Warning: The chapter contains unsettling themes—torture, assault, and mentions of cannibalism. Proceed with caution.
Editor: Junyans
Xia Tian didn’t dream.
After death, there were no dreams. He descended into darkness and silence like a burnt-out fire or a small handful of ashes, falling until he returned to the utter stillness of death.
But at some point, a violent force seized him and yanked him upward.
The real world pressed down, and through the water, he saw a blazing, maddening white light, mixed with a dirty red. He heard someone say, “He must be brought back. The people here will definitely not return empty handed. No matter what medicine, just give it to him!”
The next moment, some injection was pushed into Xia Tian’s body. His eyes widened as his insides burned. He could almost hear the sizzling sound.
He groaned. The tyrannical force pulled him out of the water, the dirty light poured down on him, burning through his limbs and bones. In the distance, he saw the arc-shaped, birdcage-like metal canopy.
He heard someone say, “Awake,” and another saying, “Quick, lower the heart rate.”
Xia Tian felt like a fish forcibly pulled from the deep dark sea onto a scorching bed of fire. The pain was unbearable.
He tried hard to curl up, but couldn’t move his fingertips. He heard someone laughing and saying “Crying again.”
For a moment, he couldn’t remember who he was or where he was. All he felt was pain, his body covered in layers of scars. He felt nothing but numbness, pain, and despair. There was nothing left of him, nothing they could want. He shouldn’t be alive.
“Does it hurt, Xia Tian?” someone asked.
He couldn’t speak. He used the little strength he had gained to try to curl up, but someone pulled his arm, held it down, exposing him to the light again.
He started crying again, whispering “let go” and “it hurts.” The person laughed again as a slightly cooler injection entered his body, but it was like a small cup of water in a big fire.
“I want to taste you, Xia Tian,” the person continued, “If you behave and let me taste you, I’ll make you feel better, okay?”
Xia Tian couldn’t see who was speaking. The dirty white enveloped him, seeping through his skin, leaving him with nowhere to hide.
He felt someone holding his chin, kissing him, and a tongue entering.
It was a vulgar and bloody kiss. The person kept biting his tongue and sucking blood. He tried to avoid it, but the other person seemed to find it amusing, so he gave up.
He heard someone say, “Have you started behaving now?”
“Try lifting the restriction?”
No one spoke, and no one lifted the restriction.
Xia Tian lay motionless on the bed, letting the person “taste” him. He looked at the top of the cage again. He had a black collar around his neck and a similarly black iron chain embedded in the bed. His head was pressed against the wall, pulled so tight that he felt suffocated.
The man sucking the blood finally let go of him and said to the person next to him, “I want to eat his tongue. It’s sweet and slippery. No need to cook it. Just slice it and dip it in the seasoning.”
He caressed his hair, like stroking an animal.
“I also want his rectum and penis,” he said, “At most, 30% cooked. The sauce is the key, it must be sweet—”
He turned to look at Xia Tian and smiled at him.
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.
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He paused, and suddenly the surrounding voices lowered by two degrees, then stopped altogether.
Xia Tian felt the person straighten up and say, “Mr. Minkov Jr.”
By the bedside, a few others whispered, “Mr. Minkov Jr.”
They stepped aside, and Minkov Jr. walked over. The sunlight in the cage seemed to swallow him up, making his figure look slender and darker.
He wasn’t wearing a suit or a mask, just a black T-shirt, like a runaway child who had mistakenly ended up in the wrong place.
He stood by the bed, staring at Xia Tian’s current state, and Xia Tian looked back at him.
Xia Tian thought he must look terrible. He was wearing a white shirt with deep red stitching, buttons unbuttoned. The orange light shone on him, making him look like a ripe sacrifice on a red platter. His lips were slightly parted, bearing the traces of another person’s “tasting,” and he didn’t even have the strength to close them.
Minkov Jr. turned to look at the chain.
It was pulled tight, keeping Xia Tian in a constant state of semi-asphyxiation.
Suddenly, Minkov Jr. stretched out his hand to grab it and pulled it back hard.
His tightly clenched knuckles turned white, as he pulled the chain with an air of madness and neuroticism. He must have some authority; the chain was pulled out several feet by him. People around watched him go mad, with not a single one speaking.
But soon, the chain couldn’t be pulled any further—within those ten or so seconds, someone had definitely imposed restrictions on his authority. The boy held onto that thing tightly, stubbornly resisting against the unknown and immense force. A hopeless deadlock.
