Chapter 777: Bloodline (11)

The next day, she was told that as soon as she finished breakfast, there would be a summons from the Empress.

The Empress was not someone who normally called her in the mornings, so Qing wondered if perhaps today she was going to the Heavenly-Maiden Temple event together.

Gabiya had clearly said it was an event hosted by the imperial house, hadn’t she?

And sure enough.

“Have you heard the news? I’m sorry you’re hearing this so suddenly. Your participation itself was decided in a great rush.”

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about, my lady.”

The Empress smiled at that.

But... something about the smile was off.

Brows faintly drawn together, lips pulled into a troubled smile—a look Qing’s friends back home would unanimously say was “printed straight off the page” of Qing’s own face.

At that ambiguous smile, Qing asked cautiously,

“Is there something you want to ask me to do?”

“I did not wish to take you to such an utterly horrible event. I’m worried you might be shocked. If you truly cannot bear to watch, then you should just squeeze your eyes shut.”

The words came after some hesitation, her voice full of concern.

Mm. Since she was putting it that way...

Wait, no way. Seriously? For real?

Was it going to be one of those completely over-the-top, utterly unwatchable, adult-only bacchanals—a full-on, explicit, minors-banned feast of debauchery, put on by witchy women practicing Classic-of-Love Order (Kama-Sutra-Tantra) obscene yoga?!

Mm, I want to see it. How could I possibly miss that.

Qing thumped her chest—no, smack-smacked it.

“Don’t worry. How old do you think I am that I’d be shocked by something like that? I’ve seen my fair share, and then some, of things in the Central Plains I’d rather not have seen.”

“Even so, haaa......”

The Empress let out a deep sigh.

Qing, watching her, tried a careful probe.

“Um, we’re just observing, right? It’s not... like, participation-based or anything, right? I, uh, I heard it was an imperial event......”

“Don’t even say such horrific things.”

Qing let out a huge sigh of relief.

Watching a grove of meat and wine was fine; and sure, even if she was dealing with women, not men, and Gabiya would be there, she’d manage, but—

Her Majesty... mm, let’s not even think about that.

And so, heading toward Heavenly-Maiden Temple in the Eastern Six Palaces.

The Empress’s expression stayed thoroughly grim, the frown between her brows refusing to smooth out, but Qing was honestly a little—no, very—excited.

And thus, Heavenly-Maiden Temple.

A hidden floor beneath the main hall.

Then down a staircase—

“Her Majesty the Empress is taking her seat—!”

A tone vaguely like that of a tavern boy, but much more affected and coquettish, a voice that instantly provoked revulsion; it was a man putting on a woman’s voice.

It was the voice eunuchs in the harem used in official events—the eunuch who attended the Emperor’s women would exaggerate his femininity to appeal for his own safety.

Then, in the wide underground space, the crowns and backs of a mass of kneeling people came into view.

“Oh.”

Qing looked around.

How to put it... this felt like coming home?

The broad underground hall was built in a style rare in Central Plains architecture, with fitted marble blocks.

But perhaps because this was the entrance, the marble had been cut into smaller tiles and set in, so it felt like one of those expensive-home kitchens or bathrooms back home, or the interior of some high-end restaurant.

Not white jade, but marble—the same marble used in her homeland—an ultra-luxury interior finish even here in the Central Plains.

And in the distance, small platforms?

Or were they bathtubs?

At a glance, they were carved with hollows in the shape of human bodies, clearly structures for people to lie in.

There were five of those strange constructions.

She didn’t know what they were for, but Qing swallowed.

What, was this actually going to be a full-on yoga performance?

Qing followed the Empress to a viewing area piled up beside the stairs, in the very back, and took a seat.

And then one ke, then a second ke—everyone lay prostrate in silence, holding their breath, even their breathing suppressed, nerves drawn tight.

She was wondering what the hell this situation was when—

“His Majesty the Son of Heaven approaches!”

This time, a different eunuch appeared and, unlike before, spoke in a booming, dignified voice.

Ah, so this had been for receiving the Son of Heaven.

They were still in this primitive quasi-feudal era—

Or no, even back home, when a principal or a commanding officer came, everyone ended up in this sort of position, didn’t they?

While Qing obediently bowed down beside the Empress, clack-clack, four footsteps passed close by.

