"So, you really are someone from Tian Ling Sect," Hai Kuang spat. He was about to step forward when Song Yi Yan spoke up.
"Why don't I do the interrogating? I assure you, by the third whip, she'll be begging to spill everything," Song Yi Yan said with confident assurance.
Both Wang Yue and Hai Kuang stepped back without another word, but Sect Leader Lin lingered for a moment. He gave Xiu Xiang a long look as if he found something odd about her. The longer he looked the more confused he felt as if he really should know this woman. In the end, he decided that he was seeing things. He gave a heavy sigh and finally turned his back on her.
"Let me know when the interrogation finishes." Sect Leader Lin didn't turn back afterwards and disappeared through the portal.
Since Song Yi Yan was given the okay, she stepped forward with her whip.
Hai Kuang glared Xiu Xiang down as he asked, "I'll give you a chance. Tell us who you are and what you know."
Xiu Xiang completely ignored him. A smirk fell on her face as she eyed Song Yi Yan up and down. She rolled her eyes in retaliation. "I've heard many things about you, Song Yi Yan. Aside from your ability to invoke pain onto others, you haven't gotten much skills."
"You!" Song Yi Yan didn't even get the okay to start the punishment. Her whip swung forward within a blink of an eye. The whip that Song Yi Yan carried around was made from fine strips of woven steel. Since she had been trained with a whip all her life, Xiu Xiang knew that the whip was going to rip skin.
SNAP!
Everything around Xiu Xiang turned white, then came an immense searing paini followed by a warm trickle.
Tian Ling Sect is the number one righteous sect? Don't make her laugh!
Xiu Xiang couldn't help but let out a ridiculing laugh. She managed to open her eyes despite the pain. She glared at the three people in front of her.
"Righteous cultivators? Ha! You're worse than demons!"
"You dare to insult us?" Song Yi Yan swung her whip again. Another searing pain rippled through Xiu Xiang's body but she didn't let out a scream. She wasn't about to let Song Yi Yan revel in her pain.
"Speak! Tell us what you know! Did you reveal any secrets to the Demon Clan?"
The question that Song Yi Yan asked made Xiu Xiang let out a laugh.
"You not only have no skills, you're also quite stupid. Your whip has already revealed that I'm not from Tian Ling Sect. How could I possibly reveal secrets to the Demon Clan?" Xiu Xiang let out another ripple of laughter, angering Song Yi Yan further.
Hai Kuang who had been watching from the sideline finally realized this point. It was true. If she really was someone from Tian Ling Sect, then the whip should've revealed some sort of sign. The injury on Xiu Xiang was deep. Anyone suffering from those kinds of wounds would've revealed something by now. Since she wasn't revealing anything, either she was good at keeping quiet or she really didn't know anything.
"I'm going to kill you!" Hai Kuang realized that Song Yi Yan really was going to kill his only clue to the Demon Clan. He didn't get the chance to react when Wang Yue jumped forward to pull her back.
"Shimei, enough! If she dies, we won't get any information out of her!" Wang Yue exclaimed. He pulled her back further and tried to appease her. While this was going on, Hai Kuang used the chance to interrogate Xiu Xiang.
"If you aren't part of any sect and have no demonic aura. Why did you appear at Jade Mountain Range? Why did you help the demons?"
Xiu Xiang stared him down. Her breathing was weak. The pain seemed to be getting worse by the second. It also didn't help that the stone room she was in was quite hot too. Droplets of sweat that fell into her open skin, made it itch and burn.
A chuckle escaped her lips when she thought about his question.
"If I haven't done what I did, not only would the demons be buried alive, so would every cultivator that stood behind him," she replied weakly.
"I would've never let that happen." Hai Kaung sounded quite confident which surprised Xiu Xiang. Did he really believe that?
"Really? From where I stood, you were ready to sacrifice thousands of lives just so that you could carry out your revenge. Think about that for a second."
The more Hai Kuang thought about it, the more he realized that she was right. That day when the mountain came crashing down, didn't he order his men to charge forward even though he saw the impeding doom before them? If Xiu Xiang hadn't forced the demon clan to retreat first, would they have retreated at all?
As Hai Kuang was in the middle of realizing his mistake, Xiu Xiang turned her attention onto the bickering couple behind him.
"Let me go!" Song Yi Yan managed to break free from Wang Yue. It seemed like she had completely let go of her fake sweet persona that she usually showed Wang Yue.
She only made it a few steps when she froze in place. The first thing she saw were Xiu Xiang's eyes. They were filled with murderous rage and hate. Song Yi Yan had seen those kinds of eyes before. Only one person would stare at her like that even when facing her lethal steel whip.
"Xiu Xiang?" Her voice was barely audible. No one had heard her except for the woman tied up in chains. Song Yi Yan felt a sense of foreboding fear the longer those eyes stared at her. She watched as a smile stretched over Xiu Xiang's face. It was almost a senile kind of smile, like the ones she would make when she watched the people writhe in pain from her steel whip.
"When I get out of here, the first thing I'm going to do is use that whip of yours to torture you slowly. By the time I'm done, you're going to wish you were dead."
A chill ran down Song Yi Yan's back when she heard the threat. Unfortunately for arrogant people like Song Yi Yan, fear tends to easily get replaced with anger.
How dare she threaten her? Who was she to threaten her?
Song Yi Yan swung out her whip, ready to inflict more pain onto her.
Right when the whip was about to land on Xiu Xiang, Hai Kuang's sword flew out to block it. When she saw that the whip had been blocked, she nearly blew a fuse if it wasn't for Wang Yue quietly reminding her that it was unwise to show disrespect toward the new Sect Leader Qiu.
