Song of Everlasting Regret - Chapter 27

After Cao Bo departed, Lady Snake signaled to two subordinates. Holding strips of black cloth, they blindfolded Lou Jing and, flanking her on both sides, escorted her out.

Lou Jing, now a fish on a chopping block, had no choice but to let others manipulate her.

Though her eyes could not see the path, she traced it in her mind. Calculating the distance, they were nearly out of the mountain manor.

What is this? Does Cao Bo intend to push me off a cliff to my death? But judging from his earlier words, it seemed it wouldn’t be that simple.

The road beneath her feet grew rugged as they began to ascend.

The sound of footsteps approached from behind as someone caught up with them. Sure enough, Lou Jing heard a familiar voice call out: “Lady Snake.”

It was Cao Bo’s son, the one who had slapped her in the hall earlier.

Lady Snake glanced back and smiled. “Oh, Young Master Liu, come to watch the show?”

Lou Jing thought to herself: Why is Cao Bo’s son surnamed Liu?

Liu Qingyun hurried forward, glanced at Lou Jing, and asked Lady Snake, “This woman—how do you plan to deal with her?”

Lady Snake continued up the mountain path at an unhurried pace. “The Manor Lord handed her to me; naturally, he wants me to throw her into the Dragon’s Cave to be slowly tortured to death.”

Liu Qingyun’s eyes were like ice blades. He said in a low voice, “In my view, if this woman could escape the Qian Yuan Sect’s Black Jail, she might not fail to escape the Dragon’s Cave. To avoid long nights filled with dreams (unnecessary trouble), it would be better to just kill her now and then throw her corpse inside.”

Lady Snake gave a lazy backward glance. “Is this the Manor Lord’s intention?”

Liu Qingyun froze, his gaze dropping slightly to avoid Lady Snake’s scrutiny. “I am simply worried that this woman is cunning.”

Lady Snake said, “Young Master Liu seems quite eager for this little girl to die quickly.”

Liu Qingyun said indignantly, “She killed Ruxu. I wish I could end her with a blade right now.”

Lady Snake smiled enigmatically, her tone meaningful. “Young Master Liu truly shares a deep brotherly bond with our late young master. However, without the Manor Lord’s command, I cannot act on my own authority. I’m afraid I must disappoint Young Master Liu’s sincere intentions for his brother.”

Liu Qingyun’s face stiffened slightly. He forced a smile. “No matter. Letting her die a quick death would indeed be too good for her.”

As they spoke, the group crossed a suspension bridge.

Lou Jing felt the swaying beneath her feet and the mountain wind blowing from both sides; she knew she was crossing a bridge. Shortly after crossing, the party came to a halt.

The black cloth covering her eyes was finally removed. As light flooded her vision, she squinted. She found herself at a mountain peak that looked as if it had been carved by axes—sheer and vertical, rising into the clouds like a screen.

The summit was flat, housing a simple, unadorned great hall. The plaque above did not bear the words “Dragon’s Cave.”

Lou Jing was escorted inside. The hall was empty save for a single table in the center with an oil lamp. Two burly men were resting there; upon seeing the group, they stood up immediately to greet them.

Lady Snake said, “Open the door.”

The two guards walked to a spot about ten paces from the table and began pulling at something on the ground. A clanking sound erupted; they were pulling iron chains—eight in total, each as thick as a man’s forearm, bolted to the floor.

Lou Jing looked closely and saw clearly now: the chains were attached to a circular slab of dark iron. It took the combined strength of the two strongmen to drag it. The iron plate was about a foot thick and, when stood up, would likely be as tall as one of the men. As it dragged across the floor, the circular iron vibrated with a resounding metallic ring.

The “iron door” covering the opening was pulled back, revealing a pit. The pit was pitch black; one could not see what lay at the bottom. Looking at the edges, it did not seem man-made, but rather a natural formation of uncanny workmanship.