Xia Tian quietly watched him; the orange-red sunlight shone from above, and he resembled a ball of flame burning to its end. No amount of fuel would help. In the end, only filth and residue would remain.
Minkov Jr. stood outside the light, as if no light would ever shine on him. There was no expression on his face, and he looked as if he would be shattered by a speck of dust in the air.
He said nothing and stubbornly held on to the chain.
He knew what Xia Tian wanted to say: If you want to help, just give me a swift end.
Finally, the teenager let go, and the chain fell onto the bed, emitting a metallic clang.
“This,” Minkov Jr. said, “all of this will have consequences.”
No one spoke. His voice was very thin, with a slight tremor like a sob, and it easily dispersed in the luxurious feast.
He slowly raised his hand and touched Xia Tian’s fingertips.
Xia Tian felt a cold, piercing sensation, and a flicker of fire flashed in his eyes. He realized what it was—the teenager had given him a miniature nanoweapon.
This thing would stay in his bloodstream like a hidden bomb, delivering a lethal blow when needed.
He just needed to wait, not too long. He was sure to get an opportunity—to end it all. Then no device could pull him back into this disgusting mess.
At this moment, the boy suddenly leaned down, leaned into his ear, and said, “Bai Jingan is here.”
Xia Tian looked at him with wide eyes. The name flashed through his body like a tiny flame. His fingertips trembled slightly and he felt it was difficult to breathe, as if he had become a living person again and needed to find air.
“Can you wait a bit longer?” Minkov Jr. said, “At least…”
He didn’t finish his sentence, and there was silence all around. The light was so bright, and the air carried the scent of alcohol, flowers, and a faint aphrodisiacal perfume, as if neither words nor hope could survive here.
Lil’ Bai, who injected energy syringes into his arteries without a care. Who sat next to him on the passenger seat and smiled contentedly at him, even when they were in the midst of escape…
Lil’ Bai, with whom he’d had a great time playing a game “age-appropriate for 4-12 years old”—a game which involved throwing dice to build a house with a garden. Who looked like a naive and romantic young man when he wore a carefree smile on his face.
He shouldn’t be here—
But, of course, he would come, Xia Tian thought. No matter what kind of man-eating island or monster’s lair this was, he would come. He never felt a sense of crisis. Once he decided, there was no turning back, until he completely shattered…
At that moment, a voice from the crowd outside said, “Mr. Minkov Jr., if I’m not mistaken, your father mentioned that you have no authority in this Guest Show. Xia Tian can be dealt with at the discretion of the guests present—”
The teenager stood up straight and looked at him.
The other person shut up.
Minkov Jr. looked around expressionlessly, then walked to the table nearby to grab the lamp.
The desk lamp was part of the table, but he must have had the authority to tear it off. He tore it off forcefully, turned around, walked up to the person speaking, and smashed it down on his head.
His attack was ruthless, and the person fell to the ground. Minkov Jr. fiercely kicked his abdomen.
In that moment, the anger that had been burning him turned into a sinister fire. It was as if he had gone mad. He continuously kicked the man, brutally and without restraint.
The elegant dignitaries around stepped back, forming a circle, and silently watched. Some stared at their cups and the floor.
No one uttered a sound, only the sound of the heavy blows and occasional muffled groans filled the air. Xia Tian could smell the smell of blood and excrement.
When Minkov Jr. had had enough of beating, he did not even bother to look at the person—or the corpse—at his feet. He adjusted his clothes and pulled up his cuffs. The T-shirt seemed like a high-priced suit under these actions. His breathing remained steady even after all that action.
A man in a silver-gray suit had been watching his outburst nearby and now said, “Go back, Mr. Minkov.”
The boy stared at the cage without moving for a minute before slowly walking out.
Around him, a group of people silently watched the young executioner walk away. No one discussed it, as if they were a bunch of extinguished ashes or colorful plastic ornaments. The person on the ground—or a corpse, no one was certain—was nonexistent.
It took a while before the medical team came in and put the man on a stretcher. The group of dignitaries continued drinking. Two of them started talking about someone from the Raelo family who had suddenly lit fuel and set himself on fire last month, all the while singing “I Am a Flamingo” as if he truly believed he could turn into a firebird. Another person said how could he possibly transform when he couldn’t even differentiate between a phoenix and a flamingo.
Two others were discussing a sex slave, mentioning how there had been no response lately from the person, possibly due to death, but it was challenging to confirm.
The light shone down sharply. The decoration style of the cage was clear, but the background was crazy and chaotic.
