Chapter 229:”Torture (1)”
The acrid smell of blood permeated the air in the Imperial Palace’s main hall. Qin Yu Yan sat upright upon the throne which was symbolic to the Emperor. Her beautiful and graceful face had her usual gentle smile on, but the smile did not reach her eyes.
Below the throne in the hall, a group of Qing Yun Clan disciples led by Jiang Chen Qing sat around, their mouths sneering, as they all looked at the curled up figure of a man, lying upon the floor, in the middle of the hall.
The man’s splendid clothes were now tattered, his hair a mess, and countless wounds big and small covered his huddled body. Bright red blood dripped from glaring wounds and spilled on the cold marble floors and his usual upright and straight poise had been reduced to become a tightly curled up ball, trembling in agony.
The palace maids and eunuchs huddled in a corner, forced to witness the horror before them, for never in their dreams, had they thought they would witness such atrocities.
“Your Majesty still refuses to divulge the locations of the Soul Jade? Why do you choose to suffer such torment? Qing Yun Clan and the Qi Kingdom had always been friends, why do you choose to cause us such annoyance?” Qin Yu Yan sat imposingly upon the Emperor’s throne and sighed in mock exasperation, looking aggrieved, her eyes on the figure sprawled upon the cold floor.
Mo Qian Yuan, the newly crowned Emperor of the Qi Kingdom, was slated to enjoy the celebrations and the great admiration his people had for him, but he was being tortured cruelly instead, in the same main hall of the Imperial Palace, by the people from the Qing Yun Clan.
He no longer possessed the strength to struggle, and can only gasp weakly with his face upon the cold hard floor. The good looking face, had had two deep gashes, and they opened from his left and right temples and crossed upon his face to his jaws. The blood was still flowing unabated and the pain had been forgotten by Mo Qian Yuan, as the pain of his flesh, was overshadowed by the excruciating agony felt inside his body. It felt like everything inside was being churned, with blades and he was supposed to pass out from the agony.
Mo Qian Yuan knew though, the sweet comfort of unconsciousness would not come.
He did not know how long he had been suffering under the torment, he had only remembered that it had been early in the morning when the Qing Yun Clan had barged into the Imperial Palace, and drove out all the court officials, and slammed the doors to the main hall shut. They had then dragged the ruler of the kingdom down from his throne and forced unknown poison down his throat.
The pain had begun from then…..
They had cut the tendons of his hands and feet and broken his spine. He could not even count the number of slashes and cuts he had been put through. The pain should have been too much for the mind to take, but the Qing Yun Clan disciples had forced fed him a medicine that kept him conscious. No matter how much of the excruciating pain and agony he felt, he could never fall into a dead faint, and under feel every single heart rending ounce of torment the pain brought.
Mo Qian Yuan felt like laughing, to laugh at his own naivety, to laugh at his own foolishness. All the suffering he was put through, was brought about by his very own naive compassion…..
If he had listened to Jun Wu Xie, and struck at them first, he wouldn’t have fallen into the hands of the QIng Yun Clan.
But he had never imagined that the top clan under the skies, a clan known for their healing knowledge of Medicine, were capable of employing such malevolent and cruel means against their enemies. Refusing them the sweet embrace of death, only to suffer further under torment.
He had thought that Jun Wu Xie was vicious, but what the Qing Yun Clan had put him under, made Jun Wu Xie look like an angel.
At the very least, Jun Wu Xie would never raise her hand against the innocent.
This was the wager he agreed to make with her?
Whether the Qing Yun Clan would uphold their reputation as the most revered clan throughout the lands? And whether Qin Yu Yan would be as understanding and accommodating as he had imagined her to be?
Mo Qian Yuan swallowed the blood that trickled up his throat, and his mouth curled in derision at himself with much difficulty, and the last traces of magnanimity in him was snuffed out, as he drowned in the agonising torment that washed over him.
“You still refuse to tell?” Qin Yu Yan propped her chin onto her hand, as she looked on in impatience at the mute Mo Qian Yuan. She had not expected that, a weak Emperor of such a tiny kingdom, had the audacity to lie to her.