Qinghe turned to look at his father. "Grandmaster, I would like to begin."
Hearing this, Feng Huixin paused, then he turned and nodded to one of the Sentinels.
The female Sentinel immediately stepped forward with a strange and intricately cut circular key that was a third the size of a palm. She inserted half of the key into a hidden slot, and with a soundless click that was more felt than heard, a section of the black bars of the prison cell swung outward like a door.
The Sentinels all watched the prisoner sitting within the cell with vigilance in case he tried to escape, but Jian Huan only kept looking at Qinghe with wide eyes and lips pursed so tightly that they turned white.
As Qinghe stepped into the cell through the opening, the Sentinel with the key whispered with unhidden concern, "Be careful, Little Brother."
Qinghe gave a small nod to her and continued inside. By the end of this interrogation, he doubted she or anyone would maintain this caring attitude towards him, but that was something to be seen later.
The Sentinel closed the cell door behind Qinghe and reluctantly removed the key from its slot to once again lock the door securely.
With eagle eyes, every person standing on the other side of the bars focused their attention into the cell. If there was even the slightest danger to Qinghe, they would act immediately.
In their minds, Qinghe was someone who was soft to the point of being kind even to those who'd harmed him, as was proved by his forgiving behavior before with the two new Sentinels who had bullied him in the orphanage. The Sentinels did not believe that such a Qinghe could be cruel or coldhearted enough to torture someone to gain information. They thought that he would probably converse with the prisoner and try to convince him with persuasive words that it would be in his best interests to give up everything he knew.
As for why he needed to spend time talking to the prisoner before, it was obviously to gain a better understanding of his character!
―or at least, this was what all the Sentinels who didn't know Qinghe's personality thought.
However, Wei Xiang knew better. He knew how much his little lover could harden his heart and how much hurting someone else―no matter how well-deserved or reasonable it was―would cause him pain and guilt.
But realizing that doing this could help the Order, Qinghe had already weighed everything and made his decision, and Wei Xiang knew that he didn't have the right to take away Qinghe's choice from him. He could only make sure that he'd be there for his beloved afterward to make him understand that this was something that had to be done and that it wasn't his fault.
Even as all these thoughts flickered in the minds of the people standing outside the cell, inside the prison, however, Qinghe was just calmly standing in front of the squatting Jian Huan and looking at his jittery expression with an impassive gaze.
The more Jian Huan peered back into those clear black eyes, the more he felt vulnerable and seen-through. Unable to bear it anymore, Jian Huan suddenly leapt up and dashed towards Qinghe, his fist aiming for his face and attempting to take him off-guard.
Without even blinking, Qinghe caught the fist approaching him and twisted it with a jerk. Jian Huan had no choice but to go along with the motion and contort his body to prevent his arm from being twisted off its socket. Taking advantage of this opening, Qinghe lifted a leg and landed a carefully aimed kick to send the prisoner sprawling on the floor while making sure that Jian Huan wouldn't sustain any permanent damage from this.
Since this was after all an Order sanctioned interrogation, Qinghe didn't want to use excessive force and cause more pain than he needed to. He would do this with as much clinical coldness and precision as he could.
Lying on the floor with an aching body, Jian Huan felt humiliated. Due to the Soul Sealing spell causing him to lose his cultivation, even his abilities seemed to have taken a dive.
But not wanting to give up yet, he quickly tried to stand up again so that he could attack Qinghe once more, but he did not get that chance.
Qinghe had already raised his hand and materialized several compressed wind needles using his spiritual force, sending them shooting towards Jian Huan and having the infinitesimally thin spikes burrow into the prisoner's body through his pores.
All Jian Huan sensed was an eerie prickling sensation over the skin of his entire body, the feeling extremely uncomfortable but not all that painful.
After shuddering lightly to shake off the strange sensation, Jian Huan snorted derisively and began, "Hah, did you think you could hurt me with a few puny pinpricks like this? It seems that you are greatly underestimating just how much I―"
Mid-sentence, Jian Huan suddenly collapsed onto the floor and began twitching while groaning pitifully, a look of surprise and terror spreading on his face.
The watching Sentinels all felt shocked. Just what exactly happened to reduce the previously energetic prisoner to this state, and so abruptly at that?
With his hands clasped behind him, Qinghe just looked on at the scene of the prisoner's miserable condition with an icy face that was devoid of all emotion and lacking the slightest hint of humanity.