Lady Snake pinched Lou Jing’s chin, her thumb brushing the yellow mud on her cheek. She said with mock pity, “Little girl, such a handsome face. Sister likes it. What a shame…”

Turning to the two guards, she said without a trace of emotion: “Throw her down.”

The two guards dragged Lou Jing to the edge of the pit. One kicked her ankle while the other shoved her back. With her hands bound, suffering from internal injuries, and having no room to retreat, she had no way to dodge. With a stumble forward, she plunged into the pit.

The pit was narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, standing about seventy to eighty feet high. If not for the jagged protrusions of the mountain wall—which she struck twice, slowing her descent—her internal energy being sealed would have meant falling from such a height would have left her half-dead.

However, the situation was hardly better. Lou Jing hit the ground hard, seeing stars. A sliver of light from above was rapidly disappearing.

The iron door at the mouth of the pit slammed shut. The clanking of the chains sliding over the circular iron rang for a moment and then stopped. Like a crack of thunder in the night, the light and sound had torn through the gloom, arriving in an instant and vanishing just as fast, leaving the surroundings even darker and more silent.

Lou Jing’s eyes could not yet adjust to the darkness of the cavern; she could not see the shape of the pit floor, and her internal organs throbbed with pain. Old Second Cao’s palm strike had been too ruthless, and now, having fallen from a great height, she couldn’t catch her breath, and her senses grew dull.

Only then did she realize an incessant hissing sound coming from all around her. Things were surrounding her. She squinted, seeing countless dark shadows.

A whistling sound of air being pierced rang by her ear. Lou Jing’s martial artist reflexes remained; she dodged quickly to the side as a foul wind flew past her face.

Glimpsing the thing that had just passed her, a terrible realization flashed through her mind.

She tried to wrench her bound hands free, struggling on her knees to stand up.

Suddenly, a violent, burning pain flared in her right leg. A muffled groan escaped her throat. In that instant, the strength in her body seemed to be snatched away, and her half-risen frame collapsed back onto her knees.

As she knelt, her body faltered. Another foul wind attacked, coiling around her wrist. Venomous fangs sank deep into her flesh. The pain was agonizing, and beads of sweat broke out on the bridge of her nose.

Gradually, her eyes adapted to the darkness, and the scene before her became clear.

Those surrounding her, lurking in the damp gloom, shifting and writhing—those venomous silhouettes were the same kind of beasts she had crushed to death at the inn. On the mountain walls, amidst the protruding rocks, and upon the cold ground, everything was a tangled mass of poisonous snakes. There was no place even to set a foot.

The “Dragon’s Cave” was, in truth, a pit of vipers.

Lou Jing’s fall from above had startled these cold-blooded reptiles. The snake swarm was now in a frenzy, their intent to kill high.

Her breathing grew heavy, and the scene before her began to blur. She knew she had to stand up—she must stand up. If she lay on the ground, she would be bitten to death by these vipers. She had to free her hands to fight back and defend herself.

The surrounding snakes either reared their bodies high or coiled tightly, retracting their heads like springs, giving the prey no chance to breathe before lunging forward to tear and bite, their writhing bodies binding Lou Jing.

The burning pain of the fangs piercing her body grew more intense with every strike. The sensation of pain repeated over and over; she should have gone numb, but Lou Jing felt only that the pain became more piercing with each occurrence.

Standing up and extracting her hands from the rope felt like a long journey with no end; she traveled with extreme difficulty.

Pain eroded her will. She did not know why she struggled so hard. Even if she broke free, would she not still be unable to escape this cage? She would still be bitten to death here, or die of hunger, or thirst, or commit suicide unable to endure the grim loneliness. What, then, was the purpose of this current struggle?

Thus, very quickly, even the thought of struggling grew stagnant.

The venom invaded. The sharp pain bored straight toward her heart. That pain transformed into a harrowing chill, gnawing at her bones.

