This urn couldn't possibly be for housing people!
Nor could it be just for a dozen hearts!
Nan Shiying suspected they needed more than just hearts this time; they needed blood as well.
A rope dangled from the top of the altar, its end secured to a sharp iron hook, appearing as if designed for hoisting sacrifices upside down to bleed them. Nan Shiying counted the number of black-robed figures and couldn't help but curve her lips.
"Move that urn here!"
Nan Shiying didn't specify who, but the cook obediently stepped forward and moved the jar to the position Nan Shiying had indicated.
"Those who are afraid, turn your backs."
Men possessed far more blood than women and children, so there was no need to remove clothing. Nan Shiying spoke, then grabbed the man's foot and stepped onto the stairs one by one. She effortlessly lifted the man, seized the iron hook, and pierced it through his ankle before letting go.
A heart-wrenching scream echoed in the air. The pain of the hook piercing his ankle was nothing compared to the agony of being suspended, the hook snagging flesh and bone, battling against gravity.
Nan Shiying took a knife and sliced open his naturally hanging wrist. Blood dripped, drop by drop, down his robes and into the porcelain urn. Nan Shiying clamped onto the man's jaw, preventing him from biting his tongue to commit suicide.
"Tell me, after you complete the sacrificial ritual, how will you transport the 'sacrificed' urn to Liao Jiang?"
The man's entire body trembled. The loss of blood caused his body temperature to plummet rapidly. When his temperature became insufficient to sustain bodily functions, the man began to experience auditory and visual hallucinations, his mind becoming muddled and chaotic.
He looked at the person before him, watching her mouth open and close, the sounds in his ears blocked by countless walls.
"Spider God, in your grace, please... please bestow upon us..."
Nan Shiying tutted. She swung her knife, plunging it directly into the man's heart.
Hearing the sound of the knife sinking into flesh and blood, everyone who had already turned away in fear shuddered. Blood dripped into the porcelain urn with a "drip, drip" sound, each drop seeming to strike their hearts, solidifying into a profound fear.
After stabbing the man's heart with the dagger, she didn't pull it out directly. Instead, she partially withdrew it and then slit open his chest. Because the knife remained inserted, the blood didn't spurt out but flowed down a unique groove on the blade, dripping steadily into the porcelain urn.
She peeled open the man's chest and scooped out his heart. The moment before she removed it, the heart was still beating. Nan Shiying discarded it like refuse, casually tossing it into the porcelain urn. She turned, walked to another black-robed figure, and looked down at him, "What about you, are you willing to speak?"
"You deserve ten thousand deaths!"
The black-robed man glared at Nan Shiying, his voice sharp as a knife. "I offer my blood to the Spider God. The day the Spider God descends, that will be the day you die!"
With that, the black-robed man bit off his tongue.
"And you lot?"
She turned her head, looking at the other black-robed figures.
"You deserve ten thousand deaths!"
"Spider God, in your grace..."
"I offer my soul..."
A chorus of curses erupted, each laden with the malevolent intent of the world's sins, echoing in the cave like the whispers of demons, chilling one to the bone.
Nan Shiying stood in the center of the altar, listening to the curses that surged towards her from all directions. A dismissive, cold smile flickered across her face. She calmly watched as the black-robed figures bit off their tongues one after another. She simply bent down, picked up one of them, and hung him with the man whose heart had been gouged out.
Then, she repeated the actions of gouging out hearts and letting blood flow.
The black-robed men were very tight-lipped. She had already witnessed their stubbornness on Changming Mountain, so she had only asked as a matter of routine, not expecting to pry anything from their mouths. Weren't there others?
She turned her gaze to the burly men lying at the cave entrance.
Witnessing the hellish scene unfolding on the altar, the burly men were petrified. Seeing this devil-like person holding a bloodied dagger and walking towards them step by step, they trembled even more violently.
Nan Shiying stopped. Blood "drip, drip, dripped" from the dagger onto the ground. She slowly squatted down and wiped the dagger on a man's clothes, managing to scrape off some bloodstains.
"And you, how do you wish to die?"
"Do you want to die quickly, or die after enduring endless torment?"
"No, no... you still need us. You need us to transport the urn filled with sacrificial items back. We cannot die, we cannot!"
The man shook his head like a sieve, and before Nan Shiying could interrogate him, he confessed directly.
Nan Shiying let out an "Oh" of sudden realization. "Oh, so you are from the Hengyuan Merchant Association!"
"Yes, we are escorts from the Hengyuan Merchant Association."
"Do you know Shen Xing?"
"Yes, yes, he is our chief escort. You, you know our Escort Leader Shen as well?" Hearing that the fearsome woman before them knew Shen Xing, the escorts from the Hengyuan Merchant Association could only try to foster a connection and speak kindly, hoping to preserve their own lives.
"I do!" Nan Shiying nodded. "Not only do I know him, but I also have a good relationship with Escort Leader Shen. It was I who personally escorted him on the final path of his life, watching him transform from a complete person, sliced bone by bone, into a skeleton."
Her voice carried a smile, yet her words plunged listeners into an abyss of icy cold.
So Shen Xing was dead? Executed by a thousand cuts?
Her eyes were bright, slightly curved, as if harboring countless stars. When she smiled, she gave people a feeling of basking in a spring breeze. However, at this moment, her appearance seemed more terrifying and ferocious than an ogre from hell to the people of the Hengyuan Merchant Association.
"You can live, as long as you faithfully transport this urn back to the Hengyuan Merchant Association. Otherwise... you and your families will taste a life worse than death."
"Do you understand?"
"Understood, understood. Please rest assured, we will complete the task."
"Very good!"
Nan Shiying nodded with satisfaction. She took out a bottle of poison and placed the small, bright red pills into the mouths of the Hengyuan Merchant Association escorts one by one.
The pills melted upon contact with the mouth, flowing into the abdomen with saliva.
"To protect the lives of your families, we require an additional layer of security. Rest assured, this is not a fast-acting poison that kills upon contact; it will not take your lives. However, this poison will cause you unbearable pain and itching all over your bodies on the first and fifteenth day of each month, as if being gnawed by a thousand insects. You will need to take the antidote to alleviate it, otherwise, you will suffer for an entire day."
"But rest assured, if any of you have a backbone and endure it, after enduring six instances without taking the antidote, you will dissolve into a pool of blood, never to suffer for a lifetime."
Upon hearing this, the people from the Hengyuan Merchant Association lost all will to resist. This person was ruthlessly cruel to the extreme. Even if they endured the pain, they would ultimately meet a grim fate. Not only would they suffer a painful death themselves, but their families would also be tormented to death due to their choices.
They were not those madmen; they could not disregard their own lives and the lives of their families.
"We understand!"