This child she had carried for nine long months, each day spent vomiting and bleeding, her bones aching with every stolen breath just to keep him alive inside her fragile, withering body.
This child she had almost died birthing, blood soaking the white sheets as she scread herself hoarse under the surgeon’s scalpel, praying to every god she knew just to see his little face for a second before darkness took her.
This child she had loved more than her own life.
But now.
Now, looking at him, clutching Bai Zhi’s dress with such desperate devotion, sobbing for another woman while his real mother stood there trembling and broken with a kidnapper’s knife to her own throat...
All Yueyao felt was disgust.
A deep, festering disgust that seeped into her bones until it made her stomach twist with nausea.
"Mommy... please... please don’t hurt Mommy Zhi... I promise I will be good... I promise I will be good... I will listen to you forever... please..."
"Shut up."
The words slipped from her lips, low and venomous. Her voice trembled with an emotion so dark it frightened even herself.
But Shen Xuan didn’t stop crying. He didn’t even flinch at her raised voice. His tiny hands reached out towards her, his tear-streaked face crumpled in grief as he sobbed,
"Please... please... Mommy... I love you... don’t do this... don’t be bad... don’t be bad... I want you... I want you... I promise I will love you forever... just let Mommy Zhi go... please..."
A laugh tore itself from her throat, broken and jagged and filled with pure, blistering hatred.
Tears stread down her cheeks, burning hot against her trembling skin as she stared at him with wild, bloodshot eyes.
"You... love ?" she whispered hoarsely, her voice cracking under the weight of her fury. "You love ...?"
He nodded frantically, his sobs hitching so hard he nearly choked on his own breath.
"Yes... yes... I love you... please Mommy... don’t hurt Mommy Zhi... I love you... I love you so much... please... please don’t do this..."
Her grip on Bai Zhi tightened until the woman whimpered in pain, but Yueyao barely heard it. All she could see was that small, pathetic face looking up at her with desperate hope.
Hope that she would spare the woman who had stolen everything from her.
Hope that she would listen to him, when all he ever did was betray her.
Her chest heaved violently as her lips twisted into a trembling, vicious snarl.
"I hate you."
The words slipped out like acid, burning her tongue with their truth. Her vision blurred completely with tears as she forced the next words out, each syllable slicing her throat open from the inside.
"I hate you so much... you... you disgust ... do you know that...? Every ti I look at you... every ti I see your face... all I see is him... all I see is my prison... my chains... my humiliation..."
Shen Xuan froze.
His tiny hands fell limp to his sides as he stared up at her, his wide, tear-filled eyes trembling with confusion and fear.
"Mommy...?" he whispered softly, his voice breaking into a shattered sob. "Mommy... please... don’t say that... I will be good... please... don’t say that... I love you... I love you..."
But Yueyao shook her head violently, tears flying from her lashes as her shoulders heaved with silent sobs.
"No... no you don’t... you don’t love ... you never loved ... all you ever did was take... take... take... you took everything from ... my life... my body... my freedom... my sanity... you took it all..."
"Mommy... please... please don’t say that... I will be good... please... I love you... Mommy... Mommy please..."
"STOP CALLING THAT!" she scread suddenly, her voice breaking into a wild, ragged shriek that echoed through the silent hall like a gunshot. The guards flinched, their hands tightening on their weapons as Bai Zhi let out a strangled sob against her chest.
Shen Xuan stumbled back, his small shoulders trembling violently as his face crumpled with silent horror.
Yueyao’s chest heaved with ragged, broken sobs as she glared down at him with pure, blistering hatred blazing in her tear-filled eyes.
"I don’t want you," she hissed, her voice trembling with feral, unrestrained venom. "I don’t want a child like you... I never did... I should have left you... I should have let myself die that day... I wish I did... I wish I died before I ever saw your disgusting face..."
Shen Xuan let out a small, broken whimper as he clapped his tiny hands over his ears, his wide eyes streaming silent tears as he shook his head over and over again.
"No... no... no... please... please don’t say that... please... Mommy... please... I will be good... please... please don’t hate ... please..."
But Yueyao didn’t stop.
She couldn’t.
The words poured out of her like poison, each syllable burning her lungs with dark, twisted relief as she spat every hidden truth she had buried inside her shattered heart.
"I hate you... I hate you so much... I hate your voice... I hate your face... I hate your existence... just looking at you makes want to tear my eyes out... you... you are nothing to ... do you hear ...? Nothing..."
The room fell silent.
Only Shen Xuan’s soft, broken sobs echoed through the vast marble hall as he collapsed to his knees, his tiny hands still clamped tightly over his ears as he shook with silent, racking cries.
He didn’t scream anymore.
He didn’t beg.
He just cried.
Small, broken sobs that sounded so fragile they barely echoed beyond his hunched little shoulders.
Yueyao stared down at him, her chest heaving with violent, ragged breaths as tears stread down her cheeks in endless rivers.
And for the first ti in her life, she felt nothing.
Nothing but the cold, suffocating numbness of a woman who had finally broken past the last remnants of her humanity.
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