She could not endure it and collapsed forward. With this fall, she could no longer get up.

The nearby vipers slithered onto her, gripping her calves, coiling around her waist, and encircling her neck, baring their fangs and flickering their tongues.

Lou Jing was so pained she had no strength left. She felt a thousand vipers biting into her flesh, like ten thousand cold iron nails being driven into her body.

“AH!!!!” A deep, agonizing groan escaped her throat.

She pressed her forehead against the ground, as if the friction of the pain would lessen the suffering of her body. Her cries were jagged and tragic, like the painful howls of a wild beast, but the howls gradually died out, eventually becoming broken, pained whimpers.

The cold shifted from her flesh into her marrow. Lou Jing felt herself become damp and cold, as if standing naked in the depths of winter amidst a world of ice and snow.

She felt only cold—a cold that pained.

Her lungs felt as if ice had formed within them; she could not breathe. her chest spasmed, drawing in what little air it could.

It was too agonizing.

Each moment seemed as long as eternity.

She curled herself up, her will bitten to pieces by countless fangs.

Her eyes looked forward with desolate longing as she sobbed softly: “Father, Mother… I’m cold.”

Her voice was barely a breath, and her gaze gradually began to scatter.

How much time passed, she did not know. It felt like a day; it felt like a hundred years.

Lou Jing suddenly felt a lightness throughout her body, as if the burden of pain had detached from her, or as if her soul had left her physical form.

Am I dead? Is this what it means to be dead?

This state of no pain and no sorrow was enticing, a hundred times easier than being gnawed by ten thousand snakes. But she was unwilling for it to end like this—she was far too unwilling.

Her body and her soul were locked in this gloomy, cruel place. Naturally, her mind and heart were quietly stained with the same hue: somber and dark.

The vibrant flower was polluted by this venom, rotting from the stem up.

She began to hate everything. She hated herself, she hated the true killer of Cao Ruxu, she hated the murderer who killed her father, she hated the people who couldn’t distinguish black from white and condemned her, and she hated the Caoliu Mountain Manor.

Most of all, she hated the blind heavens. She refused to submit. Her crimes did not warrant death, yet she had met this end. It felt as if the logic of this world was for the true culprit to remain free while the innocent suffered. If not, why was she here in this snake pit? If not, why had the killer of her father not been brought to justice!

She was deeply defiant. A surge of resentment buried in her heart supported her, making her absolutely unwilling to die like this.

If there were a fire, she would ignite the clouds in the sky, burning this place until it was scorching hot and brilliantly bright.

Yet, with this single thought, a spark of fire seemed to ignite at her dantian—a sliver of warmth that began to travel along her meridians.

Her soul fell heavily back into her pained body.

Perhaps because she had stopped moving, the agitated mood of the vipers had calmed. Though snakes remained coiled around her body, no more were biting her.

She was still in immense pain. Her blood felt frozen, and she still found the bitter cold unbearable. Even breathing was an extreme hardship. She knew the venom had reached her marrow; even if she possessed internal energy, she feared she could not escape death.

She could not move and could only lie paralyzed on the ground, letting the vipers crawl over her body as if passing over a pile of stacked white bones. She closed her eyes, struggling to recall the internal energy heart-method Shen Zhongyin had once muttered in her ear.

Shen Zhongyin’s internal energy was peak Yang, extremely domineering, and capable of suppressing cold and dark things.

It was indeed effective. Just now, driven by her will to survive, she had accidentally begun to circulate that internal energy, and she felt a trace of warmth emerge from her frozen dantian.

The internal energy method of the Qian Yuan Sect was gentle. Unless one achieved great mastery with decades of power, it would be difficult to suppress this cold venom. In all things, there are counters; if she wanted to survive amidst this cold venom, Shen Zhongyin’s technique was more effective and faster. Perhaps it could achieve results before she turned into a stiff, cold corpse.

Now, she could only rely on this single spark of fire.