The red-clothed ghost who escorted us straightened his clothes and walked forward a few steps cautiously. He was about to kneel down under the platform to report when suddenly a scream was heard from the platform, followed by a bloody head rolling down the steps.
The head rolled all the way to the feet of the red-clothed ghost before it stopped. The ghost knelt on the ground, ignoring the sight and said, "The Eastern Route Inspector has brought the prisoner here."
Soon, a frustrated and cold shout came from the platform: "Bring them up here."
Several jailers immediately dragged the three of us to the stage. The first thing I saw was the racks surrounding the platform. Xue Wuchang, Hai Gouzi and others were hung on the racks. Everyone was covered in bruises and looked like they had just been severely tortured.
On each side of the platform sat a judge, each wearing a cast iron mask. The mask fit perfectly to the skin, as if it was branded on the faces of the four people. What was even more strange was that none of the four masks had openings for facial features, and at first glance it looked as if someone had attached a cast iron head to four corpses.
Therefore, no one could see the faces of the four people hidden under the masks. They could only see four masks with joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness engraved on them respectively.
The angry judge was the first to stand up and walked up to Liu Qiang: "Tell me, how did you get to the Secret Realm of Sin, and how did you kill the jailer?"
Liu Qiang was so scared that his face turned pale: "I don't know! I really don't know, I just followed him here!"
The angry judge didn't wait for him to finish his words, and picked up the whip beside him and whipped Liu Qiang's face fiercely. After the finger-thick whip tip swept across Liu Qiang's face, it immediately took away a piece of flesh and blood, and the dazzling blood instantly flowed down Liu Qiang's face.
The angry judge said sternly: "I asked you to tell me how you came here, I didn't ask you to talk nonsense!"
"I said..." Liu Qiangqiang endured the severe pain and recounted the story of our entry into the Secret Realm of Sin.
The angry judge asked in a deep voice: "Who is Gu Piaoran?"
"He's a liar, from Yaomen." Liu Qiang screamed, "Ask Wu Zhao, ask Wu Zhao! He was specially invited by Gu Piaoran, I'm just a follower..."
"I don't need you to teach me what to do!" The angry judge raised his hand and whipped him again. The whip with steel wire whipped off half of Liu Qiang's nose. He screamed and almost fainted from the pain.
The angry judge stepped forward and grabbed the man's chin: "If you dare to faint, I will peel your skin and pickle you in the salt jar."
Liu Qiang was so frightened that he came back to his senses: "I don't... no..."
The angry judge said in a cold voice: "Tell me again how you came in."
After Liu Qiang repeated his words verbatim, the angry judge said in a cold voice: "It seems that you are useless, so die! Come, chop off his head for me."
"No! Spare my life! It really has nothing to do with me..." While Liu Qiang was begging desperately, Judge Xi suddenly said, "Wait a moment."
The angry judge turned around and said, "Boss, you are not feeling compassionate again, are you?"
Judge Xi snorted coldly and said, "If we kill him, there won't be enough people."
The angry judge nodded slightly, then turned to me and said, "Your name is Wu Zhao? Tell me how you came in."
After I told him everything about how I was hired by Gu Piaoran, how I entered the forbidden area, and how I killed the jailer, Judge Xi said in a deep voice: "Second Brother, I think there is no need to ask. We have not caught the culprit Gu Piaoran, and we will never know the truth of the matter. It is useless even if you beat these people to death. Just throw them down!"
The angry judge asked, "Why don't you wait until Gu Piaoran is captured?"
Judge Xi said, "Gu Piaoran cannot be put down there. Don't forget who broke into the Heavenly Prison City three hundred years ago."
"This..." The angry judge was speechless for a moment, and after a long while he said, "Okay, then we'll slowly deal with Gu Piaoran after we catch him."
The angry judge suddenly turned around and said, "Killing the jailer of Tianyu City is an unforgivable crime in Tianyu City. I sentence you to be imprisoned in the Eternal Prison, and you will never be allowed to leave. Come, carry out the execution."
"No, no, no..." Liu Qiang screamed, "I didn't kill the jailer. Wu Zhao killed the jailer. It's none of my business. It's really none of my business!"
The angry judge sat back in his chair, turned a deaf ear to him, pulled out a bronze key from his body, inserted it into the right armrest of the armchair, and said, "You three can use the key to open the prison."
After the four judges inserted the key into the keyhole one by one, they twisted the key at the same time, and a cross-shaped gap immediately appeared in the center of the platform, revealing a bottomless dark room below.
After Judge Xi pushed the mechanism on the chair, there was a sound of twisting chains around the gap. The mechanism noose installed around the gap quickly pulled up nine iron cages that looked like bird cages from below.
The angry judge pointed at the iron cage and said, "Push them in."
