11 Ghost Feast *Viewer Discretion Advised*
After being shoved into the void, Li Xiang opened her eyes to find herself in a small chamber. Other than a tiny orb of fire emitting a soft, flickering glow for a very tiny radius, the surroundings were completely dark. As Li Xiang attempted to draw closer, she heard the soft clinking of chains and froze.
Attached to her limbs were solid, black chains leading to an unknown location. When she focused her attention on these chains, they became translucent and heavy, forcefully pinning her to the ground by the sheer weight of the collars. It was only when she thought of the flame once more and diverted her attention away from the chains, that they became solid and weightless once more.
Crawling to the tiny circle of light in the chamber, Li Xiang reached out to touch it with her finger, only to hiss in pain and tremble violently immediately after. Simply from touching the light, her soul experienced an extremely piercing and blazing pain, as if her soul was slowly and painfully being ground to powder by a vicious grindstone. If this was merely touching the illuminated radius, what would happen if she touched the flickering flame? Would she immediately combust?
Retreating towards her initial position, Li Xiang cradled her finger as she pondered on what would happen. What exactly was the Ghost Feast, that the Hungry Ghost would be so happy about, given his extremely perverted and sadistic nature? As she attempted to teleport into the Golden Residence to see if the library had any tomes on the Ghost Feast, the black chains sent waves of pain throughout her body the moment she even attempted to connect with her Heaven Core.
Writhing in pain and rolling on the ground, Li Xiang abandoned any thought of the Golden Residence and the Heaven Core for the sake of relief from the pain. Feeling as if scalding needles were slowly stabbing from both outside and inside, the pain caused every thought of resistance to fade under the blur of suffering. As if completing its mission, the pain immediately disappeared, leaving a trembling Li Xiang in an oddly tranquil and dark chamber.
It was at that moment that the Ghost Feast began. With a sonorous cry, one of the walls cracked and fragmented to reveal a scene of an underground medicinal research laboratory, with the bitter scent of herbs wafting into the dark chamber. Upon seeing this scene, Li Xiang's emotions flared and spiraled into chaos.
She remembered the laboratory to the smallest detail. With white, marble walls and flooring without the smallest speck of dust present, the laboratory was orderly and gentle to the eyes with multiple countertops and tables. Researching tools were all organized in round-edged boxes with detailed labels on each, with neat stacks of papers decorating the tables.
On the countertops lay numerous test-tube racks and sealed containers of a red liquid, and an opened binder full of research conclusions on each counter. Besides the binders lay opened containers of numerous herbs; rare and common, potent and mild, an extremely large assortment of herbs could be found in this laboratory. In the center was a young girl strapped to a chair, and a middle-aged man circling the chair, holding a clipboard and test tube.
The young girl was no more than fourteen years old, and her appearance could be regarded as slightly above average in beauty. With clear traces of remaining baby fat, fair and smooth skin, a palm-sized face, and delicate frame, the girl would be quite a feast for the eyes. The only abnormality was the abnormal number of faded scars on her body, thick and heavy chains restricting her torso and limbs, and a shock collar on her neck. Moreover, the girl seemed to be barely breathing and very close to death.
The middle-aged man chuckled lightly before picking up a syringe from an adjacent table. Already prepared, the syringe contained a red liquid, similar to the substance contained in large jars throughout the laboratory. Lightly flicking the syringe, the man carefully injected the red liquid into the girl's body, of which her breathing evened out and eventually regained consciousness. It was at that moment that the man spoke, with a gentle and youthful voice unbefitting of his external appearance.
"My cute little granddaughter, are you finally awake? Grandfather may have been a little too rough and careless when extracting your blood, he couldn't get decent results for this trial! Why don't we take a short break, then run through the test again?"
The girl, upon waking up, shook with intense terror when she heard the contents of the voice. The middle-aged man opened a drawer, pulled out a vibration blade, and activated it before the trembling girl, ignoring her pleas for help. The notion of a short break was quickly forgotten, as the blade vibrating at high speeds was slowly lowered onto the girl's right arm, causing blood to splatter over the floor, and shrieks filled the air. The blood splattered onto the ground was quickly collected by the floor's mechanisms before being stored in a glass jar identical to its predecessors in the laboratory.
The man moved on to the other limbs, leaving deep cuts, but not completely penetrating the bone. He then revealed an electric screwdriver, of which he then aimed towards the crying girl's shins. Drilling two extremely small holes in each shin caused another wave of horrid screams, and the bleeding increased even further due to the extreme pain. Upon noticing that the girl's eyes rolling back, signifying her unconsciousness, the middle-aged man injected a bluish liquid into her body, causing the girl to jolt into consciousness with a painful scream.
"My cute little granddaughter, you've got to stay awake during the trials for grandfather to retain the best results. Don't you know that by falling unconscious, you've just ruined the entire experiment? Don't underestimate your grandfather's passion for his research, not to mention your blood can save everyone! Isn't it a blessing to donate it?"
The middle-aged man flashed a gentle smile towards the cowering girl, before raising the electric drill once more, this time pointing at her ankle joints.
"I didn't want to have to do this, but this is the only method of salvaging the test run at this point. Do your best, okay? Grandfather's research depends on this."
