Chapter 118: The Past is Like a Fantasy (above)

The snow fell tightly at night, the streaming shrapnel flew white, and the new moon blew and rolled the branches.

In the inner room of the west wing, twelve-year-old Shen Qi wrapped his arms around nine-year-old Shen Yan, shivering under its paper-thin quilt.

Shen Qi was sleepy and fell asleep, not long to be frozen awake again, reached out and touched Shen Yan’s cold limbs, endured the shivering and tucked his brother’s two small hands into his own arms.

Outside the short couch sleeping eleven-year-old Shen Minglu, closed clothes wrapped in a quilt, quietly like a curled up milk cat. The desktop is still lit, but the candlelight is already very weak, vaguely reflecting Yao’s thin and curved figure on the curtain.

“…… Niang, come to bed, leave that alone.” Shen Qi called in a low voice, his voice was frozen and hoarse.

Yao wiped the needle in her hair and returned, “It’s just fine, you guys go back to sleep, mother will be done in a while. Sleep, ah.”

Shen Qi knew she wouldn’t be well at all for a while.

Even the skilled embroiderer had to do half a month’s embroidery work, and ordered her to finish it in five days, and if she didn’t, she wouldn’t give their mother and son food and charcoal, forcing her to work day and night. She was only twenty-six years old, but her temples were already graying, and her eyes were almost worn out.

Shen Qi jumped off the comforter and tried to tug on her laboring hand.

Yao sidestepped and dodged, her eyes red and swollen, “Seventh Brother, stop it and go to bed with Xiaojiu.”

Shen Qi gritted her teeth and looked angrily at the unfinished Chinese dress in her hand. Yao had no choice but to put down her embroidery work, got up and said, “You go back to bed, mother will sing you a little song.”

“No need.” Shen Qi twisted her head away and drilled back into the quilt. After singing the ditty, she still had to embroider and make up for the wasted time, so it would be better not to sing.

Shen Yan slept in a daze, stirred by the cold wind that poured into the comforter, Shen Qi tightly embraced his younger brother, and opened his eyes in the swaying of the dim light until dawn.

He fell asleep in a trance only at dawn, and when he awoke again, Yao was no longer in the house.

She’s going to carry water and boil rice. The big house doesn’t eat the meals cooked by the servants, they have to eat what she cooks, and they send a maidservant to keep an eye on them the whole time.

After she finished cooking the dishes designated by the big house, she still had to cook Master Shen’s sick meal.

Shen family master was once the experience of the Department of General Affairs, seven big Beijing officials, now due to illness to serve at home to recuperate.

In fact, recuperation is not good, stroke with a crooked nose and eyes, slurred speech, hands and feet shaking, paralyzed in bed is not quite like a person, like a bedclothes wrapped in a ball of oil withered heavy misty gas.

His greatest skill in life was to marry the only daughter of the Zheng family, a wealthy merchant in the capital, as his main wife.

Zheng’s heart is not wide body is even fatter, harsh tongue, nature and jealousy, can not tolerate concubines. Husband to a, she will clean up a, either killed, or forced to sell. So seven out of the article committed four, but can not withstand the strong assets of her family and willing to support, so in front of the Shen experience is full of confidence.

The original House of a stove maid, Shen experience like her dishes burn well, people and spiritually well-behaved, secretly used, more than eight months pregnant by Zheng’s detection, a stick to the miscarriage, adult avalanches died, the fetus was lucky to survive, that is, Shen Qi.

Shen experience empty belly full of experience, but can not fight the lioness, and concern for her family, only buried in a fear of his wife’s marshal. Has not been honest half a year, and fancy sent to the Department of music prostitutes of a criminal official’s daughter Yao, love her face, quiet and gentle, can sing and dance, it is a hard love, and opened a dose of medicine to save her life. She has been grateful for this, secretly not less help them mother and son four people.

Shen Qi threw the firewood pieces away when he heard this and carried the firewood knife.

The yard has long been set up. Two rows of strong and sturdy servants stood, and a family man forced Shen Yan’s thin body into the snow, and the book bag was torn, and the books were scattered all over the place. Shen Yan struggled to try to pick up the books.

Zheng’s head full of beads and jade, dressed in openwork gold hundred sons and thousands of grandchildren red satin jacket, brocade embroidered eight groups of flowers jacket, neck treasure color full of purple sable fur neckerchief, look at the rich and warm. She sat on the steps put rosewood circle chair, behind stood seven or eight attendant maids, face as gloomy as three nine days to be under the knife.

Next to the girl called Meihua hand holding a cane twisted into a slippery soft whip, enough to be as thick as an egg.

This soft whip is not more than ordinary sticks, pumping down is to hurt the bones and bones, skillful and skillful under the wrist after a pressure on the tail, keep the skin well, inside the meat all rotten, wrapped in bruises can hurt for a month.

Shen Qi immediately changed his face, rushed over and tried to bump off the family guards, but was stopped by two rows of servants, letting out a loud voice: “What do you want to hit my brother again!”

Plum Blossom crossed her eyes, “He caused Sixth Young Master to fall into the water and nearly drowned, shouldn’t he be beaten?”

Shen Yan argued: “It’s none of my business! Sixth brother snatched my schoolbag and climbed up the rockery, and slipped and fell into the water himself. I even called out to save him.”

