Sustainable Suffering Model

Midnight shrouded the Liu estate, but few competitors slept peacefully. The emotional resonance arrays, active throughout the day's competition, continued their subtle work. Nightmares bloomed like poisonous flowers in exhausted minds.

Zǔ Zhòu sat in his study, windows open to catch the night sounds. Whimpers from the disciples' quarters. Someone crying—Liu Ting, based on the pitch. A muffled scream as Liu Jin relived his public humiliation in dreams. The arrays transformed rest into torment, ensuring tomorrow's competitors would arrive pre-fractured.

"Beautiful data," he murmured, making notes. "The arrays' effect persists approximately sixteen hours after direct exposure. Emotional resonance creates feedback loops—anxiety about nightmares causes worse nightmares, which increases anxiety."

His temporal anchor servant presented the evening's test subjects. Three servants, selected for different psychological profiles: an optimist, a pessimist, and a realist. Each would demonstrate how sustainable suffering could be calibrated for maximum yield.

"Traditional evil follows crude patterns," Zǔ Zhòu explained, securing the first subject. "Torture victim until death, extract finite power. But what if suffering could be renewable? What if we could create perpetual energy sources?"

The optimist—a young woman who still smiled despite years of servitude—sat trembling in the chair. Hope still flickered in her eyes. Perfect.

"First test: baseline measurement." He placed monitoring formations around her, crystalline structures that would measure and record suffering output. "Tell me about your happiest memory."

She hesitated, then spoke of a spring festival with her daughter. Dancing, lanterns, sweet dumplings. The monitoring crystals barely flickered—happiness generated negligible energy.

"Now." He pressed a single point on her shoulder, activating mild nerve pain. "Continue the story."

Her voice wavered as she described the festival while experiencing constant, low-level discomfort. The crystals glowed softly. Suffering energy, but minimal.

"Interesting baseline. Now we calibrate."

He spent the next hour testing ratios. Pure pain produced energy spikes but quickly plateaued as the mind adapted. Pure normalcy generated nothing. But mixing them...

"Seventy percent normal experience, twenty percent persistent discomfort, ten percent acute pain," he announced, adjusting the nerve stimulation. "Watch the output."

The woman continued her daily routine—folding laundry he'd provided. Most motions were painless, even pleasant. But every third or fourth movement triggered mild discomfort. Then, at perfectly random intervals, sharp pain struck.

The monitoring crystals pulsed with steady light. Consistent output, no adaptation plateau.

"The uncertainty!" he exclaimed with delight. "The mind can't adapt because it never knows when pain will strike. Hope persists because most experiences remain normal. But that hope makes the pain worse when it arrives."

He tested variations. 80/15/5 produced less energy—too much normalcy bred complacency. 60/25/15 burned out quickly—too much suffering triggered mental shutdown. But 70/20/10 created perfect sustainability.

The pessimist confirmed the theory from a different angle. He expected suffering, so pure pain produced less energy. But when forced to experience genuine pleasure interrupted by pain, his output exceeded the optimist's. Violated expectations generated bonus suffering.

"Subject three," he commanded. The realist approached with resignation.

This one proved most interesting. She accepted the mixed experiences without hope or despair, seemingly ideal for resisting the technique. But that acceptance became her weakness.

"You adapt too well," Zǔ Zhòu noted. "So we adjust the pattern."

Instead of random pain distribution, he created false patterns. Pain every fourth action for ten cycles, training her to expect it. Then broke the pattern. The anticipation of pain that didn't come proved almost as effective as pain itself.

"Psychological suffering through violated expectation," he documented. "The mind's pattern-seeking becomes a vulnerability. Establish routine, then break it. The disruption generates sustainable distress."

By 3 AM, he'd filled twenty jade slips with observations. The sustainable suffering model was mathematically proven. Low-level persistent suffering with random acute spikes produced 400% more energy over time than traditional torture methods.

"Implementation possibilities multiply," he told his servant while dismissing the drained subjects. "Imagine this applied family-wide. Daily life continues normally—productivity maintained, rebellion minimized. But that thread of suffering runs through everything."

"The competition arrays follow similar principles?"