As he stated his consolations amidst the girl's constant screams, the man began to drill tiny holes in the girl's ankle joints, before moving up her body. Soon enough, nearly every major bone in her body had two extremely small yet equally painful holes drilled into them; her skull was left untouched for fear of damaging the brain. The middle-aged man had already determined from previous experimental subjects that brain damage was still incurable even with today's technology.
"Little granddaughter, you need to work a bit harder! Look, the jar's only got a quarter of the way to fill before your quota is completed! Grandfather will help you with this, just wait a minute."
The man slowly waved a handheld file in front of the girl's eyes, before lowering it to her restrained left arm, proceeding to file at the bones. As the girl's screams became even louder, the blood spurting from her wounds increased; soon, the large jar was completely full of blood. The man gently stroked her hair before presenting a tray of herbs in front of the weeping girl.
"Look, dear granddaughter, here are this time's herbs! Don't worry, they're not too bad this time, it's only a few stalks of Nine-Shade Grass, Forgotten Peony, Fountain of Death, and Lotus of Rakshasa. It'll be over soon, I promise." The man chuckled as he continued to pet the girl's head with one hand, while preparing a mortar and pestle with the other.
Placing the tray of herbs on an adjacent counter, the man began to slowly grind the herbs into powder. The herbs this time were non-toxic yet caused extreme pain and paralysis. The Nine-Shade Grass would jolt the tendons and rupture the ligaments; the Forgotten Peony would slowly dissolve the muscles within the body; the Fountain of Death would inflict extreme pain and damage to the person's viscera until they wished for death, yet didn't allow them to actually perish until the corrosion was complete; the Lotus of Rakshasa would restore the tendons to their peak, but with an extremely agonizing process. Any combination of two of these herbs would create a hellish poison, yet this man was using all four.
Utilizing the Lotus of Rakshasa as the base ingredient, the man proceeded to add in the Forgotten Peony, Nine-Shade Grass, then finally, the Fountain of Death. By establishing the Lotus of Rakshasa as the base substance, the resultant drug would preserve the tendons and life of a person while dealing extreme pain as it redirected lifeforce from the body into the tendons. Utilizing a brush with thin and sharp bristles, the man then pasted the 'medicinal' substance onto the girl's wounds, initiating another round of suffering.
After waiting for several hours for the screaming to subside, the man wielded a thin scalpel as he inflicted small incisions onto the girl's body, before slowly extracting the tendons with a tweezer. The girl's eyes bulged, and she lay limp from the pain, unable to scream nor fall unconscious due to the blue-colored drug earlier. The extracted tendons were then coiled and carefully placed into a jade container; the tendons were golden in color, radiating thick pulses of concentrated vitality; using these tendons in weapon creation would guarantee high-quality products, and consumption would grant longevity and a drastic increase in strength.
Contrary to the appearance of the golden tendons, the girl appeared extremely fragile. Her vitality was completely sapped, and her face was pale; she displayed symptoms of serious anemia, about to die any second. Observing the tendons a bit more and looking at the dying girl, the man smiled helplessly before withdrawing a drop of blood from the recently filled jar.
"My cute little granddaughter, you've truly done well! These tendons are of the highest quality I've seen until now! With this in a rich tendon soup, grandfather will be able to attain over five hundred jin of strength!"
The man carefully pried open the girl's blued lips before dropping the blood. Immediately after, the scene was akin to a miracle; the removed tendons suddenly regrew back in an instant, the empty blood vessels filled once more with blood, and the wounds on her body disappeared, with the girl's vitality restored to the peak. The man gently petted the girl's head, before remarking,
"Truly, your blood does wonders. Capable of restoring any physical injury except for death, a true miracle medicine. Little granddaughter, you'll become the savior of the world! Later, grandfather will give you paradise in life, but for now, bear with the pain a little, no? Let's set twenty liters as today's quota, so we'll get right back to business after half a sichen's break!"
Truly a hell on earth, where a single girl was sacrificed for the satiation of human greed.
Observing this scene, Li Xiang felt intense bursts of pain from the chains, piercing her very soul and ripping it to shreds. Unable to howl in pain yet screams echoed in the chamber, unable to struggle and writhe in pain yet her body was twitching on the ground, Li Xiang experienced the same pain as the young girl being tortured in the laboratory, but on a greater magnitude.
She hated that man.
She hated his smile of joy each time blood splashed onto the floor.
She hated how he would gently console her while cruelly inflicting these tortures on her.
She hated how he professed that her blood would save all of humanity, while auctioning her blood as divine medicine, a single drop fetching massive coffers of wealth.
She hated that he was her grandfather, someone who should be tied to her by familial bonds. Him? It seemed that she was nothing but a mere cornucopia of divine blood.
She hated that she was born into the world, to be born into a life of pure suffering.
She hated the World Tree for its callousness and viciousness. Yet, she couldn't help but acknowledge that the tree was merely carrying out its sacred duty of regulating mortal life.
The World Tree was indeed correct. She wasn't meant to exist in that world, hence the world subjected her to removal by human greed.
Forced to revisit her memories of a mortal, Li Xiang gritted her teeth and clenched her hands, desiring to tear the scene of the laboratory before her into pieces, yet unable to. Unwittingly, her butterfly wings had expanded to their full length at an uncertain period of time. Translucent, colored in purple, red, and black, the wings began to adopt a sinister aura, tempered by the screams and pain of the girl tortured in the laboratory.
