Chapter 71 : Resentment

In the eerie dungeon, the cold wind gusted as if countless grudging spirits were wailing and drifting by, and the bean-sized lamps flickered on and off, just like the lives of the prisoners struggling between life and death in their cells.

From the distance came screams sharp enough to pierce the eardrums, and the prisoners in the various cells, with their heads and faces covered in blood, all shrank into corners, not daring to breathe a single breath.

There was only one cell where the prisoner was lying motionless on a pile of weeds, wearing clean and tidy prison clothes, as if he had just been put into the dungeon not long ago. At the same time as the screams had just fallen, the prisoner gave a cold laugh, not knowing whether it contained disdain or ridicule, or whether it was in the process of relieving his deep fear.

The prisoner raised her hand to cover her burning forehead, her sleeve slipping halfway down to reveal a gruesome gash on her arm where the skin rolled over. She laughed aloud, teardrops raging out of the corners of her eyes and slipping into her hair. Even though she laughed so hard that she was about to kick for air, her laughter and screams mixed together for a long time without stopping, appearing even more terrifying in the gloomy dungeon.

The laughter gradually revealed endless sadness, as if reading through the world's prosperity suddenly looked back and found that he had reached a desperate situation where there was no place to retreat, but also like the autumn winds of the yellow leaves, even though they are fond of the branches, how can they not help the cold winds are biting.

"Sister seems to be in a good mood."

A clear and moist woman's voice suddenly sounded in the prison.

The high fever made Pei Si Yan's mind more and more drowsy, she bit her lips tightly as blood flowed out from under her white teeth, the pain and the smell of blood finally allowed her to regain most of her lucidity. She still looked at the dark ceiling, not to look at the woman at the door of the cell for a second, nor did she heed her words.

Tantai Si, however, did not care about this and continued, "Seeing my sister in this state now, I feel ... joy from the bottom of my heart. After years of planning, I finally waited for this day, waited to stand outside the cell and look down on a miserable looking sister." After saying that, she laughed maliciously.

Pei Si Yan thought of the scene a few months ago, also within the prison, where she stood outside the cell and laughed at Feng Taishi.

Things were truly unpredictable, how could she not have imagined that she would one day be in Feng Taishi's general situation.

"Feel free to say whatever you want to say, being the winner you don't have to be so formal." Pei Si Yan teased, "Otherwise this aura is really funny, don't let the Tantai family become the laughing stock of others, the future matriarch is actually afraid to scorn the prisoners."

Tantai Si's willow brows frowned and she drank, "You!"

Pei Si Yan sat up with great effort, because of the torture, her legs were almost insensible, heavy as if she had a large bag of sandbags strapped to her legs, coupled with the hammers attached to the shackles, it made it even more impossible for her to move.

"Xiao Si, you've held back your temper for so many years, now that you've triumphed, have you become bad-tempered? I make a casual remark and you show your emotions." She continued mocking without a care in the world, even if she died, she would still retain the last of her dignity, never showing pity and begging for mercy, "Then I'm really worried about the future of the Tantai family ..."

"You don't need to worry, because you are no longer the clan leader and have no qualifications!" Tantai Si sternly interrupted Pei Si Yan's words, "Tantai Yan, take your time to enjoy a life worse than death here! I'm curious to know what kind of expression the once high and mighty Lord Wuban has under the whip."

Pei Si Yan lowered her head, looked at a clean outfit, and said in disbelief, "Little Si, you must want your sister to die in the torture chamber, right?"

"Yes." Tantai Si answered coldly, she wanted Tantai Yan to bleed on the guillotine amidst the scorn of the people of the world.

"Since that's the case, it's better not to be torturing me anymore," Pei Si Yan had already /pained to the point of numbness, she lifted her head to look up at a face that somewhat resembled her own, "I'll die in the dungeon and make your many years of dreaming come to naught."

The corners of Tantai Si's lips hooked slightly, "Are you afraid of the pain and are deliberately making up lies to beg for mercy from me?"

"Begging for mercy from you?" Pei Si Yan covered her mouth and laughed as if she had heard a big joke, "Do you see that sister I look like someone who would easily beg for mercy from someone? Sister, although you win me, you don't understand me. If it wasn't for you and Lanxuan colluding too deeply, you wouldn't necessarily be able to win against me. Alas - it's useless to talk about this now, I just hope you can understand that knowing yourself and your enemy is the only way to win a hundred battles, and that the heavens won't always favour the unprepared."

"I don't need you to come and lecture me!" Tantai Si could not hide the anger in her heart, "You are now a lowly prisoner, what qualifications do you have to come and lecture me, who has the most honourable status in the Blue Country?"

