He watched with satisfaction as fear crept into her eyes, waiting patiently for her to plead—he wanted her to understand that he was someone she couldn’t resist.
The mere thought of being violated by seventy men sent shivers through her entire body! He was a barbarian, an outsider who had no sense of shame! So, using the situation to oppress a woman like her was just a routine matter for him. He had made it very clear—if she obeyed him, she could become his personal concubine; if she didn’t, then...
How could the noble eldest daughter of the Jun family have fallen into such a wretched situation...
"Won’t beg? Fine!" He stood and lifted her, making as if to carry her outside the tent.
"No! Please—don’t!" she choked out, her voice trembling as her arms fearfully wrapped around his neck...
He had forced her to relinquish even the last shred of her dignity! God! She had never truly hated anyone in her life, but now she hated him with all her being! Her tear-streaked face pressed into his neck as her hands, clenched into fists, pounded against his back... She knew he felt no pain, but she couldn’t hold back the tide of hatred.
Yelü Lie felt a strange sense of pity rising within him; her sorrowful state made him feel both unfamiliar and shocked. He had never known that a woman’s tears could affect him so deeply. Forcing himself to shake off the strange feeling, he set her back on the bed, then grabbed the clothes from the table and began dressing her—first the undergarments, then the inner layers, and finally the outer layer, a Khitan robe made of rare white brocade trimmed with sable fur. He then helped her into a long skirt and put small sheepskin boots on her tiny, delicate feet.
He had never dressed anyone before; in fact, except for his time in the Helan Mountains, his clothes had always been put on by servants. And now, here he was, naturally dressing her! What was even more incredible was that he knelt on one knee, allowing her snow-white feet to rest on his knee as he put on her socks and boots.
Jun Qiluo stopped crying; she had expected him to arrogantly and brutally take her body next. The fact that he didn’t do so already surprised her, let alone the fact that he dressed her, especially the boots...
She gently touched her chest with her hands, staring at him in bewilderment; and when he finished tying her boots, he looked up, meeting her gaze.
For some reason, she found that she couldn’t meet his eyes any longer; she quickly turned her face away, feeling an undeniable warmth spreading across her cheeks.
"How old are you?" he asked in a low voice.
"Twenty." His gentle tone only made her more uneasy.
He turned her face back to him. "Are you married?"
"No."
"Why not?" At twenty, both in and out of the frontier, it was the age when a woman should have had several children by now.
She remained silent, refusing to meet his invasive blue eyes.
"Your name is Qiluo? Jun Qiluo?"
"Yes." She knew the blood jade had given him the answer.
"Look at me!" he commanded.
Reluctantly, she met his gaze.
Then, he declared, "I am Yelü Lie, your master."
* * *
This bandit camp housed only four women: herself, the cook, and two women who had suddenly arrived from the Western Xia border two days ago.
Even the most naive person could tell what these two women were here for! Jun Qiluo knew that Western Xia had been heavily influenced by Tang culture, but she couldn’t believe that, more than eighty years after the fall of the Tang Dynasty, there were still women who would wear such revealing outfits, brazenly advertising their profession. In the late Tang era, the trend of wearing increasingly revealing clothing had reached its peak—women went so far as to forgo even their undergarments, exposing their chests. Back then, some crude poets even composed verses celebrating this trend, such as "Her powdered breast half-concealed like hidden snow," which became widely popular and gleefully discussed.
However, the Song Dynasty imposed strict standards and restrictions on women, perhaps due to men’s desire to suppress the rising status of women during the Tang Dynasty, preventing a repeat of that era where women could ascend to power. Jun Qiluo could not fathom how women could debase themselves by wearing such provocative clothing, seemingly desperate to be seen!
When she disguised herself as Jun Feifan to conduct business in teahouses and brothels, even the courtesans and dancers who sold their bodies did not dare to expose their skin so freely in public. Showing even a glimpse of an ankle was already considered scandalous. There was no comparison between those women and the brazen behavior of these two Western Xia women—they might as well have "prostitute" written on their foreheads.
The men had pitched a pink tent for the two women in a grove about thirty yards from the camp. Every evening, after their training, a line of men would form outside the pink tent.
Jun Qiluo was disgusted by their behavior, but the two voluptuous women sneered at her, mocking her for being no more virtuous than they were. Even more absurdly, they were jealous that she was the leader's exclusive woman!
Yes! How virtuous was she, really? It had been four days since she was captured, and though he hadn’t rushed to take her, he slept beside her every night. She often woke up to find herself curled up in his arms—because of the cold.