The wind needles he had sent into Jian Huan just now had disintegrated in the prisoner's body and completely dissolved into him. The process of this wind energy diffusing into one's body usually tended to be very painful, hence Jian Huan's cries. By using this technique, Qinghe could now direct this wind and make it cause controlled damage in the prisoner's body upon his command.
This was very similar to the method that he had used so long ago to take down the Behemoth in the hidden realm.
Although Qinghe didn't like having to use such brutal means of torturing Jian Huan despite once having had the same pain inflicted on him by the other man, Qinghe was still determined to grit his teeth and do this.
Because at present, extracting vital information to use against Black Fang was of the utmost importance.
The Black Fang organization had already grown into a menace that was even now trying to actively pollute the current orderly society from within. Seeking to seed chaos and take advantage of it, the black market organization had a hand in many disreputable practices.
They not only sold harmful drugs, dangerous artifacts that could cause mass destruction, demonic cultivation manuals that promoted cruelty, and banned poisons in the underground trading area, but they also sold slaves and 'pets' that were comprised of both adults and children, humans and beasts, along with any other creatures they could get their greedy hands on. They also tended to harvest organs of the living beings that they couldn't sell and put it up on the black market for sale, sometimes keeping these unfortunate souls alive to extract maximum profit from their bodies.
The Black Fang sowed disorder and corruption while gleefully encouraging the vileness in a person's heart to flourish.
They had hurt and killed many, stealing lives and livelihoods with wild abandon. They terrorized the common folk and sought to use blackmail and threats to manipulate those in high positions. And like a malignant tumor, they kept growing and spreading, getting increasingly difficult to completely rout out as more days passed.
To create a world without justice where those with power trampled and walked over those without, and to profit off of such a world—this was their main objective.
As such, the Order of Sentinels was naturally the biggest thorn in their eye. Conversely, the Order also thought of Black Fang as something that must be uprooted thoroughly to maintain peace.
Therefore, to eliminate this threat to the people, Qinghe had chosen to bend his morals and interrogate this prisoner. After all, saving lives was much more important than accommodating his conscience.
And so, hiding his inner conflict and distress, Qinghe began his methodical interrogation.
First, he slowly gathered the wind he'd already injected into Jian Huan's body to form little air bubbles in the bloodstream.
His moans turning into screams, Jian Huan twisted on the floor. It felt like every blood vessel in his body was being pulled apart and on the verge of bursting all at once.
This sensation that felt like shards of sharp-edged metal were making their way through his veins while cutting into his blood vessels from within pulled harsh and shrill cries out of him. The thin strands of sharp pain sliced through his entire body, leaving him no escape.
Qinghe witnessed the wretched cries and hoarse screams of the writhing prisoner with calm eyes. A few minutes later, he added on the next layer of torment with perfect composure.
Jian Huan felt the breath in his lungs slowly thickening and refusing to move. The air surrounding him also seemed to decline entering his nose. With desperation, Jian Huan kept trying to breathe in vain.
Although he was free to pant and gasp for breath, none would enter his airways, causing him to begin slowly suffocating.
Black spots swam in his darkening vision as he sensed his body growing laden. His head felt like it was being hammered from the inside, the throbbing pain agonizing.
But no matter how much he struggled or thrashed, he couldn't gulp down any air at all. This feeling of desperate helplessness ate away at him, his hands clutching frantically at his throat as he was on the verge of losing consciousness.
However, refusing to permit him this reprieve, Qinghe allowed a little air to enter the prisoner's lungs, just enough to keep him awake, but not enough to ease his torment.
Like a dying fish that could never truly gain the relief of death, Jian Huan flopped around on the floor, remaining constantly on the verge of complete suffocation, the torment unimaginable.
But Qinghe was not yet done.
For the next step, he targeted the prisoner's nerve endings with his spiritual-force-coated wind. He did not outright destroy or damage them, but activated the pain receptors until all Jian Huan could feel was an all-encompassing pain.
Every pore and cell in his body felt keen, piercing agony. This all-consuming pain was inescapable. It not only permeated his skin, but also his insides. Every part of him, even his tongue, the tissue in his mouth and throat, the inside of his eyelids and ears, his scalp and even his privates, all burst into excruciating, incomprehensible pain.
On the verge of choking and unable to scream, Jian Huan shuddered and squirmed, his body twisting and straining as pitiful sounds spilled out of his open mouth in unintelligible whimpers. Tears trailed from the corners of his eyes and slipped down to mingle with his sweat.