"Little Si, you are too condescending." Pei Si Yan shook her head and sighed, "No one is perfect, from time to time, one cannot realise one's own shortcomings, so one must listen to others' opinions more often so as to correct them. Xiao Si, the sage reasoning handed over by the young sir, don't you remember it? If there is only resentment in your heart, even if you are victorious now, the future will surely be doomed."

Tantai Si got angrier and angrier as she listened, grabbing the key from the jailer, opening the door and going in and grabbing Pei Si Yan's collar as she viciously threatened, "If you speak any more gibberish, I'll definitely cut off your tongue!"

Pei Si Yan looked at Tantai Si without fear, her face full of smiles.

Tantai Si looked at her smiling face, her tone slightly puzzled: "Sister, you have not laughed once before, why would you laugh now even when you are in a lump?"

"People change, sister, don't you even understand such a simple truth?" Pei Si Yan once again teased.

Tantai Si grabbed Pei Si Yan's collar tightly, seemingly wanting to strangle her alive.

"What the loser says is all nonsense! It's better if you don't test my patience."

Pei Si Yan coughed a few times, her face turning even paler as she struggled to continue speaking in a flat tone, "The loser has experienced a bitter defeat and understands what lessons should be learnt from it, whereas the winner is too proud, blindly confident, and disregards the loopholes that still exist in himself."

"Your nonsense is really growing!" Tantai Si shouted, "Tantai Yan, you are not qualified to say this! Don't you want to know exactly where I've been and what I've done in these five years?"

"Well, want to know." Pei Si Yan nodded her head, but didn't look very eager.

Tantai Si finally showed a smile and said smugly, "I've hated you since I was a child, why did my parents favour you more than they gave me? Could it be that we are not blood sisters with the same father and mother? I pampered and talked to my parents and wanted to play with them, but they always told me to go back to my books or play with my concubine sisters. Hmph, those lowly concubine sisters, why would I, a full-blooded young lady, want to hang out with them? As for you, you keep a stern face every day, don't say much, and don't even smile, yet you win all the love from father and mother, on what basis, on what basis exactly?!"

"By virtue of the fact that you were born two years later than me, and are not the eldest lady of the eldest house." Pei Si Yan softly explained.

"Age counts for nothing!" Tantai Si raised her voice once again, venting the years of unwillingness and resentment that had been pent up in her heart, "Which bit of me is worse than you, does the seat of Witch Pan only depend on who was born first and not on ability and cultivation?!"

Pei Si Yan smacked her lips and sighed, "This look of yours makes me see two a Lady Yuexi."

Tantai Si despised coldly, "Don't compare me to that stupid woman! She's even less qualified to be compared to me! I knew that staying here at home, no matter how much I fought for it I would never get ahead, so I pretended to go out to play and be abducted, but in fact I've always been in the Imperial Capital, and haven't taken a step away from it, except for going to contact my close friends ..."

"Ha ..." Pei Si Yan let out a long yawn and looked sleepily at the dazed Tantai Si.

"What a cheesy story." She spat out a sentence.

"What?!" Tantai Si became annoyed and slapped Pei Si Yan hard.

"Let me think about it," Pei Si Yan wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and said carelessly, "You and Lan Xuan should have been in contact before you left home, right?"

Tantai Si was startled and somewhat reluctantly admitted, "Yes, but at that time I was simply in love with him."

"During these five years when you left home, you were netting your close associates while lurking in the palace to spy on the news, so you would have known that the late emperor's edict of succession was originally written in the name of the sixth prince, and it was on the basis that if I knew the truth of the edict, I would be a great threat to the emperor's dragon chair that you made the emperor have the idea of killing me!" Pei Si Yan was in a good mood as she admired the astonished look on her sister's face, "And you, you used your body as a price to win the Emperor's trust. Sister, that's sad, in order to win me, you rashly handed over the one thing that women do as a precious thing."

Tantai Si's almond eyes widened angrily, "I genuinely like the Emperor, and the Emperor loves me, where is the rashness?!"

"Has the Emperor already welcomed you into the palace as his queen?" Pei Si Yan asked in return, "No, things can change unexpectedly at any time, if the Emperor has no intention to set you up as a queen, in the future when you marry someone else, how are you going to explain to your husband that you are not a virgin? How are you going to cope with the repercussions of such a scandal spreading out?"

"Don't worry about it, I have my own way of getting the Emperor to make me the Empress!" Tantai Si's face was no longer as bright as before, showing a greyish colour.

"Lady Yuexi's sudden arrival of people and horses to assassinate me was also done by you, in order to make me behead Lady Yuexi in a fit of rage, so as to make the Emperor have a reason to let me out of the imperial capital, giving you guys time to take in my cronies and search for evidence of my guilt, right?"

