Slaughter

Qingjing Sword Temple was a Cunsi Method taught to An Jing by a mysterious voice.

This Cunsi Method let An Jing visualize a rusted sword in his mind, brush it with his thoughts, subdue it with his heart, and hone it through persistence. In the end, he could cultivate a Qingjing Clear-Mind Sword Heart, tame the heart-ape, rein in the mind-horse, and attain freedom.

It was also a method of cultivating the spirit. It could strengthen his Divine Sense and suppress the mental effects brought on by the Imperial Heaven Piercing-God One-Origin Qi-Nurturing Method.

An Jing didn't need to cultivate it to its final stage. It wasn't time to break through to Internal Breath, either. He only needed to visualize the sword and suppress the demonic thoughts welling up in his heart, as well as the effects of consuming Demon flesh and Heartless Water for too long.

He murmured the incantation, visualized the Rusty Sword, and carved at it with unwavering focus. His clear thoughts settled, and his mind grew still.

A quarter of an hour later, An Jing opened his eyes. A flash of pure Killing Intent passed through them. He felt the many shackles and thorns that had long encircled his soul fall away beneath a sword's light. His thoughts flowed with greater clarity and ease, and his grasp of the Innate Qi within his body had become sharper and more precise.

He rose to his feet. "There's a voice."

It was the dead of night. The rain roared, and thunder rumbled. The Manor wasn't empty, either; firelight flickered within. Yet An Jing could still hear a sound coming from a building not far away.

A child's voice, wailing and weeping.

Someone was still alive.

The sword's voice also gave him a directive: [Enter the dungeon. There is a key inside—and if you wish to obtain power beyond all else, it is the key.]

"Understood."

An Jing didn't know who the mysterious sword voice truly belonged to, but he could tell it wasn't on the Demonic Cult's side. It was their enemy, and it had helped him several times along the way.

He was willing to follow its instructions. "But how do I get in?"

He had already found the source of the voice: the "dungeon." It was a building joined to the mountainside, with only part of it protruding outside. Most of its structure lay within the mountain.

The front entrance was an iron door. An Jing had no key, and he couldn't force his way in; the noise would surely attract the guards and instructors stationed at Dongshan Manor.

[There's a window on the side.]

The sword voice guided him. [You can get in through there, but you'll have to figure out how.]

An Jing soon found the "window" the sword voice had mentioned. It was a ventilation opening on the side of the building, barred with iron rods. Through them, he could just make out the flickering lamplight inside the dungeon.

The iron rods weren't well made. After years of exposure, they had grown somewhat rotten, but they still wouldn't snap easily. An Jing could break them with brute force, but the noise would surely alert the people nearby.

But An Jing was clever enough... and even if the wisdom of this life wasn't enough, he still had his Past Life Wisdom.

He looked around and soon found some wooden strips in a corner. Then he tore the lining from his clothes and turned it into strips of cloth.

He soaked the cloth in the rain, laid the wooden strips in a cross, then wound the wet cloth around the crossed wood and two iron rods, forming a knot and turning it into a labor-saving lever.

An Jing slowly twisted the wood, using the principle of leverage to tighten the cloth.

Soaked through, the cloth was tougher. And the iron rods really were poorly made. Little by little, he managed to bend them, opening two gaps wide enough for a teenager to squeeze through.

"So this is the principle of leverage."

Seeing that he had actually bent the iron rods over the ventilation window, An Jing couldn't help marveling. He hadn't expected such a simple principle to be so effective in practice. With such ordinary materials, he had turned rot into something wondrous. It was practically world-shaking wisdom.

In truth, prying the rods apart with a lever wasn't much different from forcing them apart by hand. The lever was simply steadier. An Jing had used it out of caution, to avoid applying too much force and startling anyone inside.

Now wasn't the time to marvel.

An Jing slipped through the ventilation window like a great cat.

He had entered the dungeon.

The dungeon was dim. Moisture from the torrential rain swirled in with the wind, and only a faint glow from an oil lamp reached the distant corridor. The smell was foul, and the light flickered unsteadily.

The dungeon stank of urine and filth. Weak wails and groans rang without end, and beneath them lurked a bloodstink that chilled the heart.

An Jing cautiously surveyed his surroundings. He was in a straight corridor built of bluestone, filthy and dimly lit. It took him a while to make out what lay within.

Then an icy chill surged up from the base of his spine, robbing him of speech for a moment.

A slaughterhouse.

Anyone lucky enough to have visited a slaughterhouse would know what true slaughter looked like: the butcher hoisted the livestock onto a frame and fastened it in place, then drove a nail into its head with a bolt—or a sledgehammer—or simply beat it unconscious.

A skilled butcher would then deftly cut the blood vessels on either side of the animal's neck, draining its blood as quickly as possible into a bucket without wasting a drop. The animal might struggle, but the sturdy frame would restrain every movement. All it could do was wail and weep until its last shred of strength drained away with its blood, until even its tears turned to blood.

