"Damn it! Absolutely damnable!"
Lü Jue was so enraged by the two men's brazen, utterly unrepentant words that fury filled his chest. It was as if every word he spat out had a tail of flame. He tightened his grip on the cleaver, fighting the urge to chop off their heads.
"Even beasts wouldn't stoop to such a vile thing!" His blazing fury nearly consumed all of Lü Jue's reason. "In your eyes, do commoners' lives not count as human lives?"
The half-baked Literary Scholar's face turned ashen.
He hated Shen Tang and called her a thief. He cursed Gu Chi and the others as dogs, and he resented the commoners of Fugu for kicking him when he was down. But that didn't mean he truly understood nothing. At the very least, he knew what would happen if he confessed the truth—there was no way out. He was as good as dead!
Since he was going to die either way, he might as well go all out.
He spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva. The motion tugged at the wound at the corner of his mouth, and more warm, coppery blood seeped from his loosened gums, spreading across his tongue and filling his mouth. His expression was scornful and disdainful as he retorted, "How could the lowly lives of commoners count as human lives?"
Lü Jue was thoroughly enraged by those words.
He reversed his grip and drove the cleaver straight into the man's thigh.
More than half the blade sank into the flesh, punching right through.
A shrill, agonized scream burst from the half-baked Literary Scholar's mouth. Lü Jue clutched the handle and twisted the blade around in the man's flesh. His expression was savage, like an evil spirit, as he breathed scorching air into the man's face.