Chapter 7: a night of endless torment

Inside the shen family home, the night was noticeably colder. The lanterns that usually illuminated the grounds now seemed dim, as if afraid to illuminate the enveloping darkness. Behind the large wall surrounding the shen residence, there was something moving in the shadows that could not be seen, but could be sensed by those with keen instincts.

At one corner of the backyard, a shabbily dressed servant walked hurriedly. His face was covered in sweat, his hands trembling as he grasped a small pouch containing a carefully written scroll of paper. This was information about the secret shen family that should never leave the walls of this house.

The servant turned his head left and right, making sure no one was following him. With quick steps, he exited through a small gap in the wooden fence that the guards rarely went through.

Across a dark alley filled with shadows, a hooded man waited. The man's eyes gleamed in the moonlight, staring intently at the servant who had just appeared.

"You brought her?" The hooded man's voice was cold, emotionless.

The servant nodded, then with trembling hands handed over the scroll of paper.

"Sure.... All the information you requested is here. About the guard arrangements, the expedition plan to the North, even the weaknesses of some shen family members," he whispered.

The hooded man took the scroll and examined it briefly. Then, without warning....

CEKLEK!

A long dagger pierced the servant's abdomen.

Warm blood flowed over his hand. The waitress widened her eyes, her mouth twitched as if she wanted to speak, but only blood came out.

"What? Why?"

The hooded man leaned close to her ear and whispered, "there is no place for traitors in this world."

With one pull, the dagger was pulled out, and the servant's body fell to the ground, his eyes lifelessly empty.

The hooded man strode away, taking the shen family's information to the black market.

Meanwhile, inside the shen family residence, the effects of this betrayal would only be felt ....

Two days after the information was taken to the black market and leaked to the other 7 major families...

In the main hall of the shen family, the elders gathered with tense faces. The news of the shen family's information leaking had spread, and this was no small matter.

Shen Tianmu sat on the main seat, his eyes sweeping the entire room vigilantly. In front of him, several other elders sat with dark faces.

"We have a traitor within this house," Shen Tianmu's voice sounded cold, full of restrained anger. "And I want to know who."

An elder with a long beard sighed heavily. "Tianmu, we must act carefully. If we jump to accusations without evidence we'll only make things worse."

"There's no time for caution," Shen Tianmu retorted sharply. "Information about our family has been sold on the black market! Who's going to guarantee that tomorrow we won't be attacked by enemies who know our every weakness?"

The atmosphere was getting tense.

"Was it our servant who betrayed us?" Another elder asked.

"Probably not just servants," Shen Tianmu narrowed his eyes. "It could be a guard, a cook, even one of us."

The tension jumped dramatically. For the first time, the shen family began to be suspicious of each other.

In another corner of the shen family home, Bai xieye returned to what was a small, dark room that looked more like a prison than a room.

However, as usual, his arrival did not go unnoticed.

Three servants approached, their faces filled with hatred. One of them slapped Bai xieye without warning, making his skinny body stagger back.

"You bastard! Because of you, madam shen suffered that!"

Another slap landed on his cheek.

"You are a curse to this family!"

They kicked him, laughed at him, regarded him as something lower than an animal.

Bai xieye didn't fight back.

He just stayed still, letting the pain eat away at his body.

But inside his mind, something dark began to grow.

Something bloodthirsty began to rise again.

After the servant left, leaving behind the pain all over Bai xieye's body. He cleaned his wounds while grinning cruelly like a demon.

As night fell, Bai xieye disappeared into the shadows.

When night fell, the servants who tortured him would taste hell.

Inside a small room, one of the servants who had tortured Bai xieye earlier woke up with a strange feeling. The room felt too quiet.

As he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Bai xieye's figure sitting on a chair, looking at him calmly.

Her heart almost stopped beating.

"Bai.... Bai xieye?!"

"Wake up, huh?" Bai xieye's voice sounded relaxed, but his eyes were as blank as an abyss. "Good, I want you to be fully awake for this."

The servant tried to scream, but something harsh filled his mouth like a dirty rag, Bai xieye smiled faintly. "You like to taunt me with your filthy mouth, don't you?" He said as he slowly pulled out the cloth.

As soon as the rag was removed from his mouth, the servant immediately cried out. "T-Help! I was just obeying orders! I...!"

Bai xieye raised a finger, telling her to be quiet. "Nonsense," he muttered, before grabbing the servant roughly by the jaw.

"I've always wondered... How much muscle has to be pulled before the tongue is completely detached?" Bai xieye muttered, then pulled the clamp with all his might.

The sound of tearing flesh filled the room, accompanied by a scream that turned into a horrifying moan. The tongue slipped out, blood spraying from the mouth of the servant who could now only writhe like a dying insect. Bai xieye held the tongue up in front of the servant's face, "Can't talk anymore? Poor thing," he said in a mocking tone.

But he wasn't done yet.

She picked up a small knife, staring at the maid who could now only make a "ghhk... Ghhh..." From her mouth full of blood.

"Listen.... Nails can grow back, but I wonder, how would it feel if they were pulled out by the root?" Bai xieye grinned.

One by one, he ran the tip of the knife down the waiter's nails, separating the flesh and bone before pulling the nails out with pliers. Thick blood dripped down, mixing with the cold sweat that flooded the servant's body. Her screams turned into hysterical mutterings, her eyes widened as if they were about to burst from their sockets.

