Chapter 58: Subdued p2
In the basement was a very soft large bed, but a horizontal bar was hanging from the ceiling.
It seemed it could be used to restrain a person…
There were also many shackle rings on the four walls. In the corner was a leather case, which seemed to contain some “toys.”
This basement… was probably a rabbit fun house prepared by Lina…
Adele just wanted to spank her bottom.
“This is the surprise I prepared!”
“Lina” turned around and pointed at the shackles on the wall. “Teacher, let’s play something special today, okay? I want to handcuff you there.”
Adele’s palm tightly gripped the master key, her voice calm. “Of course.”
Her readiness stunned “Lina” for a moment, but it was quickly drowned out by a greater excitement.
Her plan was about to succeed…
She quickly handcuffed Adele to the wall.
After doing all this, “Lina” took two steps back. The feigned innocent smile on her face instantly disappeared, revealing a blatant malice.
“You’re finished.”
She changed back to a face that was the same as Adele’s. “She already thought you ran away once. If it happens again, she will definitely go mad! I’m really looking forward to seeing that scene!”
Adele was handcuffed to the wall and gave a faint “Oh.”
She said again, “So, you were the one who left that vicious letter.”
“Aren’t you scared?! Don’t you know what terrible things she’ll do when she loses control?! She’s a madwoman, you…”
“The one who should be scared is you.” Adele didn’t want to hear her slander Lina and cut her off directly.
“You… what do you mean?!”
Adele’s dark green wolf eyes flashed with a cold light. Her vertical pupils stared at her prey, her killing intent undisguised. “You hate us so much, so much that you keep trying to drive a wedge between us. Then why don’t you just kill us directly?”
She paused and said, word by word, clearly, “Because you can’t. I hear we have a symbiotic relationship. What symbiosis? You’re just a pathetic creature who can only breathe because of me.”
Adele looked her straight in the eye. “Before Lina finds me, you’d better serve me well. If I starve to death, or die of thirst, how long can you live?”
The imposter trembled with anger. “Shut up! You just wait! Sooner or later, I will get rid of you! Get rid of Lina! I will completely erase you!”
After speaking, she abruptly turned around, rushed up the stairs, and slammed the basement door shut with a “bang.”
Then, she blew on the lock and murmured wickedly, “Even if you have a key, don’t even think about opening the door…”
The basement quickly fell silent.
Adele used the master key to open the shackles. She threw off the cold metal, rushed up the stairs in a few steps, and inserted the master key into the lock.
The key turned smoothly. The sound of the mechanism springing open came from inside the lock. The lock was open!
Adele immediately pushed the door with force, but—
The door did not move at all!
She tried to pull it inward, but the door was still as if welded shut, with no reaction!
The lock was already open, but the door wouldn’t open!?
Hmm?
If it can’t be opened from the inside, then can it not be opened from the outside either!?
Adele began to pound on the door. “Is anyone there?! Is anyone there?”
It was deathly silent outside.
The basement was in the back garden. Usually at this time, the maids would be active. At this moment, it was unusually quiet.
Damn it!
Adele actually began to worry that Lina wouldn’t be able to find her either…
She was not afraid of being misunderstood by Lina, not afraid of being “caught,” not afraid of being punished. She was only afraid of being separated from her baby.
Adele forced herself to calm down. She knew the imposter would not let her die, would definitely come to deliver food and water. She prepared to subdue her the next time she came in…
At the same time, Dilys slowly woke up. She remembered that she was clearly taking inventory in the warehouse. How did she end up in the dining room in the blink of an eye?
She looked around. The floor was covered with fainted maids.
All the servants in the manor were here.
?!
After a few moments of being stunned, she quickly woke the others up.
“Go find the lady!”
“We have to find her!”
“Go!”
Dilys turned and ran. Everyone began to look for Adele.
They knew very well—
Adele must not have any accidents! She is Lina’s life!
