“No. Your people said that before. I just guess…” Shi Baojin opened her mouth and tried to argue.
Mo Junyang gave her choices. “Tell me, or have a living death.”
Or rather there was no choice for her.
Shi Baojin looked at Mo Junyang in fear and explained, jabbering, “It’s not me. I have never planned to harm Shi Qingxue. You must…”
She attempted to struggle, but Mo Junyang lost his last patience and said to the man next to him, “Find several beggars to take off her clothes.”
After giving the order, Mo Junyang showed a rare smile and looked at Shi Baojin gently. “This is the game we didn’t finish last time. You must be expecting it, right?”
His smile was like the summons of the demon in hell.
Shi Baojin was frightened and didn’t come back to her senses until several dirty and ugly beggars were brought into the prison. She screamed and waved her arms crazily, shouting, “No. Go away. Get out.”
The ugly beggars saw Shi Baojin. Even though there was blood all over her body and her face couldn’t be seen clearly, she was a woman anyway. They pounced on her like the starving people finding a meat. Two of them fixed her limbs with one on each side, and other two came up quickly to take off her clothes.
Shi Baojin was scared and shed tears, struggling without stopping, but she had to watch her prison clothes being peeled off one after another.
“No!”
When those beggars’ filthy hands touched her skin, she almost fell apart. She lost control and shouted at Mo Junyang, “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything. Let me go, please…”
Mo Junyang suddenly threw four silver needles into the room, and the four beggars stopped instantly.
Shi Baojin shrank back in horror. After getting rid of the beggars’ hands, she was naked and wanted to take back the prison clothes which had been thrown on the floor and put them on, but a guard got the order and picked up her clothes in advance.
“No. Give them back to me. Give the clothes back to me!” Shi Baojin was ashamed but could only grab that guard’s trousers and beg miserably.
The guard lifted her clothes and tried to take back his leg, but it was held by Shi Baojin and he couldn’t move, so he had to turn to Mo Junyang for help. He was afraid that he would kick her to death at one blow.
Mo Junyang said indifferently, “Give her a coat, in case it offends the eye.”
Shi Baojin heaved a sigh of relief when she heard the first sentence and thought that Mo Junyang felt pity for her, but the next sentence kicked her to hell, and she was more ashamed than before.
Right. This King Rui’s heir loved her cousin and never took her into account.
A rough men’s coat fell from the sky and covered Shi Baojin from head to toe. It concealed the ferocious expression flashing in her eyes.
She took a deep breath and raised her head, as if she finally made a decision. Then she looked at Mo Junyang pitifully and hopelessly. “I didn’t want to, but Prince Junjiu forced me. He said if I didn’t help him poison Shi Qingxue, he would kill me like he burnt the other members of the Zhao Family to death. I had no choice. I never want her to die…”
Shi Baojin’s voice was sad and she tried to make her a pathetic victim who was forced.
But after she babbled and performed for a while, she found that Mo Junyang’s eyes were not on her. He looked at the worn-out clothes in the guard’s hand and didn’t listen to her.
Till the guard put down her clothes and shook his head at him, Mo Junyang turned to Shi Baojin again and his eyes was distant. “Have you done?”
Shi Baojin was unable to reply. If her life were not under control of him, she would jump out and curse him.
But the reality was that she nodded obediently and said in all sincerity and seriousness, “Everything was His Highness’s plan.”
Mo Junyang curled up his lips and seemed to believe her words. Then he asked, “Why would he do that?”
“In fact, His Highness didn’t want to take Qingxue’s life. He knows that you love her, so he wanted to threaten you with her life and make you work for him.” Shi Baojin got more confident and sued Mo Junjiu more excitedly.
The cause and effect were logical.
Mo Junyang’s dark eyes seemed to be lightened all of a sudden and he asked, “So Mo Junjiu has the antidote to the Lethal Seven?”
Shi Baojin nodded in a hurry. “His Highness gave me the poison, and he must have the antidote.”
“Where is the leftover poison?”
“No. I don’t have any left.” Shi Baojin replied in an instant. It seemed that she was afraid that she would offend Mo Junyang, and she explained hurriedly, “His Highness gave me only three needles with poison and I threw all of them out, and Qingxue was pushed by that maid, so not all of them hit her…”
She wanted to defend herself more, but Mo Junyang’s cold eyes told her that she’d better not talk too much at this moment.
At the same time, Wei Ziye ran over in haste and then whispered in Mo Junyang’s ear.
Mo Junyang’s eyes fixed and he asked in a deep voice, “Are you sure?”
“There must be nothing wrong. I interrogated them with torture respectively and they told the same story.” Wei Ziye answered cautiously.
Mo Junyang then looked at Shi Baojin and said coldly, “I’ll give you the last chance. What else do you want to say?”
Shi Baojin hesitated for a while and then insisted, “I told the truth. If…”
Mo Junyang waved his hand and didn’t even want to give a glance at Shi Baojin, saying to Wei Ziye, “Find a butcher to skin her.”
