Forbidden to Bully the Storybook’s Heroine – Chapter 97
by Little PandaExtra 1: The Original Female Lead is Reborn (1)
In the curtain of rain, a slender woman knelt in the middle of the courtyard, numbly scrubbing clothes in the rainwater. Her black hair was soaked through, sticking to her face in strands. Her eyes stung so badly from the downpour that she couldn’t open them at all. Under the covered corridor sat two men, talking and laughing.
They watched the laundry woman’s miserable state with great interest, chatting about where they would go boating on the lake that night.
As for the woman, her lowered eyes were filled with hatred. She didn’t know what she had done wrong to deserve this.
If she had known Murong Qing was this kind of person, she would have never gotten involved with him in the first place.
Murong Qing…
What a hypocrite!
And Jiang Huai was just as disgusting.
Song Muyun felt terribly unwell, alternating between cold and hot as her vision blackened in waves. But she didn’t dare to stop. They wanted to see her miserable, to see her in pain, to see her humbly beg for mercy. If they didn’t get what they wanted, they would never let her be.
Men might be inclined to cherish the fairer sex,1 but the heavens were not. In an instant, the rain grew heavier, and even sheltering under the corridor wasn’t enough to avoid the splashing drops.
The noble young masters hated getting dirty. As the filthy rainwater landed on them, they couldn’t help but retreat in disgust. After exchanging a look, the two of them went inside.
They weren’t worried that Song Muyun would run. She wouldn’t dare.
A weak woman, now without family support or anyone to protect her—wasn’t she theirs to mold as they pleased?2 Where could she run? No one would protect her, no matter where she went.
Murong Qing and Jiang Huai didn’t know that shortly after they went inside, Song Muyun’s world began to spin. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she collapsed to the ground.
She trembled all over as if she had fainted, but a moment later, her eyes opened again, filled with utter confusion.
The raindrops pelted her body, cold and painful. She pushed herself into a sitting position and subconsciously looked at the large basin of clothes before her.
For a moment, she couldn’t remember where this was. She only remembered… she had dissipated from that body of hers. She should be dead.
Song Muyun propped herself up with her hands on the ground and looked around in a daze. Finally, she remembered.
This was…
Jiang Huai’s courtyard. The place where she had suffered endless humiliation and bullying, something she would never forget for all eternity.
Could it be that she… had been reborn again?
Song Muyun’s gaze fell on the heaping pile of clothes in front of her. The calluses on her palms, the mark of coarse labor, told her that she had not returned to that wonderful place. She might have… returned to a few years ago, when the Jiang family was still around.
Jiang Huai and Murong Qing had tormented her, forcing her to wash clothes in the rain and pull weeds under the scorching sun, all just to wait for her to say she couldn’t bear it anymore and beg them to let her rest.
Song Muyun had never begged them. No matter how unbearable it was, she had never begged anyone.
Beneath the rain, her pale fingers clenched into a fist. Upon realizing she had been reborn, her first thought wasn’t of how to get revenge on her enemies, but of Jiang Yao.
Jiang Yao… what was she doing now?
Did the ‘her’ of this world not know her?
Inside the house, Jiang Huai emerged after changing his clothes. He gazed out through the rain at the dazed Song Muyun sitting in the courtyard. His voice was full of impropriety, the corners of his lips tilting up. “What’s wrong, are you cold? Want to come inside and change your clothes?”
She looked up. The moment she saw that familiar and hateful face, her heart instinctively jumped with alarm. She took half a step back, her hands clenched into fists, her silence a clear refusal.
Jiang Huai hummed softly, “Why are you being so stubborn? You might as well just admit you were wrong, apologize, and beg for my forgiveness. Then you could come inside right now, take a bath, and change your clothes. You wouldn’t have to be so pathetic, completely lacking the grace of the talented lady you once were.”
Song Muyun didn’t understand. How could people as good as the Prime Minister and his wife raise something like Jiang Huai?
Jiang Yao, Jiang Yao was clearly raised so well…
She had only just been reborn. Her memories were a chaotic mess, and she still couldn’t quite distinguish her past life from this one. She only remembered that at the end, she had collapsed into Jiang Yao’s arms.
The sugar figurine she had asked Jiang Yao to buy—she never got to eat it in the end.
Only at the very, very end had she used every last bit of her strength to kiss Jiang Yao.
The sweet taste still seemed to linger on her lips and tongue.
A shimmer flowed through Song Muyun’s eyes. For a moment, it seemed as if something had fallen, but mixed in with the rain, no one saw it clearly.
Jiang Huai had little patience to begin with, and seeing that Song Muyun remained silent, he finally grew annoyed. He put his hands on his hips, tilted his chin up, and asked her, “You still refuse to admit you’re wrong?”