But despite having to bear witness to this suffering, Qinghe seemed unmoved as he continued on to add the next type of torment.
Guiding the air in Jian Huan's body to his organs, Qinghe forced it to erratically expand and contract in large motions, stretching the walls of his innards to just below their limits, but never past it.
A thin scream rang out as Jian Huan's fingers scrambled over his skin, scratching and digging into his own flesh as if to drill inside and pull out the source of pain as he rolled around and beat his body against the hard floor. But nothing helped, nothing lessened the agony, there was absolutely nothing he could do!
And all this time, Qinghe only watched with his back to the bars, his hands clasped behind him as he stood straight and motionless.
Though these various ways of using wind to torture were relatively easy to perform and did not consume much power, no one had ever actually thought of utilizing such methods before. This was because these techniques required extremely precise control over one's power, along with a very subtle mind to come up with these ideas in the first place. And these two skills were something Qinghe had in spades.
For the Jian Huan who had grown immune to most types of tortures, this special and unconventional kind of torment was extremely excruciating and unmanageable since it targeted not only the body, but also the mind.
Jian Huan had wanted to make this cold-faced cultivator fear him, but he was the one who ended up fearing the other man instead. This abrupt shift had what had thrown him off-balance in the beginning, and from then on, everything steadily slipped out of his control and into the grasp of this white-robed man.
While Jian Huan slowly began breaking down due the agony relentlessly battering him from both within and without, his torturer simply looked on with a cold and utterly disinterested expression, as if all this horrible suffering he was going through didn't matter to him at all. He just stood there silent and unmoving, like a block of lifeless ice.
This inhuman detachment caused Jian Huan to fear him like nothing else. For someone who felt so removed from everything like this, there was no way of finding their weakness or whittling them down with persuasion. There was no way to gain a foothold in such an unresponsive person.
And even worse was this unending pain and misery, the sheer psychological torment of it all.
Throughout this interrogation, Jian Huan was not restrained, there was nothing holding him down, and yet he couldn't even move enough to crawl, let alone escape. He had nothing to hold on to and reorient himself, nothing to alleviate his pain or grant him even a brief reprieve. No matter how much his hands scrabbled over his skin, they still couldn't reach the source of the agony in his body or pull it out. After all, the air playing around within him was not something he could capture even if he cut himself open and reached inside.
The tortures inflicted on him also kept changing without warning and left him floundering as he desperately sought some rhythm to this madness. Different methods, each more painful and horrible than the previous, layered on top of one another to create new and fresh horrors, pushing him further and further towards the limits of what his mind could bear. Jian Huan didn't even know what to expect anymore, the reason in his mind slowly beginning to succumb to this chaotic whirlwind of utter misery and torment, along with the constant pain battering all his senses.
Qinghe, when tortured by Jian Huan, had at least been familiar with all the classic procedures and had been able to mentally prepare himself. But Jian Huan lived in terror, not knowing which fresh combination of these horrible tortures would be inflicted upon him next.
This situation felt so hopeless, and he was beyond helpless, reduced to a howling, screeching, unintelligent animal who simply sought an end to the all-encompassing, inescapable pain. The walls of his mind kept cracking and cracking, on the verge of giving away. There was nothing to center himself with, nothing to hold on to, no patch of his body left in his control or free from this horrendous pain.
He couldn't go on anymore.
Half an hour after Jian Huan's torture had started, Qinghe abruptly stopped.
Jian Huan lay on the floor panting and sobbing as the pain gradually receded. His mind felt strangely blank and empty, his eyes staring widely at his torturer with terror.
An indifferent voice cut through the air as Qinghe pronounced, "You will now have a few minutes of respite before we begin again. If there is something you wish to say, you may do so now. We will continue your interrogation again shortly."
Qinghe's tone sounded uninterested as if it was a given that they'd be continuing, that it would in turn be extremely unusual if the prisoner actually spoke up right now. It was as if he was fully expecting to keep going forever, tormenting the prisoner for eternity just like this without tiring, just standing in the same place uncaringly as he watched on.
This apathy and implied cruelty were like sharp and cold blades thrusting into Jian Huan's soul, shattering what was left of his dignity.
No, he didn't want it to continue! He couldn't bear any more of this!