In Jiangnan, autumn was just starting to cool down; but here in the northwest, especially in the mountains, frost at night was not uncommon. No matter how warm the furs were, they couldn’t compare to the heat of his body, especially when she felt the chill. Her body instinctively sought the warmth of his embrace. It was something she couldn’t control, unless she forced herself to stay awake all night.
Last night, she had curled up in the corner of the bed, stubbornly turning her back to him.
Every night after his training, he would sit at the table and read for a while, then blow out the candle at the third watch and lie down on the bed, his upper body bare. He knew she wasn’t asleep—her entire body was tense, even her hair seemed to stand on end. So, he turned her to face him, his eyes searching hers in the dim light.
"Don’t turn your back on me. If you can’t sleep, we can do something else!" His gaze was more daring than his words.
That night, he kissed her upper body thoroughly, his eyes filled with mockery and an unspoken anticipation as they stared at her face. All she could do was constantly remind herself that he was stripping away her dignity, that he was slowly taking control of her body, intending to make her like those two shameless Western Xia women, crying out in obscene pleasure. The terrifying truth was that this man was gradually gaining control over her body, and she couldn’t stop it. She could only keep reminding herself not to succumb to that fate. If her body gave in to the desires he stirred within her, she would be no different from a prostitute! There was a vast difference between willingly yielding and being forcibly taken!
Suddenly, she understood why he hadn't forced himself on her yet! He wanted to completely conquer her—not just physically, but to make her willingly submit, to the point where she looked at him with the same longing as those two Western Xia women. He had said that she was the proudest and most fiery woman he had ever met, and he wanted to "tame" her, just as he had tamed his horse—the king of horses, which had taken him a month to capture and another half month to break. What he desired, he always got; and the slight challenge only fueled his interest in taming her.
Simply put, he wanted her to completely lose her dignity and bow at his feet. He admired her pride, but took pleasure in stripping it away. Oh, this despicable man! To him, she was nothing more than a toy, an object to dispel his boredom!
How was her situation any better than those two Western Xia women? They sold their bodies and at least earned money for it, while she—she only suffered humiliation over and over again.
She hated him! She had never hated anyone so much! This man took pleasure in degrading her. Even though he hadn’t yet taken her, he had seen every inch of her body! If they weren’t in a bandit and captive situation, he could already be considered her husband.
No! He was a demon! She had always believed that, regardless of their origins, people were fundamentally the same. She didn’t think that people outside the Great Wall were all cruel and inhumane, and she had met many kind-hearted people in her travels. She was not so narrow-minded or ignorant as to believe that the people beyond the wall were all monsters who drank blood and ate human flesh.
But he was an exception! He was a true demon! If she saw him eating human flesh, she wouldn’t be surprised.
Some people were just "bad," like the red-haired Liao man who treated human life as worthless, cutting off heads at the slightest provocation. She had thought that kind of bloodthirstiness was the epitome of evil, but he was even worse—his methods of torment were even more insidious. He didn’t need a knife or a whip to destroy a person’s spirit, making them live in shame and degradation.
Jun Qiluo hugged herself tightly, curling up in a corner by the fire. The cold wasn’t just from the air but from within her heart. Yelü Lie certainly wouldn’t let her have an easy life! After all, she was a captive, wasn’t she? And this camp lacked women. She had to help the old cook prepare meals and take his clothes to the freezing stream every morning to wash them. She could endure these tasks—they didn’t strip her of her dignity because she knew she was a captive, and Yelü Lie hadn’t forced her to wash the clothes of all the men in the camp, which was already a small mercy. But what she couldn’t stand was slaughtering the animals! The other day, when they ate roasted fish, she could manage, but today’s meal—a large pot of meat soup made from ten mountain chickens—was too much. She’d heard that someone had also slaughtered a wild boar. Her responsibilities only included preparing meals for the leader and the twelve riders; the rest of the men had their own cook.
She had noticed that those twelve men were almost always by Yelü Lie’s side; even at night, they took turns guarding outside his tent.
Now it was nearly midday, and the meal was ready, waiting for Yelü Lie and his men to return from the mountains. Every morning, he led two-thirds of the men up the mountain to train and hunt. She had been busy all morning, but she had no appetite. If her stomach hadn’t been empty, she would have already vomited. The sight of the slaughtered chickens made her think of the delicious soup in the pot as a collection of corpses!
The two Western Xia women sat provocatively beside her, not caring at all about their disheveled clothing—they had just emerged from a tent with several bandits.
Both women were voluptuous and tall; the one with a seductive mole under her eye was named Li Xing, and the one with darker skin was called Li Yutao.
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