Chapter 23 Hell_1

In the heavy sleep, Huai Shi felt himself falling.

Downwards, again and again into the darkness, as if many others were with him, some screaming in terror while others numbly struggled; but soon, they all disappeared.

He plunged into the water, as if sinking into a deep pool, yet buoyantly lifted without weight, drifting in the dark with the currents.

It was as if he were already dead.

But it was also as if he were on the way to death.

It would be soon.

A voice told him so.

Yet death seemed endless, carrying him bit by bit into deeper darkness. Until the icy tide brought him to a muddy shore.

A hunched shadow emerged from the gloom, looked down at him, bent over to grasp his leg, and dragged him to the edge of a hut on the mudflat.

Knocking.

The door opened.

The stench of rotting flesh wafted out.

In the hut, the only light came from an oil lamp over the bloodstained operating table. An old man with white hair and wrinkles, wearing a mask, was intently dismembering the corpse before him, occasionally pausing to sketch on a diagram beside him.

Under the faint glow of the oil lamp, the neatly preserved specimens on the surrounding hooks dripped with embalming fluid.

The stooped shadow pointed at Huai Shi and stretched out its hand toward the old man behind the door, seeking something.

The elder glanced at the youth on the floor with turbid eyes and slowly shook his head, "He's not quite dead yet. Why did you sell me a living person to work with?"

"Soon, very soon..."

The twisted shadow emitted a strange noise, a blend of a dog and a fox's yowl: "He's close... the Source Substance is still... the Source Substance is still..."

"I can only give you half, take it or leave it," said the old man, standing by indifferently with his arms folded.

The shadow, as if enraged, yelled loudly.

The old man remained unmoved, watching it dispassionately until it extended its hand in resignation, "Half, half..."

An ancient copper coin landed in its palm.

"If it's nothing important, then get lost quickly. Don't interrupt my work."

The elder glanced at Huai Shi on the ground, frowned, and with effort dragged his leg to the operating table, carelessly sweeping aside the already dismembered corpse that had been there before.

The noise of the shadow closing the door caused Huai Shi's pupils to shudder slightly. He struggled to move, tried to speak, but coughed up a mass of bloody froth.

"Not dead yet?"

The old man peeled back his eyelids, looked at the whites of his eyes in surprise, and with dry hands prodded Huai Shi's skeleton all over, finally nodding in satisfaction:

"A very standard structure, although lacking in strength, but it should make a temporary spare part... if only the best effect could be maintained,"

he sighed.

Huai Shi's throat made a hoarse sound, but it was of no use.

"Do you have something to say?"

The old man looked at his trembling pupils, somewhat helplessly, "You're about to die, wouldn't it be better to die peacefully? I've seen plenty like you, since you've already crossed the Border and fallen into Hell, death is only natural, right? Now it's just that your Source Substance hasn't dissipated, what's there to complain about?"

He took out a bottle of Potion, and poured it into Huai Shi's mouth, full of blood-stained foam; the intense spiciness and strange sour taste irritated Huai Shi's throat, a sensation as scorching as molten copper coursed down his throat like a fire, igniting his body and allowing him to let out a hoarse cry of pain.

"This Potion's from that Dog-headed Man, it's used for mummification, to maintain the vitality of organs at the brink of death. But don't even think about living, it just converts what little life span you have left into energy to be squeezed out... This way, you can speak a few more words before you die, making my work a bit easier. How about cooperating a bit?"

The old man busied himself, "Remember, don't scream, I hate noisy sounds."

Huai Shi struggled to restrain the sound of agony, his body convulsing. Just as the old man said, he somehow managed to produce a weak voice at the brink of death.

"...Where is this place?"

"In your terms, it's Hell of Depth Twelve, my Corpse Workshop, a place where I trade some odds and ends with clients. Soon you'll become one of those trinkets."

As the old man was speaking,

"How about we make a deal..." Huai Shi swallowed the painful taste, breathing with difficulty, "I actually really want to keep living, let me go."

"No way, I've already bought your corpse, how can you not die? Besides, you won't live more than a few minutes; if you die out there, I'll still have to drag you back in here."

Under the dim light of the lamp, the old man's two eyeballs twisted on their respective axes, one black eye looking at Huai Shi, and one red eye focused on where to make the incision: "Look at your body, your Source Substance is empty, you were running out of time long ago... Despite your strong life force, it's already burnt out like Ashes."

Huai Shi stared blankly at the ceiling covered in dried bloodstains, his agony replaced by numbness, and even his voice turned hoarse and dry:

"I can't die here..."

"Why can't you die?" the old man asked seriously, "After all, everyone can die."

As if enticed into a conversation, he went on and on:

"I've seen many people, they all think they're so important, playing the most special role in this world, but when they come here, they're all dead.

After their deaths, the world moved on, the sun rose as usual, and reality didn't stop or slow down without them. So they were wrong, they were really no different from anyone else."

He pointed out one by one to explain to Huai Shi: "This person, was once a high and mighty figure; that person, was a Justice Messenger who had slain countless evildoers; this person was a Dictator's Professor, under whose tutelage a tyrant became an enlightened leader, and here lies that very Dictator he mentored... Yet, they are all dead.

Since we are born, then death is inevitable. Even gods are the same, a hundred years, two hundred years, watching the world change... When a thousand years pass, even gods would find the world boring.

Compared to them, what are you?"

"But I still don't want to die."

Huai Shi tried hard to blink away uncontrollable tears blurring his vision: "Look, don't be fooled by my frail appearance, I'm actually pretty tough too. A man's tears are precious, I'm crying, can't you just let me go?"