*cw: noncon, mentions of rape
Gui Yin’s eyes widened.
The man righted the carriage and made a sharp turn. The set of familiar eyes had distracted Gui Yin. His grip on the man loosened as the carriage flung itself in the opposite direction. Just as Gui Yin braced himself for a rough landing, a hand shot out to pull him back up.
Gui Yin looked at the hand that held his. His brows furrowed slightly. He couldn’t help but give it a squeeze. The elasticity and softness that belonged to a human hand wasn’t there. It was hard—almost like wood—but with the texture of human skin.
A low chuckle entered his ears as he was pressed against the side of the cloaked man.
“I saved you from falling, yet you’re taking advantage of me?”
Gui Yin stared at the man incredulously. He gestured towards the hand at his waist. “If that was taking advantage of you, then what’s this?”
The man looked at the space between them and then at his own arm. There was a smirk in his voice as he spoke, “It should be harassment?”
“You—”
The demonic beasts screeched a horrible cry. Gui Yin turned to face forward again and found that they were running straight towards the side of a sand dune.
“What are you doing? Swerve!”
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” the voice asked lowly in Gui Yin’s ear. “To make it seem like an accident.”
Gui Yin turned back to face the man. Only after this glance did he realize the man was wearing the same masks as the other assailants. Despite being unable to see his face, Gui Yin was positive the man was laughing at him.
“Unfortunately, this is where I say my goodbye,” the man said. The grip around Gui Yin’s waist loosened.
“Wait—”
“Don’t worry. The Young Palace Lord has retrieved everyone else,” the man said. “Now, you just have to do your job.”
Before Gui Yin could even react, he felt a hand, imbued with a miniscule amount of spiritual energy, slam into his chest.
The carriage, along with the demonic beasts, crashed into the sand dune while Gui Yin flew off to the left. He rolled a few times before finally righting himself. He got up on his elbows and looked back at the wreckage. The demonic beasts had broken free. The carriage was splintered in several pieces. The man was nowhere to be seen.
Gui Yin let out a long sigh. He looked to his right and then to his left. The camp of slave traders were probably towards his right. If he strained his ears just a little bit, he could still hear them struggling. If that man and the other people were sent by Li Fangyin, that means the battle at the campsite would be ending soon.
As a captive, it wouldn’t make any sense for Gui Yin to crawl back on his own.
He groaned and rolled around in the sand for a moment. He lifted his head just a little bit and looked back towards the wreckage.
That scum man really did disappear! He had questions!
For a moment, Gui Yin tried to reach out to Li Fangyin through voice transmission. He was met with silence. Li Fangyin was out of range. He could only resign to his fate and wait until he was done with this mission to ask Li Fangyin who that man was.
Gui Yin’s mind drifted back to those golden eyes. They were reminiscent of the man who called himself Er-ye. However, Er-ye’s voice had been hoarse and gravelly, akin to a man with one foot in the grave; the man he just met had an attractive, smooth, even lively voice. Was it possible that he could have gotten better in such a short amount of time? Not to mention that hand of his—the one Gui Yin had held—it was obviously a fake. Had Er-ye been missing a hand?
It was annoying. It was annoying that Gui Yin couldn’t have the answers to his questions now. It was also annoying that that man and Er-ye—with their very brief appearances in his life—had somehow managed to take up the entirety of his mind.
Gui Yin let out a soft scoff. He made a decision. If that golden-eyed man did work for Li Fangyin, he would get him fired. Who told him to be so cheeky?
With absolutely nothing to do for the moment, Gui Yin laid back down once more. He listened until the sounds of scuffle faded. When he heard people approaching, he pretended that he had fainted.
“Boss, there’s still one here!”
Gui Yin could hear the subordinates scrambling to get their leader’s attention and then he heard the well-dressed man click his tongue.
“Fine. One is better than nothing,” the well-dressed man grumbled. “Tie him up to the back of my horse. Let’s hurry to the tower before anything else happens.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Gui Yin allowed himself to be picked up. He had to keep himself from cringing away from the dry, calloused hands that skimmed his exposed waistline. His brows furrowed as he was roughly tossed onto the back of the well-dressed man’s stead. He was tied down and, moments later, had water splashed in his face.
