“Ha—”
All the pain merged into half a muffled groan that was crushed and swallowed back down before it could even leave his throat.
It was so faint that it was completely lost in the pitter-patter of the rain.
Ji Xun’s right arm had been shot and could not be raised; the moment his left arm moved, the weight-bearing bone at his collarbone throbbed as if it were being crushed inch by inch.
Gritting his teeth, he forced his left hand upward, grabbing the chain attached to the hook, doing everything he could to haul his body up and relieve the tension.
A tough nut to crack.
Mr. Liu had seen plenty of tough nuts before.
These bodyguards had seen plenty of them, too.
A bodyguard reached out and, with a sudden burst of force, snapped the thumb on Ji Xun’s left hand.
“Ugh—”
An airy gasp burst from Ji Xun’s throat. His left hand, now left with only four functional fingers, lost its grip on the iron chain and slid down. His entire body hung once again from the sharp meat hooks.
Next, a bodyguard produced a whip made of tanned cowhide. Its tip rested in a puddle on the deck, looking like a dark, venomous snake lurking beneath the water.
In the very next instant, the venomous snake reared its head, hissed, and lashed down onto Ji Xun’s body again and again.
“—”
Ji Xun bit his lip tightly, letting out no screams—still no screams.
Only rapid, uninterrupted panting served to vent the relentless agony cascading over his body.
Lash after lash tore his suit to shreds, leaving swollen, bloody welts across his skin. Yet this pain was almost trivial compared to the sensation of his suspended body swinging back and forth with the force of each blow—a motion that forced the hooks deeper into the flesh beneath his collarbones with every sway.
The whip was put away.
Another man stepped up, holding a dagger in his hand.
When the cold reflection of the dagger caught the moonlight and flashed into Ji Xun’s eyes, he shut them tightly and jerked backward in instinct. But there was no escape; his recoil only drove the iron hooks deeper into his flesh.
“The Ghost is afraid of daggers!” a bodyguard yelled, as if discovering a whole new continent.
“…How novel. Are grown adults not allowed to be afraid of anything?” Ji Xun forced a smirk through his gritted teeth.
He quickly paid the price for his bravado.
The dagger pressed against his face.
The icy blade—the sharp, unmistakable shape of the dagger—caused his body to go rigid.
He couldn’t move an inch.
He could only hang there passively like a block of stone or a log, heavy and completely subjected to the gravitational pull dragging him downward.
The pain at his collarbones grew ever sharper.
He almost thought he could hear the crackling sound of his bones fracturing.
Suddenly, the dagger left his face!
Felt like a miraculous reprieve, just as he sensed his frozen blood beginning to flow again, the dagger plunged right into his skin.
A sharp burst of pain erupted from the wound.
Logically, this pain should have been far less severe than the hooks beneath his collarbones or the gunshot wound in his arm.
Yet it was a pain Ji Xun simply could not ignore.
It stemmed not just from his physical body, but from the depths of his soul.
For so very long—every single moment over the past three years whenever he happened to think of Ji Yu or whenever his eyes caught sight of a blade—
His skin would feel that same icy, cutting edge.
His heart would curl up in agony.
And he would begin to wonder just how much pain Ji Yu must have suffered.
“No…”
The word slipped out of his mouth.
A weak, vulnerable sound, exposed directly to Mr. Liu’s ears.
Yet in the deep of the night, Mr. Liu did not show a shred of pity. He gave no signal to stop, so the bodyguards carried on.
The dagger twirled and danced across Ji Xun’s body like a performer.
Every time its tip landed, it left behind a long, slicing gash or a deep, puncturing wound.
Blood oozed from Ji Xun’s body and was washed away by the rain, gradually forming a pooling red puddle beneath his dangling feet.
“I have met many outstanding police officers in the past,” Mr. Liu said calmly. “However, some of them were not as excellent or as steadfast as they believed themselves to be.”
“I told you… I’m not a cop—”
“In human civilized society, we are indeed required to abide by national laws and conventional moral codes. What is all that for?” Mr. Liu asked. “It is so that we can live within the civilization of a state without being treated as pariahs.”