But Bai xieye wasn't satisfied yet.

With one sudden movement, he grabbed the servant's jaw and pulled her down with full force.

CRACK!

The jaw broke, hanging loosely in an abnormal position. Drool mixed with tears flowed from the servant's mouth. Now, she couldn't even close her mouth anymore. Bai xieye touched the loosely hanging chin with his forefinger, then pushed it up, only to see it fall again with a disgusting click.

"I like seeing you like this," he said in a soft voice. "Can't speak, can't scream... Can only suffer."

With one swift motion, Bai xieye slit its throat, letting the body twitch before finally going still.

Bai xieye walked away leaving the servant's corpse with a satisfied and gruesome smile plastered on his face.

In the darkness of the night he began to search for the whereabouts of the second servant who tortured him this afternoon and headed to the servant's room silently and quietly.

At the shen family residence, the night was filled with a suffocating silence. However, for some people, it was their last night on earth.

He was lying on a stone table, his arms stretched out to the sides and bound with heavy chains. Bai xieye stood beside her, holding a small dagger that reflected the dim light of the candles.

"You remember when you kicked me on the ground, stomping on my face like trash?" Bai xieye asked casually, his fingers tracing the second servant's arm. "I was wondering... How does it feel to lose a limb in the most painful way?"

Without much more nonsense, Bai xieye gripped the servant's right arm with both hands and began to pull.

The sound of flesh stretching. The visible veins and muscles tightened like a rope that was about to break. The servant screamed wildly, his body arching from the unimaginable pain. Bai xieye only smirked, pulling even harder.

CRAACK!

Her arm detached from the joint. Dangling with only a few layers of skin still connected. Bai xieye stared at it in awe. "Oh? It hasn't broken off completely?"

He tore off the remaining flesh with a dagger, letting the blood spurt out onto the face of the servant who had begun to lose consciousness.

But Bai xieye wouldn't let him faint so easily.

He slapped the servant's face repeatedly, until her watery eyes opened again, full of fear.

"Look at me," Bai xieye whispered in her ear. "I want you to see all this."

He picked up a larger knife and pointed it at her abdomen.

"Human internal organs can still function even when opened, you know?" Bai xieye laughed softly. "Let's see if that's true."

With slow movements. He deliberately slowly sliced into the victim's abdomen, opening up the abdominal cavity like splitting open a fish. Purple-black intestines spilled out, and a foul scent mixed with blood filled the air.

The maid could only let out a gasping sound, her body writhing uncontrollably against the excruciating pain of the body in moments.

Bai xieye traced her insides with his fingers, pinching a small section of intestine and pulling. The servant gasped, his body arching in despair, but Bai xieye only chuckled.

"You know, I could pull out everything right now and let you die quickly," he whispered. "But that's too easy. I want you to die slowly."

He pulled out more intestines, playing with them like a rope. "I guess you don't need this anymore, huh?"

With one sharp cut, Bai Xieye severed it.

The servant twitched one last time before his life completely disappeared. Bai Xieye stared at the corpse, then smiled with satisfaction.

"Ah... I'm really enjoying this."

The next morning, the corpses of the two servants were found in a terrible condition.

The guards ran around, their faces filled with fear. No one knew how these murders could have happened, there were no traces of intruders. There was no sign of resistance.

The elders gathered again, this time with heightened tension.

"This is not an outsider's job!" One of the elders slammed the table. "Someone within our family did this."

"This isn't just a murder," Shen Tianmu said quietly, his voice containing something more frightening than anger. "This is an execution. A hateful and calculated slaughter."

One of the older elders gulped. "Perhaps....this is the punishment for traitors?"

"What do you mean?"

"Some servants allegedly sold information to the black market. Not long after, they died in a very brutal manner"

The atmosphere in the room was getting tense. If this really was retaliation, then the question was: Who did it?

Shen Tianmu clenched his fist.

"It doesn't matter who the culprit is. I won't let the shen family become a slaughterhouse. I will call for help."

Later that night, five figures in golden yellow robes entered the shen family residence.

They were monks from a Buddhist temple, but unlike the holy ascetics known in the outside world. These five were executioners who used Buddhism as a mask to hunt down and kill worldly demons.

They walked silently, their eyes sharp and full of terrifying calm.

Shen Tianmu welcomed them in the main hall.

"I need your help to handle something," he said in a heavy voice. "Someone inside this house has become a demon."

The monk standing in front, a tall man with a shiny bald head, smiled faintly.

"A demon?" His voice was soft, but contained tremendous spiritual pressure. "Where is he?"

Shen Tianmu clenched his fists, "we haven't found him yet. But I believe he's here, hiding among the people in this residence."

The monk closed his eyes for a moment, then said, "if the devil is hiding among the people, then we'll be the light that will burn him."

Shen Tianmu smiled. "Good. Capture him, alive or dead if necessary, burn this whole house down."

The monks exchanged glances, then nodded.

In the darkness, Bai xieye sat cross-legged. He already knew the monks' whereabouts.

He knew they were stronger than him.

But he also knew one thing more importantly they could never imagine the darkness he would bring.

With a faint smile, Bai xieye whispered, "let's see... Will you guys be able to catch the real demon?"