Chapter 242: Torture
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Shangguan Ru and Maid Lotus arrived at the Heart Cleansing Yard but they discovered that Slave Huan was not there. They knew that something was wrong.
A torturer warmly received the Tenth Young Master and vowed that he did not arrest anyone. The torturer would not agree to allow Shangguan Ru to go in and check. “Tenth Young Master, it’s not that I dare to stop you, but this kind of place is not suitable for someone of your status.”
“Let her go in.” Shangguan Ru pointed at the assassin in black by her side.
Without waiting for the torturer to open his mouth to agree, Maid Lotus rushed past him and headed straight to the underground torture chamber. She shook her head when she came out, there were many prison cells in the Heart Cleansing Yard. Some of them were hidden deep down. Without a torturer to lead the way, she could not find her way around at all.
The torturer spread out his hands. “As I said before, the people of the Heart Cleansing Yard must record each case and hand it in regularly. You see, tonight’s records are blank.”
Shangguan Ru seized the book, and indeed, there was no text on the page for the day.
“Go find Eighth Sister-in-law. Slave Huan belongs to her, so ask her to think of a way. After half an hour, we shall meet in Kun Yard.” Shangguan Ru ordered them when they were outside the Heart Cleansing Yard. Although she had lost her killing desire, she was not a person who was in a state of panic. Her mind had quickly drawn up several plans, and any one of them would be effective for rescuing Slave Huan.
Infighting was beginning to rage around the killer. Someone was busy asking for evidence. Someone was busy destroying the evidence.
Upon entering the backyard, Maid Lotus saw a few pale-faced maids were struggling to scrub the floor. They did not even dare to lift their heads. When she left, Slave Xin’s blood stains were just about to be wiped clean. It looked like someone else has suffered.
Luo Ningcha was yelling in the room next door. “You are ungrateful, you are all ungrateful! Even the mute and the blind dare to betray me. Go to hell with your mean lover!”
Maid Lotus’s heart sank. There was a large basket next to the working maids, and its contents were revealed to be very similar to the clothing that Maid Cui usually wore.
Maid Cui was a good friend of Maid Lotus. The two had met in the slave carriage of the slave trader. One was sold to the Bighead Kingpin, and the other was the dowry to the Stone Castle. After what happened to Maid Cui, the friendship between them had not diminished, but rather it had grown day by day.
Maid Cui was poor; Miss had her eyes dug out and her tongue cut off, and afterward, Maid Cui had to serve this vicious woman, who always abused her. Therefore, if someone was kind to her, she hoped to return their kindness tenfold. Slave Xin was probably taking this advantage to approach Maid Cui for getting some secrets between her gestures.
Maid Lotus had warned Maid Cui not to trust Slave Xin, but in the fort, even false affection was extremely rare. Maid Cui could not refuse Slave Xin’s sweet talk and had not expected they would be discovered by Miss.
Maid Lotus became furious and clenched the sword shaft uncontrollably. She was a killer people expected to be good at emotion management. But she so hated the woman in the room, even the hate was not a way to stirp up her strength, instead, it was a blind hate that solely pushed the owner to act.
“Maid Lotus! Where have you been that you have come back just now? I have so many dead people here and I have not seen you coming to protect me. Why should I keep you any longer?” Luo Ningcha saw Maid Lotus outside the room and started to snap at her.
Maid Lotus loosened the hilt and allowed the hatred to ferment. It would become the mellow wine of revenge sooner or later.
“Miss, Slave Huan was taken away.” Maid Lotus entered the house and whispered the news.
Luo Ningcha was stunned. “By whom?”
“It may be Blademaster Shen Liang, but the Heart Cleansing Yard did not admit it. They said there was no arrest tonight.”
“Isn’t Shen Liang my husband’s uncle? What’s he doing with my killer?” Luo Ningcha slowly sat down as her complexion changed. She had too many secrets in Slave Huan’s hands, and some of them would be enough to draw death upon her again.
“I don’t know at the moment. I haven’t seen Blademaster Shen. He seems to be in hiding.”
Luo Ningcha regretted letting Slave Huan leave. It was the best to have him stay by her side. After thinking for a while, she removed a ring from her fingers. “Take this to find Shen Liang and demand that he come to see me… No, tell him… the Lord is with me and summons him, he must come at once.”
When Maid Lotus took the ring, she uttered a “yes”. As she turned to leave, Luo Ningcha halted her and gestured for the other maids to withdraw. When there were only the two of them left, she whispered, “Maid Lotus, you are loyal to me, right?”
“Yes, miss, I’m willing to go through hell and back for you.” If they could speak, everyone serving under Luo Ningcha had to recite a few vows. Maid Lotus was no exception.
“Then you tell me the truth. What is going on between you and Slave Huan? I heard that he has spent the night in your room.”
“We are both Miss’s people. We must rely on each other in the Fort and help each other. There is nothing else to it. He was in my room because he was undergoing a qigong deviation and asked me for help.”
“OK.” Luo Ningcha could not confirm the answer, and she lowered her voice again. “Well then, find Slave Huan and bring me his head.”
Maid Lotus looked up. She knew the secrets of Miss and Slave Huan, but she could not expect that Luo Ningcha would be so vicious.
