598 Torture (1/2)

In the camp of the Land of Fragrance, Old Man Mu opened his eyes. Looking at the figure he seemed to be familiar with, the first thing he said was, ”Am I dead?”

Outwardly, the wrinkled Old Man Mu seemed to have not suffered much, except that his face was pale and his skin was more flabby as if it were a borrowed ill-fitting garment.

The Jade Pure Sect was famous for its internal energy, even its means of torture was not visible. When Red Bat saw Old Man Mu, he was untied but was moaning in pain. He could not even open his eyes at that time.

Gu Shenwei looked at him for a while and said, ”You're lucky, you're still alive.”

”Oh.” Old Man Mu closed his eyes again, wondering who he was, who was the man speaking to him, and what 'alive' meant.

”You are Dragon King?” Old Man Mu was already half awake when he opened his eyes again.

Red Bat had long been impatient, interrupted, ”Where's the instructor? Where's she? Why isn't she with you?”

Old Man Mu couldn't accept so many questions at once. He blankly stared at the woman in front of him, suddenly sat up and said, ”Good girl is missing!”

”Yes, the instructor is missing. Didn't you go out with her?” Red Bat anxiously asked.

Old Man Mu turned to the Dragon King and shook his head, ”I didn't encourage her, good girl insisted on going with me.”

Old Man Mu said he had three Bone Shrivelling Pills, Shangguan Ru was very interested. She suggested as soon as they came back to the camp, ”Let's go fetch the bills. Dragon King has an agreement with the Norland, it's not easy for him to break in randomly.”

So on the third night watch period of that night, the two moved out and sneaked into King Rizhu's Office, and took out the Bone Shrivelling Pills from the jewelry box of the dead princess consort. The whole process went smoothly except that they caused the attention of one hidden sentry when they retreat. But they managed to flee out of the camp before the night guards had reacted.

As to why the two did not return safely, Old Man Mu could not tell clearly. ”I, Old Man Mu, have overrun the whole world and gone anywhere as I please for decades, but I haven't had such a shameful experience — I've been drugged. You know, I used to eat pills like eating candy at Waning Moon Hall.”

”What happened then? Did both of you get caught by the old Taoist priests?” Red Bat just wanted to know the final result.

”I don't know. When I woke up, I've already fallen in the hands of those five bastards. After being played by them like a tortoise egg for days, I'm as miserable as a ghost now. Almost all of my acupoints were sealed, uh, even now they are still blocked. I had asked about the good girl's whereabouts too, but they didn't tell me. Every day they just forced me to hand over the martial arts manuals. I tried to plead them with tactful words. I said that we had an agreement that they had to help me restore my power before I taught them the martial arts. I didn't expect them to turn against me … ”

Old Man Mu wanted to continue talking about how he fought a battle of wits and courage, but Gu Shenwei became uninterested and gently push him down, ”Take a rest, I may need your help later.”

”Dragon King, I didn't betray you. The good girl's missing has nothing to do with me. When I'm getting better, I'll help you find her out even if I have to toss the Royal Court upside down.”

”Hmm, very good.” Gu Shenwei ambiguously replied. About Old Man Mu's story, he hadn't decided how much he would believe, ”Amongst the disciples of the Jade Pure Sect, what's the youngest one's Taoist name?”

”He's called Dao Nian. He's a monster. He looks young, actually, he's seventy-eight years old now. He's the big brother and has the strongest internal energy. Dragon King must be careful dealing with him.”

Gu Shenwei would be careful, of course, in interrogating him.

In the tent next door, Dao Nian still sat upright even when tied to a chair. As a respectable elder of an esteemed sect, it was quite normal for him to be unprepared for dirty tricks, so it was not a disgrace to be caught. He made up his mind that he would not say a word to the Dragon King and his junior brothers would come to his rescue sooner or later.

Gu Shenwei interrogated the captive alone. The female soldiers taught by Shangguan Ru were all normal people and were not suitable to watch some of his means.

The old Taoist didn't want to talk, so Gu Shenwei also didn't want to waste his breath. He slowly walked to the prisoner, took out a dagger, and put it on the prisoner's right thumb.

The two looked at each other for a while. Dao Nian was confused. In his imagination, the other side would go through the process of verbal sparring before forcing him to speak and would only act ruthlessly when the other side got annoyed. But looking at the Dragon King's appearance, he seemed to be more reticent than him.

'He's bluffing,' Dao Nian looked away, thinking that even if the other side was playing it real, with his dozens of years' cultivation, couldn't he bear this little torture?

The dagger slowly cut down, and the pain was more severe than Dao Nian had imagined. Cold sweat oozed from his forehead but he could still stand it. He believed that he would be at least better than Old Man Mu but to his great disappointment, those holy scriptures he recited daily actually didn't work and wasn't able to ease his pain at all.

Gu Shenwei waited for a while before producing several small boxes from his robe, which were all felt by Lotus. He wasn't good at torture, but when he had to do it, he still wanted to do it as best as he could.

He pinched Dao Nian's nose. The old Taoist was very good at holding breath, it took him a long while to force his mouth open and quickly flicked a small pill into his mouth.

Dao Nian blushed with anger and almost asked what it was. But thinking that it was tantamount to admitting defeat if he spoke, he swallowed his doubts.

The Waning Moon Hall had many kinds of pills, many of which were powerful enough to make the strongest person break down. But most of them were either expensive and rare or slow to be effective. The one Gu Shenwei used was relatively simple, which was to make the user's senses sharper.

For the killers who couldn't take a rest for several days and nights, it was necessary medicine to stay awake. To the victim, however, it would multiply the pain.

With the dagger pressing on the index finger of the right hand, it felt like thousands of daggers piercing the body from both the inside and outside. Dao Nian couldn't bear it any longer when it was cutting down less than half an inch, ”I am seventy-six years old now.”

Even Dao Nian himself didn't know why he said this. Was he hoping the Dragon King to respect the old?

Gu Shenwei stood upright and left the dagger on the old Taoist's index finger, ”Well-maintained. You looked only in your forties.”