Other than the clamor of the rain, no one answered him.
…
“Hmph, you don’t know what’s good for you. Then you can just keep getting soaked!”
Jiang Huai felt that his earlier flicker of pity had simply been fed to the dogs. He hadn’t expected Song Muyun to be so tough!
She had already fallen to this state, so what right did she have to act so tough!
He stormed back inside.
Song Muyun saw him go. Murong Qing was standing just inside, looking down on her with a mocking expression.
The hatred that had already dissipated after she killed Murong Qing in her past life began to surge up from her heart once more. This life’s Murong Qing… wasn’t dead yet!
She couldn’t bear to see Murong Qing alive and kicking in front of her, stepping on the bones of her family to climb his way to that position.
If she truly had been reborn one more time, she would definitely drag Murong Qing down and stomp him viciously under her foot!
The window of the room was closed, shutting out the noisy rain. They weren’t afraid that Song Muyun would run, or rather, they didn’t think she would.
Song Muyun had nowhere to go.
The downpour lashed down on her, and she was chilled to the bone. As Murong Qing’s face faded from her vision inch by inch, her first feeling was one of bewilderment, her thoughts a tangled mess.
To be suddenly reborn again, and to be reborn at this point in time.
She had a vague impression that at this point… she had already been in the Jiang Residence for some time.
Murong Qing had taught Jiang Huai how to wear her down, and then had given her to Jiang Huai.
Her family was nowhere near, and she had no one to protect her. Several times, she had nearly been tortured to death.
No one… to protect her?
Song Muyun suddenly remembered the person who doted on her, cherished her, and had promised to protect her forever. Her pale hand couldn’t help but clench into a tight fist. Jiang Yao. Jiang Yao would protect her.
As long as she found Jiang Yao, she could escape her current predicament.
And… she wanted to eat a sugar figurine. She wanted one very, very much.
And so, as the rain grew heavier, faintly accompanied by thunder, Jiang Huai finally felt a pang of guilt and decided to open the door to call Song Muyun inside. When he did, he was utterly dumbfounded.
Where the hell was Song Muyun?!
It wasn’t as if they hadn’t done this before. Hadn’t she always just taken it obediently? Why was she gone today?
She ran away?
Where could she possibly run to?
Jiang Huai stood there, stunned. Murong Qing was just pulling a new policy essay4 he had written from his robes, intending to ask Jiang Huai to show it to the Prime Minister for a critique, when he saw Jiang Huai staring motionlessly outside.
He assumed Jiang Huai was looking at Song Muyun and felt a flicker of displeasure, but he hid it well, only asking if he was feeling soft-hearted.
However, when he walked over, not only was there not a single person in the courtyard, but the basin of clothes to be washed was scattered all over the ground, as if someone had tossed them about. Murong Qing was also dumbfounded. “This… you let her come in?”
He thought that Jiang Huai must have called Song Muyun back inside when he wasn’t looking.
But Jiang Huai gritted his teeth and said, “Who let her in? Damn it, she actually dared to run! I’d like to see just where she can run to!”
All the servants in Jiang Huai’s courtyard were called out. Each holding an umbrella, they began searching for her in the rain.
Muddy water soaked the hems of their robes. Everyone was furious with their master but dared not say a word. In the end, they could only blame it all on Song Muyun. Why did she have to run, for goodness’ sake, forcing them to search for her in the rain!
Song Muyun was no stranger to the Jiang Residence. If one counted carefully, this was her second rebirth, and each time it was in the Jiang family home. She had walked these paths until they were worn out.
Especially the path to Hengwu Courtyard.
The rain beat down on the young woman, a cold that seemed to seep into her very bones. Her head was spinning, likely from her illness, and a sudden wave of grievance washed over her heart. Why wasn’t Jiang Yao here? Why didn’t she have Jiang Yao?
That her had her. Only she did not.
The pale-faced young girl stumbled into Hengwu Courtyard, unaware that her pathetic figure had already been spotted. A voice shouted out, “She’s here! Go report to the Young Master, I’ve found Song Muyun! She’s gone to the Eldest Miss’s courtyard.”
Song Muyun’s body stiffened. She instinctively tried to walk toward Jiang Yao’s room. She had lived there for a good while once. In that room, Jiang Yao had been endlessly gentle with her.
But before she could even enter, a maidservant from Hengwu Courtyard stopped her outside the corridor. “Hey, which courtyard’s servant are you? Why did you come running in the rain without even an umbrella, rushing in so recklessly? Do you know who is inside?”
