Chapter 4388 — The Secrets of the Hub

He had already been badly wounded before this, and now that the true-qi bomb had gone off, the scarred man could barely even stand. The way he looked at Wei Zhao was now one of trembling dread, and he no longer dared to run his mouth—if this vicious fiend gave him another dose of the same, he really would be reporting for duty on the road to the Yellow Springs.

"If I wanted to do you in, it would be as easy as turning my palm. So if you want to keep that little life of yours, don't get in my way." Wei Zhao's tone was flat and indifferent.

There was not a drop of exaggeration in those words. The true-qi bomb just now had been flawed in two respects: first, it had been condensed too hastily; second, it had not been blended with a pill-fire bomb. Had either been otherwise, then even a mid-Nascent Soul expert—even if the scarred man's vitality were stronger than most—would have been blasted into minced meat.

At these words the scarred man's neck stiffened, and he seemed about to talk back, but one glance from Wei Zhao and he shrank back in embarrassment, not daring to make another sound.

He had always prided himself on being a ruthless man. He had thrown his weight around on the outside, and after entering the dungeon he had done the same, remaining the undisputed tyrant of the prison throughout. He was the only one who bullied others; never had anyone dared to defy him. Even those few who lacked sense had been beaten into docility after a good thrashing.

Who would have thought that today a fiercer one would arrive—one whose strength surpassed his own, and, more to the point, whose strikes were savage and decisive. The scarred man could tell: this was a man who killed without blinking. Perhaps he did not slaughter the innocent as wantonly as the scarred man himself did, but this kind of man, who stayed silent until he struck, was all the more terrifying. He was truly not someone to provoke.

To suddenly kick against such a massive iron plate, to have his fine days of lording it over others end just like that, and to be beaten into such a sorry state—the scarred man was indescribably bitter. A wise man does not eat a loss before his eyes; faced with a fiend like Wei Zhao, even a villain of his caliber felt his heart quail. Had there not been so many people present to make losing face unbearable, he would long since have knelt there and begged for mercy.

"I want to ask you a few things, and I hope you'll answer truthfully. How did each of you get locked up in here, and how long have you been imprisoned?" As he spoke, Wei Zhao pointed at the scarred man and commanded, "You start. One by one, all of you."

Once again every gaze in the dungeon fixed on him. The scarred man's face crumpled with misery, and not daring to defy Wei Zhao's will, he propped himself up wretchedly and answered with his head hanging low: "This old—er, no, my name is Sun Hengbiao. I made my living as a pirate near the Demon Cold Sea..."

"A pirate?" Wei Zhao looked him over and asked, "Then how did you end up in here? Is the Central Chamber of Commerce really so conscientious that it sends people out specially to clean up pirates like you?"

In the waters around the Southern Continent, pirates of every stripe could be found everywhere. Since no unified power governed these seas or hunted them down, they could strut about openly. They could loudly discuss their cutthroat trade in the busiest market districts of a city and no one cared; people had long since grown used to it. So long as the robbing did not reach one's own door, no one would stir himself to meddle.

"Uh... no, that's not it... This old—er, no, I saw that the Central Chamber of Commerce was making a great deal of money, so I figured I'd hijack one of their cargo ships and make a quick killing. Who'd have thought the ship would be crawling with experts—two Profound Ascension stage big shots came straight at me. They beat me half to death and tossed me in here..." Sun Hengbiao said with an awkward look.

The rest of the dungeon crowd was hearing this for the first time, and one after another their faces turned strange, their looks at the man much like those one might give an idiot. The Central Chamber of Commerce was a formidable force; any sane person would avoid it if he could. Yet this scarred face had actually dared to go knocking on its door to rob its cargo—he was lucky just to not be beaten to death!

Sun Hengbiao himself wore the expression of a man dogged by bad luck. In the Demon Cold Sea, mid-Nascent Soul strength was by no means weak, and with a gang of vicious, cutthroat pirates under him, wherever he went he left men trembling with fear, sweeping all before him.

Even when the ship he targeted had Nascent Soul experts of its own aboard, they would not want a fight to the death with him. After all, risking one's life against a ferocious pirate for a few spirit jades—by any reckoning, that was a losing bargain.

But who in the hell could have guessed that the Central Chamber of Commerce's ship would have a Profound Ascension stage big shot aboard? Since when had Profound Ascension stage big shots become so cheap? He, Sun Hengbiao, had actually gone and robbed a Profound Ascension stage big shot—if that wasn't being dogged by bad luck, what was?

The scene had been almost identical to the one just now: he had assumed the other party was a soft persimmon to be kneaded at will, and before he could even crow in triumph, one slap had left him half dead...

The crowd looked at Sun Hengbiao and struggled to hold back their snickers. This fellow was indeed a blind fool. He had already run into a Profound Ascension stage big shot before and learned nothing; now he had run into this vicious fiend—truly, his bad luck was deserved.

"How long have you been locked up in here?" Wei Zhao continued.

"That..." Sun Hengbiao frowned and thought for a moment before answering, point by point: "About ten months, I think. Among all these people, I've been here the longest..."

Hearing this, Wei Zhao looked at the others, and they all nodded—indeed, when they had been brought in, Sun Hengbiao had long been lording it over the place.

"So you were the first one dragged in here?" Wei Zhao asked.

"No, no, that's not it either. Plenty of people came in before me, but they were all taken out." Sun Hengbiao shook his head honestly. Pirate chiefs of his sort might be savage, but when they truly ran into a hard case like Wei Zhao, they were more obedient and submissive than anyone—because they believed in the law of the jianghu, that the strong are honored, more than anyone else.

"Taken out? What does that mean—were they released?" Wei Zhao could not help finding this strange. The Central Chamber of Commerce was so secretive that it had seized even a guest like himself who had done nothing wrong, without a word. It hardly seemed the sort to be so kind-hearted as to simply set these people free, unscathed.

Many others in the dungeon pricked up their ears at this as well. Sun Hengbiao had only ever bullied them and had never spoken of such matters. Even those who had been locked up for several months knew only fragments of the story; most of them, like Wei Zhao, were completely in the dark, lost in a fog.

Now that Sun Hengbiao had, for once, been forced to speak by this vicious fiend, and since the matter concerned each of their lives and fates, everyone naturally listened carefully.

"Just let them go? How could that be!" Sun Hengbiao instinctively puckered his big mouth, about to put on airs, but one glance from Wei Zhao and he lost his nerve at once. Leaning against the wall with a grimace of pain, he answered cautiously: "I heard the old-timers who were here before me say it seemed they were taken off to do some kind of... human... oh, right, human experimentation. Anyway, it was a very strange name, and I couldn't make sense of it either, but it definitely wasn't anything good..." (To be continued..)