“But on this ship, none of that is necessary.”
“This ship is a vessel of pleasure, a vessel of relaxation, a ship that takes you far away from the suffocating civilization of the state. Look at everyone here—they all wear masks. Why? Because while that mask covers your face, it also unlocks the shackles that bind you.”
Mr. Liu let out a deep sigh.
“That’s enough. Tell me the location. I won’t tell anyone you were the one who gave it up. I’ll simply say I found it through my own means. You can remain that flawless, stainless police officer who achieved great merit.”
“You are young, and you have a bright future ahead of you. You risked immense danger to enter the tiger’s den. If you die in the line of duty, your honor and your future will all be buried under a flimsy martyr’s certificate that a printer can spit out ten thousand of in a day.”
“A flimsy piece of paper, a lonely gravestone—is that really the future you want? You only need to speak a single sentence, a few words, and your future will be completely different.”
“You…” Ji Xun spoke up.
Mr. Liu listened patiently.
The dagger stopped its dance.
The bodyguards’ objective was not to kill Ji Xun.
“You really…” Ji Xun rasped with a laugh, “…talk even more than I do. Do people just get chatty when they grow old?”
Mr. Liu shook his head softly.
He made a gesture to proceed.
A bowl of chili powder was brought forward.
A bodyguard grinned wickedly. “Throwing chili powder at our boss earlier, were you?”
The fiery red chili powder was smeared directly onto Ji Xun’s open wounds.
“Ugh—”
It was as if flames had ignited inside his flesh, raging savagely across his body. Ji Xun felt as though he had been tossed straight into a furnace. He writhed uncontrollably, but the hooks embedded beneath his collarbones were like demonic claws, digging even deeper into his flesh with every movement.
Yet even the most unbearable pain will eventually turn numb after prolonged exposure.
Thus, just as Ji Xun’s perception of pain began to dull, they brought over a bucket of liquid.
“We can’t let these get infected—infection is lethal. Let’s disinfect you a bit.”
The entire bucket of saltwater was splashed over Ji Xun.
The explosive, scorching agony that erupted in that instant caused Ji Xun’s mind to go completely blank.
“AAAAAHHH—”
By the time Ji Xun realized he was screaming, the saltwater had completely soaked his clothes, clinging tightly to his wounds and inflicting continuous, excruciating torment.
He tried desperately to clamp his mouth shut, but new torture implements were brought up.
Ice cubes, and a blowtorch.
“There’s plenty of useful stuff in the kitchen,” A’Bang smiled, stepping forward this time. “They all have wonderful uses. You threatened us with a lit match earlier, didn’t you?”
He ignited the blowtorch.
“Can’t let you bleed to death now, can we?”
The roaring flame of the blowtorch drew close to Ji Xun’s gunshot wound.
Ji Xun closed his eyes tightly.
He felt his flesh searing and curling under the heat, smelling the foul stench of meat being cooked and charred.
It felt as if the final string of his sanity was being melted away by the fire.
“AAAAAH—AAAAAAHHHH—”
“Scream all you want.”
Mr. Liu gestured to a bodyguard to bring over the megaphone that Ji Xun had thrown out earlier to fake the jammer.
“Didn’t you have an endless stream of words to say earlier? Now, scream into this. Let your companion hear you; let them know just how much pain you’re in.”
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH—”
Pure agony hijacked all rational thought. When sanity dissolved, a human being could only vent through the most primal cries.
The megaphone faithfully amplified Ji Xun’s agonized screams, broadcasting them across every corner of the ship’s decks.
Over the cold, bleak deep sea, the helpless wails of a human being being tortured traveled far into the night. The sound alone offered only a fraction of the sheer agony being endured, yet it was more than enough to make one’s hair stand on end.
As for the pain actually felt by the one screaming…
Yet, the screams cut off abruptly, ending far sooner than anyone expected.
Two short, ragged gasps followed, and then Ji Xun’s voice rang out.