“Wh…what?”
All the others present, including Shi Baojin, were too scared to move.
Wei Ziye wasn’t sure about what he heard, but Mo Junyang’s cold expression didn’t give him the chance to ask, so he had to agree and then told a subordinate to finish the job immediately.
The prison was equipped with a full range of torture methods. In no time, a fat middle-aged man ran over quickly, with a sharp shaving knife in his hand. He smiled at Mo Junyang, trying to flatter him. “Master, whose skin do you want? What’s your requirement?”
Mo Junyang seemed to have an interest in skinning and asked, “Do you have different ways to skin a person?”
The middle-aged fatty smiled complacently and started to explain, like bragging, “There are many differences. First of all, the skin peeled off must be complete. If some part is missing or injured, it will be a failure. A skilled worker would use almost the same strength for each move to ensure the even thickness of the whole skin… And the time to skin should be proper. If you do the job for too long, you would make the victim bleed to death, and it will be not successful. You must…”
He got more and more excited while speaking, and his turbid eyes showed the crazy light like a beast finding the prey, which was horrible. And his tone of enumerating his family valuables made the others tremble with their hair standing on end after hearing that.
Shi Baojin in the room heard the vivid description and seemed to experience it. She couldn’t control herself and went into a coma.
“Gee,” Mo Junyang raised his hand and interrupted the fatty’s crap, ordering, “Pour water on her.”
Soon, Shi Baojin was poured by two buckets of icy water and quivered. Then she sat up again.
In the beginning, she was unaware, but when she glanced at the butcher, the nightmare came to her.
“No. No!”
Shi Baojin was scared out of wits and shrank back repeatedly. At the same time, she didn’t give up struggling. “Mo Junyang, I have told you everything. You can’t kill me. You can’t break your promise. I really didn’t lie to you!”
“You didn’t lie to me? So you didn’t see Qin Yanyan?” Mo Junyang curled up his lips but there was no smile on his face.
Shi Baojin glanced at Mo Junyang quickly and fear flashed in her eyes but she concealed it soon. She tried to control her fast-beating heart and act dumb, saying in a calm voice, “Your Excellency, what did you say? I don’t know anything.”
She still didn’t believe that Mo Junyang would be so cruel as to skin her. The Shi Family wouldn’t allow him to do something like that to her, and even the common people would stop him after seeing that. She had to try every means to stall Mo Junyang and win a chance to survive, but she underestimated his patience and cold-blood nature. Especially what happened to Shi Qingxue could turn this man into a killer.
Mo Junyang ordered the middle-aged fatty, “Let me witness the special skill as you said.”
The fatty grabbed the knife in his hand, with a bloodthirsty smile on his face and walked into the room step by step.
The common guards Shi Baojin thought of as the sympathetic people who wouldn’t allow Mo Junyang’s tyranny had suppressed her limbs and fixed her in this death pit before she resisted.
The knife’s light was dazzling in the dark prison and approached Shi Baojin gradually. She almost fell apart and screeched, “No. Don’t skin me. I will tell you everything. It was Qin Yanyan who gave the poisonous needles to me and told me to find a chance to assassinate Shi Qingxue!”
Shi Baojin finally couldn’t insist and started to confess.
But the fatty didn’t stop. He squatted next to Shi Baojin and uncovered the last cloth on her. Then he gesticulated with the knife on her and smiled indecently. “I like this beautiful skin so much. Beauty, don’t be scared. I will skin you accurately and quickly. I am sure you will feel comfortable…”
“Qin Yanyan said as long as I could kill Shi Qingxue and frame Prince Junjiu to make both you and him suffer great losses, she would keep me alive after that. I told the truth this time. Please don’t skin me. No…” Shi Baojin’s last defense was defeated in the end, and she told everything quickly, afraid that Mo Junyang would get crazy and skin her.
Seeing that his perfect guinea pig surrendered, the middle-aged fatty felt it was a pity and stopped his hand, turning to Mo Junyang.
Mo Junyang twisted the ring on the middle finger of his left hand and still showed a distant expression as usual. Nobody knew if he was satisfied with Shi Baojin’s answer this time. He just asked coldly, “Does Qin Yanyan have the antidote?”
Shi Baojin didn’t dare to lie to him. “She didn’t talk about it.”
Mo Junyang stared at Shi Baojin for a while again and knew that he couldn’t get any more information from this woman, so he turned to leave.
The fatty stopped him in a hurry and asked, with expectancy in his eyes, “Master, how would you deal with her?”
He hoped that Mo Junyang could leave her to him and let him skin her.
This must be a wonderful job!
Shi Baojin trembled for a second and then struggled crazily, shouting at Mo Junyang, “You have promised that as long as I tell you the truth, you wouldn’t kill me. You can’t go back on your word!”
But the mad roar didn’t stop Mo Junyang, and he just left an emotionless word.
“Keep her alive for now.”
The middle-aged fatty displayed a contented smile, which was in sharp contrast to the desperation and frustration in Shi Baojin’s eyes.