Chapter 85

Thank you, Dark World Egg, Tonyxyn, and the generous supporters from China, Blood Night Without Tears Book Club.

PS: This chapter contains some relatively graphic descriptions. Readers who are uncomfortable with such content may skip this part.

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"Boom!"

A rumble of thunder echoed in the sky, and the rain had already started.

Su Peng looked at Cao Mujiang, who was actually Xie An. Suddenly, he heard Xie An say, "Do you know about the Ancient Sword Manor and its owner?"

"Ancient Sword Manor?"

Su Peng recalled the random intelligence he had obtained from Bei Chou, which included the message, "At the end of the month, the Ancient Lord of Ancient Sword Manor received a batch of goods."

After thinking about the information he had gathered from Heilang Ear, Su Peng said, "I have heard a little. The owner of Ancient Sword Manor is named Gu Jian, who is forty-five years old and a disciple of the Qingcheng Sect. He seems to be a fellow disciple of the City Lord of Jiangning, Mo Tianqing."

"Ha... You know these surface details, but do you know what kind of beast in human form this Gu Jian, this Ancient Lord, is?"

Xie An said, his emotions suddenly becoming agitated. The veins on his arms bulged, and with his right hand, which still had some strength, he grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground, gritting his teeth and saying,

"What happened to him? Tell me in detail." Su Peng, sensing something amiss, said to Xie An...

...

Xie An calmed down his emotions before speaking slowly,

"My real name is Xie An. My parents were also martial artists and once had a reputation in the martial world. Later, they retired and settled in a small town, where they had two children, a son and a daughter. The older one is me, and the younger one is my sister, Xie Xueru.

"Although my parents retired, they did not abandon their martial arts and passed all their skills to my sister and me. We both had a solid foundation and, at a young age, had already developed good martial arts skills. We were eager to explore the martial world, but our parents, knowing the dangers of the martial world, kept us at home and did not allow us to travel."

"However, I never expected that when I was twenty, a plague broke out in the state where my parents had retired. My parents, being kind-hearted and knowledgeable in medicine, went to help the victims. Unfortunately, they were infected and both passed away. After burying our parents, my sister and I, no longer restrained, sold the property left by our parents and set out to explore the martial world together."

"The martial arts skills our parents taught us were indeed strong. With my youth and the considerable savings left by our parents, we spent generously and, within a few years, gained some reputation. In those years, we were young and only thought of upholding justice, helping those in need... until one day a year ago..."

At this point, Xie An's eyes showed deep regret, and he said, "Fifteen years ago, when my sister and I passed through Xuzhou, we stayed at a small inn in a village. We saw the innkeeper carrying out a sick man. Out of curiosity, we asked and learned that the man had fallen ill while staying at the inn. His money seemed to have been stolen, and he was very ill, almost unconscious. The innkeeper, fearing he would die there, planned to leave him in the wilderness to fend for himself. My sister and I, being young and compassionate, paid for a doctor to treat him, and my sister even took care of him personally."

"About three to five days later, the man recovered and thanked my sister and me. I noticed that he didn't look like someone who had been in dire straits for a long time. When I asked about his identity, I learned that he was a disciple of the Qingcheng Sect and had come out to do business for his sect. Unfortunately, his money was stolen, and he fell ill, ending up in that village. My sister and I saved him... He seemed only seven or eight years older than us, but he spoke maturely and convincingly. My sister and I, lacking experience, felt a connection with him. I considered him a close friend, and my sister seemed to have feelings for him. Later, when we each had our own affairs, I gave him three hundred taels of silver as travel expenses, and he told us his name was Gu Jian. If we ever came near Jiangning, we could visit Ancient Sword Manor."

"Gu Jian? The owner of Ancient Sword Manor?" Su Peng asked.

"Exactly... that great evil person..." Xie An clenched his teeth, took a moment to recover, and continued,

"My sister and I never had the chance to visit Jiangning until three years later... Three years later, we discovered the location of a treasure from a previous dynasty near Suzhou and decided to travel there by boat... On the way, we heard people in the martial world mention Ancient Sword Manor. My sister and I, remembering Gu Jian, wanted to see how he was doing. We went to Ancient Sword Manor, but we never expected..."

