The Red Wedding

The Scars She Hid From The World

REGINA MCBRIDE

The heavy iron gates of the Wilderness Correction Camp groaned as they released me after three years of state-sponsored hell. I stood on the dirt road, clutching a plastic bag that held my entire life, waiting for the family that claimed they sent me there for "rehab." My brother, Brady, picked me up in a luxury SUV only to throw me out onto a deserted highway in the middle of a brewing storm. He told me I was a "public relations nightmare" and that the rain might finally wash the "stink" of the camp off me. He drove away, leaving me to limp miles through the mud on a snapped ankle. When I finally dragged myself to our family estate, my mother didn't offer a hug; she gasped in horror because my muddy clothes were ruining her Italian marble. They didn't give me my old room back. Instead, they banished me to a moldy gardener’s shack and hired a "babysitter" to make sure I didn't embarrass them further. My sister, Kaleigh, stood there in white cashmere, pretending to cry while clinging to her fiancé, Ambrose—the man who had once been mine. They all treated me like a volatile junkie, refusing to acknowledge that Kaleigh was the one who planted the drugs in my bag three years ago. They wanted to believe I was broken so they wouldn't have to feel guilty about the "wellness retreat" that was actually a torture chamber. I sat in the dark of that shed, feeling the cooling gel on the cigarette burns that covered my arms, and realized they had made a fatal mistake. They thought they had erased me, but I had returned with a roadmap of scars and a hidden satellite phone. At dinner, I didn't beg for their love. I simply rolled up my sleeves and showed them the price of their silence. As the wine spilled and the lies crumbled, I sent a single text to the only person I trusted: "I'm in. Let them simmer." The hunt was finally on.

Modern Revenge Scheming

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In the sultry summer, a heat wave rose in the Cold Palace.

"Your Majesty, the rebels have entered the palace! Let's run away!" The maid Xia Mang stumbled into the Cold Palace. She grabbed Shi Qingxue, the deposed empress, and tried to run outside.

Shi Qingxue was still wearing a red dress, looking calm and even a little aloof, with a touch of self-mockery on the corner of her mouth, "The Shi Family is long gone. Where can I escape?"

Xia Mang became speechless, and after a long while she reluctantly said, "There will always be hope as long as you are alive."

However, Shi Qingxue sneered, "Mo Junyang has former enmity with me, and now he fights into the palace. Even if my force declines, there is no reason for cowardly escape!"

As she was saying, Mo Junyang, King Rui’s eldest son, walked into the Cold Palace with vigorous strides. With the military uniform of Great Mo Dynasty stained with blood, the man looked like a demon from hell and made people scared just at a glance.

Mo Junyang kept his eyes on Shi Qingxue as if he was about to pierce her.

But Shi Qingxue had a calm look. She was no longer the former proud Sixth Lady of the Shi Family, who was ignorant of worldly affairs.

She was clear in her heart.

When she was young, Mo Junyang was a hostage in the palace, and she had insulted him many times.

Her guilt didn't help and she deserved his revenge.

She wasn't afraid. She just looked at Mo Junyang and asked what she most wanted to know at present, "Where is Mo Junhao?"

Mo Junhao, Emperor Hao, the former husband of Shi Qingxue, and the jerk who destroyed her family, abandoned her and left her out in the Cold Palace after he ascended the throne.

Mo Junyang just closed his lips lightly and kept his look cold. After a moment, he said in a low voice, "Dead."

At the end, it seemed that this was not enough to make Shi Qingxue sad, and he added, "He was beheaded by my sword. His head and body were separated."

Shi Qingxue lowered her eyes. But instead of showing sadness, there was even a smile at the corner of her mouth, and she was very satisfied with the result.

She didn't care about the staring sights around her, and looked at Mo Junyang calmly. The pride engraved in her bones made her unable to say any apologies or flattering words.

She smiled at the corner of her mouth, figuratively, as if everything had settled.

She said indifferently, "That being the case, then you..."

Mo Junyang stared at Shi Qingxue with a gloom look. At this moment, he interrupted her suddenly, "Are you asking me for mercy?"

The straightforward questioning and the surrounding ridicule made Shi Qingxue's face pale for a while.

She had heard that King Rui's eldest son was vicious and revengeful, and in the past few months, everyone who had offended him had been retaliated in the cruelest way.

And his revenge on her was to break all her pride.

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