The hum of the crowd below grew louder, mixed with uneasy shuffling and suppressed sobs, as everyone felt their lives were in danger, yet still craned their necks, wanting to see the drama about to unfold on the high platform.
“Bring him up!” Scorpion sharply waved his arm, his voice shrill.
Two black-clad guards dragged a bloody, mangled man and threw him onto the high platform.
The fabric on the man’s body was long past its original color, soaked with bloodstains and dirt; his cheeks were swollen, and a deep, bone-visible wound stretched from his temple to his chin.
With his faint breaths, foamy blood oozed from the corners of his mouth.
His legs were clearly broken, dragging weakly across the rough platform, emitting a teeth-grinding “shush” sound.
“Brother,” Scorpion paced in front of the man, kicking him with the tip of his boot, his voice suddenly becoming unusually gentle, “Did you… steal my things?” His ending tone rose slightly, carrying a chilling mockery.
The man desperately shook his head, uttering indistinct pleas for mercy, his entire body trembling.
Scorpion smiled, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes: “In my base, the rules are simple—thieves die.”
Before his words finished, he flipped his wrist, and the scorpion-tail-shaped dagger flashed a cold light in the air, precisely slitting the man’s throat.
Blood spurted out with a “thump,” a few drops splashing onto Scorpion’s raised chin.
He didn’t even blink; instead, he extended his tongue, slowly licked the bloodstain from the corner of his mouth, and revealed an expression of enjoyment.
“Oh God…” Su Wan gasped, her stomach churning.
It all happened too fast; the crowd below let out terrified gasps, yet no one dared to protest.
“Dispose of him.” Scorpion looked at the corpse at his feet with disgust, as if it were something filthy.
Two guards immediately stepped forward and dragged the body away like a dead dog.
“Next!” Scorpion’s voice echoed in the air.
Another person was dragged onto the stage; this time, it was a young girl, around twenty years old, still with a childlike innocence on her face, but her eyes were vacant, as if she were under the influence of drugs.
“This beautiful young lady, I hear, used to be a medic at the base?”
Scorpion stretched out a finger, gently caressing the girl’s cheek; she showed no reaction, like an exquisite puppet.
“What a pity, secretly treating those who shouldn’t live behind my back, and not even collecting the ‘taxes’ I stipulated.
This, this seriously violated my rules.”
“She… she was saving people…” Someone in the crowd mumbled softly.
Scorpion’s gaze, like poisoned arrows, instantly pierced through the crowd, locking onto where the sound came from: “Oh? Bring him up!”
A middle-aged man wearing a worn-out gray coat was roughly pulled out of the crowd by two guards and shoved onto the high platform.
His face was ashen, his legs trembled so much he could barely stand, and his eyes were filled with terror.
“It seems we have a hero overflowing with a sense of justice here.” Scorpion grinned, revealing his stark white teeth.
“Since you sympathize with her so much, why not…” He shoved the blood-stained scorpion-tail dagger into the middle-aged man’s trembling hand.
“You decide her fate.
Kill her, and you and your family will receive an extra month’s food ration; let her go, and both of you will go to meet the King of Hell right now.
Choose, I’ll give you three seconds.”
The middle-aged man gripped the dagger, his hand shaking like a withered leaf in the wind, the cold metal almost slipping from his sweaty grasp.
He looked at the expressionless girl, then at the dense crowd below, despair and struggle flashing alternately in his eyes.
The middle-aged man’s hand shook like a sieve, his eyes filled with despair and struggle.
“Three!” Scorpion’s voice whipped at everyone’s hearts like a lash.
The crowd below was dead silent, as if their breaths had been choked off.
“Two!” The smile on his face widened, carrying a bloodthirsty excitement.
The middle-aged man’s hand, gripping the dagger, trembled almost uncontrollably, sweat rolling from his temples and splattering onto the dusty platform.
Su Wan felt her heart clench with the countdown, almost leaping from her throat.
In the crowd, some had already closed their eyes in unbearable agony, while more stared wide-eyed, a mix of fear and reluctance.
“One word is about to come out, hero!” Scorpion dragged out his words, as if savoring the final anticipation before a delicious meal.
“No—!” A shrill, distorted roar erupted from the middle-aged man’s throat.
He violently squeezed his eyes shut, as if using all his strength, and haphazardly thrust the dagger in his hand forward!
“Thud!”
It was the sound of a blade piercing flesh, dull and clear.
The girl didn’t even let out a proper scream, only a brief muffled groan from her throat.
Her body seemed to have been drained of all bones, and she softly pitched forward.
“Thump.”
She fell to the ground, her forehead hitting the rough wooden planks, and then there was no sound.
Crimson blood, like an ominous flower, quickly bloomed beneath her, staining the dirty wood.
The middle-aged man let go as if burned, the dagger clattering to the ground, the bloodstains on it glaringly bright in the dim light.
His knees buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, staring blankly at his hands, as if they were stained with something that could never be washed away.
Below, there was a collective gasp.
Someone let out a suppressed sob, but then abruptly fell silent under Scorpion’s sweeping gaze.
Just then, a sharp, piercing burst of laughter shattered the frozen silence.
Scorpion laughed, bending over backward, even applauding exaggeratedly!
“Hahahaha! Good! Excellent!”
His gaze swept over every terrified face in the crowd below, his voice filled with morbid excitement.
“All of you, look closely!”
“This is the kind of mind you need to survive in the apocalypse!”
He kicked away the bloody dagger at his feet, spittle flying with his roar.
“The strong prey on the weak! Survival of the fittest!”
“You useless bunch, all of you learn from this!”
“Haha, well acted, well acted!”
The smile on Scorpion’s face grew even more bizarre as he walked step by step towards the middle-aged man slumped on the ground, deliberately kicking the fallen dagger with the tip of his boot, producing a crisp clinking sound.
“Look at you, your hand is shaking like this, you can’t even kill someone cleanly.”
He bent down, his voice low, yet it clearly reached everyone’s ears.
“Just now, were you thinking, ‘As long as I kill her, I can survive’?”
The middle-aged man suddenly looked up, his bloodshot eyes filled with terror.
“And did you still think you were quite clever, choosing a path to survival?”
Scorpion clicked his tongue twice, shaking his head, as if looking at an ignorant child.
In the crowd below, someone instinctively took a step back, as if wanting to distance themselves from this devil.
“What a pity, hero.”