Realms In The Firmament

Chapter 71 – The Flame In The Heart

The two shops near the dead bodies were truly unlucky. The shopkeepers’ faces turned green when they saw what had just happened. But no matter what, they had no chance of escaping this scenario.

This was really a case of ‘he who stayed in the house was hit by the misfortune from the sky’ [1]. They were simply running their businesses as usual, but to their surprise, people just died in front of their doorsteps.

However, people of the Divine Arms Mill were far more pissed off than they were.

They had brought some divine weapons to the capital and caused quite a sensation, attracting a lot of followers as they had expected!

They believed that this time, they could sell them for an exorbitant price! They could sense the excitement of the crowd…

There was no doubt that they had made a good decision to show up at that moment.

However, just as they were becoming complacent and elated…

Suddenly, three men in the crowd who had been following them had just died!

That was seriously some bad luck!

Their faces immediately turned green!

[That is fxxking so… so… so, so… What the hell…]

Watching the crowd scatter and leave the place, all of the expert cultivators of the Divine Arms Mill were stunned.

They couldn’t help but come up with a common thought — [Will the death of these guys… get us involved?]

…

Under the cover of the chaos, Ye Xiao was dragging that man as he leisurely went into a small alley. He climbed over two walls and casually kicked a hole in it. After he passed through the wall, he kicked it once more, returning it to how it was before.

He finally found a secluded place, where he placed the man on the ground.

The man hadn’t made any sound or movement, but he had kept on observing everything that Ye Xiao had done, from easily killing the other three assassins to dragging him away as if nothing had happened, and then bringing him to a secluded place…

The boldness, precision, wariness, cruelness and strength that Ye Xiao had shown… was really shocking.

Thus, when Ye Xiao placed him on the ground, the guy’s face was already pale and filled with fear.

When he finally dropped to the floor, he was finally freed from being frozen. Just as he started to recover, he quickly opened his mouth… and then fiercely snapped it shut. Apparently, he was trying to commit suicide by biting his tongue off.

Analyzing Ye Xiao’s actions, he decided that it would be a blessing if he could just kill himself after being captured! It would be better to die quickly than suffer.

Ye Xiao reached out an arm and casually broke the guy’s lower jaw. He said, “You want to die? You know it can’t be this easy, right?”

And then he blocked the guy’s Jing and Mai. He held the guy’s lower jaw up to his mouth and then touched the guy’s cheek with his finger. A stream of gelid power had instantly frozen the guy’s facial muscles.

“Now, you should only be able to speak in whispers. You certainly cannot shout. You are free to try if you don’t believe me.” Ye Xiao spoke gently, “And, to kill yourself by biting your tongue requires certain strength, but unfortunately, you hardly have the strength to do so. You can at most blink. Things like cutting off your own Jing and Mai, exploding your dantian… Oh you don’t have those abilities now, am I right? Even if you do, it is impossible to execute those moves in front of me!”

“Well, I talked a lot with you. I just want to tell you that even though you so desperately want to die right now, you just can’t.” Ye Xiao smiled gently, “See how kindly I treat you. This is just so meticulous.”

The guy couldn’t prevent his body from quivering.

His face was filled with extreme fear.

[Is this demon really that foppish black sheep of the Ye Clan?

Who the… Who the fxxk collected that bullshit information?]

The guy nearly cried out: [Since such a terrible monster could be called a foppish black sheep… are you telling me that all the foppish lads in the world are monsters too?]

Ye Xiao wore a smile on his face, but he was actually rather furious.

The four men had actually tried to kill him on the street without even caring that they were in public. They were so brazen and unscrupulous.

They didn’t care about hurting innocent people…

The anger inside Ye Xiao had reached its pinnacle.

Dealing with men who disregarded innocent lives, the Xiao Monarch never showed mercy!

“Now you are absolutely not going to die, but you cannot live well either, because I won’t let garbage like you live well.” Ye Xiao spoke frankly, “Well, there are many methods in the world that could force a man to tell something he doesn’t want to. Do you know what those methods are?”

The man lied on the floor, looking at Ye Xiao, absolutely terrified.

“I guess you don’t know any more than I do.” Ye Xiao sighed, “There are so many methods to make people beg for death… Today you met me. Now you can enjoy these methods from the bottom of your heart. You are lucky, because you are going to experience something most of the human beings wouldn’t be able to experience.”

The man’s eyes were begging for mercy and he only had a sliver of hope: [Oh God! Please! He must be exaggerating!]

Ye Xiao sighed, “Don’t even think for a moment that I am boasting. Such methods, I really know a lot. And… I know a lot more than those executioners do. So, you are really lucky, because in the history of this world, there has never been a man who has experienced all the 108 brutal torture methods!”