By this point, Su Peng had a premonition. Xie An's sister must have... But Su Peng said nothing, listening quietly as Xie An continued.

"We arrived at Ancient Sword Manor and indeed saw Gu Jian. After three years, he seemed even more composed and dignified. He greeted us warmly, and that night, he hosted a banquet for us. I drank until I was dizzy and, in a moment of carelessness, mentioned the treasure map. Gu Jian showed no reaction at the time, only saying that his manor had received a new batch of Western grape wine and wanted us to taste it. Without thinking, I agreed. He brought out a bottle of grape wine, and I drank a few cups, quickly losing consciousness."

"But when I woke up... I found myself in a dungeon, my hands and feet chained and hanging there... My weapons, the martial arts manual passed down by my father, and the treasure map were all gone... I was so foolish, I didn't realize what had happened until I saw Gu Jian's cold face in the dungeon..."

"He drugged you, and you fell into his trap. You never expected him to repay kindness with such cruelty," Su Peng said, having pieced together some of the details.

"That's right... but, that's not all... not all..."

Xie An said, his body trembling, perhaps from the intensity of his emotions. He continued,

"I was imprisoned in the dungeon for three days... An interrogator kept questioning me about the treasure... I never want to talk about those three days again. They were the most humiliating days of my life..."

"You killed him," Su Peng said.

"Yes... that person never expected that my mother taught me a skill called 'bone-shrinking' when I was young... I thought I would never use it, but it saved my life there... After three days, my internal energy had recovered somewhat. When the interrogator fell asleep, I used the skill to escape from the chains. Then, using a chopstick, I inserted it into the interrogator's ear and into his brain..." Xie An said with a grimace, as if he were killing the interrogator again.

"What about your sister?" Su Peng suddenly asked.

Xie An's body trembled, and he said, "My sister... my sister..."

Su Peng noticed that Xie An's eyes turned red when he mentioned his sister. He heard Xie An tremble and say,

"I got the key from the interrogator and escaped from the dungeon, looking for my sister Xueru... But soon, the interrogator's body was discovered, and the manor began a massive search. In a panic, I entered a room in the manor and accidentally found a ventilation shaft leading to a secret room... But at the end of the ventilation shaft, I saw the most cruel thing in my life..."

"What happened?" Su Peng asked, sensing that the critical part of the story was approaching.

Xie An's eyes were distant, as if he were reliving the scene, and he murmured, "I reached the end of the ventilation shaft and saw a secret room below... In that room, there were many people... all naked, mostly women, a few young men, and some children... The women and children were either locked in cages or tied up naked, some with their eyes covered... There were about twenty women and children... but there were six men! Those six men were naked, wearing something like crowns on their heads, and they walked in naked... They weren't human... they weren't human..."

"Can you imagine what they did? Use your most evil imagination!" Xie An shouted at Su Peng, as if he were mad.

Su Peng shook his head and said, "I can't imagine."

"Of course, you can't... What's the limit of your imagination? A debauched feast? No... They held a feast from hell..."

"Do you know? They didn't treat people as humans... They were no longer satisfied with ordinary desires... Can you imagine? Mothers being... in front of their children, and children being slaughtered, bled, and dissected in front of their mothers, their bodies skewered... The mothers, from screaming to numbness and despair, their eyes... And what were those men doing? They were laughing! Laughing!"

"Can you imagine? A young man's body being crushed in a stone mill... They held his head, making him watch as his body was ground into blood and flesh... The young man was crying and begging them to stop, but what were they doing? They were laughing! Laughing! Laughing as they ground the young man into blood and flesh!"

"Can you imagine... a pool filled with human blood and ground human flesh... What were they doing there? They were bathing! Bathing in it!"

As Xie An spoke, though it had been ten years, the scenes he described seemed to be right in front of him. Suddenly, he vomited.

Su Peng, hearing Xie An's story, felt a suffocating nausea, a feeling of unbearable discomfort.

