Chapter 76: Freedom

Yang Yi's smile grew ever more brilliant, the arc of her grin widening until her lips twisted grotesquely upward:

"Cousin, my dear cousin, my foolish cousin, do you know how much I've wanted to kill you? Countless times in my dreams, I held a knife and hacked you apart piece by piece, dismembering you. I've even found where to get industrial-grade strong acid without needing a name—your flesh and skin, even your bones, would turn to sludge. You would vanish completely from this world, as if you never existed... What? Are you afraid? Look, your face has turned white..."

Not only did everything in the room tremble slightly, but the temperature also began to drop. A layer of white frost formed on the glass door, and delicate ice flowers slowly crystallized on the smooth surface of the coffee table.

Yang Ze was clearly "frozen" in midair, unable to move, yet if anyone could see him now, they would notice his flesh and skin trembling uncontrollably. His dark-skinned face had turned as lifeless as a corpse's from sheer terror.

Yang Yi continued to laugh, a strange, manic cackle: "This is nothing; this is the simplest way for you to die. I've imagined other ways to kill you. I even went to read the Complete Collection of Chinese and Foreign Tortures—you're so lucky, that book was specially chosen for you. How about lingchi? First, wrap you tightly in a fishnet, then use a sharp small knife—or a dull one is better, it hurts more—to slowly slice off the protruding flesh. What would you like to do with your own flesh? Feed it to dogs? To rats? Or to yourself? I've only imagined this death method three or four times..."

"By the way, speaking of rats," she seemed to suddenly recall something amusing, her tone growing more excited, her eyes gleaming, "there's a rat torture that suits you perfectly! First, put rats in a box open at one end, then place the open end over you. Which part? Say, your stomach, or your face, or even better, your lower body! Then set fire to the box to heat it up. The rats inside, desperate to escape, will frantically burrow holes into your body, drilling and drilling until they burrow deep into your stomach..."

Suddenly, the sound of water dripping onto the floor echoed, "Drip—drip—," then the drops grew more numerous and faster, a pungent urine odor spreading through the air.

Yang Yi widened her eyes slightly as she looked at Yang Ze. "Ah, look, you think this rat torture is fun too, don't you?"

"There's an even more enduring game. I'll secure you firmly and inject you with a stimulant—this way, no matter how much I torture you, no matter how excruciating the pain, you won't faint. You'll remain fully conscious. Then, where shall we begin? How about cutting off your manhood first..."

Her face suddenly twitched; the over-the-top smile on her features looked utterly grotesque. "... And yet, you dare come to me? You dare make demands? You still want to ride on my coattails to gain fame and fortune? Have you gone mad? Or have I?"

She leaned close to that face she despised beyond measure, studying him carefully, as if gazing at some strange thing she had never seen before.

However, the stench of urine was truly ruinous to the mood. Yang Yi slowly straightened her back, and the grotesque smile on her face gradually faded into cold indifference.

Amidst the slight trembling of everything, the atmosphere in the room solidified into something tangible: cold, viscous, like a river frozen with countless layers of frost, flowing with great difficulty.

"Do you know why I haven't killed you?"

She slowly sat down on the sofa, propping her head with her right hand as if utterly exhausted. Her gaze was hazy, murmuring to herself, not speaking to anyone in particular, as if talking only to herself.

"Because you're not worth it. I can't dirty my hands over something like you... over such a lump... of shit... crossing that line... it's not worth it, absolutely not worth it..." she murmured softly.

Yang Ze suddenly felt the power binding him vanish. Trembling all over, he stared in terror at the figure of that monster ahead. Secretly and cautiously, he shifted his body, leaving a trail of urine stains on the floor. Only when he realized she made no move to stop him did he instantly bolt, scrambling and crawling, fleeing for his life at the fastest speed he had ever achieved.

The trembling in the room slowed from frantic to gentle. Gradually, the sofa, coffee table, hanging paintings, walls, and floor all ceased shaking, and even the dust particles in the air settled back to the ground.

Yang Yi sat there motionless for a long time, as if frozen into a statue.

She could punish him at will, by any means, in any way: throw him in prison, or even more brutally, kill him, dismember him, grind him into meat paste. It would be effortless for her. But then what?

Precisely because all of this was so effortless for her, she must not do it; she must exercise even greater self-restraint.

Power breeds rights; rights breed infinitely expanding desires; unchecked desires become evil.

She did not want to cross that line. Precisely because crossing that line was so simple for her, she must not cross it.

A clear pool of water polluted by a bucket of sewage is no great matter, but once one believes that polluting it with sewage is acceptable, one will allow more and more sewage to pour in.

I am a human being, she thought. A normal human being.

Moreover, she must be a normal person in others' eyes, a person with bottom lines, a person with principles, so that others will not fear her, viewing her as an unpredictable madman, a completely irrational psychopath, a pathological patient mentally broken by past experiences.

She must be a normal person, someone trustworthy, someone whose behavior can be predicted by common sense and logic, a morally moderate person, a person with weaknesses, a person who can be threatened—a human weapon that can be controlled.

Enough. This is enough. Merely realizing that she has this power, this ability, the ability to act at any moment, is enough.

Just like the wealthy man she had told Chen Chen Huanyue about: he did not mind wearing tattered clothes, being pushed and shoved, looked down upon, scolded, and driven away. Not only did he not mind, he even derived pleasure from it, because he knew his family possessed vast wealth; if he wished, he could make those people regret it instantly.

What she wanted was not to watch her enemies suffer, not revenge itself, but a sense of control, an awareness of power, an absolute freedom of consciousness.

She did not need status, she did not need power, and she did not even need overwhelming strength; what she needed was something that could only be obtained through overwhelming strength, something utterly unattainable without it: this is the proud, tranquil awareness of power! This is the most complete definition of freedom!

Merely realizing that she could control others' fates, realizing that she was powerful and free, was already enough satisfaction.

No, no, this is still not enough.

She must not only control others' fates but also control herself, control her own infinitely expanding desires and instincts—only thus can she suppress the increasingly violent turmoil in her heart...