Parting his cracked lips, Jian Huan stuttered out in a very light whisper, "N-No, p-please… No more, I c-can't, I can't take any m-more! I-I'll tell you anything you want to hear, just p-please…p-please d-don't…hurt me…"
Jian Huan collapsed as he began crying in earnest. He didn't care about his pride or dignity, he didn't care about the leader of Black Fang somehow finding him and killing him in gruesome ways, he didn't care about what he'd have to face in the future. All he cared about right now was to somehow stop that horrible, terrifying pain from resuming! He would do anything to stop it from clamping onto him and consuming him again!
But despite hearing these frenetic pleas, Qinghe looked on without a hint of expression on his beautiful face, complete disinterest being the only thing reflected in his dark eyes.
Seeing that even this wasn't enough to move his tormentor, Jian Huan became desperate. His limbs had lost their strength due to his thrashing and writhing, so all he could do was crawl unsteadily on his hands and knees and approach that white-clad figure as he kept pleading.
"Please, I promise, I won't hold anything back, I'll really tell you everything I know, every single scrap of information I have. But if that's not enough, then…then I'll also promise to obey you, I'll do everything you want me to. J-Just please, don't give me more pain, just stop hurting me, please!"
Inside his chest, Qinghe felt as if his heart was being crushed as he saw the man he'd tortured reduced to such a wretched form. This was the direct result of what he did, this was entirely his doing. He had chosen to put this man through all that pain, and he had chosen to break him for his own purposes knowing full well that this would happen.
After this, no matter what anyone else said or thought, Qinghe was very clear that one who would hate this side of him the most would still be himself.
But just like he hadn't shown any of his inner turmoil during the entirety of this past half an hour, Qinghe also did not show any of it now, striving to maintain his icy and uncaring mask.
On the other hand, still seeing no reaction from Qinghe, Jian Huan grew more frantic as he kept repeating the same things even as he tried to find other ways he could be helpful. He was terrified that if he was deemed not useful enough, then his tormentor would start torturing him again!
By now, Jian Huan was already far past the point of rationality, the threat of pain having scrambled his thought processes. Every fiber of his being was focused on only one thing―avoiding more pain!
But seeing the still unmoved Qinghe, Jian Huan felt his hope dimming as panic began taking its place. He clutched the edge of those pure white robes and unrestrainedly sobbed, "I swear, I'll do anything! Just tell me what you want, and I'll do it without fail! Please, I'm begging you!"
Sensing that the prisoner was reaching his limit, Qinghe figured it was time and finally opened his mouth, his tone utterly impassive, "Very well."
Jian Huan froze, unable to believe that he was finally granted amnesty. His lips stretched wide on their own as a crazed laugh slipped out of him. Just two words, but hearing them meant he was spared! He really wouldn't have to suffer anymore!
"Listen to everything the Sentinels say and tell them everything they want to know," Qinghe instructed.
Like a chicken pecking rice, Jian Huan frantically nodded. He had meant what he said, he would do anything this person asked of him! Even if he told him to die, that was still more preferable than being tortured like that again!
His work done, Qinghe finally turned back, only to see the Sentinels staring at him like they'd seen a monster.
Without even blinking at their reactions, Qinghe motioned for the female Sentinel who had opened the cell door before to come and let him out. Snapping out of her reverie, she hurried forward to open the cell door as Qinghe stepped through.
"He will tell you anything you need to know now. His obedience will not last longer than a couple of days, so I suggest you make the best use of his state before it wears off."
After saying this with a flat expression, Qinghe turned and walked away. Without being asked, Wei Xiang followed behind his lover with concern showing on his face.
Qinghe didn't turn back to see what sort of look the Sentinels were casting at him now. He especially didn't want to see if his father's eyes held any disappointment or disgust at how merciless and inhuman his son had turned out to be.
When he had offered to interrogate the prisoner, Qinghe had long since expected that his impression in the Sentinels' eyes would forever be changed. But he had done what needed to be done, and as long as his lover alone stayed by his side, he could ignore everything else.
As long as Wei Xiang understood him, nothing else mattered.
On the other hand, seeing the couple striding away, the Sentinels showed mixed and complex expressions.
As they witnessed the prisoner being broken in such a methodical and calculated way, the Sentinels had all felt fierce chills crawling up and down their spines.
Qinghe had so easily broken Jian Huan apart within just a half an hour of time without laying even a single hand on him. And he had done this by using such an expert mix of pain and psychological pressure, pushing the exact buttons that would make the man come undone, that the Sentinels couldn't help but feel their scalps tingle.
Something like this would require extreme ruthlessness and a deep understanding of both the subject and the means of torture.
