The next day, Gu Xun'er lay unclad on the cold floor of the secret chamber, her entire body a complete mess.
Faint tear stains still lingered on her cheeks from the countless times she had wept the previous night.
She stared with hollow eyes at the dark-iron ceiling of the chamber, an aura of utter despair radiating from her body.
Hun Changqing looked at the despairing Gu Xun'er before him with a splitting headache. How could he have failed to restrain himself for a moment, how could he have been so lacking in composure!
A grievous sin! Everything had clearly been negotiated! So what if the resources were a bit fewer, why had he acted so rashly?
Now things were a fine mess. If Gu Yuan discovered that his daughter had been deflowered by someone from the Soul Clan before reaching Dou Sheng, he would damn well charge straight to the Soul Clan's ancestral home.
The Soul Clan certainly wouldn't go to war with the Gu Clan at a time like this just for a mere Hun Changqing; they would definitely sacrifice him! He had only sought a moment of gratification last night, and now the misery was beginning!
"Kill me."
Gu Xun'er spoke suddenly, the words in her mouth devoid of the slightest emotion, as though she held no lingering attachment to life whatsoever.
Her chastity was lost; she no longer had the face to see Brother Xiao Yan, and her Dou Di Bloodline had also been ruined. She had failed the Gu Clan's expectations of her and let down her father's pampering.
In the span of a single night, she felt she had lost everything. She no longer had any drive to live on!
When Hun Changqing heard this, he was terribly alarmed. The blow dealt to the child was simply too massive; she was already beginning to seek her own death. What would he do if she died! He had no desire to die along with her!
Hun Changqing hurriedly tried to comfort Gu Xun'er.
Cough, cough... "Miss Xun'er, you needn't be like this. I have a way to conceal the fact that you lost your chastity.
I am confident it will never be discovered by Xiao Yan and Gu Yuan. You can still return to soar wing to wing with that Xiao Yan, and you remain the hope of the Gu Clan's revitalization.
How about it? Just treat what happened last night as a mistaken accident, what do you say?"
Hun Changqing's most urgent task right now was to steady Gu Xun'er first. He could not let her lose the will to live and drag him down into mutual destruction!
As for how to keep others from discovering that Gu Xun'er's chastity had been ruined, faint ideas were already forming in Hun Changqing's mind.
"Kill me."
Gu Xun'er spoke once more, devoid of a shred of emotion.
Seeing Gu Xun'er's utterly unyielding attitude, Hun Changqing grew somewhat irritated as well.
He was already feeling vexed and chaotic, yet he still had to figure out a method for Gu Xun'er to return, pure and immaculate, to find Xiao Yan.
Yet this Gu Xun'er was actually crossing him at every turn.
A fierce light surged within Hun Changqing's eyes. Driven to the point of rage that he laughed instead, he said,
"Very well, since you want to die so badly, then go ahead and die! This old man has several hundred ways to die available for you to choose from. See which one you fancy!"
With that, the Mirror Flower, Water Moon that Hun Changqing had cast activated once again, and a series of scenes surfaced once more within Gu Xun'er's mind.
The scene began in pitch blackness, resembling a pool of water, with the dripping sound of flowing water ringing out. Then the pitch-black scene instantly brightened!
Maggots!
Blood-red maggots!
Filling the entire pool!
Gazing at the images in her mind, Gu Xun'er could no longer maintain her cold expression. Her entire body trembled, her complexion turned pale, and a churning turmoil erupted in her stomach.
"Ah!"
Gu Xun'er let out a cry of terror, then instantly doubled over, on the verge of retching.
Hun Changqing amplified Gu Xun'er's sensory perception, ensuring she experienced it firsthand and felt it as if she were there herself. At that moment, Hun Changqing leaned down and whispered into Gu Xun'er's ear to explain,
"This is the Blood-Devouring Cold Pool, one of the Ten Punishments of the Soul Palace. Those who are punished have their cultivation crippled, their four limbs broken, and are thrown into this cold pool. Then your entire body will crawl with those blood maggots, draining your blood dry and gnawing away at your flesh. Look, those fellows over there are the ones who were punished in the past."
As he spoke, several figures in the images were chopped into human stumps and tossed into the cold pool. Countless blood maggots crawled all over their bodies, writhing within the mouths, ears, eyes, and noses of those human stumps, and shrill, miserable wails echoed across the entire cold pool.
When Gu Xun'er saw this, she could no longer hold it in and vomited. Everything she had witnessed from childhood to adulthood had been the beauty of this world; when had she ever laid eyes on such a scene!
"How is it? Do you like this way of dying? If you like it, I'll take you straight back to the Soul Palace right now."
Hearing Hun Changqing's words, Gu Xun'er's pale face was instantly filled with terror. She wanted to die, but more than anything, she did not want to have those things crawling all over her body!
Gu Xun'er did not speak; fear welled in her eyes alone as she gripped the sleeves of Hun Changqing's robe tightly, biting down hard on her lips.
Without paying heed to Gu Xun'er's silent plea, Hun Changqing continued, "Oh? It seems you don't like this one. Then how about this?"
At that moment, the scene shifted. A giant furnace appeared within the image, holding rows of black stone pillars inside. Green flames burned beneath the furnace, and black-robed figures were bound to the pillars by chains, letting out one miserable, piercing shriek after another as they frantically begged someone to kill them.
"This is the Hell Ghost Fire of the Soul Palace. It burns the soul without harming your physical body. Your soul will be placed amidst this sea of fire and burned away bit by bit. This flame does not cause overly massive damage to the soul, but it multiplies the agony within your soul by dozens of times. Eighty-one days later, your soul will be completely obliterated by this ghost fire. Until then, you will have to endure this pain-which is dozens of times more intense-at every single moment. How about it, do you like this one?"
Gu Xun'er was already on the verge of a complete breakdown. The miserable shrieks of those black-robed figures in the scene frantically assaulted her nerves, and she muttered crazily and softly under her breath.
"No... No... I don't want to..."
"Oh? Still don't like it? Then what about this?"
Another scene appeared. In it, a figure was entirely naked, covered in dense wounds, their flesh a bloody blur, resembling an evil ghost.
"This is slow slicing..."
Tears flooded Gu Xun'er's face all over again.
"No... Sob... No..."
"Oh? You don't like this one either? What about this?"
"What about this one?"
"Still not satisfied? How about this?"
Hun Changqing practically transformed into a top-tier salesman, explaining the various brutal tortures to Gu Xun'er word by word and continually asking if she was satisfied.
At this moment, Gu Xun'er was already surrounded by endless despair. She wanted to die, yet didn't dare to, and every single punishment in the visions made her feel that death would be better than life.
Finally, unable to bear the feeling of this despair, Gu Xun'er broke down.
"Ah! Why! Why are you treating me like this! Sob, sob... I already agreed to you... I already agreed to your conditions...
Why are you treating me like this... Why won't you let me die... I have nothing left... Nothing left... Sob, sob..."
Gu Xun'er first roared madly at Hun Changqing, then quickly began to weep, because aside from crying, she truly had no idea what else she could do.