Chapter 286. Welcome To Purgatory (II)

---

---

TN:- !!!WARNING!!! This chapter contains sensitive, disturbing or inappropriate content. Reader’s discretion is advised

---

What is purgatory?

An agony that will never, ever end——that is called purgatory. An endless darkness where not a single glint of hope can be seen——that is called purgatory. A desperate struggle where one longs for death but cannot die——that is called purgatory.

At this very moment, Lin Nianci was trapped in this purgatory. Her body was enduring a level of devastation unimaginable to an ordinary person, over and over again, without end. More horrifyingly, her belly began to balloon out like a regular balloon, while those grotesque creatures swarmed around her, admiring her agonizing state with eyes full of sick excitement.

Her fury, her shrieks of pain, and her bitter curses fell upon their ears like a beautiful melody, plunging them into an even greater state of ecstatic bliss.

Lin Nianci, exhausted from shouting, began to cry, first sobbing softly, then wailing loudly. She felt something rapidly bulging her stomach, it hurt, it felt bloated, as if it were about to burst. She was covered in cold sweat, her face streaked with tears and snot, as if she had fallen into a swamp and was covered in filth.

The word ‘holy’ seems to have been forever removed from her. She was filthy, foul, base, and despicable. She was a plaything for these people.

With every breath, she begged for her master, straining her neck to look his way. Her eyes were completely filled with a silent plea to be killed, to just let it end

Xuan Chengzi had personally watched every single second of her brutal violation. His fury, grief, and hopelessness surpassed even hers. But what good was this storm of dark emotions? It only weaponized the pain against himself. His wrists and ankles were securely shackled in iron chains, locking him completely in place. Because of his frantic struggles, the metal had sliced into his flesh, leaving him a bloody, mangled mess.

Those people deliberately poured chili oil and strong liquor on him, then clapped and laughed while listening to his screams with relish.

Gradually, Xuan Chengzi realized that these people’s emotional experiences were the opposite of normal people’s. They took the greatest pleasure from the suffering of others, the more agonizingly you screamed, the more they found enjoyment in it. This was not a group of people at all, but a group of demons in human skin.

The sheer evil of human nature was on full display at this very moment, laid bare in all its hideous glory.

Xuan Chengzi finally gave up struggling.

Lin Nianci didn’t even have the energy left to thrash. In a span of just a few short hours, her stomach had stretched to the point of imminent childbirth, yet those living demons showed no signs of stopping their brutal torment.

Her voice completely shattered from hours of screaming, Lin Nianci was entirely silent when the contractions hit. She could do nothing but part her lips, coughing up thick, crimson blood from the back of her throat.

Fortunately, the woman was very experienced. She yanked back the person who was still fooling around and coolly laid out instructions without missing a beat, “Go get a basin and scissors.”

The group split up to retrieve the items.

Soon, Lin Nianci’s second purgatory began. She was giving birth, blood hissing and gushing out uncontrollably, but the baby was stuck and wouldn’t come out.

The woman yelled, “Press on her stomach!”

Then two burly men forcefully pushed Lin Nianci’s stomach, from top to bottom, again and again, causing her to faint from the pain time and time again, only to wake up again each time. In that short hour or so, she felt as if she had experienced death a thousand times over.

What kind of pain is slow slicing? Lin Nianci couldn’t have imagined it before, but now she knows. And she was certain that the pain she was suffering was a more cruel punishment than slow slicing, because in addition to the physical pain, she was also enduring mental humiliation and spiritual torment.

These people didn’t treat her like a human being at all.

The child was born, and Lin Nianci listened to his wailing almost numbly, her tears long since dried up.

Xuan Chengzi had managed to keep his eyes on her in the beginning, trying to spur her on, but in the end, he shut his eyes tightly. The phrase ‘too tragic to behold’ was likely created to describe the exact scene playing out before him.

The middle-aged woman cut the umbilical cord, examined the child carefully, and said, “Not bad, it’s a boy. We can raise him for a few days and then sell him.”

Raise it for a few days, then sell it. These short, simple words laid bare the countless atrocities and blood debts committed by these people. Had he not witnessed it with his own eyes and heard it with his own ears, Xuan Chengzi would never have imagined that the subject of their casual discussion was a newborn infant.

One of the grotesque creature held the child upside down by its ankles, limping away from the room that reeked of stench and blood. They called this place the Sacred Altar.

The woman put down the scissors, took off her blood-stained apron, and knelt before the statue of the Holy Maiden in silent prayer. Behind her, the men who had spent the entire night in a manic frenzy fell to their knees as well, prostrating themselves before the statue.

“Holy Maiden, thank you for your grace.” The woman kowtowed three times.

Lin Nianci raised her head, wanting to shout ‘you are not worthy to be my believers’, but no sound came out after she opened her mouth.

She finally collapsed, barely alive, but the nightmare had only just begun.

Having finished tormenting her, those people turned their cruelty upon Xuan Chengzi.