After the nearby demons stuffed us into the iron cages one by one, Judge Xi suddenly said, "Why doesn't my mechanism work?"
"Hmm?" The angry judge who was about to push the mechanism stood up and said, "How could it not work? This is the masterpiece of the Mo family..."
Judge Xi smiled bitterly and said, "Even if it is a mechanism made by the ancestors of the Mo family, there is no reason why it will not break forever. How many years have we been guarding here? Can you still remember clearly? Even this copper-forged iron throne is about to be broken by us!"
The angry judge couldn't help but sigh and said, "That's true... Let me show you!"
The angry judge walked over to the other person's chair and gently touched the key on it: "This isn't broken!"
Before the other party finished speaking, Judge Xi suddenly grabbed the other person's neck and pressed him down on the chair, then turned around and threw out three round beads.
Soon after the three beads left his hand, they exploded into the air with dazzling light, like three meteors falling rapidly into the depths of the prison. Judge Xi also shouted loudly to the prison: "The disciples of Yao Sect have arrived as promised, come out quickly, quickly..."
“Hahahaha…” the angry judge suddenly laughed wildly, “So you are Gu Piaoran. Maybe you don’t know yet, but the last time Tianyu City was breached, we killed all nine evildoers, both physically and spiritually. We left a loophole on purpose, just to wait for Rumor Sect to take the bait. I didn’t expect you to climb Tianyu City again after three hundred years. Let’s see where you can run this time!”
As the angry judge laughed wildly, the head suddenly fell to the ground. After the head rolled a few meters along the ground like an iron ball, Gu Piaoran suddenly reacted, threw away the body, turned around and grabbed the two jailers who were guarding behind him, and threw them towards the iron cage: "Go to the prison, there is a chance of survival. Everything is under Wu Zhao's command."
Before I could react, the two jailers had already grabbed the edge of the cage and shouted in unison: "Master!"
"Don't worry about me, go down!" As Gu Piaoran spoke, he had already risen into the air and flew backwards out of the edge of the platform.
"Stop him!" As the angry judge shouted, the other two judges chased after Gu Piaoran. The headless body of the angry judge suddenly stood up and slapped the mechanism on the seat.
The nine iron cages seemed to have lost their support all of a sudden, and they plummeted toward the depths of the prison. The gates above our heads also slammed shut.
Just over ten seconds later, nine iron cages fell to the ground at the same time. I was immediately bounced up a few inches by the recoil force from the iron cages, and my vision went dark. When I recovered, a fire had already lit up in the prison.
A dozen shark-shaped lanterns that were said to last for thousands of years surrounded the cylindrical wall and illuminated the entire prison.
In the cell, which was about 100 square meters in size, there were nine empty iron cages and a pile of bones discarded like garbage in the corner of the cell, as well as a stone statue half-embedded in the wall.
I stood up from the cage and walked towards the two ghosts. They took off their masks before I could do anything. They were indeed Su Youran and Tong Xiaoyao.
Tong Xiaoyao said calmly: "You don't have to come over. I can tell you what you want to know."
Xue Wuchang said with a gloomy face: "I just want to kill people now!"
"There's no need to kill anyone. Here, no one can kill anyone except those holding the magical weapons unique to Tianyu City." Tong Xiaoyao suddenly raised her hand while speaking, and the cold light that shot out from her sleeves was like a silent thunderbolt, flying towards Liu Qiang without any warning.
Liu Qiang was stunned for only a moment before the cold light pierced his thigh and he fell to the ground screaming. The cold light stained with blood flew back into Tong Xiaoyao's sleeve in an instant. The latter said nonchalantly: "You can look back at Liu Qiang. A person whose thigh artery is pierced by a weapon will surely die if he cannot stop the bleeding. But do you see that his leg is bleeding?"
Everyone looked at Liu Qiang's leg at the same time. The wound on his leg was clearly visible, but not a drop of blood came out. Xue Wuchang rushed to Liu Qiang and pulled him up, then mercilessly stabbed his hand into his wound, completely ignoring Liu Qiang's cold sweat and screams of pain.
Xue Wuchang pulled his bloody finger back from Liu Qiang's wound and put it under his nose to sniff it before saying coldly, "It won't kill anyone here, but it will make people feel pain."
Xue Wuchang was tantamount to acknowledging Tong Xiaoyao's statement.
Tong Xiaoyao remained calm and said, "You can come over here and try to see who will feel pain first."
The move that Tong Xiaoyao just used could be called sword-controlling. She did it deliberately, not only to prove her words, but also to frighten the enemy.
At least judging from her move just now, her skills are not inferior to Xue Wuchang. If they were to fight, it would be a sure bet that someone would win or lose. (To be continued)