Considering this, it could be assumed that when Qinghe had been kept captive while being tortured by Jian Huan, Qinghe had also been thoroughly studying the other man's behavioral patterns and personality in return and must have ended up perfectly comprehending it. Otherwise, how would Qinghe have known exactly which weaknesses to take advantage of to quickly and successfully break him like this?
Such skill and capability was…really too scary.
A heavy atmosphere descended over the Sentinels as they kept thinking over this.
In this stifling silence, Hou Yu suddenly spoke up, his light-colored eyes still fixed in the direction Qinghe and Wei Xiang had left in. "He's like a wild animal. He might scratch and bite, but he's still very cute. No one is allowed to be mean to him!"
At this unexpected pronouncement, chuffs of incredulous laughter exploded all around and broke the thick tension.
Pressing the back of his hand against his own mouth to stifle his chuckles, Rue Xu rubbed his elder brother's head. "You are always so focused on the wrong things."
"But cute people are very, very important!" Hou Yu refuted.
Rue Xu could only helplessly pacify him. "Yes, yes. Of course they are."
With Hou Yu unintentionally breaking the tension, the others also began chatting about Qinghe with casual ease.
"Ah, I guess we aren't any better than that little brother, we're a messed up bunch after all," a Sentinel commented ruefully from the side.
"We just misjudged him. I thought I got a soft little brother I could protect, who knew that he'd end up being a fearsome tiger instead?" another officer said while chortling.
The female Sentinel from before shook her head as she remarked, "What 'soft little brother'? How many holes do you have in your head to believe that Wei Xiang's lover of all people would be soft?"
The previous Sentinel retorted, "But that doesn't mean he's a vicious beast like our dear senior officer ah! Or rather, he might be a beast, but a relatively adorable one. You might get your face bitten off if you get too close, but it'll still be worth it. Sentinel Hou's eye for spotting the cute ones is as effective as ever!"
Laughing loudly, Qian Ming stated, "Well said! So what if he is talented in interrogation? It's obvious that he doesn't take pleasure in it like our sadistic Senior Officer Wei. That makes him a good man by my reckoning!"
"Officer Qian, are you sure you should be speaking about our senior officer like that out loud?" someone teased from the side. "Aren't you afraid you'd get saddled with more work again?"
With a sheepish smile, Qian Ming scratched the back of his head as he admitted, "Ah, crap. That really wouldn't be good."
"You should have thought about that before you said anything!"
And so the mood slowly improved as the Sentinels fell into their usual pattern of chatting and ribbing each other, teasing and shouting playfully.
Standing beside Feng Huixin, Kong Min spoke, "Master, see? Those idiots really are very open-minded and accepting, so you don't have to keep worrying that they won't like your son. And knowing his personality, I'm sure that he'll be fine as long as he has his Wei Xiang beside him anyway."
With his usually blank expression, Feng Huixin looked over the group of cheerful Sentinels, his eyes showing barely discernible relief. What his disciple said indeed seemed to be the case.
Though he had wanted to follow behind his son to comfort him and ease his mind, Feng Huixin also knew that Wei Xiang would do a much better job at it than him. Of course, he had never once entertained the idea of being dissatisfied with Qinghe due to his methods of interrogation. Qinghe was his son, and Feng Huixin loved him too much to be anything but supportive and sympathetic in these circumstances. After all, the wife he'd had to constantly deal with had been even more violent and ruthless that his son, and Qinghe was much more compassionate and empathic than his Chunyi too.
Turning to his second disciple who was still looking at his master with well-hidden concern, Feng Huixin nodded and spoke, "Yes, you're right. It seems that I was just worrying needlessly."
With a carefree chuckle, Kong Min leaned his shoulder against the wall and said, "They are all the brats you more or less raised here. How could they turn out to be anything less than decent and reasonable people? Besides, that junior brother of mine is so terrifying, how could they have the backbone to go against his wishes and not treat his lover with anything except the utmost respect and care?"
With amusement lightening his gaze, Feng Huixin commented drily, "You all seem to be very fond of speaking badly about your fellow brother."
"Master, you know how much Wei Xiang goes around bullying everyone!" Kong Min couldn't help but complain with a wronged face.
As the Sentinels talked and played around like this, they finally remembered that the interrogation was not yet completed.
A few officers walked into the cell and began questioning the prisoner about Black Fang, and without holding anything back, Jian Huan told them everything they wanted to know and more.
After they were done faithfully recording down all this information, the interrogation was finally deemed complete.