They dislocated his jaw as well, forcing a blue fruit down his throat.

Seeing this, Lin Nianci was terrified.

Gagging and crying out helplessly through his broken jaw, Xuan Chengzi glared ahead, his eyes completely bloodshot with rage.

But that fruit wasn’t a fertility fruit, it was a fruit with far more bizarre effects, capable of endlessly regenerating a person’s internal organs. So, without anesthesia, those people cut open Xuan Chengzi’s abdomen and removed all his organs except for his heart.

Of course, they picked them one by one, since no matter how magical that fruit was, it wasn’t an immortal fruit that could make someone impossible to kill.

Xuan Chengzi’s two ribs were broken and spread apart, revealing a bright red, beating heart. The woman’s hands churned inside his stomach, occasionally pulling out an organ and then pricing it, “This kidney can sell for 300,000 yuan, this lung can sell for 150,000 yuan, this pancreas……”

Xuan Chengzi’s vision was already blurring from the sheer agony. In his hazy consciousness, a thought surfaced—— the suffering I once endured in the past is truly not even worth mentioning compared to this.

Lin Nianci was completely devastated, but she couldn’t even cry.

If you were to ask her what hell looked like, she would tell you—— it is right here, it is right now, and it is these very demons cloaked in human skin!

How could they possibly be her followers? Why would her followers do such a thing and claim it’s all her blessing?

With these questions in mind, Lin Nianci completely fainted. The next day, the women gave her and Xuan Chengzi a blue fruit each and continued the previous ritual. They treated Lin Nianci as a breeding machine and Xuan Chengzi as a vessel for cultivating internal organs, exchanging their flesh and blood for a continuous stream of money.

Lin Nianci had lost count of how many fruits she had eaten and how many children she had given birth to. Among these children were both boys and girls. The boys were carted off by the women to be sold into trafficking, but the girls were ground straight into a bloody mush, served up for those hunchbacked demons to split and drink down like water.

When she bore a female infant for the first time, Lin Nianci was forced to watch this horror play out, vomiting until she was completely delirious. After a few more births, she had more girls, but this time they weren’t instantly crushed into mush. Rather, they were stacked together inside a tub, meticulously raised on milk.

Lin Nianci thought the children might survive, but one day, the middle-aged woman placed the baby girls in front of the statue of the Holy Maiden, cut their throats one by one with a knife, and let their blood flow out, calling it a sacrifice to the Holy Maiden.

Upon being presented with this horrific sacrifice, Lin Nianci snapped right then and there, sobbing until she utterly collapsed. She was cursed with eternal life, meaning this nightmare would never, ever come to an end.

Xuan Chengzi turned to look at her, his expression numb, but suddenly a whispered voice reached his ears, “Shifu, look closely, is this purgatory or the human world?”

That familiar voice was like a sharp knife, slicing through the darkness before his eyes and bringing Xuan Chengzi back to reality. As his vacant eyes gradually focused, he realized that he was indeed locked to a wooden bed, but his chest had not been cut open. There wasn’t a single scratch on his limbs, and he was still wearing the same clothes he had been wearing before.

In other words, the purgatory he just experienced was very likely an illusion.

He quickly turned to look at the bed next to him, only to find that Lin Nianci was still trapped in that illusion, crying her heart out with her eyes closed.

“Shifu, you’re awake.” That familiar voice came again.

Xuan Chengzi turned his head sharply and saw Fan Jialuo and Song Rui standing at the door, looking at him with inscrutable expressions. Both of them were wearing military uniforms and had walkie-talkies clipped to their waists, as if they were on some kind of mission.

A set of footsteps approached, and Fan Jialuo and Song Rui immediately stepped aside. Then, the door swung open. The burly man who had collected the toll poked his head inside, scanning the room, and shouted toward the next room, “It’s fine, that woman is just having a nightmare.” Even though Fan Jialuo and Song Rui were standing right under his nose, he couldn’t see them.

Someone from the other side gave a brief reply, calling the burly man away. Immediately after, an anxious conversation drifted over faintly, “The fertility fruits and flesh fruits are almost used up, and we can’t get in touch with Granny Tree. What are we going to do now?”

“Should I just go to her house and look for her?”

“Any living person who goes into that forest will never come out, only Granny Tree can go in.”

“Then what do we do? We can’t just stop doing business.”

“How many fruits are left?”

“There are still fifteen fertility fruits and twenty flesh fruits left.”

“Then let’s use these two first. The man is very strong, so his organs must be healthy. The woman is beautiful, and her child will fetch a good price. Let’s make a profit first.”

“I feel we should bide our time a bit longer. Losing touch with Granny Tree leaves me completely unsettled. Leave those two be for the moment. You can play with them if you want, but make sure you don’t break them.”

A few cheers were interspersed within the dialogue, making it chillingly clear what the so-called ‘play’ truly entailed.

Blood vessels webbed across Xuan Chengzi’s eyes once more, a clear sign that he was recalling those unbearable memories from the illusion.