*
The smell of mold mixed with blood seeped out from the entrance of the dungeon.
Lina stood on the steps, looking at the dark abyss below her, her expression blank.
The person behind her stood with their hands clasped, their tone respectful. Their gaze only dared to fall on the gold-trimmed corner of her clothes, not daring to look up at all.
“My lord, inside are the first batch of captured Sacred Cult followers. The first batch is to be executed at the end of the month. Your Majesty has decreed that the first execution list will be personally determined by you.”
The two words “Sacred Cult” easily ignited the hatred in Lina’s heart. Her gaze grew cold. She nodded slightly and stepped into the suffocating darkness below her.
The dungeon was divided into east and west sides. Lina went to the east side first. Here were the ordinary followers.
Countless gazes floated in the cold and damp air.
Some were terrified, some were numb, some were resentful, some were pleading.
Miserable cries came from the torture chamber. The moss-covered stone walls were covered with twisted human figures. The white bones that had not been sent away in time were piled in a corner. Rats and cockroaches were reveling under the spiderwebs.
Despair.
Complete despair.
Lina walked very slowly. The shiny leather boots and the mud on the ground formed a sharp contrast. She was so glamorous. As a victor, she coldly admired the people locked in the cells on both sides.
These people, in her eyes, were just accomplices, not worthy of sympathy.
The pleasure of revenge made a sinister smile appear in her eyes. The thrill of controlling the lives and deaths of others made every pore in her body tremble with pleasure.
But—
She passed a corner and walked into the inner room.
In the first cell, a family of four was locked up.
The man and woman’s eyes were vacant. They were curled up in a pile of dry grass in the corner, muttering. A slightly older girl was biting her own fingers, seemingly having gone mad.
And the youngest, only six or seven years old, her small face was covered in tears. She saw Lina walk over, her slender fingers gripping the cold iron bars tightly. She knelt down, her hands clasped, and cried and begged.
“My lord! Please don’t kill my father and mother, and my older sister… kill me, okay? I can die for them… please…”
She kowtowed repeatedly. Her forehead hit the stone floor, making a dull thudding sound.
Lina stopped in her tracks. Her gaze fell on the child’s red and swollen forehead. Her heart was inexplicably pierced.
She did not speak and turned to leave.
In the second cell, a white-haired, ragged old woman was staring at a delirious young man, shedding tears.
Seeing Lina, the old woman stumbled over. Her withered hand trembled as she took out a dry and hard potato pancake from her bosom.
She tried hard to stuff the pancake, which she considered a luxury, into Lina’s hands, her voice mournful. “My lord! Please be merciful! Please don’t kill my son! He’s young and doesn’t know any better… he was deceived! Use me to replace him, use me to replace him… is that okay!”
The hand hanging at Lina’s side slowly clenched into a fist.
In the third cell were two women, holding each other tightly. One of them, seeing Lina, her eyes immediately shot out a strong resentment, and she cursed sharply.
“What are you looking at?! We just want to live a little longer! We just want to be together forever! What’s wrong with that? In this world, even wanting to live is a luxury! What do you high and mighty people know?!”
Her voice was sharp and desperate.
Lina’s heart wavered. She thought of herself and Adele.
Then, she thought of Adele’s advice.
“What if everyone has their own difficulties? To kill the main culprit is revenge, but to implicate other victims, you also become an executioner!”
Lina took a deep breath and walked toward the fourth cell.
Inside were a pair of siblings, about ten years old. They were protecting a middle-aged woman who was constantly coughing.
The woman was coughing so hard she was out of breath, as if she were about to die.
The brother pulled his sister to kneel together. Their voices trembled, but they tried hard to maintain their composure:
“My lord! Our mother has been sick for a long time. We sold the house, sold the land. We’ve seen many physicians, but she’s not getting better. That’s why we joined the Sacred Cult… we just want to save our mother. We were wrong. We really know we were wrong!”