Meihua snorted, ”Sixth young master doesn’t grab anyone’s schoolbag, why only yours? It must have been you who provoked him with your words, angered him, and then pushed him into the water from the rockery. In the cold winter months, you clearly wanted to kill someone!”

The red marks on Shen Yan’s cheeks that had just subsided surfaced again: ”You’re spitting blood! Sixth brother ran and fell by himself, why should I be blamed? It’s been like this since I was a kid, it’s clearly him who doesn’t know anything ……”

Zheng was poked and prodded, her face turned iron blue and she snapped, “Sixth brother’s son as the first son doesn’t understand, but you, a concubine who can’t get on the stage, a little bastard born of a whore from a row house, do?”

Shen Qi’s eyes suddenly exploded into a ball of austere light, and the firewood knife in his hand swung randomly, cutting the servant who was holding him down. The servant was in pain, and when his hand was loosened, he rushed towards the field.

Zheng was so angry that her seven orifices were filled with smoke, and she saw Shen Yan kneeling in front of her with his neck stretched out, and even his appearance resembled that foxy music whore by seven or eight points, and new hatred and old hatred surged up into her heart, and she drank to the two rows of household guards and said, “Every one of you is standing there as a wooden stake? Don’t give me a fight!”

When the soft whip fell, Shen Qi had just held Shen Yan’s wrist and had not been able to pull him up, and seeing that the wind of the whip had arrived, he did not hesitate to jump on him.

This whip was solidly drawn on Shen Qi’s back. Instantly, his scalp exploded, and the sharp pain almost cut him into two halves from the whip mark, and he tensed his whole body’s muscles, forcing him to hold back the cries of pain.

The servant with the rattan whip couldn’t whip Shen Yan, so he asked the head of the family’s mother, “Great grandmother, which one to hit now?”

Zheng’s angry eyes cut teeth: “Two disobedient children without human morality, all give me to the dead beat. Beat to death!”

The rattan whip rained down, causing pain to the heart and bones, and cold sweat to gurgle. Shen Qi, with a stubbornness in his chest, clenched his teeth and refused to moan and wail, only firmly winged the little nine brothers under his protection. He was very clear in his heart, this kind of situation is clearly the old witch is determined to take his two brothers’ lives, even if he begged for forgiveness will not be helpful, adding insult to injury.

Shen Yan listened to the sound of the wind whistling behind him, his ears filled with seventh brother’s rapid breathing and muffled grunts of enduring pain, so anxious that he struggled hard, “Seventh brother, don’t suffer on my behalf, I can afford it, get out of …… the way.”

Shen Qi pressed his arms and legs to death, her voice hoarse and painful: “You’re not guilty. The guilty one is her, and the one who deserves to die is also her!”

Qing Xing fell to her knees with a thud and cried, “Seventh Brother, Ninth Brother, please be gentle and confess your sins, so that Great Grandma can be relieved of her anger!” She also begged Zheng, “They were young and ignorant, and accidentally went too far with the Sixth Young Master, so you should be generous and spare them for the sake of the Master.”

Zheng’s voice: “Little servant girl, using the master to pressure me? The master is paralyzed from a stroke, and it’s not because of one or two unfilial sons! This is a good way to give the master a chance to get his breath back! If we don’t teach them a good lesson, how can we fix the family culture?”

Shen Yan indignant seventh brother was beaten, backtalked: “Father even if really angry out of the disease, but also not angry us! What kind of family style is it for the eldest mother to beat people without any reason?”

Zheng was so angry that her face turned ashen, slapping the handrail and screaming, “Against the heavens! When a son makes a mistake, a mother can’t teach him a lesson?”

Shen Qi coldly said, “What the hell are you saying in front of Zhong Kui! Who treats us as sons and who we treat as mothers, don’t you know it all in your heart?”

Zheng’s fingertips poked at him, trembling: “You …… you …… stove maid’s son, the son of a private house, really is all the way goods! Being a mother’s no foundation, give birth to all are negative and ungrateful beasts!”

Shen Qi’s age is only twelve, the size has not grown into a half-grown boy, but there have been a few points of the tiger and wolf heart, where to hear these insults, immediately killing gas surged, violently raised his hand and stretched the tip of the whip, yanked with all his might.

The housekeeper with the soft whip was caught off guard and told him to yank him forward, then he was chopped on the back of the neck by a wood knife, like chopping wood, and chopped the head off sharply. At once blood splattered, died horizontally on the spot. The people present were all horrified.

Shen Qi pressed his hand against the blood-stained snow and slowly got up, a pair of vicious beast-like violent and wanton eyes glaring at Zheng, with a bloodthirsty light flashing in his eyes.

Zheng did not expect Shen Qi to kill in public, the heavy smell of blood smoked her heart fear, screamed “aiya”, closed her eyes straight tube to lie back. Immediately a maid called out: “big grandma uncomfortable, quickly go to ask the doctor!” Several maids chirped and surrounded her back to her room.

Seeing the situation is not good, the soldiers also seem to be scattered.

Shen Qi pooh-poohed “old killing talent”, picked up Shen Yan and walked back to the west room with difficulty.

Qing Xing almost fainted in fear, climbed up and stumbled to follow them, muttering, “Dead people …… Seven Brother Er killed someone, what should we do?”

Shen Qi laughed coldly: “That guy signed the contract of sale, is the people of the Shen family, the government can not control. At most, he will be served by the old pious woman’s family law, so what difference does it make if he kills us or not?”