“The illusion just now, it was you……” He looked at Fan Jialuo, his face full of anger.

Fan Jialuo tore off the red cloth from the altar, revealing Song Enci’s statue, and said without turning his head, “That wasn’t an illusion, it actually happened. It’s a memory preserved in this house. It’s the real experience of millions of people who fell into this place. What you’ve experienced is far less than one ten-thousandth of what they went through.”

As if in response to this statement, a chilling whirlwind inexplicably swept through the windowless house. It had witnessed countless hellish tragedies, far beyond what humans could imagine.

Xuan Chengzi stiffened. He had believed everything to be a mere illusion, but now, a sudden wave of absolute freezing cold violently extinguished the rage burning in his eyes.

“I’m surprised you couldn’t break free from the illusion on your own and had to be reminded by me.” Fan Jialuo looked up at the compassionate and holy statue and said slowly, “Do you think Shishu would be in such a sorry state if he encountered the same thing?”

No, impossible. Xuan Yangzi possesses a heart of iron. How could he possibly be manipulated by a paltry illusion like that?

“Guess what Shishu would do if he encountered his inner demons?” Fan Jialuo asked without turning his head.

“He…….”

Xuan Chengzi knew the answer, but couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“He will not hesitate to slay his inner demons. If he cannot, he will kill himself. He will never willingly fall into purgatory like you did.” Fan Jialuo said, enunciating each word clearly.

A visible tremor began to ripple across Xuan Chengzi’s face.

“Guess how Shishu would treat me if I did what Song Enci did?”

The trembling on Xuan Chengzi’s face ceased, only for his expression to turn utterly frozen.

“He would kill me without hesitation, and then judge himself. Because my sins are his sins, and he would personally obliterate all wrongs.”

“Guess who our Shizu chose as the sect leader between you and Shishu?”

Xuan Chengzi’s pupils suddenly contracted.

Even without turning around, Fan Jialu could guess his inner thoughts, so he nodded and said, “That’s right, the Shizu chose Shishu, but Shishu gave up voluntarily. He concealed the fact that he was a psychic, so he felt that he had shirked his responsibilities and was not worthy of being the sect leader. In his mind, you are the rightful leader of the Tianshui Sect because your sense of responsibility is paramount.”

Xuan Chengzi clutched his chest, involuntarily letting out a painful groan.

“Just imagine what he would think if he could see your behavior now. Tell me, do you still remember the words etched into the stone stele outside the entrance of the Tianshui Sect?”

Xuan Chengzi closed his eyes, unable to bear the memory.

“Let me remind you of what is carved there—— Save all living souls, protect the common people, keep order in Taoist sects, aid the nation’s destiny, promote the righteousness of heaven and earth, and uphold the Great Tao. You have cultivated the Tao for hundreds of years. Now, do you dare to look back and see what kind of Tao you have cultivated? Of every single commandment carved upon that stone, have you ever truly upheld a single one?”

These sharp accusations left Xuan Chengzi shaking to his core. He lacked the courage to look back at his past actions. If he dared to piece them all together, they would spell out only two words——pure wretchedness.

Fan Jialuo gave him no chance to escape, turning back to say, “Let me tell you exactly what you cultivate. It is the Demonic Path! You have betrayed every single shred of the will left behind by the Tianshui Sect’s ancestors!”

Xuan Chengzi suddenly opened his eyes, revealing a pair of bewitched crimson pupils.

“All these years, when you sat in meditation before the ancestral tablets, did you ever stop to think about how they were looking down on you from the heavens? With relief? With pride? Or with utter disgust, rage, and shame?! When you die, will you even dare to face their heroic spirits? You barred Shishu from entering the Hall of Heroes, but are you yourself even fit to step foot inside?!

“You always claim that I show you no respect as my Shizun. But with a Shizun like you, how am I supposed to show any respect?!”

“Tianshui Sect’s spiritual heritage ends in your hands…… is truly nothing less than deserved.” Fan Jialuo pointed to the sky and suddenly asked, “Did you hear that?”

Routed and broken by the barrage of accusations, Xuan Chengzi could only look past the tip of the youth’s finger, completely stripped of his own volition.

Fan Jialuo slowly said, “That is the lament of Shishu, the angry rebuke of Shizu, the curses of countless heroic spirits of the Tianshui Sect, the wailing of all the heroes who sacrificed themselves in the battle to protect the dragon, and the cries of the thousands of innocent souls who died under the invading devil’s blade! That is not Song Enci’s fault, it is yours.”

Xuan Chengzi’s Dao heart shattered amidst the cries, scorn, curses, lamentations, and shouts, and his crimson eyes gradually turned into a dim and grayish color.

At that exact moment, his cultivation finally recovered, so he fiercely tore off those iron chains, walked to the altar, and smashed Song Enci’s Holy Maiden statue to pieces.

---

TN:- Shizun is a highly formal, reverent term for one’s teacher.

---

---

---