Xia Tian felt the coldness of the weapon at his fingertips, and the pain finally receded, lurking under his skin, waiting to destroy him again.
At this moment, the aristocrat beside him moved, seemingly receiving some internal communication.
Regardless of what he heard, he stared fixedly at Xia Tian during the entire process, eyes gleaming with a frightening light; as if he was anticipating a significant and bloody event.
At this moment, Xia Tian felt the first clear and intense thought since gaining awareness: If the man dared to put his tongue in my mouth again, I’d bite it off!
In this numbness, coldness, and vast emptiness, he once again felt something familiar—a small, knife-sharp edge. A kind of reckless, near-crazy hatred that had been hidden in him since he was young, and it made him ache.
He figured he liked this kind of pain, and he didn’t mind being destroyed by it. It was a part of him, just like Bai Jingan’s. Both of them couldn’t escape this pain throughout their lives.
“If you’re thinking about Bai Jingan,” the person beside him said, “I can tell you, we’ve caught him.”
Xia Tian widened his eyes, his heart plunging into darkness. The person laughed at him, with a cruel excitement oozing from the depths of his heart.
“Well, we haven’t really caught him yet. I just loved the expression on your face just now. Falling into hell is just like that,” the person said. “But you won’t wait too long. He’s somewhere down there, our people have located and locked onto him. In half an hour, he’ll come and accompany you.”
He chuckled and shook his head.
“I never believed he would come back, but you guys are—” he burst into an uncontrollable laughter, “such good brothers, aren’t you?”
He leaned down, pinched his right nipple with one hand, and scraped it erotically until it bled. He licked the blood off his fingertips and said to him softly, “He can’t escape, Xia Tian. He’ll come to accompany you soon.”
Xia Tian lightly moved his fingertips which felt cold as ice.
His body had become a battlefield. The punishment chip was active, inflicting relentless harm upon him. Yet, its efforts were met with an equally determined resistance. The high concentration of nanomedicine swarmed through his body, continuously undoing the chip’s damage.
He stared at the ceiling—the top of the birdcage to be exact—and began to contemplate.
Bai Jingan had come. Regardless of what the bigwig said, he must have had some assurance to come.
What did he do, and what were his intentions? What could Xia Tian do next, and how could he do it?
He considered all the possibilities related to killing.
Wait for Lil’ Bai.
A guard reacted quite quickly, plunging his knife into Bai Jingan’s side. To avoid making noise, he endured the pain as blood soaked through his clothes.
Bai Jingan snapped the neck of the opponent and placed the corpse down without making a sound.
He didn’t feel the pain, wasn’t sure which part of him was malfunctioning, and didn’t care. He administered a hemostatic injection, stuffed the empty syringe into his pocket, and continued forward.
He was wearing the black uniform of a guard and was deep underground in Mount Olympus.
He had seen it in the videos, the carnival island shining like a radiant sanctuary. But the underground area of that paradise was full of cells, torture chambers, and mazes. Here, the heavenly and luxurious place was mixed with the garbage of rotting flesh, as if playing with the mix and match feature.
Five minutes ago, the security guards had finally detected his intrusion. They had tightened the control and searched in different areas.
Bai Jingan dealt with three waves of enemies, but he couldn’t remember how many he had killed in total, perhaps twenty or thirty; he didn’t care. Without hesitation, he continued deeper.
A mound of the limbs of “food” who were slaughtered, mutilated and mutated by the bigwigs lay piled up in the underground chamber. Bai Jingan traversed the corridors. Human heads and limbs were treated like trophies and mounted in the walls. They wore diverse expressions, like works of art. He saw various forms of sex slaves, severely mutated. Some were crazily preying on and killing each other. The scene was thoroughly bizarre even by the standards of a Killing Show.
Some people had been chained when they had died, and they rotted in the dungeon with their chains on.
Moving through it all sent shivers down to the bone.
At this moment, his terminal vision flickered and red warning signs flashed madly, displaying urgent alerts—the ultimate hunting net for the area had been activated.
Bai Jingan didn’t stop and continued forward.
A multitude of warnings flashed in his goggles. The hunting net utilized the combined authority of the bigwigs—a high-tech joint hunt—and it would tighten step by step until it caught him, and no one could escape it. He was completely trapped here.
Bai Jingan shut it down without changing his expression. It was a dead end; he had known it for a long time.
But he wasn’t afraid. He didn’t need an escape route.
Yet, for a moment, he couldn’t help but look up.
Xia Tian was somewhere in that snow-bright sunlight.