Tantai Si threw away Pei Si Yan and got up, looking at her condescendingly, "So what if you guessed all of them correctly? Tantai Yan, you are already a loser and can't turn over."

"But I still feel pleasant after seeing your expression." Pei Si Yan reclined, no longer looking at Tantai Si, "Xiao Si, you are still too young, there are still a lot of things to learn ..."

"I said, you're not qualified to say this to me!"

"If you judge whether others are qualified to speak to you from your own perspective, it's really childish ah sister."

Tantai Si was about to go crazy, she really didn't know where this woman got the mood and strength to mess around with herself!

Pei Si Yan let out a helpless sigh, continued to look at the dark ceiling, and said softly, "In the future, the Tantai family is relying on you, make sure to guard the family well, and don't let the clan suffer half a bit of harm ..."

''Tantai Yan, I'm sorry, I can only go so far with my agreement with you.

The future Tantai family will be left in the hands of your sister who is connected to your bloodline, please bless the Tantai family in heaven ...

"The Emperor has ordered that the prisoners be brought to the palace for trial!" Eunuch Qian appeared outside the cell, he saw Tantai Si and owed a bow, "Miss Tantai."

The smile quickly returned to Tantai Si's face again, she looked at the impassive Pei Si Yan and said pleasantly, "Sister, I wonder what kind of extreme punishment the Emperor will use to send you to the netherworld?"

"I hope I won't disappoint you only, sister."

Two jailers came over and put heavy shackles on Pei Si Yan, then one on the left and one on the right even dragged her with a frame and led her to follow Eunuch Qian to the grand hall.

After days of being in a dark prison, when Pei Si Yan saw the bright sunlight, her eyes suddenly turned white, she couldn't see anything clearly, tears kept flowing out, she laughed "haha", as if the world of bliss was in front of her.

The jailer rudely threw the prisoner in the centre of the hall, and then bowed and retreated to the door of the hall. The civil and military officials looked at Pei Si Yan, who had to kneel on the ground in a humiliating position due to the shackles and chains, and then associated it with the former Lord Wuban, who had stood above the court with great vigour, and couldn't help but sigh at how much things had changed.

Lanxuan lowered his curtains, glancing at his right hand that was bandaged up with gauze, a cold light gathering in his eyes.

That night, Tantai Yan had taken advantage of his momentary laxity to draw a delicate dagger from her sleeve and stabbed him in the arm, the wound so deep that blood flowed. He instantly lost the mood to humiliate her and immediately ordered her to be taken into custody in the prison and tortured.

To make this bitch pay the heaviest price!

Lan Xuan handed over the bright yellow scroll in his hand to Eunuch Qian and asked him to read out the holy decree.

Eunuch Qian respectfully received the provincial rule, opened it, and read it aloud: "One of the original four great auxiliary ministers, Wushan Tantai Yan, has formed a party, held the imperial court, bent the law for his own benefit, and falsely harmed the loyal and the good, and his crimes are too numerous to mention. After his crimes were exposed, he even intended to assassinate the current Emperor, and it is difficult to quell the indignation of the people of the Blue Nation without bringing him to justice! Tomorrow at noon, Tantai Yan will be sentenced to death by lynching!"

Pei Si Yan did not say a word, when she was thrown into the prison and tortured to make a confession, she had already expected that she would be sentenced to such a cruel punishment.

Since she was destined to die, nothing mattered.

In the great hall, all the officials were talking, criticising the all evil Wu Pan to the core. Wuluo secretly shook his head, originally thinking that by forming a marriage with Wu Pan, he would be able to gain many benefits in the future, who would have thought that things would end up like this.

"Tantai Yan, you really make me feel chilled." Lanxuan said expressionlessly.

Pei Si Yan remained silent, as if she had suddenly become mute within.

Lanxuan frowned in disgust and waved his hand, "Bring her back to the dungeon and guard her closely to prevent anyone from robbing the prison."

Not long after Pei Si Yan returned to the dungeon, the jailer came over to serve her the last meal of her life, the dishes were rich and exquisite, exuding a strong aroma, but she wasn't in the mood to eat.

But fear of tomorrow's torture, but lazy to move again.

The jailer put down the meal, but did not leave immediately, as if he wanted to monitor her after she finished eating and cleaned up her plate before leaving.

Pei Si Yan didn't pay attention to him until the jailer whispered and called out "Miss", she jerked and turned her head to look at the jailer.

The jailer raised the brim of his hat, revealing a familiar face.

Surprisingly, it was Li Qingyan!

"How did you come here?!" Pei Si Yan said eagerly, reaching out to push him, "Hurry up and go! I don't want you to die with me!"

Li Qingye didn't move halfway, gazing at Pei Si Yan's face, and slowly said after a long time, "Who the hell are you ...?