Chapter 72: Twentieth Chapter

The air here was viscous.

The smell of blood, the stench of rot, darkness, humidity, stuffiness, lack of oxygen—Xi Wuqiu had been soaking in such an environment for who knows how long. Occasionally thinking of the feeling of the cool air and breeze outside being sucked into his nose felt like a lifetime ago.

He still tried to keep his brain clear, although this meant that hundreds of piercing pains were heavily pressing on that string.

He could no longer distinguish which parts of his body were still usable. Seven or eight different kinds of pain would come from the same part at the same time. There was no need to look forward to numbness to pain, but the brain's keen function of perceiving where it was injured had indeed failed.

For the first three days, it was the Prince of Zhenbei who did it, his eyes carrying a cruel pleasure. Xi Wuqiu didn't expect such a twisted expression to appear on this majestic face. Looking at these complete instruments and the bloodstains that were still fresh, the frequency of use of this torture chamber clearly indicated the perverted hobby of this prince.

After three days, he left. At this time, Xi Wuqiu's body was still broken and unrecognizable.

The Prince of Zhenbei was keen on smashing a beautiful and perfect porcelain, and was too lazy to do anything else to those fragments.

But for Xi Wuqiu, the real pain had just begun. A genius torturer would replace his master to vent his unfinished anger. He began to test his imaginative ideas on this tough body.

His methods were much more meticulous, and his understanding of pain was deeper. Before every part of the body was completely damaged, it must have already played its greatest use.

Just one day later, Xi Wuqiu's body began to tremble violently uncontrollably as soon as he saw him.

He didn't know how many days passed afterward. Every day challenged his limit of endurance, followed by an even harder-to-endure next day, until this torturer finally got tired of this piece of rotten meat.

And this was the moment Xi Wuqiu had been waiting for.

The Prince of Zhenbei had long forgotten him, and the torturer also thought he had long since collapsed—even if he was occasionally clear-headed, it didn't matter; he couldn't possibly have the ability to resist.

Not to mention that the meridian tree had been dug out from the beginning, even if he really had the strength to resist, how did he endure not using it during so many moments of wailing, screaming, and trembling before?

A fantasy.

But Xi Wuqiu just endured it.

The meridian tree was indeed abolished from the beginning, but his eyes were dug out on the second day.

The so-called "Immortal-Bestowed Pupils," although this left eye was not used for accumulating True Qi, it did indeed retain some.

He carefully kept this weak True Qi, day and night. This was the key to his gate of life.

Until that person unhooked him like a piece of rotten meat.

"Puff."

In the quiet torture chamber, the torturer's eyes widened, as if seeing a sharp thorn suddenly extend from the pork on the chopping board, piercing the butcher's throat.

Killing a person can take a month, or just a blink of an eye.

Xi Wuqiu precisely controlled the remaining amount of his True Qi, not wasting a single bit, because he still needed the remaining True Qi to support this body with broken bones and tendons and no strength left.

—In the past days, he had not eaten or drunk for twenty days, and occasionally got some swill later.

Stepping over the corpse at his feet, Xi Wuqiu touched the door based on his memory.

When he was caught here that day, he had forcibly remembered the way he came. This memory, like those True Qi, was preciously preserved by him.

At this moment, he could finally take it out.

Going out, it was night.

Although his eyes could no longer perceive light, the night had many other qualities, which he had often accompanied in those experiences of the past ten years.

The location of the torture chamber was remote, and the way to leave had been gone over thousands of times in his mind. It was his first time measuring this land with his feet, but he already knew it by heart.

Passing through the garden and climbing out of the city wall, this was the edge of the Prince's mansion, only needing to pass through an elegant small courtyard and a small house that he didn't know what it was used for.

He would go to that small house first, because it should be a kitchen.

He had to eat and drink. Climbing over the courtyard wall and leaving the city required precious True Qi. He could not waste it on nourishing his body.

Touching there, he pushed the door, and it was indeed locked. Turning to the window, he squeezed in. In the midst of fumbling, he suddenly touched a warm earthen wall.

It was... a stove!

Xi Wuqiu quickly sniffed and fumbled, stuffing the soft things in the pot into his mouth, enduring the intense pain of his festering mouth being rubbed, and slowly swallowed them.

The decision to enter here was correct, although it consumed time and True Qi, two equally precious things.

But this place not only provided water and food, but also provided time—because the stove wall was still warm, it should be shortly after nightfall.

Xi Wuqiu sat there for a while, feeling a bit of heat rising in his body for the first time in a long time. He squeezed out from the window again.

Continuing forward, amidst the trees, he walked strangely like a beast based on his memory.

This was the rockery, and reaching out, he indeed touched the craggy stone.

This should be the flower cluster, and sure enough, the fragrance had reached his nostrils.

The sound of water, he had reached the spring pool.

The front should be the small pavilion, go around it, pay attention to the steps.

One hundred and fifty steps, he should have reached that small courtyard.

He didn't know who was living there, try to go around it.

Suddenly he stopped. A person of light weight was kicked out of the small courtyard, rolled twice, and fell to the ground.

Xi Wuqiu stood motionless in the shadows of the trees, blending into the night.

Then came the "thump, thump, thump" footsteps of another person coming out, accompanied by a sharp female voice: "Cheap thing! A pig hand that washes urine buckets every day dares to touch my hairpin!"

The girl on the ground let out an "uh," and was as if choked off.

Xi Wuqiu could not see, but he was very familiar with this sound—it was being heavily stomped on the stomach.

"Do you think this hairpin is very beautiful? Do you still want to try it on?! You cheap slut, you want to touch it, right? I'll let you touch it! I'll let you touch it!"

It was the sound of a sharp object entering the body, it should be that hairpin.

There were hurried footsteps running out, accompanied by a soothing voice: "Miss, Miss, calm down—ouch, why dirty your hands for such a pig."

The sound of stabbing stopped.

The Miss stood up panting, screaming: "Beat her to death, feed her to the dogs!"

"Okay, okay, okay! Feed her to the dogs, feed her to the pigs! Miss, don't get angry and hurt your body." Saying this, the person kicked the girl's face.

Xi Wuqiu only hesitated for less than a second.

He reached out and picked a leaf from the tree.

Only when he made this decision did he realize that he was still living so vividly.

In the dark days of the past few dozen days, including the time after escaping from the torture chamber, he had only been a machine for survival.

The True Qi that had been carefully preserved day and night flowed out without hesitation. Xi Wuqiu seemed to melt into the ghost in the wind.

A leaf cut the throats of two people. The Miss reached out to wipe her neck strangely, and blood gushed onto her hands like a spring. She raised her hand to look, and terror remained in her bright eyes.

Xi Wuqiu watched a master and a servant fall before him.

The remaining True Qi was only half, still enough to climb over the courtyard wall, but it definitely wouldn't support him to get out of the city.

Xi Wuqiu heard the girl who was being tortured on the ground slowly sitting up. With her master dying like this, it was impossible for her to be let go later—but she couldn't live anyway.

He wasn't here to save her either.

Xi Wuqiu slowly collapsed to the ground. He suddenly understood this truth: escaping, coming back to kill after decades, and returning the same torture to the enemy is called revenge; and now, throwing away the chance of life, and doing the exact same thing that caused him to fall into such a situation all over again, is called victory.

—You thought those tortures over dozens of days had completely destroyed me, but in fact, they didn't change me by even a fraction. ===== CHAPTER 73 =====