He never looked back because he didn’t want to see her running eagerly into the thicket like a leaping deer. He didn’t want to see her leaving; at that moment, it felt as if a large hand was gripping his collar, making his chest feel tight. He walked straight back to the mansion, heading for the basement…
Aside from her black hair, black eyes, and yellow skin, she was just an ordinary woman, but she made him taste the bitterness of rejection. She had always kept him at bay, rejecting his seduction, rejecting his brutality. From beginning to end, he had never conquered her; even though he had conquered her body countless times, her soul remained high above, unreachable.
He had seen many noble souls, those dissenters secretly plotting against him, those spies and agents of enemy nations exposed in his hands. Their faith was so steadfast; they wouldn’t tremble in the face of t*****e, nor show any fear in the face of death.
These people, who cried out their faith before dying, cursing him with the most venomous words, he never felt any embarrassment in front of their noble souls. He laughed coldly, even feeling nothing, because they had nothing to do with him; they were just names on a red list in secret files. Their lives and deaths were merely names he crossed out or marked with an X with his pen. But in front of this woman, the world was completely turned upside down; a single disdainful glance from her could make him feel small and humble.
She was truly exceptional; she had never smiled at him in her life, never played the piano for him, not once. He could only stand behind her or peek from behind the curtains to catch a glimpse of her smile. What he could not have, he would rather destroy. He broke her hand, and at that moment, he felt a pain that pierced his heart, yet he could still hear the sound of the piano, the notes seemed to linger like a ghost, clinging to the floor-to-ceiling curtains of the study, the piano’s soundboard, the gaps between the books, even in the cracks of the floor, echoing everywhere with the sound of that damned melody.
He had let her go; from the very beginning, he had decided to let her go, not out of mercy, but because his soul and mind could no longer bear this division. In his dreams, he clearly saw her smile, gently burrowing into his arms. When he woke up, all he saw was her crying, and the one who made her cry was him. He used a whip to make her cry and tremble; more than her anger, fear, and hatred, he feared seeing her indifference…
He strode forward, letting his chaotic thoughts guide him, heading straight to the wine cellar in the basement. The wooden shelves in the cellar were lined with many bottles of wine. He usually liked to drink a little when he was tired from work; it helped him relax and sleep better. But he had never truly been drunk because he knew that alcohol could make one overly emotional and lose control. For an ordinary person, drunkenness might not mean much, but for him, the intoxicating realm of the god of wine was an absolute taboo. He had an exceptionally high level of acting talent, even he admired himself; his drowsy drunkenness was all a disguise. He had to remain alert and vigilant at all times. According to his wolf philosophy, even when crouching by a stream to drink, he had to be wary of the predatory gaze lurking in the dense forest. If he wanted to survive, he had to be alert at all times; if he wanted to survive with even more glory, he had to be quicker and doubly crueler than his opponents.
But this time, he really wanted to try the feeling of being drunk. He had only heard that when one was drunk, one would feel nothing, because that large hand had not relaxed its grip on him, still tightly clutching him. That evil hand tightened around his throat, making it hard for him to breathe. He locked the basement door, took a bottle of wine from the shelf, bit off the cap, and gulped it down, but it didn’t make him feel any better; his chest ached faintly. This made him even more irritable, and he knocked over an entire row of bottles on the shelf.
……
“General, are you alright?” Lieutenant Jacob finally broke through the door and found him on the floor.
He lay among a pile of glass bottles, some empty, some still half full, some with caps off, gushing out, and some were half shards of glass