He smiled, “Of course you are unlucky at the same time, because these tortures hurt really, really bad. It can’t be explained just by speaking. Let’s go ahead and make you taste each and every one of them. Now we begin with the first, the Flame in the Heart.”

And then he reached out his hand, very slowly.

He didn’t speak any other words at all.

Everything about this assassination including who was behind it, who planned it, who wanted to kill him…

He asked none of those questions.

He just started with the torture.

He acted like these details didn’t interest him in the least and the only thing that he was interested in was torturing!

Under the fearful look of the man, a flame suddenly appeared in Ye Xiao’s hand. – Poof! – It was burning in Ye Xiao’s hand.

Ye Xiao explained patiently, “Look, this is fire. However, this fire is no ordinary fire… Because it can’t burn anything… If you don’t believe me, just look.”

Ye Xiao moved the flame to his own clothes, and then to his hair. There was no trace of burning.

“Of course, this fire is not completely useless. It’s usage lies in the fact… that it can enter a man’s mouth and move to his belly bit by bit… and then it will burn the man’s heart… Hmm. No, I was wrong. It is not burning. It is roasting. While your heart still beats… it will kept on roasting it. But it won’t kill you. I can only say that it is a strange feeling… Right. Why don’t you try it.”

“Be proud as the first man who can experience such feeling. How admirable.” Ye Xiao praised.

The man’s eyes were already dull. His pupils were nearly dilated. He was shaking because of fear. A terrible stench was spreading out from the lower part of his body.

“Don’t fart. That is not civilized.” Ye Xiao reprimanded, “Didn’t your daddy teach you that?” He then hit him with a finger and had actually blocked his acupoint of excretion. And then he pulled up the man’s head and pushed the flame into his mouth.

“New new new n…” The man kept shaking his head. He struggled with faint efforts. He had tried his best but realized that he could only draw out a tiny amount of strength. The words of begging, ‘no no no no’ had actually became ‘new new new n…’ due to excessive shivering…

The flame had been delivered into his mouth and he really didn’t feel burned at all. There was only a warm feeling of heat slowly moving toward his belly. He actually felt comfortable.

Ye Xiao spoke blandly, “Feel anything? Hm, now it has entered the mouth… It isn’t scorching, is it? It is even comfortable, right? It should have reached the throat right about now… Not burning either, right? Now it has passed the throat… Hot? It isn’t hot, right? Now it gets to the chest… Not hot either, right? I didn’t lie to you, did I? Now it gets to the heart… And then, ahem… What about now?”

He hadn’t even finished talking, and then the man felt a rushing stream of heat coming up from underneath his heart!

Suddenly, he felt like his heart was slowly being roasted. That terrible feeling was nothing that could be described by any language. Even though his body was thoroughly restricted, he still widely opened his mouth, wishing to cry out loudly.

Ye Xiao slowly covered his mouth with one hand, and waved one finger of the other, “Be good. Don’t shout. Don’t become excited. Feel it slowly. Take it easy. No need to rush.”

The man’s head was shaking intensely, but he couldn’t get rid of Ye Xiao’s hand. He couldn’t make any sound. His eyes looked like there was fire burning inside them.

The entire Jing and Mai of his body were twitching at the same time. Blue veins stood out all over his body and then fell back the next moment…

A large amount of sweat was released, immediately drenching his clothes.

It could be seen that the pain he was experiencing was excruciating.

“I… I will talk… Please… Stop…” The man finally broke down. He begged repeatedly, looking at Ye Xiao with pleading eyes.

“What did you say?” Ye Xiao frowned, “Don’t you realize, I don’t really want to know anything from you… Whether you talk or not, it doesn’t matter to me at all. You know that, right? Otherwise, I would have asked you, but I didn’t. Don’t you feel it strange?”

The man looked at him, pleading. His eyes had turned red because of anxiousness.

Ye Xiao sighed, “Fine. Fine. You looked so pathetic… All right then, I will let you say something. But I need to clarify something first… I won’t spare your life. You must think about that clearly. In fact, you can keep your mouth shut and I would like to enjoy seeing you being tortured.”

The man sincerely nodded. His forehead was drenched as he spoke, “I will tell you everything. All I ask you is to let me die quickly…”

Speaking so quickly, he realized that his body had nearly dried out because of the flame. After saying just one sentence, his throat had already bled.

Ye Xiao waved his hand and the flame instantly went back to his hand. It was pulsating slightly. Ye Xiao spoke blandly, “Who sent you here?”

“It was the crown princess! The crown princess…” Sweat trickled down his forehead as his face cramped up, creating a ferocious expression. He shouted loudly since he couldn’t wait to tell the truth, but his voice was hoarse and was barely audible.

…

——

[1]’He who stayed in the house was hit by the misfortune from the sky’- It is not a Chinese saying. It means misfortune happens to someone who doesn’t expect it.