Sheng Jiu placed his palm on the woman's lower back. Looking thoughtfully at the figure in the pool, he spoke the lingering and ambiguous words: "My concubine wants to touch the fishtail? Of course..."
After saying that, he gently pushed her forward. The woman covered her lips with a smile and looked at Wanwan. As she walked closer, she praised with a smile: "Your Majesty is truly amazing. Even the mermaid hidden in the palace is so extremely beautiful."
The woman stood on the shore, looking down for quite a while before squatting down. But before her fingertips could touch the fishtail, her hair was grabbed. The woman stiffened her neck and looked sideways, only to see Sheng Jiu's gloomy and terrifying face beside her.
Sheng Jiu pressed his lips against her ear and slowly said, "The fishtail is mine. No one else can... not even if they're dead..."
Before the woman could say a word, her head was firmly pressed into the water. Wanwan widened his eyes in horror, watching this scene in front of him and trying his best to move his body backward.
His light - colored eyes stared fixedly at the struggling woman. Wanwan's arms trembled involuntarily twice, and the chains on his wrists rattled.
After a long while, he heard his own voice.
"Sheng Jiu... what are you doing?"
Sheng Jiu seemed crazy. There was not a trace of reason in his eyes. Wanwan watched helplessly as the woman's arms hung down limply and then she stopped moving.
Wanwan stood there in a daze. After swallowing hard, he was speechless for a moment.
Sheng Jiu knelt on the shore, quietly looking at the woman who had fallen into the water. There was not a shred of emotion in his eyes. Wanwan simply couldn't believe that just now he had been holding this woman in his arms, gently whispering sweet words.
The next second, he was pinching her neck and pressing her into the water.
Sheng Jiu ignored the look of fear in his eyes. He stepped directly into the water, opened the cage, walked in silently, and stood opposite Wanwan.
The originally spacious cage became cramped and narrow because of his entry.
Wanwan didn't even dare to look up at him. His eyes stopped on the woman's body for a moment and then quickly moved away.
Sheng Jiu seemed to have lost his soul. He reached out to stroke Wanwan's fishtail, his fingertips rubbing back and forth on the scales. His lips opened and closed as if he was saying something.
As the surroundings fell silent, Wanwan heard him say sentence by sentence.
"Your fishtail can only be mine. Only I can touch it."
"No one else can even think about it."
"Whoever dares to have this thought, I'll kill them."
Wanwan seemed to be dragged back to the time when the two of them were making love in bed by these words. The crazy words he had said were not just spoken on impulse.
Just thinking about this, Wanwan broke out in a cold sweat. A chill slowly climbed up his spine. Some complicated thoughts slowly exploded in his mind. For a moment, he was scared, confused, and at a loss.
Wanwan felt that the palm stroking his fishtail was like a python with poisonous fangs. His current actions seemed to be looking for the softest scales on his tail and then slowly stabbing in, injecting the deadly venom into his body.
All Wanwan could think about now was to get away from him. After hanging his head and being silent for a long time, he lowered his voice and said, "Sheng Jiu, could you please deal with the person in the water first?"
Hearing his voice, Sheng Jiu seemed to wake up. He said hoarsely, "Ming Lang, drag this woman's body away. Say she died suddenly. You can handle the rest as you see fit."
Ming Lang slowly emerged from the darkness and neatly dragged the woman in the water away.
When Sheng Jiu saw that the surroundings had quieted down, he raised his hand and wanted to stroke Wanwan's cheek. Sensing his movement, Wanwan immediately turned his cheek away, dodging his action.
Sheng Jiu looked at his long eyelashes and asked in a low voice, "What? Are you afraid of me?"
He used force to turn Wanwan's face around and asked through gritted teeth, "Or have you seen my true appearance clearly and started to resist me, to feel disgusted with me?"
"I might as well tell you frankly. The gentle treatment of you during that period, the most peaceful days between us, were all an act. I've always been suppressing my own personality. Sometimes, seeing you like this with me, I even thought about just strangling you to death... so that you could die by my side."
Wanwan tightly pursed his lips to hold back the sound. He didn't know if the person in his impression had changed or if he had always been like this. Just as he had said just now, the harmonious co - existence between them before was entirely because he had been controlling his temper...
So was the him during those heart - fluttering moments fake? And were his own heart - fluttering moments for him also fake?
Wanwan slowly closed his eyes, not daring to think about the whole thing any further.
Sheng Jiu's hot breath sprayed on his face again and again. His chin was firmly pinched in someone's hand, and he couldn't even manage the most basic dodge.
Sheng Jiu seemed a bit weak. He leaned on Wanwan, pressing his forehead against his, and said softly, "Wanwan, do you know? We could have been fine..."
Sheng Jiu slowly closed his eyes. His other hand reached down, and his long fingertips nimbly penetrated into the soft scales. Wanwan stiffened his body when he felt the intrusion.
He struggled to swing his fishtail, trying to dodge his action. But Sheng Jiu tightly grasped his shoulder, and his words carried a hint of threat: "Don't move..."
Even if Wanwan wanted to move, the range of his movement wasn't large because his body was controlled by three chains at the moment, and he simply couldn't make much noise.
His two arms hung in mid - air. For the first time, he felt what it meant to be powerless. He opened his fingertips, trying to grab something, but it was all in vain.
Wanwan stared blankly at the ceiling through the top of the cage, slightly in a daze, as if looking up at a vast expanse of blue sky.
Sheng Jiu pressed Wanwan's whole body against the cage and mercilessly entered the soft scales. Wanwan frowned uncontrollably because of the pain. He took a deep breath and wanted to reach out to stop his action, but as soon as his arm stretched out, it was stopped by the chain.
His arm hung down limply again, gently swaying in mid - air.
He reached out to hold the iron bars of the cage. The cold touch made him shiver.
In the huge palace, only the tinkling sound of the chains remained.
Tonight was originally the auspicious day for Sheng Jiu to take a new concubine, but now his new concubine was lying dead in the wild, leaving only himself to bear his storm - like ravages.