Chapter 145: Ji Tianrui

Li Miao had rattled off a long string of words, but the woman did not react in the slightest.

After fighting Li Miao for the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, even with Li Miao deliberately holding back, she was now barely recognizable as human—her left eye was a pitch-black, hollow socket from which blood flowed. Her right arm was severed at the elbow, a large patch of flesh on her left abdomen was a mangled mess, and her legs were covered in bloodstains and wounds. Her clothes were shredded, revealing the hideous scars all over her body.

Yet she did not utter a single sound.

Ever since she had revealed her true face, no matter how badly Li Miao wounded her—even when he had torn her right arm clean off—she had not let out a single noise.

This was not normal.

Martial arts conflicts in the Great Ming were exceptionally brutal, so people in the Jianghu were accustomed to fighting while injured; a high tolerance for pain was normal.

But willpower is one thing, and instinct is another.

No matter how much one can endure, it only means one can continue to fight while wounded; it does not mean one will not react. To have an arm suddenly torn off and not even let out a muffled groan was impossible.

Li Miao looked her up and down and frowned.

He had beaten the woman into a critical state before speaking precisely so that, under the duress of severe injury, she would lose control of her emotions, allowing him to verify if what he said was correct.

As it stood, it was completely useless.

Just as Li Miao was considering whether to kill her outright, the woman suddenly spoke.

"Lord Li, you need not think you can extract anything from my mouth."

"I have only three sentences to pass on to you on behalf of the Sect Leader."

"Once I have finished, you may do as you please with this life of mine. Whether you flay me, dissect me, or cut off my head to hang upon the city gate, it is all up to your whim."

Li Miao raised an eyebrow and let out a cold laugh.

"You think you can refuse to speak just because you don't want to?"

As long as she wasn't a mute, even if she were a block of stone, he could squeeze words out of her!

With that, he formed his hand into a claw and swiped through the air toward the woman's skull!

After finishing her sentence, the woman neither dodged nor evaded; she even let her stance drop and stood there calmly, watching with open eyes as Li Miao's claws hooked into her forehead.

"Hm?"

Li Miao was surprised, but his hand did not pause in the slightest. With a *rip*, he tore off half her scalp, then pressed it back into place, employing that "biological welding" technique to fuse the flesh back together.

This technique was useful for healing, but even better for interrogation. Even an old Jianghu hand like Liu Baiyun could not withstand it.

The woman's injury was to her head, where nerves were most dense, and blood streamed down her face.

Yet she truly let Li Miao do as he pleased.

The woman stood there composed, her pupils not contracting, her fingers not trembling, as if Li Miao had merely stroked her head gently.

Expressionless, she said faintly:

"Lord Li, as long as you do not kill me before I finish passing on the Sect Leader's words, you may verify at will whether I am merely bluffing."

"After the fight just now, I am convinced that there is no way I can escape your hands. Thus, my mission is only to finish those three sentences; after that, my life is yours."

"I know you are a veteran of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, that you have merged the three paths, and that you have a thorough grasp of the human body's meridians, bones, and true energy, along with countless self-created techniques. You have no shortage of ways to torture people. But you cannot torture me."

"No matter what you do to me, I feel nothing."

Li Miao frowned, rubbing his fingers as he looked the woman up and down for a long while.

Then, he realized, and let out a long sigh.

"So that's it. I was wondering why those scars on your body looked so familiar."

"You are a 'Pupa Maiden' rescued by someone."

During his trip to the Tomb of the Miao King, Li Miao had seen such maidens kneeling before the Miao King's coffin as funerary sacrifices. After enduring all manner of torture, their five senses were stripped away, and they waited in despair for the Miao King's resurrection while feeling the Gu insects devouring them from within—a pathetic creation of ignorant faith. The scars revealed on the woman's body after her clothes were torn in the fight with Li Miao were exactly like those of a "Pupa Maiden."

The woman nodded.

"You must have seen such 'things' as me in the Tomb of the Miao King."

"The Gu insect crawled along my neck and into my skull, eating away a portion of my brain. Ever since then, I have not been able to feel a shred of pain. And precisely because of that, I lived until the end."

