Hu Yannan pulled the other end of the rope and mounted his horse. After settling in the saddle, he squeezed the horse’s sides and struck its rear, causing it to sprint forward.
Dan Xiaoya, pulled by the rope, had to run behind the horse to avoid being dragged on the ground. Hu Yannan, seeing her full of anger and unwillingness yet silent, was delighted. He didn’t believe she wouldn’t beg for mercy. He wanted to see how stubborn she could be – a human could never outrun a horse. He squeezed the horse’s sides, increasing its pace.
Dan Xiaoya collapsed in the middle of the road, completely exhausted. Hu Yannan sat on horseback, looking at Dan Xiaoya on the ground with a complex expression. At this moment, Dan Xiaoya looked like she had been fished out from somewhere, her entire body wet, sweat seeping into the ground, outlining her collapsed figure.
The shoeless foot was already a bloody mess, while the foot with a shoe was oozing blood-red liquid from the shoe’s edge. Dan Xiaoya’s clothes, torn and dragged by the horse’s rapid movement, were now indistinguishable from the mud, barely covering her body. Her wrists bore two blood-colored marks from the rope, still seeping blood, almost exposing bone. Her hair, wet with sweat and covered in mud, hung in strands over her face. After being tortured all night, she was now almost unrecognizable, her skin in tatters.
Hu Yannan’s gaze turned sinister. He would never feel heartache for his enemy’s sister. This pain was far less than one ten-thousandth of his loss of Sisi. Her wounds would heal one day, but he would never walk out of the pain of losing Sisi. Hu Yannan sat on horseback, motionless, waiting for her to wake up.
Warm sunlight bathed Shan Xiaoya, like a mother’s hand caressing her cold cheek. Her eyelashes fluttered. She wanted to cry out, “Mom, don’t go!” But her burning throat couldn’t make a sound.
Anxiously reaching out to grab her gentle mother, she moved her wounded wrist, a piercing pain causing her to furrow her brow, awakening her lost consciousness…