Another maidservant beside her immediately chimed in, “That’s our Eldest Miss! If you disturb the Eldest Miss’s rest, you’ll be in for it!”
The Eldest Miss had a formidable reputation in the capital. Even the maidservants who weren’t as familiar with her were terrified of her.
Song Muyun had been running on a single burst of energy, intent on finding Jiang Yao. Now that she was blocked, she felt that energy drain away by more than half. She was panting heavily, black spots dancing in her vision, feeling terribly dizzy.
Jiang Huai, holding an umbrella, was also searching nearby. The moment he heard that Song Muyun had gone to his eldest sister’s courtyard, he froze. A moment later, he dashed toward Hengwu Courtyard, cursing under his breath. Song Muyun had some serious nerve. What was her status, and what was his sister’s?
How dare she go to her courtyard? Did she not want to live anymore?
In the past, Jiang Huai hadn’t been this afraid of Jiang Yao. But ever since he had become more of a dandy who enjoyed bullying others with his status, Jiang Yao had taken to giving him a small beating one day and a big one the next. In his heart, Jiang Yao was synonymous with being a ferocious and menacing fiend.5
Normally, forget having no reason, even if he had business, he wouldn’t dare go to Jiang Yao’s courtyard. Had Song Muyun been drenched stupid by the rain?
How could she be so bold?
Jiang Huai was so shocked he was practically rigid. He hurried inside, intending to drag Song Muyun out.
The young girl couldn’t even get into the corridor. Standing in the rain, she had an expression of inexplicable grievance, a sour feeling spreading through her heart. That’s right. The current her was not Jiang Yao’s little baby at all. Of course the people in her courtyard wouldn’t let her inside…
Jiang Huai rushed in at some point. Seeing that drenched back, he roared, “Come back with me! Are you crazy, daring to come here!”
He was just about to reach out and grab Song Muyun’s arm when a book was suddenly thrown from inside. It was thrown with such force that it slammed into Jiang Huai’s chest, sending him stumbling back several steps, his eyes already showing a hint of subconscious fear.
A woman’s languid voice drifted out. “Jiang Huai. It’s a rare, cool, rainy day. You’re determined not to let me get a good sleep, aren’t you?”
Jiang Huai was speechless.
He really wanted to scream, what did she mean he wouldn’t let her sleep well? What did this have to do with him? It was all this Song Muyun’s fault!
If she hadn’t barged in, he wouldn’t have wanted to come here at all!
Song Muyun dazedly heard Jiang Yao’s voice and looked up. The light in her star-flecked pupils was already fading, but upon seeing Jiang Yao’s figure emerge, she forced herself to move, relying on her last ounce of strength and that tiny bit of obsession. While no one was paying attention, she stumbled from under the eaves and rushed inside. She stretched out her hand, wanting to grab Jiang Yao, but in the end, she had no strength left in her body. She was clearly so close—she could even look up and see the surprise in Jiang Yao’s eyes—but waves of dizziness washed over her mind. She fainted, losing control. Only at the very last moment did she feel a warm, somewhat hurried embrace catch her and pull her into its fold.
Jiang Huai’s eyes widened, almost in disbelief. His sister actually caught Song Muyun?
Given his sister’s reputation as a ruthless hand that destroys flowers,6 shouldn’t she have just let the person fall to the ground?
A cold, sharp gaze swept toward him. Even though he hadn’t done anything, he inexplicably felt that he was done for.
The author has something to say:
Ruthless hand that destroys flowers (Jiang Huai)
A little less today, I’m still out having fun. The high-speed rail kept getting delayed, wuwuwu. I went there at 3:30 and sat until 8 at night, so tired QAQ. Tomorrow will also be 3k words, and the day after I’ll go back to 6k daily!
Footnotes
- Original idiom: 怜香惜玉 (lián xiāng xī yù), literally ‘to cherish the fragrant, pity the jade’. It means to be tender and protective towards women.
- Original idiom: 捏扁搓圆 (niē biǎn cuō yuán), literally ‘to pinch flat and rub round’. It’s a vivid expression for bullying or manipulating a powerless person at will.
- Original term: 我草 (wǒ cǎo), literally ‘I grass’. It is a common profanity that is a pun on 我操 (wǒ cào), which means ‘I fuck’.
- A 策论 (cèlùn) was a type of essay on government policy and strategy, often required for the imperial civil service examinations.
- Original idiom: 凶神恶煞 (xiōng shén è shà), literally ‘fierce god, evil spirit’. It describes someone who looks terrifyingly fierce.
- Original idiom: 辣手摧花 (là shǒu cuī huā), literally ‘ruthless hand that destroys flowers’. It refers to a man who is cruel to a beautiful woman.
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