Chapter 202: Covered in Wounds

Shen Ruxue’s hands were very beautiful—slender and graceful, with long, naturally lustrous fingers.

The skin on the backs of her hands was delicate, as smooth and tender as milk.

Yet at this moment, several bloody gashes marred them, a sight that was truly shocking.

Though the pain was intense, she had no time to tend to the wounds.

Spotting a sharp shard of glass still lodged in the cabinet, she immediately raised her hand.

Shen Ruxue’s original plan had been to use a piece of glass to slowly saw through the ropes.

But upon seeing the shard embedded in the cabinet, she wedged the rope around her wrist against it and began grinding relentlessly.

Everything was done in pursuit of the fastest possible escape.

Only then could she go to the next room and help Jiang Lai.

***

“I will absolutely never tell you.”

Jiang Lai looked at Si Yina, who was practically itching with frustration because of her, and felt a surge of secret delight.

But the satisfaction had barely surfaced before Si Yina doused it completely with a bucket of cold water.

“It doesn’t matter if you won’t tell me. I have plenty of ways to make you spill. Agree right now, and I promise I’ll continue treating you both well. Once I’m satisfied, I’ll immediately send you both away. How about it?”

Si Yina, still straddling Jiang Lai, shifted her body slightly so her hand could fully press against Jiang Lai’s waist.

Gazing at that flat, soft curve, Si Yina’s hand refused to behave.

First she pressed heavily on Jiang Lai’s lower abdomen, then pinched her waist hard, waiting for a response.

“If I still believed your lies at this point, I’d truly be the stupidest person alive.”

Sometimes Jiang Lai genuinely felt that Si Yina treated her like an idiot.

Not a single word from that mouth was ever true.

Even now she was pretending to be some kind of good person—when every bit of suffering Jiang Lai endured was because of her.

“So that won’t work?”

Right now, all Si Yina wanted was to satisfy her own desires.

There was no trace of gentleness or care in her actions.

Still, she was also desperate to know what was on the phone.

Raising her hand, she reached into her pocket, pulled out her own phone, and prepared to make a call.

“If you don’t tell me now, I’m going to make the girl in the next room suffer.”

When she had entered the room earlier, anticipating what she was about to do with Jiang Lai, Si Yina had ordered all the bodyguards to wait downstairs.

Without her command, none of them were allowed upstairs.

She had no intention of letting anyone eavesdrop—everything about Jiang Lai belonged to her alone.

“You wouldn’t dare, you bastard. Why drag other people into our business? It only makes me despise you even more.”

Jiang Lai had already anticipated in her heart that Si Yina might use threats against her.

But when the blatant act of harming a child was laid out so openly, she gained an even deeper understanding of Si Yina’s shamelessness.

“What kind of skill is it to bully a child?”

Ignoring the pain shooting through her wrists, Jiang Lai struggled with all her might.

Each exertion tightened the handcuff chains and shook the entire headboard.

In that moment, she looked utterly hysterical.

But this was exactly what Si Yina wanted—to see Jiang Lai lose control, to drive her to the edge of desperation.

She wanted to plunder her, to destroy her, to hear screams torn from her throat, and most of all, to watch her fall completely, covered in filth.

Si Yina’s dark eyes grew even darker, ink-like, pooling in their sockets.

“So what if I’m playing dirty? As long as it works, I’ll use any method necessary. Did you really think I kidnapped her for no reason?”

Although Si Yina’s original target had not been Shen Ruxue but rather Jiang Leyi, who was always by her side, even if she had captured the wrong person, as long as the captive was useful, it did not matter who it was.

No matter how much Jiang Lai hated her, no matter how much she despised her—what could she do?

Si Yina had long seen through people like Jiang Lai completely: too many attachments, and that inexplicable sense of responsibility.

If only Jiang Lai could be a little more selfish, caring solely for her own safety—then Si Yina honestly would not know what to do with her.

But that was impossible.

Anyone even more selfish and self-serving than herself would never have caught Si Yina’s interest in the first place, let alone make her willing to go to any lengths to possess them.

What Si Yina had always enjoyed was purity and simplicity.

What she reveled in was the feeling of absolute control—knowing that no matter how fiercely the other person resisted, they could never escape the palm of her hand.

That was the sensation she perpetually sought from others.

“I’m just that incompetent—otherwise I wouldn’t be resorting to such despicable tactics right now. So, are you willing to tell me everything or not?”

Jiang Lai’s head buzzed faintly.

Tilting it to the side, she considered whether she still had any chance to fight back.

Looking at the handcuffs binding her wrists, she noticed that the chain seemed to have loosened slightly from her earlier struggles.