"This woman won't say anything no matter how much pain we inflict on her. I suggest putting her under an illusion. We'll have a better chance of getting information out of her. I'll send a message for someone in my sect," Hai Kuang told them. Neither Wang Yue nor Song Yi Yan rejected the idea. They knew better than to oppose a sect leader.
The moment the three people disappeared through the portal, Xiu Xiang finally breathed out a sigh of relief, giving into the pain and passing out.
Things weren't going too well in the Demon Realm. It's already been days since Hua Jian sent spies out to find information on where Xiu Xiang had been locked up. When nothing turned up, he finally gave in to ask Wei Xing for help. With Bai Qing's moles within Qing Qiu Sect, news were quickly brought back.
"The woman you're looking for is hidden deep within Tian Ling Sect. It's a restricted access that not even my men can get into," Bai Qing explained to Wei Xing and Hua Jian.
"Restricted access? Only you know the ins and out of Tian Ling Sect. You were once an elder." Hua Jian looked at the frowning face of Wei Xing.
This restricted place was a prison hidden deep under Tian Ling Sect. It was a place meant only for the horribly wicked. To think that despicable Hai Kuang would actually put a meager woman like that in there. Was it really that necessary? Wei Xing's fist slammed down on the arm rest of his throne, shattering it to pieces.
This means that he would have to go rescue the damn woman himself. Why did he have to go? Wei Xing wanted to tear that woman to pieces!
His brows knitted tightly together as a plan already formulated in his mind. There was no point of waiting patiently for Hua Jian to find a recon group to bring this woman back. He was sure that by the time a recon group is able to penetrate through the defenses, that woman would probably already be dead.
He got up to his feet, surprising Hua Jian and Bai Qing.
"My lord?"
Wei Xing let out an aggravating sigh, then muttered, "I'll be back by dawn."
How many days has it been? Xiu Xiang wasn't too sure. She fell in and out of sleep. Every now and then, she would find herself deep within an illusion. Many people she recognized came up to her asking her all kinds of questions.
The first time she realized she was in an illusion was when she found herself unbound and inside North Peak. Wang Yue came up to her looking like he did when they were only in their teens. He was smiling brightly at her, calling her Xiang Er.
"Xiang Er, what do you know about the Demon Clan?" he asked in that sweet indulging tone that he would use on Song Yi Yan.
She knew right away that it was an illusion. Wang Yue would never speak like that to her. After all, she was the one who screwed up the fake relationship between them when she first crossed over.
The cultivator who had been sent over by Hai Kuang was Li Gong. He was the most outstanding when it came to casting illusions and breaking illusions. When he first delved into Xiu Xiang's heart, the first person he decided to create an illusion out of was Wang Yue. Only seconds had gone by when he asked his first question. Xiu Xiang suddenly spat in his face calling him all sorts of names.
"Asshole! Jackass! Scram! Don't let me see your face again or else I'll shove a ten foot pole up your ass and whip you with Song Yi Yan's steel whip!"
Li Gong wasn't good with women, especially outspoken women like Xiu Xiang. She nearly scared him to death. He quickly destroyed the illusion before Xiu Xiang could cuss him into oblivion. He dug into her mind again and picked out a few more people. They were people from her world. He found them dressed quite strangely and thought Xiu Xiang to be quite weird herself. He didn't dwell long on it as he needed to gather information. None of the people he used worked.
Finally, he saw an image of the once great Elder Wei Xing of Tian Ling Sect.
"She knows the late Elder Wei Xing...?"
Xiu Xiang found herself thrusted into another illusion. She was inside the cave on the mountain where the hunting competition took place. She was so tired as she leaned against the rock wall. Her lap felt heavy, forcing her to look down. She saw Wei Xing using her lap as a pillow. He looked exactly the same as that time when the two of them spent a night in the cave together. He stared up at her without saying a word.
Was this really an illusion? Why does he look so similar to the real Wei Xing?
She waited for those questions that many before him had asked but none came. He just peered up at her like a curious child seeing for the first time.
"Why aren't you asking anything?" she asked suddenly. He merely smiled at her as a hand reached up to stroke her cheek.
Her eyes drooped, feeling quite tired. She didn't want to close her eyes just yet. She wanted to enjoy this peaceful moment even if its just a second longer. When she thought about it, staying within that cave with Wei Xing was probably the only time she truly felt safe when she was in Tian Ling Sect.
No longer able to tell if it was an illusion or not, she watched as Wei Xing got up from her lap. He crouched down on one knee, staring back at her He was slowly changing into the adult Wei Xing. Instead of the usual West Peak uniform, he was in the formal blue attire of an elder. She smiled back in reply and muttered, "Were you able to find the fishes and the water I left for you back then? Did you worry when you realized I was no longer in the cave?"
Wei Xing simply stared back at her.
"When I became the Demoness, I despised everyone within Tian Ling Sect, you included. I knew we were bound to become enemies but..."
Li Gong's eyes widen in shock when he heard this confession. The Demoness?! Could she be the Demoness hiding in a new body? How?! Just how shocked would everyone be if they knew that they've captured the real Demoness!
He drew in closer, pretending to be Wei Xing. His hand reached forward as if asking her to continue on with her confession. He was so immersed in casting his illusion, he hadn't realized that someone had been standing behind him for quite some time. He, too, had heard this shocking confession.
A/N: Guess who heard that shocking confession too? I'll give you a big hint! It starts with a W...