One glanced at the ground covered with snake corpses expressionlessly. He didn’t bother to praise Ning Shu and just directly said, “You’ve passed the second trial. There’s one trial left.”
Ning Shu was really tired. She couldn’t even lift her arms, so she said, “Can I rest for a bit first? I’m really tired.”
One glanced at Ning Shu. “The last trial is very simple. There’s no need for a break.”
It’s very simple?
Ning Shu followed One into a stone room. This stone room was very clean. There was a stone bed and on it was a little bundle of clothes.
When Ning Shu walked closer, she saw that an infant was wrapped in the clothes. His black eyes were currently looking around curiously and small bubbles formed on his lips as he muttered.
When he saw Ning Shu, he started crying out in baby talk. He didn’t have teeth yet and only had pink gums.
Ning Shu looked at the swaddling clothes. There were a lot of patches on it, making it clear that this child had come from a poor family.
Ning Shu had a bad premonition as she looked towards One.
One said with a cold expression, “This is your last test. Kill this child.”
Ning Shu’s heart clutched hard. “Why? This child has nothing to do with us.”
One’s gaze abruptly turned sharp. “Is this something you should say? We’re simply swords. As long as Master gives the command, regardless of who the target is, we must kill them, even if it’s a child.”
“Kill him.” One pointed to the child on the bed. “This is your last mission. If you don’t complete it, then you’ve failed. Master will not be able to give you an assignment.”
Perhaps the infant sensed danger, or perhaps One’s voice had scared him, because he suddenly started wailing. The stone room echoed with the sound of the child’s cries.
Ning Shu’s palm was becoming sweaty. She felt conflicted and lost like never before.
If she didn’t kill this child, she wouldn’t be able to leave this base. What would happen with her task? She’d be exterminated.
But she had no past with this child. This child didn’t even know anything. This was a life. Ning Shu hadn’t felt any psychological resistance when killing that tiger and those snakes, but killing a human? And it was even a human that she had no hatred or animosity towards.
Cold sweat covered Ning Shu’s entire body. The sweat from her forehead dripped into her eye, causing her eye to sting, but she couldn’t be bothered to care.
Was she going to have to kill an innocent person for the sake of her task?
Use an innocent infant’s life to trade for her own? Could she do this?
She could, couldn’t… could.. couldn’t…
Ning Shu felt helpless and lost like never before. She had never encountered something like this in past tasks. What was she supposed to do?
Use this life to complete her own task? But this child didn’t know anything and had never done anything to hurt her. Was she really going to do this?
Ning Shu was willing to do things to get justice for the original host, but this child had nothing to do with the task.
What should she do? How could she kill an innocent person, especially when it was an infant that didn’t know anything? Even crimes didn’t pass down to the child, and this was a completely innocent child.
Ning Shu was very conflicted. Her mind was a complete mess. She felt like her mental state was about to shatter into disarray.
Should she stop caring about the means for the sake of survival and choose to live regardless of the means?
One looked at Ning Shu coldly. “You only need to lift your blade and pierce it into this child’s heart. This is the simplest mission. Remember, you’re a death soldier.”
Ning Shu swallowed hard. Death soldier. This kind of training method practically destroyed a person’s humanity.
However, this kind of training was precisely for the sake of eliminating a person’s humanity and sympathy so that they’d become emotionless machines.
Beneath every emperor’s throne were innumerable bones of the dead. These bones were stomped into steps as he slowly climbed up to the position of emperor.