Then the bloodless carcass was hooked up and hung from a beam. Its belly was slit open, and all its organs spilled into a basin.

Its body swayed with the butcher's movements, giving off a rank stench. A skilled butcher needed only a small knife to separate all the flesh from the bones, until nothing remained but a stark-white skeleton.

That was a slaughterhouse. Anyone unaccustomed to death would be terrified and sickened by the sight, even if the dead were livestock. That was what it meant to process life as raw material. That was why the sages said that a gentleman should keep his distance from the kitchen.

And that was only livestock.

But...

What if the ones being slaughtered were people?

What if the hanging bodies, the bones, the eyeballs, the blood, and the organs... all belonged to people he knew?

"The Demonic Cult... Heh. I never understood what 'demonic' meant before. Now I understand a little."

The chilling dread that had welled up from the depths of blood and bone, making his teeth grind, was swept away by anger born of his own heart. An Jing's expression was calm as he surveyed everything before him: the "bodies" hanging along either side of the dungeon walls.

Zhao Yong'an, Xu Yi, Xie Pinglan, Li Junyi, Zhao Ran'er...

One name after another surfaced. He memorized each of them, engraving them in the deepest part of his heart.

He wasn't livestock because he had talent... But what if he hadn't?

An Jing closed his eyes. He still remembered his mission. He couldn't let rage cloud his judgment.

There were still people alive.

Quite a few children in the cells were still alive, but most were tired and asleep. The few who were still groaning seemed dazed and barely conscious.

An Jing smelled Heartless Water. It seemed those potions had been given to these boys and girls, forcing them into this "calm" state so they couldn't struggle or harm themselves, couldn't resist, and couldn't observe their surroundings.

An Jing silently studied their faces. He remembered every one of them. They were all Childs of Calamity who had been gradually "eliminated" over the past few months.

He hadn't seen some of them yet, but surely most had waited here once, waiting for death to come.

[The key is ahead.]

Guided by the sword voice, now even more grim, An Jing looked toward the dungeon's exit.

Someone was guarding it.

He was a Demonic Cult member well along in years, with a head of white hair but a still-sturdy body. He sat in a chair, head lolling to one side, fast asleep.

An Jing recognized him. He was an instructor he rarely saw, surnamed Song. So this was where he'd been stationed as a guard.

That made sense. No matter how lax the management was, or how easy it was to watch over children, someone still had to guard the door.

An Jing looked carefully and spotted an empty cup of medicine on the table. The old man had insomnia and used Heartless Water, a sedative, as a sleeping pill?

Ha! Maybe he couldn't sleep because he was uneasy about witnessing such a gruesome sight? He was hardly fit to be a member of the Demonic Cult!

His heart was utterly calm. An Jing spotted the keys hanging on the wall beside him. There were several sets, each with three keys.

[Take the keys.]

An Jing narrowed his eyes as he watched the old Demonic Cult member.

The old bastard was at the Internal Breath realm, too. The good thing was that he wasn't in his prime. If he suddenly woke up, An Jing might still be able to defeat him quickly.

But the man was sleeping too deeply. An Jing used Mysterious Steps to advance silently, took the keys, and returned. Instructor Song didn't react in the slightest. An Jing could even smell alcohol on him.

The old bastard drinks and takes drugs? An Jing was speechless. At this rate, he could twist the man's head off with one hand.

But now wasn't the time. Holding the keys, An Jing slipped back out through the ventilation opening.

Using the wooden strips, he slowly bent the iron rods back into place. They remained a little warped, but an ordinary person wouldn't notice.

[Go.]

The sword voice sounded a little excited. [Go to the storage room in the building next door.]

"Mm."

An Jing took a deep breath. His heart was pounding. Then he suddenly looked toward the main Manor. "Wait, there's a sound over there!"

After initially learning Qingjing Sword Temple and honing the Rusty Sword with his anger, hatred, and helplessness, An Jing's senses had grown sharper. This Cunsi Method could greatly enhance his perception and acuity, letting him see shadowy figures slowly approaching Dongshan. "People from the main Manor are coming!"

[Perhaps this is also a test for you. Even indulgence has its limits.]

The sword voice returned to calm. [Will you take advantage of the chaos to go back, or follow my instructions?]

"Do you even have to ask?"

Without the slightest hesitation, An Jing strode toward the storage room. "I've made up my mind. I won't change it."

The storage room wasn't far from the dungeon, just across a long passage. An Jing hurried along and soon arrived.

Like the dungeon, the storage room was inside the mountain. Its black iron doors were tightly shut.

[Open the door.]

For once, the clear, ringing sword voice trembled.

An Jing took out the keys. Apart from the dungeon key, he had two others. He tried them one by one.

The first one wouldn't work; it wouldn't turn. An Jing didn't panic and immediately tried the second.

He turned it. The door opened.

The Tianyi Sect's storage room opened its doors to An Jing.