"A crude version. They amplify existing negative emotions rather than generating new ones. But yes—sustainable environmental suffering rather than direct torture."

He moved to the window, observing the estate. Somewhere, Liu Shan tossed in bed, reliving his shattered perfection. Liu Qiang's alliance members blamed each other in dreams. The carefully cultivated suffering would compound overnight.

"Tomorrow's group events will demonstrate phase two," he continued. "Individual suffering is excellent, but collective suffering? When people must cooperate while psychologically compromised? That generates exponential returns."

A knock interrupted. "Young Master? Elder Feng requests your presence."

Interesting. He followed the messenger to find Elder Feng in the medical pavilion, surrounded by exhausted healers.

"Seventeen disciples reported nightmares severe enough to disrupt cultivation," the elder said without preamble. "Three show signs of emotional deviation. Liu Jin hasn't stopped screaming."

"The competition pressure appears severe this year," Zǔ Zhòu observed with calculated concern.

"Too severe. I've checked for curses, poisons, formation interference. Nothing." Elder Feng's frustration was evident. "Yet something affects our disciples beyond normal competition stress."

Dangerous territory. But also opportunity.

"Perhaps..." Zǔ Zhòu hesitated as if uncertain. "In the temporal manual, there's mention of emotional resonance. When many people experience similar stress in proximity, it can create... feedback effects?"

Elder Feng's eyes sharpened. "Explain."

"Like tuning forks. Strike one, others vibrate. Concentrated anxiety from multiple sources might amplify itself." He projected helpful uncertainty. "The manual suggests temporal cultivators are sensitive to such phenomena. I could investigate?"

"Do so. Quietly. If something influences our competition, I want it found."

Perfect. Tasked with investigating his own sabotage. He'd produce results that confirmed environmental factors while misdirecting from the true cause.

Returning to his chambers, he found Liu Mei waiting outside. Dark circles marked her young face—she'd been crying.

"Third Brother, I can't sleep. Everything feels wrong. The other disciples are so angry, so afraid. Did I... did I do something to cause this?"

Innocent souls blamed themselves first. Delicious.

"No, Mei'er. Competition brings out strong emotions. Everyone feels the pressure differently." He guided her inside, noting how the residual array energy clung to her. "Would you like me to teach you a calming technique?"

"Please."

He demonstrated a modified meditation—genuinely calming on the surface. But it included subtle breathing patterns that would increase sensitivity to the arrays over time. Short-term relief, long-term vulnerability.

"Better?"

"Yes!" She smiled with relief. "You always know how to help."

"Practice this each night. And remember—the strong protect the weak. If other disciples struggle, that just means you need to become stronger to help them."

She left comforted, never realizing he'd deepened her future suffering while seeming to ease present pain. Another data point for sustainable evil—corrupting through kindness yielded compound returns.

Dawn approached with ominous beauty. Across the estate, disciples stirred from tormented sleep. Some had managed rest through sheer exhaustion. Others looked haggard, dreams having multiplied their daily failures into epic catastrophes.

"Final preparations?" his servant inquired.

"Ensure the arena arrays receive slightly more power today. Not enough to notice consciously, but sufficient to turn cooperation into conflict." He smiled coldly. "Group events require trust. Trust requires emotional stability. And emotional stability is exactly what they lack."

He compiled the night's research into a formal report. The Sustainable Suffering Model—mathematical proof that measured misery outproduced dramatic agony. Complete with test data, optimization strategies, and implementation guidelines.

"My legacy to future generations of sophisticated evil," he mused. "Any fool can torture. But creating renewable suffering resources? That requires artistry."

The morning bell rang, summoning competitors to day two. They assembled with visible reluctance, exhaustion and anxiety worn like uniforms. The group events would force these psychologically compromised individuals to work together.

Zǔ Zhòu joined them, projecting his own calculated fatigue. Just another competitor struggling with pressure, investigating problems he'd created, planning implementations that would transform the entire clan into a suffering engine.

"Sustainable evil established," he whispered to the watching void. "Now to demonstrate its scalability."

The second day would prove that hell wasn't dramatic torment but careful cultivation of perpetual, productive misery.

And the Liu family was about to become his proof of concept.