The Reborn Legitimate Daughter Goes on a Rampage

The biting wind swept snow through the broken window lattice. There was no charcoal fire in the hall, only the damp stench of mildew mingling with the heavy smell of blood. On the floor, a woman in rags, her hair tangled and her face filthy, had been discarded like a scrap of cloth on the cold stone bricks. Her wrists and ankles bore deep, festering wounds, raw and exposed to the bone. The tendons in her hands and feet had long since been severed by someone. Dark, dried blood soaked the thin straw beneath her and snaked across the floor around her.