The day's work was done; the workers all left; Vale was in the mountains, playing; nobody else was spying on him; now should be the right time to get some answers from the captive.

Gale whistled his way into the farmhouse, trying to look as carefree as possible. These kinds of jobs were quite bothersome for him. It was rather easy to make a mistake during the interrogation.

He needed to advance with the right amount of acting and indifference.

Gale would've liked to leave it to the professional, rather than dirtying his hands, but since the culprit was captured by him and he thought it would be better if he handled this first.

Gale found the captive clinging to the pole he left him with. With the chains bounding his figure, he had zero freedom to move around.

Even with his Qi suppressed, the iron body provided enough healing to have him some comfort, though still far from healing. Also, it would need a great amount of willpower and stamina to keep sitting on one ass cheek, which the captive didn't seem to have.

Well, it was almost a full day since he had been captured and thrown into this dark confine.

The captive's closed eyes fluttered open, hearing the whistle as he lifted his head. He tried to move to sit properly, but only managed to groan with the clothes stuffed in his mouth.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," Gale said, even though it was evening. Well, what would the captive know? Gale bound him in a dark corner and put all those restrictions that he should have no clue about the outside world.

Time was hard to measure when you're in pain, after all. For all that matters to this man, it may even feel like a week.

All this was quite cruel, to be honest, nevertheless, the real cruelty was about to transpire.

"Do you still hold on to the hope that somebody will come to rescue you?" Gale asked. He wasn't looking for an answer. He brought out a chair and sat down. A knife appeared in his palm in the next moment as he fiddled with it masterfully.

"You know what I want," Gale told the worn out wounded prisoner. "Give me the answers and I might let you off to someone more responsible than me."

". . ."

Gale frowned. Without any care, he pinned the dagger into the calf of the man. The captive broke into muffled cries of agony as the clothes were still stuffed in his mouth. He struggled, though couldn't move much with all the restrictions.

A light bulb lit up above Gale's head as he saw the clothes restricting the captive from speaking. "Oh," he said, acting genuine, "I forgot about that."

He removed the clothes from the man's mouth as the captive glowered at him.

"Now you can give me the answer. Tell me who sent you after me."

The captive panted, defiance in his eyes, though the fear deep embedded in them couldn't be mistaken. Good, Gale's little ploy was successful. All this nonchalance and callousness was to show the captive, Gale couldn't care less about his life and would do anything to get the answer.

Honestly, to the right torturer, even the strongest of the heart would break. They would break, and they would make shit up to get it done with. Gale had the misfortune of getting under someone like that very early in his journey.

Gale hadn't come out unbroken out of that, which left him rather sick of everything related to it. That's why he would need to get this over with as quickly as possible.

However, the captive didn't seem to be in any haste to answer, much to Gale's distaste.

"Did you not hear me?" Gale asked, his voice slow and still. His hand reached for the hilt of the knife that struck with captive's leg. Gale didn't remove the knife, only nudged it in all directions slowly, earning screams of excruciating agony.

"Demon," the captive bellowed in between his groans. "You're a demon."

Gale's face twisted unsightly. "Well, that's not a very nice thing to say," Gale said. "I always considered myself as the hero and held onto the belief even when this damn world was hell-bent on making me something else."

Gale withdrew the dagger, gaining another piteous groan from the captive.

"You don't believe me?" Gale clicked his tongue and lamented. "Why don't people believe me when I always tell the truth or the closest to it? Perhaps I should elaborate.

"My friend, you have all the time in the world. I'm sure you won't mind hearing a crazy man babble a few things, right?"

The captive didn't answer, completely lost.

"Right?" Gale repeated. He smacked his foot in the face of the man with just about the right amount of mercy. If he used all of his strength, he would already be a mess of bloody sap. A majestic amount of Qi transmitted out of him and possessed the captive, violating his natural aura and engulfing them.

"RIGHT?"

The captive nodded in his confines, horrified.

Gale calmed down and the Qi suppression vanished. He pulled his tunic to show a straight scar that ran straight from his chest to the side of his stomach.

"Do you know how hard it is for a practitioner to get a scar and hold onto it even after advancing to Gold?" Gale asked rhetorically. "Qi is a marvellous thing. It heals most things, most scars with time or the right medicine. Even better, the advancement metamorphosis left nothing unsightly in the body. Almost.

"However, this one doesn't stand among most scars." Gale paused and got closer to the captive's ear. "My friend, have you heard of Soul scars?"

The captive's eyes were horrified, and Gale confirmed he knew about this. Soul Scars were pretty hard to get, after all, most people tend to die before getting one.

"Do you wanna know how I got these scars?"

A chill ran down the captive's spine. Satisfied with his reaction, Gale continued:

"I came to this world tattered, broken, and completely lost. The only thing that kept me standing was the hope of better days, the hope that all this suffering would end. So I struggled. I pushed further. I travelled. I loved. I fought. I lost. I trusted and was betrayed. . . I stood back up. Do you know what I got in return?

"I laid my life out for you people, prepared to die fighting creatures of nightmare. Do you know what I got in return?"

Gale wasn't sure how much acting was there anymore. "These scars and much more."

Gale leaned back in the chair, cupping his palms. "How can you people be so ungrateful?"

The captive was left in awe, completely overwhelmed. He couldn't meet Gale's gaze.

Gale collected himself, letting out a breath. "I'll ask you a couple of questions and you only have to say: yes or no. No, even better, just blink once for affirmation. Do you get me?

Again, no response.

Gale grunted. "Do you want one of these soul scars?"historical

The captive responded immediately this time, shaking his head.

"Good," Gale said and added inwardly, ''Cause, I don't have it in me to give it to you.'

Gale cleared his throat. "Blink, alright. Did anyone from the Han family or close to them send you after me?"

The captive blinked once.

__________________

This ain't dark, is it? I really didn't want to make it dark in any way, but without some outburst of emotion, it isn't easy to progress the character.

Happy new year.