Xel Tlc rqieaafgfv jcv kbxf eq. Ktf olgra atlcu tf rjk kjr atf kfii-vgfrrfv wjc rajglcu ja tlw klat tlr jgwr mgbrrfv bnfg tlr mtfra.
“Ckjxf?”
Splashing water on someone’s face and then asking them if they’re awake? How tasteless, was what Gui Yin thought on the inside. On the outside, however, he showed the expression of a startled, weak little rabbit.
Vfflcu tbk wemt tf rtbbx, atf kfii-vgfrrfv wjc rwlifv lc rjalrojmalbc. Lf ugjyyfv Xel Tlc ys atf ojmf jcv qlcmtfv tlr pjk yfakffc tlr olcufgr. “Qts vlvc’a sbe gec boo, tw? Tbe tjv atf bqqbgaeclas.”
“R-run…run off?” Gui Yin echoed meekly. He flinched when the man’s grip tightened. “I-I don’t know. The carriage l-lost control and it sped into the sand dune. I think I knocked my head…”
“Boss, does it matter why he didn’t run off? Look at him—his legs are basically crippled! It’d be difficult for him to run even if he didn’t pass out.”
“That’s right. Those other chickens were probably scared that he would drag them down, so they just left him.”
The more the subordinates spoke, the paler Gui Yin became. It was as if he had realized his only chance of escape was gone.
The well-dressed man watched him for a moment longer before tossing aside his head. He got onto the horse and said a few orders to his subordinates before they set off again towards Qi Du Cult’s tower.
The remainder of the trip was another three days—all of which Gui Yin spent like a knapsack on the back of the well-dressed man’s horse. By the end of the trip, he didn’t even have to act to look sick. He felt like he was going to throw up, like his intestines had been shoved to his back.
When he was yanked off of the horse, he immediately swooned and fell back into the well-dressed man’s arms. He heard the man sigh behind him and felt a rough hand caress his cheek again.
“What a shame,” the man murmured into Gui Yin’s ear. “Those idiots won’t know how to properly pamper a beauty like you.”
Gui Yin felt a pair of lips ghost the shell of his ear. He immediately flinched away and replaced the irritation in his eyes with fear.
The well-dressed man chuckled. “A delicate baby like you isn’t going to last even three days down there.”
The subordinates knowingly turned away when they saw their boss playing around with Gui Yin. Gui Yin resisted the urge to roll his eyes and kick the man behind him. Was he a dog? Why was he just gnawing at him!? Disgust rolled in Gui Yin’s body and he couldn’t help but think of the golden-eyed man again.
He was no longer annoyed with him. He even suddenly found the golden-eyed man to be charming.
There was obviously some type of stipulation in the contract these slave traders had signed with Qi Du Cult that prevented the well-dressed man from going too far, because after groping for a little while, he finally let Gui Yin go and his subordinates took him to be changed into something better than his tattered inner robes.
When Gui Yin returned to the well-dressed man, he was wearing robes made of thin silks. A gauzy cover hid the bottom half of his face and his hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and was decorated with bells and various types of sparkling beads.
The well-dressed man looked satisfied, but Gui Yin felt practically naked.
As someone who is used to wearing t-shirts and jeans or five layers of clothes, this attire was basically just a sheet of fabric by comparison. Not to mention, they had refused to give Gui Yin shoes, so his feet were still bare and out in the open. Gui Yin sighed. This still wasn’t too bad. At least they didn’t make him walk around naked.
…No. It was best to not think about that. Let’s not unintentionally plant flags.
In order to simulate being a normal person, Gui Yin had to suppress his cultivation level, as well as allow injuries to gather around his wrists and ankles, where the cuffs chafed. New injuries began to form as he walked through the sand barefoot. Getting a couple scars was no big deal—he could just put on some cream later. But infection was what worried him. Not because he would die from it, but because of how disgusting it would be for the time he couldn’t treat it.
He glanced down at his feet and thought about it for a moment. Realistically, who would examine his feet?
But even in the twenty-first century, hadn’t there been pervs who were attracted to feet? In this kind of environment, where everyone was psychotic, wouldn’t there also be people like this?
Gui Yin gave up the idea of trying to protect his feet.
As Gui Yin used these useless thoughts to entertain himself, they soon reached the front of the tower.
Well, to be precise, they simply just stopped.
Gui Yin glanced at the well-dressed man curiously before looking at the sandy scenery in front of them. What was supposed to happen next? Were they going to be swallowed by the sand?
