Torturing Liu Xi

"Go to hell."

Ye Xiu spat out two words, then pointed his fingers like a sword and slashed through the air.

A streak of crimson flame flashed by.

The maid's scream stopped instantly. Her head was severed on the spot and rolled to the ground, blood splattering all over Liu Xi's face and head.

The warm blood splashed across his face, and Liu Xi was completely stunned.

Ye Xiu hadn't concealed his aura. Liu Xi quickly realized that Ye Xiu was actually a Nine-Star Great Dou Master!

Ye Xiu turned his gaze toward him and walked closer, step by step. The sound of his footsteps rang clearly through the deathly silent bedroom, like funeral bells tolling in Liu Xi's heart.

"Master Liu Xi," Ye Xiu said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "You've been using my blood to make pills these past few days. How's that working out for you?"

Liu Xi stared at Ye Xiu in utter terror. "N-no... This has nothing to do with me! It was Jialie Bi! He told me to do it! Ye Xiu, what are you going to do to me...? You should know, my master is a third-grade Alchemist..."

"Your master?" Ye Xiu sneered, having reached the bedside. "When he gets here, I'll send him down to keep you company."

Before he had finished speaking, Ye Xiu struck like lightning!

"Ah—!!!"

A bloodcurdling scream, utterly inhuman, burst forth!

Ye Xiu's fingers were like a sword, razor-sharp. A flash of cold light passed, and Liu Xi's limbs were severed at the roots!

The searing heat of the crimson Dou Qi instantly charred the wounds, preventing blood from gushing out at once. But the soul-deep agony nearly made Liu Xi pass out.

Expressionless, Ye Xiu crouched beside Liu Xi, pulled the Storage Ring from his finger, and forcibly broke through the faint mark on it with his spiritual power. After a quick search, he took out several jade bottles.

He pried Liu Xi's jaw open and poured an entire bottle of pungent-smelling hemostatic powder into his mouth. Then he picked out a different medicinal salve meant for external wounds and smeared it haphazardly over the stumps of his limbs.

The medicine took effect quickly, stopping the bleeding, but the pain didn't ease in the slightest. The powder's sting only made it worse.

Like a fish tossed onto dry land, Liu Xi's torso was all that remained, twitching in agony on the bed. His eyes were filled with pleading, but he couldn't even manage a complete sentence.

"You want to die? It won't be that easy." Ye Xiu's voice sounded as if it came from the deepest pits of hell. "You drained so much of my blood and made me experience days of wishing I were dead. Letting you die just like that would be far too good for you."

He turned and walked out of the courtyard. A moment later, he returned with a wooden bucket he had found in some corner, reeking of filth and filled with murky excrement.

At the same time, Dou Qi gathered at his fingertips. He easily corroded a small hole in the ceiling beam.

Ye Xiu dragged the barely conscious Liu Xi beneath the beam and laid him on his back, directly under the hole.

Then he lifted the bucket and controlled it with Dou Qi, gathering a foul, murky drop of excrement at the hole in the beam.

"Drip."

The first drop landed precisely on Liu Xi's forehead, and the stench spread at once.

Liu Xi's body convulsed violently, terror reaching its peak in his eyes.

"Drip... drip..."

Ye Xiu adjusted the pace and rhythm, letting the drops fall one after another onto Liu Xi's face, steady and unrelenting...

Liu Xi tried to turn his head away, but with only his torso left, he couldn't move. All he could do was endure the endless torment.

The nauseating stench filled his nostrils, then seeped into his mouth. The mental torture drove him to despair far more than the physical pain!

"Ah... Kill me... Please, just kill me..." Liu Xi's mental defenses began to crumble, and he let out a garbled wail.

Ye Xiu watched coldly, then took another black pill from Liu Xi's Storage Ring.

It wasn't a particularly potent poison. It simply made a person endure extreme pain and failing organs until a specific time.

He pried open Liu Xi's filthy mouth, pushed in the black pill, and used Dou Qi to force him to swallow it.

"This is your own poison. I'm sure you know what it does. It'll make you feel every moment as your life slips away and your internal organs slowly fail."

Ye Xiu leaned down and whispered into Liu Xi's ear, his voice like a demon's murmur:

"Enjoy your last few hours. When the first ray of sunlight enters this room tomorrow, your soul will be scattered. You'll spend this long, endless night with excrement for company, slowly waiting to die... Master Liu."

After speaking, Ye Xiu no longer looked at Liu Xi twitching on the bed, tormented by the steady drips and the dual agony of body and mind. It was as if he had merely disposed of a bag of filthy garbage.

Ye Xiu turned and soon left the Jialie Family, his figure disappearing into the night outside.

Behind him, a fire could be seen beginning to flare within the City Lord's Mansion, tinting a patch of sky red...

He looked up at the sky. There was still quite a while until dawn.

Plenty of time for many people in Wutan City to have a good dream.

"Have you heard? Something happened to the Jialie Clan!"

"Something happened? That's putting it mildly! I have a distant cousin working at the City Lord's Mansion. Apparently, they were summoned before dawn. He came back and said the scene in the Jialie Clan's main hall was horrific. Inside... Oh, don't ask. It was all..."

"All what? Come on, spit it out!"

"Corpses! Everyone's dead! The Jialie Patriarch, several elders, and a bunch of stewards... Not one of them got away! They say someone wiped them all out in a single night!"

"Good heavens! Who did it? What a slaughter! Could it have been the Xiao Clan?"

"Shh! Keep your voice down! The Xiao Clan and the Jialie Clan may be at odds, but the Xiao Clan's patriarch doesn't seem like the sort to be so ruthless and wipe out an entire family... Besides, they say there were traces of fire at the scene, and the residual Dou Qi was extremely overbearing. It doesn't seem like the Xiao Clan's style."

"Could the Jialie Clan have offended some powerful outsider? Haven't they been riding high lately thanks to that Alchemist, Liu Xi?"

"Liu Xi? Heh, don't even bring him up! That Alchemist met an even worse end. They found him dead in the Alchemy Room, and his appearance... It's too awful to describe. Word is he'd lost his hands and feet, and suffered terribly before he died."

"Hiss—That's vicious! Who on earth could have done it?"

In teahouses, taverns, and markets all across Wutan City, almost everyone was whispering about the shocking massacre.

The Jialie Family wasn't the only dominant force in Wutan City, but it was one of the city's three great clans, with a deep foundation. Its patriarch, Jialie Bi, was a Five-Star Great Dou Master.

Such a powerful family had its entire leadership slaughtered in a single night. The shock was far beyond that of an ordinary vendetta.

For a time, all kinds of rumors ran rampant.

Some said the Jialie Family had brought the revenge of a reclusive expert upon themselves by seizing whatever they wanted;

Some said they had fallen out with the sect behind Liu Xi;

Some even imagined that a Dou Ling expert passing through Wutan City had been angered over some trivial matter and casually wiped out the Jialie Family's entire leadership...