What had been a tiny gap had been widened by her efforts.

It appeared that the small metal rings on this chain were easier to break than the ropes from before.

If she could free her hands, there would still be a chance to escape.

The first thought that came to Jiang Lai was to make Si Yina lower her guard.

Only by catching her off guard with a sudden strike could she achieve the best result.

Finally, Jiang Lai relaxed her clenched jaw and obediently recited the phone’s password to Si Yina.

While Si Yina curiously unlocked the phone and began checking what Jiang Lai had done with it earlier, Jiang Lai paid no attention to whether the metal rings would tear into her wrists.

She gathered every ounce of strength and yanked hard on the handcuff chain.

Even as the cuffs dug deeply into the flesh of her wrists, leaving permanent red indentations, she did not hesitate for a single moment.

With a sharp “snap,” the chain connecting the cuffs was forcibly torn apart.

Everything happened too quickly.

Si Yina, whose attention was entirely on the phone, had no time to react.

She was suddenly thrown to the floor by Jiang Lai, who rose in an instant.

The phone slipped from her hand and crashed heavily onto the ground.

Seizing the brief opening, Jiang Lai immediately used all her strength to rip the chain on her other handcuff apart as well.

In the next second, she reached to untie the rope around her ankles—but the time she had bought was still far too short.

Si Yina recovered faster and grabbed her ankle in an iron grip.

“Where do you think you’re going now? Do you really believe that running out of this room means you’ll be saved?”

Si Yina rose from the floor and flashed Jiang Lai a cruel smile.

Her usually snow-white teeth now looked eerily pale and menacing.

Her long, bony fingers clamped tightly around Jiang Lai’s ankle.

Jiang Lai’s heart was filled with terror.

In terms of raw strength, she was no match for Si Yina.

If she was caught now, the chances of escaping this room would drop to nearly zero.

She desperately tried to wrench her captured ankle free while hurling everything she could reach from the bed at Si Yina.

But besides pillows, the bed held only some inexplicable small boxes—none of which caused the slightest harm when they struck Si Yina.

“Had enough fun yet?”

Si Yina’s fingers whitened with exertion.

The ankle she gripped was so slender that it felt as though it might snap in the next second.

It was hard to imagine how such delicate ankles could support Jiang Lai’s entire body.

Yet this very fragility only fueled Si Yina’s desire to ravage her further.

She truly wanted to see the proud, aloof beauty’s face twisted in humiliation.

Just the thought of it sent uncontrollable waves of pleasure through her.

Jiang Lai felt the vise-like grip on her ankle.

Her long lashes clumped together with moisture, fluttering weakly.

Her face was deathly pale—especially her lips, still vividly red and swollen from Si Yina’s earlier biting, impossible to fade quickly.

That bright, vivid red stood out starkly and horrifyingly against her terrified, ashen face.

Never in her life had Jiang Lai felt such utter despair.

She did not want this bastard Si Yina to touch her, and she absolutely did not want her first time taken by her.

In the past, under pressure and threats from those around her, she had been forced to compromise with Si Yina.

But ever since she had seen this woman’s true face clearly—

Jiang Lai no longer held the slightest hope.

Her disgust had reached its peak.

The mere memory of those lips pressing against her own earlier made her stomach churn with nausea.

If she had known things would end up like this, she would never have refused Chi Yingyu’s request back then.

Even though her relationship with her sister-in-law was utterly wrong in every way, at least that way she would not have been defiled by this bastard Si Yina.

Setting aside the barrier of their familial roles, Jiang Lai loved Chi Yingyu with all her heart—her sister-in-law was more important to her than her own life.

As for the bastard in front of her now?

She could not even compare to a single strand of hair on her sister-in-law’s head.

With such an overwhelming difference in strength, Jiang Lai knew clearly that escape was impossible now.

The one and only chance she had just moments ago had been wasted.

Even if she could somehow break free from the hand gripping her ankle, the ropes still bound her feet.

Jiang Lai could no longer imagine any way to slip out of Si Yina’s clutches.

Faced with the current situation, Jiang Lai sank into despair, completely at a loss for how to escape.

In her mind, she could already see the future in which she would be violated.

She wondered whether, after that, Chi Yingyu would still accept her.

Whether the people closest to her would think she was dirty, tainted.

Just as Jiang Lai herself gave up hope and prepared to accept the inevitable violation, the door to the room was violently kicked open.

There, standing in the doorway with both hands covered in blood, was Shen Ruxue.

The moment Shen Ruxue saw Si Yina gripping Jiang Lai’s ankle tightly, she did not hesitate for even a fraction of a second.

She launched forward and delivered a fierce kick.