“What, you can’t do it?”
Luo Ningcha slightly widened her eyes, even when she was being cruel and ruthless, her expression was still impeccable. Maid Lotus was not the first to think of it, nor was she the only person who thought so: God must have made mistakes before she put the heart of a demon into the skin of a god.
“Yes, Miss.” Maid Lotus’ reply was as calm as usual.
Luo Ningcha was satisfied but was feeling a little shame for Slave Huan, but servants had to protect themselves. When a servant had been arrested and caught by others, he would imperil his master and she could only give up. “This is what you taught me.” Luo Ningcha whispered and felt a sudden chill on her body. From the moment when she had entered the fortress and lived high above at the top of others, she has never felt warm again.
Maid Lotus went to Shen Liang’s home but did not find anyone. Due to the fact that she did not have a corresponding waist token, she could not randomly go through the fort at night so she had to go back to Kun Yard.
Shangguan Ru was already waiting. “How is it?”
Maid Lotus shook her head and did not say that the Eighth Young Mistress was now the enemy of Slave Huan.
Shangguan Ru had expected this, but it was only one of her plans. It did not affect the overall situation. “I have already received a decree for his release. I’m just waiting for the news.”
Shangguan Ru did not say what the news was, and Maid Lotus did not ask. She clearly knew what her position should be. The edict was certainly fishy, but she did not need to worry about it.
At the end of the day, a killer came to Kun Yard and, after saluting the Tenth Young Master, said, “Of the three torturers of the Heart Cleansing Yard, only Liao Qing was away. I asked the night watchman and found that he went to the East Castle Pyrowork Academy.”
Maid Lotus suddenly realized that compared with the administrative torturers in the Heart Cleansing Yard, those who were really good at torture were the working torturers. Shangguan Ru did not look for the whereabouts of Shen Liang, but sought the whereabouts of the working torturers. It was indeed clever.
In fact, Shangguan Ru had come up with more than just this plan. She sent out a few people to look for Slave Huan in different ways. Shen Liang was still on her radar, but finding the torturer way first worked.
“You two will take the edict and go to the East Castle.”Shangguan Ru ordered, she still had to stay here for others to report back.
Maid Lotus followed the killer and set off. Only Shangguan Ru was left in the yard. She knew that there was a killer protecting her in a certain corner, but she still felt lonely deep in her bones. She felt as if the entire Stone Castle was empty. “I won’t let him die,” the little girl whispered to herself.
Within the stone-walled house, Gu Shenwei was “chatting” with the torturer.
“How old are you?”
Torturer Liao Qing’s wrinkled face was glowing with strange brilliance under the lights. He had caused countless wounds on the prisoner. The blood trickling to the ground, but he still did not get a serious answer. This made him both surprised and excited. With a gradual and orderly punishment, most people cannot tolerate it for a long time. In light of this, he saw the possibility of using high-level techniques on Slave Huan.
“I’m 62!” Liao Qing also answered as if they were chatting.
“I thought you were eighty.” Gu Shenwei was still quivering a little despite his efforts to shifted his attention away from the pain.
“I look old.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Well, from the moment I opened a pig’s stomach… It’s been about forty years.” Liao Qing picked up a small knife and flashed it before the prisoner. He would alway let the prisoners see the process of his torture, as this would cause them to suffer deeper pain and fear.
“You surely don’t have a wife and children.”
“Oh, no way. If there was someone by my side, I would always want to cut her alive. Who would marry me? I’ll use this for your nails. I don’t like to pull it out. It’s too fast. “
“I hope you can go slower. I have ten fingers; it’s enough to keep you busy.”
“Oh, I’m not in a hurry. No one knows you’re here. The Lord Blademaster hadn’t given me a time limit, so you don’t have to confess too early. We’re both…”
The “friendship” between the two was mercilessly interrupted. Maid Lotus smashed opened the door with a saber in one hand and the edict in the other. “Release him.” She demanded.
“Who are you? I only listen to…”
Maid Lotus’s saber was about to move, but Gu Shenwei stopped her. “The old guy doesn’t have much blood in his body. Let him live.”
Maid Lotus raised her saber and cut off the rope on Slave Huan. She gently picked him up and walked toward the outside.
“You can’t go.” Liao Qing was anxious and called out while holding a knife.
Maid Lotus flew up and kicked the torturer into the corner.
The killer who led the way quietly urged them to go. “Come on, I heard someone coming.”
Gu Shenwei escaped from the final torture but trying to find a safe place in the Stone Castle was way too hard. Shangguan Ru looked at the cuts and bruises that covered Slave Huan and immediately made a decision. “Bring him to my residence.”
This evening, Maid Lotus was in the house of the Tenth Young Master. She could no longer go back to see her mistress because she did not cut off Slave Huan’s head.
The two girls stayed up all night to care for the wounded Slave Huan.
The struggle was far from over. The Heart Cleansing Yard would not stop there. Shangguan Ru had rescued Slave Huan but that had caused her to fall into Shen Liang’s trap: Her behavior had just confirmed that she was an insider of all of Yang Huan’s plots.
Gu Shenwei did not sleep either, for his brain was running rapidly. When it was nearly dawn, he decided to take a risky move. “Tenth Young Master, I want to see Lady Meng.”