Xie An vomited for a while before sitting up and saying, "I vomited... I was in the ventilation shaft, watching them, and I vomited. They kept killing, killing, killing... I vomited until there was nothing left, but I kept vomiting... I wanted to go down and kill them, but I was afraid, I was afraid to go down. I saw Gu Jian among them, and his martial arts were stronger than mine. I was no match for him... I was afraid I would become a victim in that hellish feast..."

"That hellish feast lasted for more than two hours. In the end, no one was left alive in the secret room except those six men... Suddenly, they stopped, and five of them walked over to the edge of the blood pool, kneeling. Gu Jian stood in front of them, chanting something in a language I didn't understand. Blood kept flowing from the pool, and I saw a totem rise from it... It was a blood-red totem with a snake, a sun, and a strange bird... They kept chanting, as if praying, and I saw a black mist flash on the totem. Then, Gu Jian led them in a bow... Finally, they completed some ritual and left the hellish secret room..."

"A totem with a snake, a sun, and a strange bird?" Su Peng thought of the pentagonal token he had obtained from the deep blue zombie in the Thousand-Eyed Swamp. Was there a connection between the two?

"Then what happened? Did you escape?" Su Peng adjusted his thoughts, looked at Xie An, and continued to ask.

"I went in... I still had a glimmer of hope, thinking I might save someone, that there might be a survivor... But I shouldn't have gone down, I shouldn't have gone down..."

"Your sister..."

"Yes... my sister... In the blood pool, I found a severed foot... On the ankle of the foot was a bell... That bell was given to my sister by my mother... My sister was weak as a child, so my mother sought a magic bell and put it on her foot to protect her from evil spirits. But I saw that bell on the severed foot in the blood pool..."

Xie An's mind seemed to have broken, and he muttered.

A sense of oppression came over Su Peng. He already knew what had happened.

At this moment, Su Peng's face was expressionless, but a surge of uncontrollable anger rose in his heart.

This had already crossed the lowest line in Su Peng's heart.

Su Peng asked himself, he wasn't a good person, nor a bad person, just an ordinary person. His actions were driven by interests. He had done some cunning things for work before, but he didn't consider himself a person without principles.

Su Peng felt that his principles were already very low, but even so, they never fell below the line of "human dignity."

Life was full of conflicts of interest, and sometimes it was hard to say who was right or wrong. The key was to set goals, principles, and moral standards to know when to advance and when to retreat.

Unless there was no other way, Su Peng never wanted to kill. Even if he did, it would never be without reason, let alone for the sake of torture.

But what Xie An described had already crossed the line of humanity, falling to the level of beasts, or even worse.

This was something no one who considered themselves human could accept.

Thunder rumbled in the sky, and Su Peng took a deep breath in the rain, suppressing his anger, and said,

"What happened after that? How did you end up in Green Mountain Fort? And how did you get the Purple Mist Sect's iron token?"

Xie An, with a look of regret, took a while to reply, "I was in despair and planned to end my life in that secret room, but I couldn't let go of my hatred... I escaped from Ancient Sword Manor with the bell, but my body was at its limit, and I fainted in an ancient temple."

"When I woke up, I found myself saved by a group of people... The one who saved me was the famous 'Killer Doctor' Lu Sanping, who was performing some experiments on recently deceased bodies."

"Lu Sanping told me he was researching a new medical technique, where the skin of a recently deceased person could be transplanted onto another person's face. At the time, I thought I couldn't leave, I had to avenge my sister and expose the atrocities of Ancient Sword Manor, but I had no evidence, and Gu Jian would surely hunt me down. Hearing Lu Sanping's words, I suddenly had a resolve. I knelt and begged Lu Sanping to help me with the experiment, asking him to transplant the face of a dead traveler onto mine. Lu Sanping agreed and used a knife to peel off my face... It was very painful, but thinking of my deep hatred, I endured it... and let Lu Sanping transplant the face."

"Lu Sanping's medical skills were truly exceptional. He succeeded, and my face was changed to what it is now... About half a month later, my face was completely transformed, and I became Cao An from Xie An..."

"Lu Sanping, seeing the experiment's success, left. I stayed in the ancient temple, not daring to come out. But one rainy night, a monk with a staff suddenly entered the temple..."

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