The answer came rather quickly. The well-dressed man whistled out a unique pattern. Moments later, the sand before them began to quiver. In just three minutes, a large tower protruded from the sand, as if it had been there the entire time.
The well-dressed man held onto Gui Yin himself as a tower servant came out. A few words were whispered amongst them in a language Gui Yin didn’t understand. He kept his gaze lowered, but he was really using his spiritual sense to scope out the area around them.
If he wasn’t wrong, the tower had about six floors above ground, but even more floors below ground. All around were sand dunes. There was no other structure and nowhere to tell which way was up and which way was down. Even if Gui Yin managed to signal to Li Fangyin, it would take him a while to figure out exactly where the signal had come from because the only landmark was this large tower in front of them and this large tower could sink below ground.
Gui Yin wasn’t to the point of panic just yet, but he did reach out to Li Fangyin again. This time, the call connected, only there was what Gui Yin could only describe as a static signal.
“Qianbei, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Where are you?”
“I—krrtz—not far—krrtz—suitable pl—krrtz.”
Gui Yin listened to the crunchy response with a blackened expression in his heart. Wasn’t this the cultivation world? Wasn’t this genre xianxia? How could there be a radio signal in a communication method that used their minds and power?!
“Hello? Gui-qianbei? Are you still—krrtz.”
“I’m still here. Can you hear me clearly?”
“Yes, I can.”
Then it had to do with Li Fangyin’s own capacity.
For now, Gui Yin decided he wouldn’t pursue this matter. He shoved his temper to the back of his mind and tried to calm himself down.
“The tower can retract back into the sand. Before I enter, I’m going to drop a bit of my blood at the entrance. Make sure you catch it immediately and use that as a marker for where they’re located. Otherwise, when you come back to find me later, you won’t be able to know where to start.”
“Yes, qianbei!”
Gui Yin was about to bid farewell when he thought of something. “By the way, your subordi—”
“What are you spacing out for?” someone roughly grabbed Gui Yin by his hair and yanked him back.
Gui Yin turned around and looked “fearfully” into the eyes of the new person. With their odd way of dress, Gui Yin figured that they were one of the cult members.
The connection with Li Fangyin was cut and Gui Yin didn’t want to risk connecting with him again. He obediently allowed himself to be yanked along by the cult member. He spared the well-dressed man a pitiful look before he closed his eyes and “resigned to his fate”.
Gui Yin was appreciative of the chances he had to practice acting when he was young. Acting, unlike writing and editing, was a talent that few people knew he had. But that was precisely why he was good at it. He was a good actor and he was a good liar.
The cult member brought Gui Yin down a long, winding staircase. The staircase clung to the walls, just like any horrifying dungeon in a medieval movie might. It winded down steeply, leaving barely any room for your feet to step on. Every twenty or so steps were a new landing and the entire place was lit permanently by green ghost fire.
Gui Yin glanced at a torch as he walked by, a frown flickering across his previously well devised expression.
Ghost Fire was a type of fire that didn’t emit warmth and, instead, emitted coldness. It had many purposes in the cultivation world—none of which were used by the righteous path. Ghost Fire could be recreated with a combination of several types of poisonous herbs, found only in the Ghost Realm. It wasn’t as strong as the True Samadhi Fire, but it was also an eternal flame that one couldn’t be rid of unless you were a cultivator. The side-effects of being around Ghost Fire for too long were nausea, hallucinations, insomnia, and atrophy of the body, then the mind. It was not a pleasant experience, but it was placed in dungeons like these to keep criminals from escaping.
The Beidou Alliance had banned the usage of Ghost Fire in sects signed under their alliance because they found it too inhumane, but they still used it when questioning high-profile criminals. It was rather ironic if you thought about it.
In actuality, there could be another explanation as to why the Beidou Alliance banned the usage of Ghost Fires. That was because the exportation of materials was expensive and there were no “legally” established trading routes between the ghost cultivators and the righteous cultivators, who had been at each other’s throats for several hundred thousand years already. Gui Yin didn’t have a shadow of doubt that if the materials could be gathered easier, each prison of the big sects would also be lit with Ghost Fire.
That was just how wretched the world was.
The further walked, the more he was hit by the eeriness of it all. Finally, he couldn’t help but glance at the prison cells.
