The door was kicked open. Before the second whip could be swung, a gunshot rang out.
Xu Yizhou, clutching his head, felt a searing pain all over his body. His ears were ringing as if a pot had exploded, all sounds blending into chaos.
Through tear-blurred vision, he saw a bloody hole appear in the man’s chest. The man’s eyes were wide open, seemingly unable to believe that someone would dare to fire a gun in Zuiye.
Reflected in the man’s eyes was A, holding a gun, its barrel still steaming. In his daze, Xu Yizhou caught the familiar scent of mint again and felt himself being lifted into someone’s arms.
“Brother… brother, it hurts…”
The immense fear and tension dissipated in that moment. His fingers twitched slightly as he continued to murmur incoherently. A’s eyes darkened as he looked at the trembling Xu Yizhou in his arms, a cold aura rising around him.
“Take him away.”
A handed Xu Yizhou over to Gu Xing, speaking in a low, urgent tone.
Gu Xing was still reeling from the shock of what had just happened.
“What about you?”
Although no one in Zuiye was exactly a good person, firearms were strictly prohibited. Violators would be punished according to their rank. Even though A held a high rank, the extent of his punishment was uncertain.
“Don’t worry about me. Take him away.”
With that, A walked out and disappeared into the darkness. Gu Xing struggled a bit carrying Xu Yizhou, but having some training, he managed well enough.
“Who would have thought A would go this far to help you? Tsk.”
Grumbling, Gu Xing carried Xu Yizhou into the elevator. Nothing else happened until they left Zuiye.
“Brother… it hurts…”
Only after getting into the car did Gu Xing finally make out what Xu Yizhou was saying.
“You can call me your ancestor after we get to the hospital and treat your wounds.”
Gu Xing sighed and told the driver to head to the nearest hospital.
When A returned to Room 03, J was still sitting on the sofa, shirtless, with some untreated areas swollen. J looked pitifully at A.
“Master, I heard gunshots earlier. I was so scared.”
“I fired the gun.”
A looked at J, his obsidian-like eyes carrying a hint of scrutiny, cold as thousand-year-old snow. The smile on J’s lips froze.
“What?”
“I’ll find out who did this.”
A spoke calmly, his gaze fixed on J’s eyes. J’s hands gripping the edge of the sofa were sweating, and beneath his mask, his forehead was already damp with perspiration.
The doorbell rang, each press heavier than the last.
“I’ll make that person suffer a hundred times more than he did.”
A spoke each word deliberately before reaching out to open the door behind him.
Several people in riot gear stood outside, guns aimed at A. A curled his lips into a smile, spread his hands, and let the gun fall to the floor with a crisp clatter.
J watched as A followed the group out, chaos reigning outside the door as well. Biting his lip, a flicker of ruthlessness flashed in J’s eyes. He never expected A to go this far for someone he had just met, even firing a gun inside Zuiye.
This was unlike the calm and powerful A he knew.
“You’ve lost your mind!”
In the high-level council meeting of the Eighteenth Layer of Sin, Z slammed the table and stood up. Though half his face was covered by a dark gold mask, it couldn’t conceal his anger.
“You knew perfectly well… and yet you still did it!”
“What am I supposed to do? Not punishing you would be a disregard for the rules of Sin, but punishing you… ah!”
A stood leisurely by the floor-to-ceiling window, hands in his pockets, gazing at the night view of the entire city.
“Follow the rules. Punish me as you should.”
“You want to take all the punishment alone?”
Z widened his eyes in disbelief. Punishing A would be worse than punishing himself, after all, A was one of the founders of Sin. That’s why he couldn’t believe it—A had broken the very rules he had established for the first time.
“I’m curious, what kind of person could make you do this, A?”
“Someone… I want to possess all to myself.”
A looked down at the countless lights below the window, his eyes seeming to shimmer with light. The punishment of a top-tier S drew quite a crowd. On the vast stage of the Eighteenth Layer, typically used for auctions or performances, knelt a man. His eyes were blindfolded with black cloth, his upper body completely bare. Though his muscular physique wasn’t as tightly defined as that of a trained athlete, his broad and powerful torso exuded strength.
His eight-pack abs elicited gasps of admiration from many men in the audience.
The man’s legs were clad in suit pants, spread apart as he knelt at the center of the stage.
“I heard that firing a gun within Sin warrants a punishment of 50 lashes with a soft whip for a top-tier S.”
“Wow, that many? Can A endure it?”
“How interesting—the wielder of the whip has become the one receiving it.”
Amidst the murmurs, Z slowly walked onto the stage. A servant knelt beside him, presenting the soft whip. Z ran his fingers over the whip in his hand and glanced at A, who knelt in the most proper and prepared posture. Many didn’t know that during a whipping, struggling only intensified the pain, while relaxing the body and mind made it more bearable.
After so many years of tacit understanding, he and A knew exactly how to gauge the force of each strike. But this time, the offense was serious, and he had no choice but to strike harder.
“A, are you ready?”
“Yes, begin.”
As soon as the words were spoken, the crisp sound of the whip striking flesh echoed clearly throughout the hall. A fresh, bloody welt now marred A’s bare back. A didn’t flinch, his face showing no expression. No one could see what lay behind the black cloth covering his eyes, nor detect any hint of emotion.
But no one noticed his hands, clenched tightly in front of him, nails digging into his palms.
Z gave him no time to recover, delivering the next lash immediately. Lingering on the pain would only prolong the torment.
The 50 lashes were neither too fast nor too slow. By the end, not a single patch of skin on A’s back remained unscathed. Bloody wounds covered his entire back, and beads of sweat were visibly forming on his forehead, veins bulging from the strain. It was impossible to say it didn’t hurt. As a top-tier S, he couldn’t make a sound, enduring the entire ordeal by gritting his teeth and clenching his fists.
But no one knew of the anxiety he felt when he saw Xu Yizhou being forcibly dragged into a room on the Eighteenth Layer in the surveillance footage. No one knew just how frantic he felt in that moment when he kicked the door open and saw Xu Yizhou curled up on the floor, a bloody welt already forming across his waist.