From the way the space felt, the Son of Heaven had probably come in seated on his chair.

“Ten thousand years! Ten thousand years! Ten thousand ten thousand years!” they cried three times.

Then the kneeling people slowly raised their upper bodies, straightened their spines, and sat back on their heels.

What is with this atmosphere...

For people supposedly here to watch some traditional Indian ultra-obscene performance, they were way too tense.

I mean, really, who under Heaven would dare watch a performance in a relaxed state with the Son of Heaven sitting behind them.

As she thought that, on the opposite side, behind the human-shaped bathtubs—platforms?—women suddenly rose up.

Even though it was called a viewing area, it was only two steps higher than the main floor, so she hadn’t spotted the women bowed behind the platforms when she first came in.

Above, they wore daring homeland-style undergarments loaded with gold and silver, plus gorgeous upper garments; below, alas, they had long skirts.

Over their shoulders they’d draped translucent blue scarves: Indian-style dress.

She spotted Gabiya’s face among them.

And the woman standing in the exact center—

She was an Indian-style beauty with a red jewel fixed to her forehead.

Her features were a little Western; she had huge eyes that looked like they’d pop out and roll away if you tapped the back of her head, with heavy eye makeup that only made her more impossibly seductive.

She wore twice as much jewelry as any of the other Indians, clearly asserting that she was the head of the group.

That woman had to be Ashiya, the mistress of Heavenly-Maiden Temple—the “Lady Ryeongju” Gabiya talked about.

Ashiya looked this way, but her focus was just slightly off; she was probably looking toward the Son of Heaven, silently asking permission.

Then the eunuch—no, the Son of Heaven’s stern voice—rang out, echoing in the snow-white underground hall.

“His Majesty commands: begin!”

The five men in the front row sprang to their feet.

They were Golden Guard knights in splendid golden uniforms—those golden clothes.

The Golden Guard knights turned toward the upper seats and hurled themselves forward with a THUD.

With their foreheads, both elbows, and both knees pressed to the ground, they threw all five parts of the body down to the floor—the most courteous bow in the Central Plains, the Five-Point Prostration.

“Ten thousand years!” THUD! “Ten thousand years!” THUD! “Ten thousand ten thousand years!” THUD!

Each time they shouted, they would whip their straightened spines forward and slam their foreheads down so hard that their skin split and red blood trickled down.

Then they slid their bodies into the man-shaped hollows in the platforms.

After that, Ashiya spoke up.

“Then, bring in the beasts.”

The Empress flinched and shuddered.

Qing jumped too.

Beasts?

She had been expecting something extremely obscene, sure, but beasts?

No, what the hell—that wasn’t obscenity, that was bestiality, full-on deviant behavior.

And all the ones climbing into those bath-like things were men—dicks.

The Empress’s words suddenly came back to her.

An utterly horrible event.

I’m worried you might be shocked.

If you truly cannot see, then close your eyes.

Ugh. I can’t look. I’m closing my eyes.

It was in that moment, as Qing made up her mind, that a door opened on the left of the platforms and the “beasts” Gabiya had spoken of appeared.

Qing’s eyebrow twitched.

The so-called beasts were people—mouths gagged, bodies bound to wooden frames.

Then the Heavenly-Maiden Temple women took the frames, hefted them up like they weighed nothing.

It was impressive strength that didn’t match those slender arms and legs.

Then the sound of chains being hooked from above and wound down around the frames, clatter-clatter.

Before long, the frames were hanging above each bathtub, bodies upside down over the men below.

It was at that moment that the Heavenly-Maiden Temple women drew their daggers.

Qing was thrown.

Uh, this... the atmosphere is... this feels like some kind of human sacrifice—

SLICE—the sound of cutting the beasts’ forearms.

They were careful to avoid the fastest-flowing vessels, so that the gushing blood ran along their bodies down, down.

DRIP-DRIP-DRRIP—the falling blood spattered onto the torsos of the men lying beneath.

“Om, may all beings be happyyyy, om, may all beings be free of illlnessss. May all beings see the good......!”

Convey happiness to all that exists, convey health to all that exists, convey a world that is good to behold.

Qing’s specialty—on-the-fly foreign language interpretation—supplied the meaning of the Indian chant.

The language was similar to what Amukhaprab had chanted, but where that monster monk’s Dharma had at least felt solemn, this was completely different.

