Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Zhao Quan stood at the doorway and watched Dai Rong leave.

Before long, a guard came to report that Dai Rong had headed toward the General’s Mansion.

Zhao Quan entered with extreme caution, lifting his eyelids halfway to steal a quick glance at Wei Yi. A sheen of nervous sweat had broken out across his palms.

He could tell Wei Yi’s expression was terrible. It was the look of a man on the brink of towering rage, forcing it down with all his might. His face was dark and frightening, and his eyes held an indescribable cruelty.

“Call Han Xu here,” Wei Yi said, his voice taut, carrying a faint tremor that was almost impossible to detect.

Zhao Quan froze for a moment before belatedly coming back to himself. Cold sweat broke out all over him, and he hurriedly ran out.

When Han Xu arrived through the snow, the wind outside was biting.

The moment he stepped inside, he sensed an atmosphere so heavy it was almost suffocating. He looked up, and Wei Yi slowly raised his eyes as well. Several bloodshot veins were clearly visible in them.

“Where is she?” Wei Yi asked.

Han Xu knew at once who “she” referred to. He bent at the waist and cupped his hands. “She was taken.”

“By whom?”

“Ao Chun.”

Wei Yi crushed the teacup in his hand.

After a dull crack, shards of porcelain bit deep into his palm. Dark-red blood ran along the lines of his hand to his wrist, soaking through his sleeve before dripping onto the floor.

Wei Yi flung the broken cup to the ground.

“How could it be Ao Chun!”

Han Xu remained silent.

Wei Yi rose to his feet, his chest heaving violently. His breathing unsteady, he paced back and forth. It was as though a fire were raging inside him, devouring his reason on one side while forcing him to calm down on the other.

What would Sheng Zhaoning suffer?

He did not want to think about it.

No one ever walked out alive from Ao Chun’s hands. Even leaving behind an intact corpse was a luxury.

Wei Yi forced down the panic surging up from the depths of his heart. He sat back down in the chair, closed his eyes, and took several deep, heavy breaths, steadying the emotions he so rarely allowed to slip.

“Where is she being held?” Wei Yi asked, his voice once again controlled.

Han Xu answered, “The dungeon.”

“Is she dead?”

Han Xu clenched his fists. “No.”

She would not die.

Without His Highness’s instruction, no one would casually kill one of his Shadow Guards.

Only…

Han Xu closed his eyes, a look of unbearable pity passing over his brow.

Living like that would be worse than dying in one clean breath.

The dungeon was steeped year-round in the stench of blood. The sticky, damp, moldy air made people feel inexplicably suffocated.

Torches bound along both sides of the walls gave off scorching heat. This place had originally been used to hold prisoners of war, but after the frontier had remained stable for several years, it had gradually emptied out.

After nightfall, the dungeon filled with bone-piercing cold. In the silence, even the crackle of the flames sounded especially harsh.

Creak-

With the sound of the heavy iron door being pushed open, a set of unhurried footsteps came from the corridor outside.

Pale moonlight spilled in through the vent overhead, illuminating half of the prisoner’s blood-drenched profile.

Sheng Zhaoning’s hands and feet had all been broken, hanging limp and powerless against the ground. Two bloody holes pierced through her shoulder blades. A long, thin iron wire covered in barbs had been threaded through her shoulders and bound around her body. Every breath was an agony taken to its limit.

The footsteps stopped in front of her.

A shadow fell over her from above.

Then a hand slowly pulled at the barbed wire embedded in the bloody holes of her shoulders. It lifted it lightly, tugging it back and forth, and the blood that had long since dried seemed at last to find a new outlet, rushing out in a frantic surge.

A violent wave of pain crashed over Sheng Zhaoning. Cold sweat instantly drenched her skin, her brows knitting tight as she clenched her teeth and refused to make a sound.

“As expected of a Shadow Guard personally trained by His Highness. You’re the first to last five days under my hands.”

Ao Chun’s lips curved in a faint smile. His gaze fixed on the blood in his palm, excitement gleaming in his eyes.

Sheng Zhaoning bit down hard on her lower lip, her entire body trembling uncontrollably from the pain.

Seeing that she still refused to open her eyes, a dark glint flashed through Ao Chun’s gaze. He lifted his foot and kicked her to the ground, then ground the toe of his boot viciously into her shoulder.

Sheng Zhaoning let out a muffled groan. The veins in her neck bulged, and her mind went blank.

“Is this… all you’ve got?” She lay on her back, trampled under his foot. Opening eyes blurred by sweat, she struggled to bring her hazy vision into focus.

For most of the time, Sheng Zhaoning had been conscious.

Countless medicines had been forced down her throat. Large amounts of ginseng soup had kept a single breath in her body. All kinds of stimulants and pain-amplifying drugs battered her nerves, making her feel every inch of torn flesh with terrifying clarity.

Every day, she woke to the agony of her bones being shattered.

Starting from her toes, her bones had been broken section by section. A little more was smashed each day. By now, the bones in both her legs had been crushed, and long, thin steel needles pierced through every joint.

And yet even pain like this could not make her pass out.

She was still awake. Still alive.

She was trying to enrage Ao Chun, to force him into using even crueler methods until he lost control and killed her.

Sure enough, Ao Chun laughed in anger. “Don’t be in such a hurry. The real show hasn’t even started.”

He ground the toe of his boot down a few more times, widening the bloody hole until blood stained the floor. Only then did he lift his foot in satisfaction and casually wipe it against the ground.

“Bring them over,” Ao Chun said, rolling his neck.

At his command, several men behind him carried over a few wooden crates. One of them brought in a tray covered with all kinds of knives and torture implements.

Ao Chun casually picked up a barbed dagger and approached Sheng Zhaoning with a smile on his lips.

“You already have plenty of wounds on you, but who told you to be so stubborn and put this general in a bad mood?”

Ao Chun’s smile took on a sinister edge. Even the soldiers following behind him felt their hair stand on end.

Knife in hand, he crouched down and slowly waved it before her eyes. Then he drove it hard into Sheng Zhaoning’s leg.

The thick stench of blood drifted into every corner of the dungeon. Ao Chun stabbed her more than a dozen times in succession, each strike ripping out mangled flesh hidden beneath the skin with the barbs of the blade.

Sheng Zhaoning was already numb from the pain. Her head hung weakly, and she hovered on the edge of death, only for a pill to be forced into her mouth, harshly dragging back a sliver of consciousness so she could endure every extreme torment while fully awake.

After an unknown amount of time, the knife finally stopped. Her entire body looked as if it had been soaked in blood, with not a single patch of intact skin left anywhere on her.

“I’ll ask you one more time. Who sent you to kill Liu Qi?” A vicious light shone in Ao Chun’s eyes as he bent over and stared straight at her.

Sheng Zhaoning lifted her eyelids with difficulty, her breath faint.

“Get lost.”

Ao Chun smiled.

His smile was sincere, and his laughter even rumbled through his chest.

“You truly are a Shadow Guard His Highness poured so much effort into training. Every last one of you really is the most loyal dog.”

Suddenly, his smile vanished, and his expression darkened inch by inch.

“Bring the thing in,” Ao Chun ordered.