Author: 唇亡齿寒 / Lips Gone, Teeth Cold
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 101
Alois drifted in and out of consciousness, but whether awake or dreaming, the excruciating pain followed him relentlessly. He never knew that pain inflicted on a person could be this severe. They used iron tongs to grip his left arm, while another person used a similar tool to tear at the joints. Initially, Alois tried to imitate the lone heroes in movies, gritting his teeth and remaining silent to show his strength, but he quickly gave up this futile resistance. This pain was beyond human endurance. Amidst his own screams, he could hear the sounds of bones breaking, muscles tearing, and blood spurting. When his body’s self-protection mechanism tried to make him pass out to escape the pain, Faraday—the man with half his body turned into machinery—administered an injection that prevented Alois from escaping into unconsciousness. He had to endure this torture while fully awake. The only thing Alois managed to do was not reveal the secret of the chip. Even though he only aimed to hide this one fact, he nearly succumbed to the severe torture several times.
They tore his arm off. Alois watched as his severed limb bled profusely, and Faraday placed the arm in a box, wrapping it like a gift.
“Mr. Faraday, he’s losing too much blood,” one of the men in black said. “We need to stop the bleeding, or he’ll die.”
“Do you want to wheel him into surgery like a hospital patient?” Faraday sneered. “Use a simpler and quicker method, unless the Lord burned your brains.”
The man in black grumbled, seemingly saying, “Yes, sir.” He called another person and left the room, returning with a furnace filled with red-hot coals and a row of heated branding irons neatly lined up on top. The executioner picked up a branding iron with tongs and slowly walked towards Alois like a funeral procession.
By now, Alois could no longer think of anything extraneous. Most of his willpower was focused on enduring the pain and keeping the secret. With the little remaining mental capacity, he suddenly recalled something he had read in a textbook. In ancient times, when medical technology was undeveloped, people used boiling oil or branding irons to cauterize wounds and stop bleeding, which also prevented infections.
What an ingenious method, Alois thought in a daze.
The executioner pressed the branding iron against his wound.
“Take this to Avalon.”
Faraday tossed the rectangular box to the “salesman”, who caught it with a look of disgust. “Deliver it?” he asked. “Why?”
Faraday glared at the skilled assassin known in the industry as the “salesman” for his ability to disguise himself as a salesman and silently infiltrate targets’ homes to kill them, as if reprimanding him for his impertinence. “You just need to do it. Not ask why.”
The arrogant tone irked the assassin. “Who are you to order me around?” he protested. “The Duke ordered me to ‘assist’ you, not to obey your every command. We are partners, not master and servant.”
Faraday didn’t back down. “Go tell the Duke,” he said with a raised chin, “or just do as I say.”
“Can’t I just mail it through the post office? Or call a courier?” the salesman grumbled. “I don’t want to go back to Avalon. It was pure luck that I got that kid here. Next time, I might not be so lucky. His lover is the assassin Mourner, and I don’t want to risk my life provoking him.”
“Go tell the Duke,” Faraday repeated coldly, “or just do it.”
The salesman glared at him angrily, cursing as he walked towards the changing room.
The torture inflicted on Alois was far from over. Faraday seemed to enjoy using the branding iron to “stop the bleeding”. He ordered the young man’s remaining hand to be shackled to the wall and then used other instruments: barbed whips, thin as cicada wings knives, sharp iron hooks, and seven-inch nails. He used all these tools on Alois, and when Alois was covered in wounds and bleeding profusely, Faraday would use a red-hot branding iron to re-cauterize the wounds. He did this with meticulous care, like a seasoned welder performing a precise welding task.
Despite the injections, Alois still passed out when the pain reached its peak. At that point, no amount of calling could wake him. Faraday dared not use too much of the drug, fearing it might stop his heart. So, Alois managed to briefly escape the physical torment in unconsciousness.
However, the pain would multiply upon waking. The torture eventually lost its nature as “interrogation”, turning into a pure sadistic game. Faraday seemed to relish this game, as if he wanted Alois to experience all the misfortunes he had suffered. If he didn’t need to keep him alive, Faraday would have joyfully taken Alois apart, limb by limb, watching him slowly die in agony.
Dying would be a relief, Alois thought. Besides keeping his mouth shut and guarding the chip’s secret, he constantly prayed to the Lord for death, for an end to this endless torture. He didn’t understand why he felt this way. In the past, he had never yearned for death, not even during his dark days on Hecate. Ever since meeting Joshua, he had even less reason to think that way. He had just found love and wanted to live well, to be with Joshua forever.
As soon as he revealed the chip’s location, the torture would stop immediately. But he couldn’t do it. Among all the things he had done in his life, many of which were against the law or morality, this was the one thing he couldn’t do. It would be a betrayal of his companions, of the living and the dead.
I’m sorry, Joshua, Alois silently said in his heart. I want to give up. I might not be able to hold on. I’m sorry.
“Calm down, child!” Jolene pressed the back of Joshua’s neck, her knee against his back, pinning him firmly to the sofa. The assassin struggled but found the middle-aged woman’s strength much greater than he had imagined. He shouted and tried to break free from her grip but failed.
“Let go of me!”
“Calm down!” Jolene insisted. “You’ve lost your mind. Calm down!”
“Didn’t you see?” Joshua’s voice was tearful. “They broke his hand!”
“I saw. We all saw,” Jolene said sternly. “But can you reattach his hand? Do you know where he is? If even you can’t stay calm, who will rescue him? Aren’t you his lover? Is his lover so impulsive, so incompetent?”
Joshua stopped struggling. He lay sideways on the sofa as Jolene pressed him down. His disheveled silver hair covered his face. Jolene initially thought he was crying but then realized the assassin’s face was expressionless, his eyes unfocused yet incredibly cold. Jolene withdrew her hand, touching her own face, to find that she was the one crying.
“Oh, my God.” She quickly lowered her head, not wanting the two men to see her distress. “Oh Lord, how could this happen… Poor Alois, why must he suffer so much…”
Kepler stood in front of the coffee table, examining the severed arm in the box, and keenly noticed the paper ball that had fallen beside it. “Look, what’s this?” He opened the paper ball and read the words written on it. “To the assassin Mourner: Deliver the chip you swapped from the Duke to the following address by 8 a.m. planetary time tomorrow, or you will receive another gift.” Below the note was an address of a secure safe deposit box at New Zurich Bank.
“Sure enough, it’s the kidnappers making their demands,” Kepler looked down at Joshua lying on the sofa. “Do you know what chip they’re talking about?”
Joshua was silent for a moment, then answered, “Yes.”
“To be safe, we’d better hand it over to them. Is it something important?”
The assassin suddenly got up, and Jolene quickly stepped aside. She saw the golden flames rekindle in the assassin’s eyes.
“Very important,” Joshua said, heading upstairs again. “But we destroyed it long ago.”
“Then… what should we do…” Jolene felt utterly hopeless.
“Rescue Alois by 8 a.m. tomorrow.”
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