Chapter 122: Help Them Find Release

Li Qingxuan walked to the nearest woman and slowly squatted down beside her.

In the firelight, the woman's withered face showed no ripple; only her eyeballs reflected faint points of light as the flames flickered, like dust-covered glass beads.

She seemed unable to sense anyone approaching, or to feel the impending death; her breath was so weak it was almost nonexistent.

Li Qingxuan's right hand lifted slightly, then paused in midair.

"Wait!" Huang Rong's voice carried a barely perceptible hoarseness as she suddenly grabbed Li Qingxuan's raised wrist, moving with lightning speed.

Her fingertips were icy cold, trembling slightly, yet they bore an undeniable strength.

"I can't… can't do this…" she whispered urgently, her gaze sweeping over the numb, despairing faces, "They… perhaps still have…"

"What else?" Li Qingxuan's voice was low and hoarse, like sandpaper rubbing, each word heavy.

He turned his head to look at Huang Rong, "Look at them! Only death can give them release! Living merely prolongs the pain!"

Huang Rong's heart clenched painfully; she steadied his arm but stubbornly refused to let go.

Her gaze fell again on the group of women, their empty eyes and soundless despair like icy tide engulfing her.

She knew what Li Qingxuan said was true, a cruel fact so suffocating.

A tremendous sense of helplessness and indignation, like poisonous vines, instantly coiled around her heart, making it hard for her to breathe.

She opened her mouth, but her throat felt blocked, and no sound came out.

Firelight cast jumping shadows on her violently rising and falling chest, reflecting in her eyes an almost shattered light—anger, pity, and an unstoppable hatred for this purgatory that could not be changed.

Huang Rong slowly released Li Qingxuan's hand, her eyes hardening as she gripped the dagger, "Let us send them on their final journey."

The icy metal sensation spread from her palm; the dagger's chill seemed able to freeze her surging grief.

Huang Rong's gaze swept over the women lying on the ground, like discarded rag dolls, the candle of their life long extinguished in endless torment, leaving only empty shells bearing hell's embers.

She drew a deep breath; the air mixed with despair stung her lungs.

Li Qingxuan silently walked to another woman's side and slowly squatted down.

The firelight outlined his tense side profile, his jawline sharp as a knife-cut, cold and hard.

He extended his left hand, not to attack, but with a gentleness bordering on pity, covering the woman's vacant, open eyes, and closed her eyelids.

The woman's dry, cracked lips twitched slightly, but she made no sound; only a single turbid tear seeped extremely slowly from the corner of her tightly shut eyes, sliding along her dirty skin, leaving a clear wet trace.

"Rest in peace." Li Qingxuan's voice was low as a dream, his right hand steady and swift as it traced a cold flash.

"Pfft."

A sound extremely faint, like cloth tearing, rang out.

No struggle, no scream, not even the slightest extra tremor.

The woman seemed to have finally shed a thousand-pound burden; her body went completely limp, and the last trace of indescribable pain on her face smoothed out in an instant, yielding to a still, deathly calm.

Huang Rong's throat tightened suddenly, as if an invisible hand were gripping it tightly.

She saw that tear glint in the firelight, like a final accusation against this dark world.

She forced herself to look away; her grip on the dagger tightened so hard her knuckles whitened, her nails nearly digging into the hilt.

She approached the next woman, whose eyes were similarly vacant, reflecting no light in her pupils.

Huang Rong imitated him, extending her trembling left hand; her fingertips touched the woman's icy, stiff cheek, feeling the bone‑deep cold.

She closed her eyes, then opened them again; only a resolute cold gleam remained in her gaze.

The dagger fell.

Again came a sound barely audible.

She no longer looked at the result, merely moving her feet mechanically, repeating this suffocating ritual.

Each time the dagger dropped, it felt as if a piece of flesh were being gouged from her heart.

In the cellar only remained the faint hiss of the dagger slicing air, the crackle of the torches burning, and the two of them breathing with suppressed intensity.

The air was viscous like congealed plasma; each inhalation carried a rusty, iron‑sweet stench and a despair that seeped into the marrow.

In the corner, the somewhat older woman had already collapsed limp on the ground, her hands clamped hard over her mouth, teeth dug deep into the back of her hand, her body shuddering violently like chaff in a sieve, yet she dared not utter a sob, only able to stare with terrified, scattered eyes at the silent death descending.

One after another, the numb corpses gained final peace beneath the dagger's cold light.

When Huang Rong approached the last woman, the woman's withered fingers twitched slightly, as if unconsciously resisting.

Huang Rong's motion stalled, the dagger hovering in midair. She looked at the young face smeared with dirt and frostbite; in those hollow eyes flickered a faint, almost imperceptible fear, an instinct of life.

"Uh…" a sound extremely weak, like a dying cub's whimper, was squeezed from deep in the woman's throat.

That sound was like an icy needle, piercing the dam Huang Rong had forcibly built.

A tremendous grief and helplessness instantly overwhelmed her; the hand gripping the dagger shook violently, almost slipping free.

She bit her lower lip hard until she tasted a hint of blood, then forced the breaking whimper back into her chest.

"Let me do it." Li Qingxuan's low voice sounded from behind her, carrying an undeniable calm.

He stepped past her, his tall frame blocking the flickering firelight and casting a heavy shadow on the cellar walls. He bent over, his motion still gentle as he closed the eyes bearing the last fear, then the dagger fell soundlessly.

The whimper cut off abruptly.

Dead silence.

Absolute, suffocating dead silence enveloped the entire cellar.

The torches' light still flickered, but it no longer illuminated a trace of vitality.

The thick smell of blood mixed with the original stench, creating a nauseating aura as if from the depths of hell.

Li Qingxuan hoisted a corpse onto his back, turned to Huang Rong and said, "Burn them, lest the weird creatures dig them up and eat them."

Huang Rong nodded, and the two carried the bodies out of the cellar one by one, placing them on the wood pile outside the shelter soaked with fire oil; the torch flames, upon contacting the fire oil, roared awake like a starving beast, emitting a muffled "boom" as they greedily licked the icy air.

Orange‑red tongues of fire leapt up, rolling with thick smoke, twisting upward, instantly devouring everything, wrapping them in surging light and heat.

The fire shot sky‑dyeing the surroundings a blinding crimson, also illuminating Li Qingxuan and Huang Rong's solemn, icy faces.

That light was so intense it seemed to burn away the last darkness of this sinful camp completely.

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