The brother kowtowed heavily. The sister beside him had long since cried so much she couldn’t speak, just following her brother and kowtowing desperately.
Behind them, their mother’s cough grew more and more difficult.
Lina couldn’t walk any further.
She abruptly turned around. The scarlet candlelight flickered on and off on her face, reflecting her furrowed brow and tense jaw.
All the pleasure had disappeared at this moment.
The monstrous hatred that had been controlling her, in the face of these real sufferings, had actually lost its power. The pity and conscience hidden deep in her heart emerged, quickly occupying Lina’s mind.
She had to admit that these people were not the main culprits. These pitiful people, who had been bewitched, used, and forced into a corner, were no different from her in the past.
Was she really going to cut off her own conscience to satisfy her desire for slaughter? To kill these people, could she make up for her childhood self? To implicate people with whom she had no quarrel, would she really not regret it in the future?
When the hatred dissipated, she saw the bloody hole in her heart.
The person beside her, seeing Lina in a daze, asked cautiously, “My lord, have you chosen?”
Lina forcefully suppressed the emotions churning in her eyes and said in a cold voice, “Let’s not choose from here for now. Let’s go to the place where the elders are imprisoned.”
…
Above the dungeon, Huaguang stood on the city wall. Yuan You was with her and said, “It’s been an hour.”
Huaguang smiled knowingly and said, “Besides those elders, she can’t choose the others.”
Yuan You was curious. “How do you know? I see she seems to hate the Sacred Cult very much.”
“Because she still has love,” Huaguang said. “She hasn’t completely fallen. Someone has held her back, just like you held me back. It’s very easy to go bad. Hatred is too tempting.”
But love is stronger than hatred.
“If she could really completely let go of her conscience, or if she had simply died in her heart back then, she would have long since stopped being in pain.” Huaguang said, “To hate and hate, it’s just hating that she was mistreated. Her enemies are Herte and the manipulators of the Sacred Cult. I gave her a chance to kill her enemies with her own hands. After she gets her revenge, she will move on in the future.”
Yuan You thought of Huaguang’s past and silently tied the cape for her.
Huaguang felt her movement and pulled her into her arms. “It’s good that I have you.”
…
Lina went to the west side of the prison. The people imprisoned here were equally pathetic, but upon closer inspection, the fabric of their clothes was even more gorgeous than palace gowns.
The offerings of the believers had all gone into their pockets.
Lina’s appearance broke the silence.
“Pah! How long do you think you can be proud?!”
“Our believers are all over the continent of Dezhou! You’ll die a bad death!”
The once sanctimonious, high and mighty faces were now twisted like evil spirits, their features ferocious.
“A bad death…”
Lina chewed on these four words. The hatred returned.
She suddenly smiled.
The people next door, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. These people, could she still not bring herself to do it?
She turned her head to look at the longsword at the guard’s waist.
The guard was so scared by the terrifying blood in her eyes that before he could react, the longsword had already been drawn!
Hatred turned into the cold glint of the blade.
Lina said, “Go and report to Your Majesty. Some people are extremely guilty. I—”
“Will execute them on the spot.”
“Yes!”
…
After who knows how long, the prison finally fell silent.
The hatred churning in Lina’s chest also gradually subsided, and subsided again.
Finally, it was completely extinguished.
She raised her hand and wiped a hint of scarlet blood from her chin.
Her restless soul miraculously calmed down.
Just then, a flurry of footsteps came from the stairs. The person who had come to report was scrambling, their face as pale as paper. Disregarding the dirty blood on the floor, they fell to their knees before Lina with a thud and reported in terror.
“My lord! Something’s wrong! Everyone in the manor has fainted! The lady is missing! Everyone has been looking for her in the manor for several rounds and can’t find her!”
“What are you afraid of?” Lina’s voice was almost inaudible. She threw the knife in her hand and said, “She can never escape my grasp.”
