Chapter 12: You Tell Me!
A flash of blade light severed the iron bars of the dungeon, which clattered to the ground in pieces.
The Soul Speaker kept her head lowered, her gray-white hair disheveled and messy. The clothes she wore were of coarse fabric, their original color indistinguishable, with the hem frayed into threads and strips of cloth.
Su Xiao could only hear murmurs coming from the Soul Speaker’s mouth, a sound like a mix of many voices.
“Soul Speaker?”
Su Xiao stood beside the Soul Speaker. Hearing his voice, she stopped murmuring, clasped her hands together, and remained with her head down.
“Take her away.”
Su Xiao received a mission prompt.
[Awakening Mission: Soul Speaker First Ring (Completed).]
[You have gained 2 True Attribute Points.]
[The Hunter must obtain key clues from the Soul Speaker to activate the Awakening Mission (Second Ring).]
The young adjutant stepped forward upon hearing this. She glanced at the large cloth bag in her hand, then at the Soul Speaker, ultimately deciding against stuffing her inside. Though she tried to hide it, Su Xiao noticed she clearly loathed this Soul Speaker and seemed to recognize her.
Earlier, Su Xiao had asked the young adjutant if she’d heard of the Soul Speaker, and she’d replied she never had.
“Old lady, can you hear me?”
The young adjutant forced a strained smile.
“...”
The Soul Speaker kept her head down, silent.
“Had dinner? Ate meat? The kind boiled in a huge pot? Bubbling and gurgling, with red broth?”
The young adjutant’s questions were oddly specific this time.
“...”
“How old are you, ma’am?”
“...”
“****!”
The young adjutant muttered something, her sweet little mouth spewing honeyed ‘greetings’ at the Soul Speaker before reaching out to grab her shoulder.
The instant she touched her, the adjutant’s body froze. The veins on her neck bulged blue, and her teeth ground together with a crackling sound.
After a few seconds, she staggered back a few steps, raising a hand to touch her head. Just moments ago, a terrifying murmuring had echoed in her ears, as if it would peel back her skin and skull, making every muscle and blood vessel in her body bloom like a flower.
Thankfully, it was all just an illusion. Yet even so, those few seconds left an indelible mark on the battle-hardened adjutant.
She turned her head to look at Su Xiao. He was leaning against the dungeon’s iron bars, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, with a dark-blue bald eagle perched nearby.
“Damn it.”
The young adjutant circled the Soul Speaker. This old hag couldn’t be touched—the sensation just now was too horrifying.
“Old hag, you did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
She circled behind the Soul Speaker, who still kept her head down, silent.
“Fine.”
With those words, the adjutant lunged forward two steps and kicked the Soul Speaker squarely in the lower back.
“Keep playing mysterious, will you? Think being a divine stick makes you special? Keep mumbling nonsense, and I’ll make you boil meat in that big pot again!”
The adjutant prepared to kick again. If she hadn’t known who the Soul Speaker was before, seeing this old hag now made everything clear.
She truly hadn’t heard of the Soul Speaker before—it was classified. But upon seeing her appearance and attire, she recalled a classified mission from a few years ago.
“Hey hey, calm down, girl.”
Baha quickly stepped in to stop the adjutant from continuing her assault.
“Don’t stop me. I’m kicking this old hag to death today. I recognize her now.”
The adjutant had already realized that as long as she didn’t make direct skin contact with the Soul Speaker, she wouldn’t experience that ‘terrible skull-opening’ sensation.
“Calm down. We’re civilized people.”
Baha temporarily soothed the adjutant and strode over to the Soul Speaker.
“This old… lady, anything you want to say?”
Baha’s tone was friendly. The Soul Speaker, who had just been kicked to the ground, climbed back up. She glanced at the adjutant, her contempt undisguised.
“You…”
The adjutant, known as the female lunatic of the Ninth Unit, was about to kick again. Seeing this, the Soul Speaker’s eyes showed a hint of wariness. She wasn’t nearly as mysterious as she appeared—otherwise, how could she have become Ying Hou’s prisoner? Ying Hou might not dare to kill her, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t capture her.
“Calm down!”
Baha barked. The adjutant reluctantly turned around, crossing her arms. As she turned, her expression shifted repeatedly, almost making her shout, ‘That hurt like hell just now!’
“Soul Speaker, you know what we want to know. Don’t play tricks—it won’t stop us from killing you.”
Baha continued trying to negotiate.
“You… have no right. Even the Holy King… has no right.”
The Soul Speaker finally spoke. However, she clearly didn’t grasp the situation. Ying Hou, Moon Woman, and the Old Holy King hadn’t touched her because of her special status—they were rulers, and killing the Soul Speaker would be a major scandal, as there was only one per generation.
“Beat her! Beat her to death!”
Baha roared. The Soul Speaker was visibly stunned, and so was the adjutant, but a grin slowly spread across her face. This old hag had just schemed against her, and she was already fed up.
“Mere mortals, do you realize you’re offending…”
Bang!
The adjutant kicked the Soul Speaker flying.
“Don’t think I don’t know about the crap you’ve pulled. That incident at Liexi Port last time—that was you. A whole village of civilians vanished into thin air. That rotten meat in the big pot was them. I know the smell of cooked human flesh.”
The adjutant kicked the Soul Speaker again. The old hag, lying on the ground, truly hadn’t expected these people to dare hit her, and she was momentarily stunned.
“Stop, stop, stop! With her old bones, a few more kicks from you and she’s dead.”
Baha now played the good cop. Though he and the adjutant had never coordinated, their good cop, bad cop routine was seamless.
“This old thing is no good. Don’t be polite with her. I’ve seen her boil a few-year-old child and eat it. Look at the tattoo on her face—I never forget that. She’s got an identical one on her hand.”
The adjutant pulled a thin, guardless long dagger from her calf and sliced open the Soul Speaker’s sleeve. Sure enough, on the back of the Soul Speaker’s right hand was a diamond-shaped tattoo.
“Back during the classified mission at Liexi Port, it wasn’t just me—Luo Luolan, Big Head Axe, Xiao, and Kadilu all saw her cooking human flesh.”
The adjutant raised the dagger and stabbed it straight through the Soul Speaker’s arm.
“Ah!”
The Soul Speaker let out a piercing scream, shrill and grating.
“You… mortals…”
Hearing this, the adjutant grinned even wider, revealing her sharp little canine teeth.
“Still playing the divine stick.”
“You mortals… what do you want to ask!”
The Soul Speaker roared in indignation. These people had come in, started questioning her, kicked and stabbed her, but never said what they actually wanted to know.
Baha: “…”
Young Adjutant: “…”
Both the bird and the woman looked at Su Xiao. In truth, the Soul Speaker had a point—what exactly did they want to ask?
However, Su Xiao himself wasn’t sure yet. The prompt read: ‘Obtain key clues from the Soul Speaker to activate the Awakening Mission (Second Ring).’
As for what those key clues were, that remained to be determined.