The needle moved in and out of her skin with methodical precision.
She couldn't feel the pain—whatever he had injected her with had numbed her completely—but she could see everything.
Every pierce of the needle, every pull of the thread, every careful stitch as he worked his way along the massive wound.
This must be some demonic cultivation technique, she thought, her mind reeling. Something about using human skin as a medium for dark arts.
She had heard rumors about such things during the war.
Stories of demonic cultivators who used living flesh as spell components, who turned their victims into grotesque puppets or ritual implements.
She had always dismissed such tales as propaganda, but seeing it happen to her own body...
Cang Wuhen's movements were almost artistic in their precision.
He worked with the focused attention of a master craftsman, occasionally pausing to examine his work or adjust the tension of his stitches.
The worst part was how gentle he was being. There was no cruelty in his touch, no sadistic pleasure in her suffering.
He handled her body like it was something precious, something to be carefully maintained rather than brutally destroyed.
Maybe that's worse, she thought as tears ran down her cheeks. 'At least if he were violent, I could hate him purely. This... this feels almost like...'
She couldn't complete the thought.
The idea that there might be something resembling care in his actions was too disturbing to contemplate.
She was thinking about him caring for her while he was doing a disgusting preparation on her body.
As he worked, she noticed him occasionally muttering under his breath.
Most of it was incomprehensible, but she caught fragments that made her blood run cold.
"Need to close this properly... can't have infection setting in... where did I put the... shit, no money for proper knot..."
'Money?' The word cut through her paralyzed terror like a blade.
'He's worried about money while doing... whatever this is to me?'
The casual nature of his concerns, as if this were some routine procedure rather than the most traumatic experience of her life, somehow made everything worse.
He was thinking about how much value her body had.
Was he not just going to be done with her but sell her for money?
"Y-you," she wanted to curse, to yell from her soul, but nothing came except tears.
Cang Wuhen continued his work, stitching his way methodically along the length of her wound.
Occasionally he would lean down closer to examine his handiwork, his face coming uncomfortably near to her exposed body.
The worst moment came when he reached the lower portion of the wound, near her most intimate areas.
He positioned himself differently, leaning down until his face was mere inches from her... from her most private place.
Lianhua wanted to die.
The humiliation was beyond anything she had ever imagined possible. This was worse than any torture, any death she could have conceived.
And then, with that straight face showing who knows how many women he had done that to become numb, Cang Wuhen bit down on the thread to cut it, his chin accidentally brushing against her dark hair between her legs.
The contact was brief, probably meaningless to him, but to her it represented the final destruction of everything she had been.
The last vestige of her purity, the final boundary that had been crossed.
'Lin Feng,' she thought desperately, trying to summon the memory of her beloved husband's face. 'I'm so sorry. I tried to preserve myself for you, but I failed. I failed in everything.'
As Cang Wuhen sat back to examine his completed work, Lianhua could only stare at the ceiling of the cave and wonder what fresh hell awaited her next.
Suddenly, she felt something soft fall across her body.
A white sheet—clean and covering her from neck to toe.
She blinked in confusion, watching as Cang Wuhen sat heavily on the edge of the altar, pulling another sheet around his own shoulders like he was cold.
He was breathing hard, actually panting like he'd just run a marathon.
Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his hands were shaking slightly as he wiped them with another piece of cloth.
"It's fine," he said without looking at her, his voice tired. "You'll be alright."
Lianhua stared at him, her mind struggling to process what she was seeing.
This wasn't the behavior of someone who had just... who had just done what she thought he'd done to her.
He looked exhausted, drained, like he'd just completed some difficult task.
She watched as he slowly stood up, moving his finger through the air in strange patterns.
Some kind of cultivation technique?
But then he just sat back down, and there was something in his expression—relief? Satisfaction? Like he'd accomplished something important.
The seconds stretched into a minute, then two minutes, then three.
Cang Wuhen just sat there, occasionally checking something she couldn't see, muttering to himself about things she didn't understand.
Sometimes he'd look at her with what seemed like... concern? Professional interest?
It made no sense.
Finally, her voice returned enough for her to speak. The question that had been burning in her mind finally escaped her lips.
"Are you... are you not going to defile me?"
Cang Wuhen's head snapped toward her, his mouth actually twitching like he was trying not to laugh. "What are you even saying, lady?"
The confusion in his voice was so genuine, so completely baffled, that it hit her like a physical blow.
Silence filled the cave. Heavy, oppressive silence that seemed to stretch on forever.
And then the realization hit her.
Her eyes filled with tears—not tears of pain or fear, but tears of rage and humiliation so profound it felt like her soul was being torn apart.
Her jaw clenched, her face turning crimson as the full weight of her misunderstanding crashed down on her.
To him, it had been nothing.
While she had been lying there, convinced she was being violated, convinced her purity was being destroyed, convinced she was suffering the ultimate humiliation—to him it had been nothing.
Just some routine task, no more significant than mending a torn piece of cloth.
She had been stripped naked, exposed completely, touched in ways that no one had ever touched her—and to him it had meant absolutely nothing.
The burning shame of it was worse than any physical pain she'd ever endured.
She had lost everything—her dignity, her modesty, her sense of self—while he had been completely indifferent to it all.
"I will kill you," she whispered, her body beginning to tremble with rage.
The sheer magnitude of her humiliation, the realization that her most traumatic experience had been meaningless to him, sent fury coursing through her veins like liquid fire.
Her body moved before her mind could catch up.
She lurched forward sharply, ignoring the screaming pain from her freshly sutured wound, and grabbed his collar with both hands.
"What the hell—" Cang Wuhen started, but she was already moving.
With strength born of pure rage, she threw him back onto the altar and straddled him, her hands wrapping around his throat.
"YOU PERVERTED MONSTER!" she screamed, squeezing as hard as she could.
Cang Wuhen coughed and choked, his hands coming up to grab her wrists. "Lady, what the fuck is wrong with you?!"
"You stripped me naked!" she yelled, tears streaming down her face. "You touched me everywhere! You put your hands on places that even my husband never, YOU DEFILED ME—"
"I was treating your wounds!" he gasped out, his face starting to turn red. "You were bleeding to death!"
"Liar!" She squeezed harder, her whole body shaking with rage. "You enjoyed it! You took your time, you—"
"I was performing surgery, you crazy woman—shit!—your wounds!"