"So-called torture is merely a matter of the mind and the flesh. I can no longer feel the pain of the flesh, and as for the pain of the mind... could it possibly be worse than the experience of losing all five senses in the tomb, waiting in agony for death? So, you need not waste your energy on someone like me."

"Now, may I tell you the three sentences the Sect Leader wishes to say to you?"

Li Miao felt a bit helpless.

All interrogation methods are built upon two premises—the ability to feel pain and the desire to live.

But this woman was clearly a deviant, both mentally and physically; she neither wanted to live nor could she feel pain. She cared nothing for her own body.

Of course, it wasn't that Li Miao couldn't think of some extreme methods that might work.

It was just that those methods were time-consuming, and secondly, they were so extreme that even Li Miao found them disgusting and had no desire to use them.

Thus, he was truly at a loss with this woman.

Seeing Li Miao silent, the woman spoke slowly.

"In that case, I shall speak them to Lord Li."

"The first sentence: Lord Li, you and I are both 'outsiders,' rejected by the 'righteous path'; why bother killing each other?"

Li Miao let out a cold laugh.

"I am an outsider, and who is the righteous path?"

"The Imperial Court."

The woman said without hesitation.

"The tree that stands above the forest will be destroyed by the wind. The reason Heaven-Man realm experts have not appeared in the world for so long lies with the Great Ming and the Zhu family. As your martial arts continue to progress, one day you too will stand in the position of Ji Tianrui, the Ming Sect, and the Sect Leader, facing the weapons of the Imperial Court."

Li Miao let out another scoff.

"Anything fresh?"

To Li Miao, these words were all outdated nonsense.

He had spent twenty years biding his time, only revealing his martial arts once he had the power to protect himself—was he just bored?

On Taishan, after he realized the Eastern Depot had begun to emerge, the words he said to the Five Mountains Sword Sect—that he was "serving the Embroidered Uniform Guard," not "serving the Imperial Court"—were they just shooting at nothing?

Outside the Shaolin Temple, Zhu Zai had already made it very clear: "Whether one is a rebel depends not on whether one wants to be, but on whether one can be." Whether in the Great Ming or his past life, as long as the core of civilization remained human, the underlying logic of operation would always be "fists" and "power." Li Miao had seen this clearly long ago.

At this moment, for Ji Tianrui to say such things to him, Li Miao only felt that he must think he was some brute who only knew how to fight.

The woman did not react in the slightest and continued.

"The second sentence: The four Heaven-Man experts who killed Ji Tianrui all suffered the Five Decays of Heaven within a year of his death and perished one after another. Zhu Zai only avoided death because he was of the imperial clan, but he was pinned to the position of Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard and could not advance an inch for fifteen years."

"After the Jiajing Emperor dies, Zhu Zai will also die."

"Oh?" Li Miao raised an eyebrow, noncommittal.

This sentence was actually useful. If it were truly as this "Ji Tianrui Number Two" said, then if the Imperial Court found out he was the one who killed him, he might well suffer the same disaster as those Heaven-Man experts of the past.

However, this matter would have to wait for future verification.

Seeing Li Miao's indifferent attitude, the woman didn't care and spoke slowly.

"The third sentence: I have lost heart and will be leaving the Great Ming in a few days. If Lord Li has a grudge against the Ming Sect, you may kill as you please; I will have no complaints."

"But, if Lord Li still wishes to spar with me, I will gladly wait. I only hope Lord Li will fulfill the appointment soon, so as not to delay my journey."

"Ji Tianrui, with respect."

With that, the woman raised her hand into a palm and struck fiercely at her own forehead.

*Boom! *

With a muffled sound, red and white matter splattered everywhere, and the woman's beautiful face was gone. The torso swayed a few times in place before collapsing to the ground with a thud.

Li Miao had no intention of stopping her; he just stood there quietly, rubbing his fingers.

"Interesting. Ji Tianrui should know clearly what I did on Taishan and at Shaolin."

"Knowing that I have merged the three paths and can perfect two of them simultaneously, she still dares to ask me to find her?"

"Very well, very well."

Li Miao revealed a faint smile.

Unlike his usual lazy smiles, this one carried a hint of excitement.

"I'm getting a bit tired of beating up children."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 146 =====