"Seventh Consort, my prince—please wait!"
The voice was thin, breathless, desperate.
Hua Jing froze.
That voice...
She knew that voice.
Turning sharply, her eyes fell upon the frail figure stumbling toward them.
i Rong.
The maid from before. The Jiang family’s maid—the one she had spoken to at the wedding banquet, the one who had been so anxious, her eyes darting around as though she held a terrible secret she dared not reveal.
Now, she was in complete ruin.
Her hair was disheveled, her robes torn and dirt-streaked, her feet bare and bruised from the rough ground. But most striking of all—
Her slightly swollen belly.
She was pregnant.
Hua Jing’s heart clenched.
No.
Jiang Lei’s child.
She had known. Of course, she had known.
She had planned to use this very fact to ruin the wedding, to throw i Rong into the banquet hall at the right mont, to watch Hua Ling’s carefully built future with Jiang Lei co crumbling down.
This had been a plan all along to ensure that the wedding would not take place but now...
But things had changed. The wedding had already descended into chaos, and she had montarily forgotten about the poor woman.
But now—
Now, i Rong was here.
And she was begging.
Hua Jing stepped forward just as i Rong fell to her knees.
Her hands grasped the hem of Hua Jing’s robes, her entire body trembling.
It was a safe she was clinging on for dear life
"Seventh Consort, please," she sobbed, her voice hoarse with desperation. "I have nowhere else to go. You are the only person who can save !"
Hua Jing’s chest tightened.
She reached down, gripping i Rong’s arms, pulling her upright. "What happened?" she demanded. "Tell —what did he do?"
i Rong swallowed back another sob, her swollen belly rising and falling with her ragged breaths.
"I did as you asked," she whispered. "I told them. I told him. I told Jiang Lei that I carried his child."
Hua Jing braced herself.
She already knew what was coming.
But that didn’t make the words hurt any less.
"And?" she pressed.
i Rong’s lips trembled violently. "He... he refused. He denied . He said I was nothing but a lying servant, that I was shaless for trying to drag him down."
Hua Jing clenched her jaw.
Of course he did.
There was no way in this world Jiang Lei would ever accept a child born from a maid.
"But that’s not all," i Rong whispered.
Hua Jing’s stomach twisted.
"He... he had lashed."
A sharp breath sucked from her lungs.
Zhao Yan’s hand, still holding hers, tensed.
i Rong’s voice cracked with pain. "I begged. I begged him to stop. But he didn’t care. He had the guards... he had them beat ."
Hua Jing’s head snapped toward i Rong’s body, her eyes darting over her arms, her shoulders—
And there.
Barely visible beneath the ripped fabric of her robes—dark, ugly welts marred her once-smooth skin.
Rage.
It surged up inside her like wildfire.
"You an to tell ," she hissed, voice shaking, "that that bastard dared to have you beaten while you were pregnant?"
i Rong’s entire body trembled. "He said it was punishnt," she whimpered. "He said I was trying to ruin his future."
Hua Jing laughed.
A cold, rciless laugh.
His future?
His future?
Did he even have a future to think about?
What about the future of the woman kneeling before her? What about the future of the child she carried?
She could feel Zhao Yan beside her, his body radiating fury.
But Hua Jing was far past fury.
She was filled with sothing else entirely.
Sothing deadly.
Jiang Lei.
She should have killed him in that banquet hall.
She should have had him dragged to his knees and publicly torn apart the mont he abandoned her for her wretched half-sister.
She should have completely and utterly destroyed his image in front of all these peoples so much so that he had no way to salvage himself in front of the elite!
And now—
Now, he had dared to lay his hands on a woman carrying his own blood.
Just how low was he willing to go?
She was starting to suspect that this child may have been the product of sothing else and not think about budding romance!
He might have forced himself on her!
No wonder the poor woman looked so afraid
Hua Jing inhaled sharply, forcing the pure hatred bubbling in her chest to settle.
i Rong’s hands shook as she clung to Hua Jing’s robes. "Please," she whispered. "Please, Seventh Consort. I have nowhere to go. If I stay... if they find again, they will kill . I know they will."
This was a no brainer. With how much blood Hua Ling was craving, there was no way she was going to let her off!
Hua Jing looked down at the woman before her.
A discarded, broken thing.
Used. Thrown away. Left to fend for herself.
Just like she had been.
For the first ti in a long ti, sothing other than rage swelled inside her.
Pity.
Aching, familiar pity.
Her fingers curled around i Rong’s wrist, steadying her. "Don’t beg," she said softly. "You are not the one who should be begging. He is."
i Rong’s breath hitched.
Hua Jing turned her gaze to Zhao Yan. "Is there a place she can be taken to?"
Zhao Yan didn’t hesitate.
"Wei Ling," he called.
The ever-loyal Wei Ling stepped forward from where he had been waiting near the carriages.
"Take her sowhere safe," Zhao Yan ordered.
Wei Ling gave a firm nod, stepping forward to gently help i Rong up.
The young woman clung to him, weak and unsteady on her feet.
Hua Jing exhaled.
It was done.
i Rong was safe.
For now.
But even as she watched Wei Ling guide her away, sothing inside her twisted.
An unshakable feeling—
A warning.
Her stomach coiled with unease.
She did not know why but she could not shake this feeling no matter what!
She shook her head and forgot about it all before getting into the carriage with Zhao Yan.
She exhaled softly and the journey back ho quickly started...
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