Every time Winifred tried to resist, Leland would bully her even harder. She couldn’t take it anymore and started hiding, but no matter how she hid, Leland would always drag her back by her ankle.
Leland enjoyed watching her cry, tears streaming down her face, her eyes turning red, even her nose becoming rosy.
Winifred wouldn’t cry loudly; she would only sob softly. With each sob, her shoulders would lightly tremble. In a way, she was incredibly resilient.
And every time Leland saw her cry, he would softly comfort her.
“Miss, you look beautiful when you cry…” Especially beautiful.
Such comfort was better off without. Winifred had completely grown to hate Leland. She regretted not cutting her nails last night; otherwise, she would have scratched him until he bled.
While Winifred was in pain and tears streamed down her face, Leland couldn’t help but want to see more tears. It was as if this fragile, doll-like Winifred belonged entirely to him.
After a night of torment, Winifred couldn’t struggle anymore. She couldn’t even move. Worse yet, her stomach hurt when she sobbed, and she couldn’t straighten her waist. In a daze, she fainted.
Once she passed out, Leland let go of her and got up. He turned on all the lights in the room and went to the bathroom to clean up. The sound of washing could be heard from inside. In less than ten minutes, Leland walked out of the bathroom barefoot, wearing a bathrobe.
His hair was still wet as he dried it with a towel and approached the bed.
The red candles on the floor had long burned out, leaving behind pools of wax.
Once he made sure his hair wasn’t dripping water anymore, Leland returned to the bedside. He gently played with Winifred’s long hair between his fingers and covered her with the blanket, hiding any ambiguous traces. Winifred didn’t sleep well; she frowned throughout and occasionally made sounds in her throat.
Finally, Leland looked at the watch on Winifred’s left wrist. There were signs of wear on it; obviously, she had tried to remove it during the year. He gently held her delicate wrist and rubbed it. Suddenly, he noticed something was wrong… Her wrist felt uneven to the touch.
He pulled Winifred’s wrist closer for a closer look and saw faint red scars beneath the watch strap.
Although Leland was in China while Winifred was abroad, he had always been keeping an eye on her. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have collected so many photos of her.
He knew that Winifred hadn’t been doing well in the Midlands since leaving the Dawson family’s status as a young lady. She was just an ordinary girl; she had just turned 19 this year.
When she was 18 years old, she experienced betrayal and lost her body. Leland left marks of shame on her. Her father died…
Leland knew that Winifred had mental illness and even had to go to the hospital for treatment and medication. But he never thought that Winifred would have thoughts of self-harm.
It didn’t seem like something Winifred would do because it didn’t match the image he had of the high-and-mighty young lady who treated human lives as insignificant as grass and weeds.
He had thought that Winifred would be devastated but never considered that she would contemplate suicide. Shouldn’t she be thinking about how to survive and seek revenge?
Undeniably, when Leland saw multiple wounds on Winifred’s wrist, his heart suddenly ached for a moment-a sharp pain followed by a dull ache of anxiety.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so intense? As soon as this thought crossed his mind, Leland dismissed it. If he wasn’t intense enough, how could he keep Winifred? Perhaps she would never see him in her eyes again.
Although now she looked at him with hatred in her eyes, hate was still better than being ignored-better than when she used to look at Garrison with admiration.
At least there would always be a place for him in her heart.
Once he came to terms with this realization, Leland stopped worrying about it. He lay on his side and embraced Winifred tightly. She was petite while he was tall; holding her like this enveloped her completely in his arms. She felt soft and carried a fragrance that made holding her particularly comfortable.
Leland placed Winifred’s left hand on his waist so that it appeared as if they were embracing each other.
…
The first ray of morning sunlight shone into the room through the partially drawn curtains. The sunlight irritated Winifred’s eyelids. She let out a whimper and instinctively tried to move her body but felt a dull pain in her lower abdomen. It instantly brought her back to reality from her groggy state of mind.
She widened her eyes and immediately noticed the photos still hanging on the wall. Besides the faint scent of tea flowers in the air, there was an ambiguous atmosphere lingering around.
Leland was no longer in bed with her, but judging from the imprint beside her, it was evident that they had slept together last night.
Winifred wanted to clench her fists but realized that she didn’t have the strength to do so. Her legs felt weak; she felt like a swollen sponge floating aimlessly in water.
It hurts… My body feels so uncomfortable…
After lying for a while longer, Winifred wanted to leave this place. She propped herself up with sore elbows against the bed and slowly lifted her lower body that was filled with pain. The soft blanket slid down as she moved.
She instinctively looked down and discovered large bruises on her chest-terrifying bruises that were even worse than what Leland left on her body a year ago.
Seeing these “injuries” made Winifred feel nauseous; she forced herself to hold back vomit while grinding her teeth until they creaked together. Her chest rose and fell as she suppressed the pain with force.
Trembling hands wrapped the blanket around herself before slowly moving her feet. As soon as they touched the ground, they gave way under pressure, causing Winifred to kneel down. She looked at the torn cheongsam on the floor; how could she wear such clothes? The buttons were missing; even the split skirt had “split” all the way to the side of her waist.
Was she supposed to wrap herself in this blanket? Winifred couldn’t bear losing face like that.
Just as she was thinking about it, she heard a knock at the door from outside. Judging by those footsteps, she knew there was no escape for her anymore-the faint hope inside her heart extinguished before any wind could blow it away in this winter night.
Leland walked in and saw Winifred sitting on the bed holding onto the blanket without any surprise.
“You have such good stamina? Just woke up and already getting out of bed?” Leland walked step by step towards Winifred with a mocking smile as he looked down at her from above-he seemed to be in a very good mood.
Dressed impeccably and standing tall above Winifred-she hated how arrogant Leland looked now-but unfortunately, this arrogance was something she had nurtured herself; it was self-inflicted suffering.
Leland squatted down and lifted Winifred along with the blanket horizontally in his arms. “If I knew you had such good stamina, I should have kept going all night.”