NOVEL NEXT Chapter 53 - I
“I…” Mu Ci finally spoke. His voice was as broken as a shattered water glass on the ground, and his tone resembled a gossamer. “When I was fourteen years old, my concubine mother ruined her face with scissors…”
“Yeah, then what?”
Then? Then was the beginning of Mu Ci’s nightmare.
The fourteen-year-old Mu Ci had already begun to show the beauty of his body. His physique had the tenderness of a teenager and the stature of an adult at the same time. His bones and muscles were well-proportioned, and he was exceptionally beautiful.
After another year, he looked more like his concubine mother. His eyebrows, eyes, lips—clear and beautiful—were exactly the same as his concubine mother. Even the servants in the palace said that Little Prince Mu Ci and Concubine Ling looked exactly the same.
Initially, Mu Ci worried that if he went to greet his disfigured concubine mother with such a face, she would be displeased. However, Concubine Ling still loved him as much as before, and even mentioned that without the emperor’s pressure, she seemed to be living more freely.
Occasionally Concubine Ling would look at him worriedly, but she said nothing.
Although she didn’t voice her concerns, Mu Ci quickly understood where the worry came from.
On the day of Mu Ci’s fifteenth birthday, the palace held a birthday banquet for him as usual. What was unusual, however, was that the emperor actually attended. He even got half drunk at the banquet and was helped back to sleep by the accompanying eunuch in the middle of the celebration in the Qing palace.
Mu Ci was still unaware at this time, until the banquet was almost over, and the eunuch suddenly came over to convey the order, summoning His Highness the Seventh Prince to see the emperor.
Mu Ci found it strange because his father had never summoned him alone. He was mediocre in talent, disliked government affairs, and had nothing worthy of the emperor’s attention.
Mu Ci went there full of doubts. There was only one lamp lit on the table in the huge study room. It was dim and dark. There was no one in the room. Even the serving maids were screened out of the second door. The atmosphere was strange.
His father was sitting behind the desk. The dragon pattern on his black robe was majestic and delicate. He waved to Mu Ci, “Come on, Xiao Qi, come here.”
Mu Ci walked over cautiously and was about to bow. Suddenly, a big hand came across, and Mu Ci was startled. His wrist had already been grabbed, and he was pulled into his father’s arms.
Mu Ci was frightened. He screamed and struggled to run away.
The emperor had just passed his forties at this time, in the prime of life. The strong body he had trained in his early years of battle was still very good. However, Mu Ci was thinner than others due to the lack of nutrition in the womb, and the fifteen-year-old boy had only grown to the height of a thirteen-year-old.
The emperor covered his mouth with one hand, smiled, and hissed, “Don’t scream; people are outside and will hear you.”
Mu Ci was so frightened that his whole body was shaking, and he almost didn’t have the strength to resist. He was like a six or seven-year-old child usually held in the arms of the emperor, suffocated in the strong smell of alcohol.
“Father… you, you are drunk…”
“Who said that? Father is very sober.” The emperor carefully looked at Mu Ci’s face and sighed vaguely, “You and her are really look alike. It looks more and more beautiful. I neglected you before, and you grew up like this without me paying attention.”
These words seemed ordinary, even with a touch of warmth, but coming from the mouth of his cruel father, it was just… It only made him felt scared.
Mu Ci keenly felt the other person’s hand touching his lower back. He almost cried and begged tremblingly: “Father, Father, let me go. Please, see clearly, I am not my concubine mother, I am your son…”
He was fifteen years old. Other princes at his age already had one or two concubines in their houses, but he was the only one who was still innocent, but right now If he didn’t understand the situation, he would be a fool.
The emperor ignored the pleading and resistance of Mu Ci and suppressed the poor child with one hand, tearing off his clothes and touching his waist and thighs with the other hand.
Mu Ci couldn’t struggle, so he desperately grabbed the long-handled porcelain bottle on the table, held the mouth of the bottle and knocked it hard on the corner of the table, causing pieces to fly everywhere.
The emperor thought that his young child was going to be disobedient and resisted, so instead of being annoyed, he even grabbed his hand with great interest.
Unexpectedly, Mu Ci held the mouth of the bottle instead and pressed the sharp crack against his neck. His voice was trembling: “Let me go…please, or else, or I will…”
Mu Ci’s fair and tender skin, there was a small puncture in the neck, and blood immediately poured out.
The emperor was startled, and the strength in his hand relaxed. Mu Ci seized the opportunity to break free, threw the bottle to the ground, covered his bleeding neck, and fled in a panic, not daring to glance back at the emperor.
Blood stained his hands and soaked his clothes along his wrists and neck. He raced back to his dormitory, ignoring the little eunuch’s calls behind him.
He concealed himself in his quilt, refusing to allow servants to light the lamp or anyone to enter. Alone and helpless in the corner of the bed, he cried throughout the night.