This was witches, pure and simple—snakelike, hissing, like hard wind screaming through.

Ashiya spoke alone, but six voices rang out at once.

They clashed instead of blending, creating an eerie dissonance that grated on the listener.

SHHHAK, SHHHAK, SHHHAK.

In time with Ashiya’s chant, the Heavenly-Maiden Temple women kept slashing with their daggers.

Blood flowed continuously from the beasts—who were being butchered from head to toe—soaking the men below, gradually raising the level in the human-shaped hollows.

Then clatter, they adjusted the height of the beasts, lowering them, and from behind embraced them and drove the blades deep into their bellies—

So this wasn’t porn at all.

This was a full-on grotesque murder show...

But.

Actually? Even better.

Qing’s eyes sparkled.

On the surface it was just cutting skin to draw blood, nothing special, but she could tell it was extremely delicate work.

They were carefully adjusting their cuts so that no blood sprayed, and so that nothing leaked outside the bathtubs, only into them.

And the way they hugged from behind, then slit open the belly and thrust their hands in—

You could see at a glance that they were cutting the organs to keep anything from falling out.

Wow, nailed it.

Mm, Gabiya sure did know a thing or two about slaughter.

Qing understood now the secret behind Gabiya—why her karmic debt went down every time she came back from a Heavenly-Maiden Temple event.

The beasts being expertly butchered—beasts, not people, literal beasts.

They were inhuman creatures with blood-red karmic debt.

So the Heavenly-Maiden Temple event was an execution ceremony for criminals.

But why like this, though?

It was fun, sure, but still.

The amount of blood that comes out of a human body is more than you’d think, and also less than you’d think.

To fill each human-shaped bathtub, they had to go through butchering roughly ten beasts apiece.

It seemed hard work—midway through, the woman holding the dagger would be replaced, and the leader, Ashiya herself, eventually put down her blade and only screamed her evil Indian mantras until her voice was hoarse.

Before long, the red surged and lapped.

The men lying in the bathtubs vanished from sight, completely submerged, with only the straws in their mouths poking up above the surface—no, the blood-surface.

“May all be auspicious! May all be blessed with good! May all people be happy!”

Ashiya’s chant swelled ever louder, until it filled the white-marble underground hall, the echo rolling like thunder.

Priestesses of Heavenly-Maiden Temple, respectfully holding silver trays, stepped forward and took up the golden cups on them, then dropped them with a SPLASH into the bathtubs.

Mm? Was it just her imagination?

It felt like the blood level was going down.

It was not her imagination.

The level in the bathtubs slowly began to drop.

The sealed nostrils came into view, then the mouths gripping the straws, and then, over the recumbent bodies, garments that had been drenched in blood, their original brilliant gold lost, now clinging in deep crimson to their bodies.

But only for a moment.

The blood-soaked garments slowly began to lose their redness.

“Oh......”

Qing couldn’t hold back a gasp.

What was this? Laundry magic? Were they pulling blood out like that?

The speed wasn’t fast, but she could clearly see golden patterns spreading across the blood-drenched clothes.

Obviously, there was no way this was laundry magic.

If such a spell existed, spell-craft wouldn’t be looked down on in the Central Plains; it would have become a household essential.

Mm, that stuff—is it absorbing the blood?

Don’t drink it, apply it to your skin, huh?

What do you mean, absorbing blood through the skin?

What the hell even is this.

Qing’s question, however, didn’t last long.

Once the Golden Guard knights were left completely dry and spotless, not a single drop of blood clinging to them, they rose briskly from the bathtubs and suddenly spread their arms, standing proudly in a great X.

Then Heavenly-Maiden Temple women appeared carrying huge hammers.

A memory flashed across Qing’s mind.

That time, back in Sichuan.

That absurdly tough bastard she’d fought at the Tang Clan manor, the one who’d gulped down poison personally handled by the Grand Elder and started slamming himself into the air.

Back then, she’d been a piece of martial trash so weak she hadn’t even made it a full day as a proper fighter, and that guy had been so sturdy even sword energy couldn’t get through.

THUD! THUD!

The massive hammer blows shattered Qing’s thoughts.

Heavenly-Maiden Temple women swung their hammers with all their might, and though the Golden Guard knights staggered and swayed with each blow, they planted both feet and gritted their teeth, enduring.