As he thought, the cells were filled almost to full capacity but no one spoke a word. The silence of the dying captives was deafening.
Once they passed the tenth floor, the Ghost Fire torches disappeared. They were replaced by regular flames. The warmth here sharply contrasted the coldness from the floor above. Although it was still quiet, there were more sounds of shuffling in this area and, when they reached the very bottom floor, some captives still had the strength to yell at their captors.
“Shut up! Shut up!” the cult member shouted irritably. Silence descended in the cells.
He turned to Gui Yin. “You!”
“Y-yes?”
“You’re going to live here for now,” the cult member said. He unlocked the cell nearest them and threw Gui Yin in. “We’ll come back for you once the price is decided.”
The well-dressed man and the cult member left.
The moment they were out of sight and out of earshot, the captives began to stir again.
“The new guy looks pretty!”
“How are his injuries?”
“Tch, just look at him—he looks like he’s about to cry, he’s so weak.”
“Are you one to talk? You’re down here just like the rest of us.”
“I least I don’t look like I’m begging to be fucked in the ass!”
Gui Yin listened to the cacophony with a stone-cold expression. After the captives left, he picked himself back up and dusted the dirt from his sleeve and his back. He found a clean corner to sit at and made himself comfortable.
In his cell, there were five other people. It seemed to be the emptiest cell.
Three of them were women while two were young men. Some looked at Gui Yin warily while some carried a bit of sympathy in their eyes.
Gui Yin met the gaze of the young man closest to him. “What do they do around here?”
“W-what?”
“What do they do?” Gui Yin asked, his voice unprecedentedly calm.
The young man stared at him in shock. This person was completely different from the usual newcomers. He glanced unsurely at the woman to his left. When he wasn’t given any instruction, he looked back at Gui Yin.
“It depends,” the young man said. “The ones above the tenth floor are…spirit cultivators, I think they’re called. They…they’re used to improve the sect members’ cultivation.”
The woman beside the young man glowered. “They’re raped. That’s why they’re so sedated. And we, below the tenth floor, are usually used for experiments.”
“Experiments?” Gui Yin asked. “What kind of experiments?”
“All sorts of them,” the young woman said with a dark smile. “They use us to test gu, to test their medicine, to test our resilience. Do you see the cell over there?”
Gui Yin looked to where the woman was pointing. It was a cell tucked into the corner. The people inside were piled on top of one another. They were obviously still breathing, but they didn’t seem to register their environments. Their eyes were rolled up towards the ceiling and drool trickled down their chin.
“Those are the people they use to conduct soul experiments.”
Gui Yin frowned.
“Every month or so, they’ll get a new batch of slaves,” the woman continued. She looked Gui Yin up and down. “Since you’re so pretty and since you’re the only one here, they must have something special planned for you.”
“Gulin,” the young man beside her frowned.
“Am I wrong?” the woman named Gulin looked Gui Yin up and down. “We probably won’t be seeing him again after today.”
Gui Yin fell silent into his thoughts. So, rather than recruiting servants and the like, they had really just been finding test subjects. He blocked out the two people who were quarreling. If he was just trapped as a test subject, then he wouldn’t be able to do anything. At the same time, he obviously didn’t want to suffer the same fate as the poor spirit cultivators.
So, what else was there?
“Honestly, with your face, they might make you a priest.”
Gui Yin looked at Gulin. “A priest?”
“It’s to do with the bullshit religion they have. I hear them talking about it sometimes. I’ve also seen some pretty new faces wearing those…weird white garments,” Gulin said. “They say the priests are offerings to their god.”
Gui Yin didn’t want to think too deeply about what “offering” meant, but this would most likely be his best option to gather more information. And it was better than being drugged and being unable to slaughter his way out.
“You.”
Gui Yin looked at the cult member.
“You’re coming with me. The Lord wants to see you.”
o-o (greatly concerned)
setting aside my concern and my notes for Mystranger’s identity, i’m laughing at the radio-ness of the mental communication akxbakxms
is it truly a distance issue (it is) or is it that Li Fangyin’s brain doesn’t have enough braincells to power the connection 😔
thanks for reading!
The random dissing brooo
Dang, Gui Yin can really act. I can’t so if I was in that world and tried that, the only time you could see me is 6 feet underground.
Thanks for the chapter >w<