“What do we do? What if she’s dead?”
“What do you mean, what do we do? The general only ordered the two of us to watch her. He never told us to make sure she didn’t hang herself!”
“She’s the most honored woman in all of Dayu, the one the general holds dearest. What if something happens to her...”
“That was all in the past! She was willing to leave her country and home for a pretty boy. Does she really deserve to be called honored? Besides, she humiliated our general so terribly before. Isn’t this just what she deserves?”
Inside the room, the woman was too weak even to cry out. Hearing the maids outside trade stories about all the reckless things she had done, she couldn’t help weeping.
She thought of the young man who had once been gifted with words, but had gone to war for her and even risked his life. It felt as if a knife were twisting in her heart.
The dashing general looked at the woman before him, who was on the verge of death yet still meant to leave with that pretty boy. His words came through blood and tears: “Do you love him that much? Enough to abandon your country and home, enough to give up everything?”
The woman said nothing, only wept.
In the end, he still let her go.