Suppressing the excruciating pain with sheer willpower, he enunciated clearly, speaking at maximum speed to get the message out fast:
“Everyone on the second floor, listen to me! No matter who knocks, do NOT come out under any circumstances! You will become Mr. Liu’s hostages! Use this time right now to switch rooms, or push wardrobes behind the doors to barricade yourselves! Hide, and wait for the po—”
The megaphone was violently snatched away.
A’Bang delivered a savage kick directly to Ji Xun’s abdomen, causing his entire body to swing wildly on the meat hooks. Just as Ji Xun tried to reach up and grab the chains, he was dragged down by the bodyguards and pelted with a barrage of whips.
Yet these strikes, falling like heavy rain, briefly lacked the power to truly hurt him anymore.
Ji Xun had accomplished his goal.
He had warned everyone on the second floor.
Ji Xun hadn’t come out earlier for Boss Wu’s sake.
At least, not entirely for Boss Wu. Boss Wu, a murderer, got what he deserved and belonged in a court of law to face justice—but he shouldn’t die under Mr. Liu’s extrajudicial execution or be used as leverage to threaten the police!
And besides Boss Wu, there were other people on the ship.
There were other bosses, and there were crew members.
They were all potential hostages for Mr. Liu after Boss Wu. If he didn’t save Boss Wu, Mr. Liu would simply move on to hunt down these people as new hostages once Boss Wu was dead!
None of them were good people either; every single one of them had turned a blind eye to the deaths of innocent women on this ship, or had directly or indirectly caused those deaths.
Even so, could he simply turn a blind eye to them being taken hostage, used as bargaining chips to threaten him, and slaughtered one by one?
“Do you really think that by saying that, I won’t go up there to grab hostages anyway?” Mr. Liu’s face was as dark and cold as the freezing sea.
“That’s right,” Ji Xun managed to force a mockingly provocative smile onto his face. “You won’t. Because you are cautious—you’re terrified that my companion might ambush you.”
“Your companion is below the deck,” Mr. Liu stated coldly.
“But he might sneak up here at any moment,” Ji Xun panted. “If you go up to the second floor to grab people right now, you run a very high risk of being ambushed by my companion hiding in some unknown corner. At that point, far from capturing new hostages, you might even lose custody of me. That is a risk you cannot afford to take, so you won’t do it.”
“I am far too valuable.”
Ji Xun gasped for breath, his lungs struggling to keep up.
“You already calculated all of this when you agreed to let Boss Wu go just to lure me out. We both know this full well.”
“It’s you that I need,” Mr. Liu repeated softly. “As long as you understand that.”
“It seems you truly are a police officer with a martyr’s complex… But you should know when to quit while you’re ahead. Knowing when to stop is a valuable virtue.”
“Saving the women down below was already enough. You could have just watched me drag the rest of them out one by one and kill them. Wouldn’t the police applaud a criminal feud? Yet you want to play the savior of the world.”
“What a blindingly brilliant light you shine—you even want to grant indiscriminate salvation to this entire ship.”
“Do you really think that once your light shines on them, these sinners will turn over a new leaf? What if the embers of evil only burn hotter? What if I manage to escape, start over, build a new ship, and fill it with familiar faces?”
“When that time comes, I’ll even have to thank you—”
Mr. Liu lifted Ji Xun’s chin, his fingers stained with blood. He casually wiped the blood across Ji Xun’s face.
“—for protecting my clients so thoughtfully. You will own a share in the future of this evil enterprise. A living Bodhisattva like you, granting universal salvation, protects my ship better than the Mazu statue in my office—ensuring smooth sailing, calm winds, and peaceful waters. Next time you come aboard, I’ll even give you a discount.”
Ji Xun stared at Mr. Liu and parted his lips to speak.
However, Mr. Liu simply cut his arm through the air in a brief, decisive gesture.
“I know you can talk, but you can preach all your grand logic to the ocean instead.”
He turned to A’Bang:
“Take him down, bind him with iron chains, and lower him into the sea—let his companion have a good look at him.”
