What is wrong with her?"
"Um it seems like your girl and the vicious spirit has reached a kind of truce and are working together… interesting…"
The First Prince glared at a corner of the room "How is it interesting? Isn't this dangerous?"
"I mean if it's not your girl in question, then it's a very interesting outcome. But this is very tricky."
As they were talking Fusheng stood up from the bed, ignoring The First Prince entirely and walked towards the door. The First Prince tried to stop her, but the deep voice stopped him
"I don't recommend stopping her through the use of force, she is not herself now and doesn't recognize anyone except her target, which I'm guessing is the Mayor. There is no stopping her now until her vengeance is over."
The First Prince thought for a moment and said "You're sure that after her vengeance, she will leave Fusheng's body."
The deep voice sounded convinced, "Yes I am positive. Unless… nevermind."
The First Prince did not say another word, only quietly cradling the little silver dragon and following after Fusheng.
A/N~~
Actually I'm experiencing a writer's block now and so I just had to end it here .
I am off again to search for inspiration for other chapters..
I really feel so bad for Rongyi and I honestly feel that the Mayor and his family deserve whatever revenge is coming their way .
I also feel that I have made the First Prince loose a lot of aura… but I don't care I love chalant men…
I'm also curious about the owner of the deep voice…
The Fu County arc will soon be over, either in the next chapter or the next two chapters.
The next Arc is going to be about… I don't even know.