Memories (5)

The twins sat alone in their room, looking at their rusty beds. At night, they were chained to the walls next to the beds, only able to move a few feet. At 6am everyday, they were forced to get up and start working. They were to make at least 4 beast essence of level 3 a day, 6 of level 2 and 20 of level 1. By the end of the week, 21 level 4, 41 level 2 and 140 level 1. She was also to make her first level 4 by the end of the month.

Ying Yue was to design 10 hats a day. Along with 3 different dresses and a full outfit set. She was to also make 3 hats a day and 2 dresses along with one entire outfit set. Usually, a designer would take an entire week or even longer, working on different pieces.

And this was without the trouble of the Song family members.

More often than not, The young mistresses of the song family would come to them to have an outfit specially designed for them to use only, or they would steal an entire batch of beast essence that Yun Yu had made, and watch as they were tortured for not meeting the weekly requirements.

Their room was everything that a nightmare would be except dirty and dim. They were to clean their room until it shined so none of the things that they were making would become dirty. Also, during the day, the room looked bright because blaring lights would constantly be on.

At night, a large, metal wall would be wheeled out, separating them from both each other and from the things that could possibly help them escape or commit suicide like hair pins or scissors.

The room was underground, hence had no windows. At the time they were given to rest, it was pitch black. Both girls who had lived sleeping next to each other their entire lives, now had major separation anxiety. Separation for this long was another type of torture to them.

Every morning that they would wake up, the first thing they would notice was the cleaning of chains and screams. Another thing to keep the girls in check was that they were kept in close proximity of the torture chambers.

Su Wei wanted them to hear daily what would happen if they dare defy him.

This decision often affected their products. Ying Yue often created dresses of the deepest red. The most commonly-found product on her designs was the blood ruby. A bright and dazzling gem artificially made from the blood of 100 different humans or animals. She received a large shipment of them weekly, informed that they had come from the torture room.

The dresses and hats that she created were often threaded with long, black vein-like designs. She had created her logo as a realistic black heart with blood-red lines sent through it. Her designer name, although customers were unaware that it was made by a 12 year old little girl, was called the Dark Heart designer.

Yu Yan began to use demonic beast cores to make beast essence. If a human with dense angel attributes were to consume a demonic beast essence, it would become a slow-acting torturing poison. The Song family sold them as such poison in the dark.

Because not many essence cultivators were willing to make such terrible things, they were uncommonly found. So Song Clan made quite a bit of money to sell them.

One day, Song Su Wei went into the dungeon. He walked over the bodies of the people tortured in front of the twins' cells, left to rot as a warning to them, and opened the door.

Su Wei never bothered to learn their names and continued to use the numbers 8 or nine when he spoke to them and called out, "9, You need to make a tier 6 beast essence right now."

"But Lord Song, I am merely a beginner Level 5 essence cultivator, if I were to attempt to make one… It is simply impossible."

Su Wei walked over and grabbed the hat maker's hair. He dragged her over to one side of the room and threw her to the corner. He grabbed a whip that lay attached to his waist and struck Ying Yue 5 times.

"For every word that you say, your sister will receive 3 whippings."

"Lord Song! Please, d-"

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The whip rained down on Ying Yue 9 times.

Yu Yan looked at her sister, her blood pooling on the floor. The whip had barbs on them, covered in a poison that would not kill you, but would make the pain that you felt 5 times stronger than it should have been, but made you unable to pass out. It was a common thing kept in the Song dungeons.

Yu Yan felt the warm tears trickling down her face. She quickly shut her mouth and got to work, creating a tier six essence. The materials were brought in by the guards and set on the table. She didn't know how to make a tier six essence because she had no time to study how to make one.

She decided to just follow the same process as a low-quality, 6-tier beast essence of the same attributes as this one, but just with all 6 tier materials.

For every hour, her sister would be whipped 5 times. For every word, 3 times. It took her 4 hours to make the essence almost to completion, so altogether, her sister had been whipped nearly 30 times. On the final step, Ying Yue called out; "Sister, don't if you try to make it, you will die!"

Yu Yan gave a sad smile. She had no choice if she wished for her sister to live. It had taken her a few years to move to level 5, they had tortured them half-dead for each month she was unsuccessful in making it to the next level.

She ignored her sister's pleas and the sound of the whip cracking down on her back as punishment as she completed the final step. The essence began to glow and crack slightly, showing signs of failure. Ying Yue watched as the essence fell apart.

Until finally, it stopped.

The essence stopped both cracking and glowing, leaving a perfectly curated 6th tier essence. Yun Yu gave a sigh of relief. Both her sister and herself were to live another day.

BOOM!!!

The beast essence which she had been forced to stop making to begin this new task suddenly exploded.

The Beast essence that she had just created flew out of her hands and hit the wall, bouncing off. Su Wei quickly ran over to see if it was ok. Satisfied that it was alright, he looked over at the person who had just made it.

Lying under a busted up, collapsed table lay 2 gravely injured girls. Ying Yue had run over to Yu Yan in an attempt to take the impact of the low-quality 5th tier beast essence that just exploded, but was too late.