“You…” Su Wan bit her trembling lips. After coming to her senses, her eyes were filled with fury and disbelief. “How dare you whip me!”
Su Luo shrugged with an innocent look. “How come there are such stupid people in the world? Why would someone keep asking, ‘how dare you whip me’ after already being whipped?”
The bold insult left Su Wan in a frenzy. Stony-faced, she clenched her teeth and slowly said, “You are dead!”
“It’s you who is dead!” Su Luo raised the whip and thrashed Su Wan violently and without mercy. A frightening coldness flared in her eyes as she said, “This one is for the old Su Luo! This one is for Lvluo! This one is for the ants crushed by you…”
As odd as Su Luo’s reasons might be, she was always able to find more justifications to lash Su Wan, just as there were always more excuses to urge someone to drink more at a banquet.
Not long after, Su Wan’s body was covered welts. Her clothes were also torn and ragged, making her look shabbier than a beggar on the street.
“Su Luo! I will never let this go! Never!” Su Wan got back on her feet. She ran away quickly while trying to cover her exposed body with her hands.
She stumbled on her way out. She tripped and fell repeatedly and looked painfully awkward.
Gazing at her receding figure, a playful smile, barely discernible, grew on Su Luo’s face.
“Young lady, this… this is not good, is it?” Su Luo was always the underdog bullied by others. She turned it around today and had instead beat Su Wan up. The abrupt change of her role caught Lvluo off guard and made her nervous.
“How is it not good? Bullying people is better than being bullied, anyway.” Su Luo sat next to the stone table in the yard and leisurely poured herself a cup of tea.
“But… But…” Lvluo stuttered. “What if third young lady tattles on you to the master?”
Wasn’t the young lady scared stiff of her father? She was always shaking in her shoes in front of the master and could hardly put a complete sentence together. How come she didn’t seem to be worried about him at all now?
“My sorry dad is in no mood for such a trivial matter. He’s busy with something,” Su Luo said. He was worried over troubles Su Luo had caused him.
Besides, her sorry father was not a fool. In this martial world, Su Wan, being a first-rank fighter, couldn’t even win a fight against a commoner. Why would he condone his daughter’s uselessness? Wasn’t she a loser as well, then?
Su Luo’s heartless father was particularly skillful in this kind of calculation. She didn’t need to worry about him at all.
Just as Su Luo expected, when Su Wan covered the welts on her face and went to the Grand General Su Zi’an to whine, sobbing and wailing, she was met with an unprecedented dismissal.
Su Zi’an stretched his patience by listening to Su Wan’s complaint. He rubbed his eyebrows in exhaustion and said bluntly, clearly annoyed, “As a first-rank fighter, you can’t win against a loser like her? Why are you crying to me? Have you no shame?”
Su Wan was dumbfounded. She raised her pretty face, streaked with tears, and said in stunned disbelief, “Father… But… But… She whipped me…”
Su Zi’an had his hands full with catching the thief who had stolen the treasure map. He had no time for these girly fights. “Fine. Shut it. This is indeed Su Luo’s fault. But you’re not free from guilt either. Why did you go to her courtyard in the first place?”
“Ziwu!” Su Zi’an barked, stony-faced.
A soldier walked in from outside the door. He was Su Zi’an’s bodyguard.
Su Zi’an ordered in a cold voice, “Go tell Su Luo she’s grounded in her courtyard for three months. If she dares to take one step outside, I’ll break her legs. Ask her to do some good self-reflection in the yard!”