The candlelight flickered across Jin Mulan's features as she listened to Luo He describe his two proposed punishments. Her soft expression remained perfectly composed, but something shifted in her eyes.
A glimmer of dark amusement, or perhaps the quiet thrill of a kindred spirit recognizing her own nature reflected in another. She let him finish, letting the silence between them stretch like a drawn blade.
"Your imagination," she said slowly, "really is a thing of terrible beauty." Luo He's lips curved into that familiar half-smile. "You say that as though you don't appreciate it."
"I never said I didn't." She rose from her seat and crossed to where he sat, her movements deliberate, almost predatory. Her fingers brushed along his shoulder before she settled herself onto his lap.
One of her hands pressed against his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her palm.
"How long?" She asked, her voice dropping to low and intimate.
"How long for what?" He asked.
"To imagine such... detailed fates for the Crown Prince."
Luo He's hand found her waist, fingers splaying possessively across the curve of her hip. "Perhaps half an hour. I was otherwise occupied earlier." He said.
"Half an hour." She laughed softly, the sound vibrating against his chest. "You spent half an hour designing a man's utter ruin, and you say it as casually as if you were choosing what to eat for breakfast."
"He threatened my wife. I considered it an important matter."
"How thoughtful of you." She chuckled.
"I am nothing if not devoted." Luo He said proudly.
Jin Mulan leaned closer, her lips hovering just above his ear. Her breath was warm against his skin as she spoke. "Your first idea." She began.
"Cutting off his limbs and throwing him to the pigs. That's rather unimaginative, don't you think? Quick. Brutal. Over in days."
"The transformation is surgical, systematic, a calculated reduction. We sever at the elbows and knees, carving the limbs down to four blunt, fleshy stumps, just enough for him to drag himself through the mire.
The wounds are tended with cold, clinical efficiency. Not from mercy, but to deny him even the escape of deathand to ensure the filth doesn't claim him before we had our fill.
Then he is cast into the pigsty, forced to root through the same swill, to sleep in the manure, to crawl on his belly while the herd tramples his ribs into the mud.
Every broken bone from a hoof's strike, every gash that festers, is aggressively sutured and medicated.
We patch him up like a broken toy, over and over, trapping him in this crawling purgatory. He will not die quickly. We prolong the degradation for months.
Keeping his flesh intact just long enough for his humanity to be ground down to nothing, leaving only a thing that breathes, eats, and endures beneath the indifferent weight of swine we put him through."
Jin Mulan was silent for a long moment, considering his words. Then the corner of her mouth lifted.
"Brutal and lasting," she murmured. "And yet somehow you've managed to make the second time feel worse than the first." She replied gently.
Luo He watched her carefully. She gave a quiet, approving laugh. "I think you've made your point." She said.
"And the second? Give me more details." She asked enthusiasticly.
She pulled back just enough to meet his eyes, her smile widening.
"Understood. You want the raw, immersive description itself, the brutal, tactile reality of what is done to him. The second is more interesting." Luo He said.
"The Crown Prince is collared, thick leather riveted tight around his throat, a permanent ring of chafed, weeping skin beneath it.
He is stripped of everything. Clothes, name, dignity and left naked in a dungeon of damp flagstone, the air thick with mildew, ammonia, and the sour reek of old fear.
Crawling on all fours, not because his limbs are broken, but because that is the only posture allowed. His palms and knees are layered with horny calluses, cracked and blackened with grime.
Scraped over rough stone day after day. His meals come in a shallow tin trough shoved across the floor, cold porridge, offal rinds, vegetable peelings.
Letting him buries his face in it, lapping with his tongue because to use his hands would earn a boot to his ribs. Or maybe you can use a whip too.
He squats in the corner to relieve himself.
Voiding like a beast, and is made to lie in the puddle until she sees fit to hose him down with icy water.
And her master scrubs him with a stiff bristle brush that leaves his skin raw and bleeding all the time after a bath.
And when her fury rises, when the world outside presses in, when her patience frays, she calls him with a single, sharp whistle like calling a beast.
He drags himself to her feet, head bowed, spine curved, tailbone tucked between his thighs. This takes time, yes. But not too much time. I will make sure of it.
She uses him then. A kick to his flank to hear the air leave his lungs, the heel of her boot ground into his fingers until the knuckles crack.
The leash yanked so hard his head snaps back and his throat constricts around the collar. She beats him with a riding crop across his shoulders, his flanks, his exposed backside.
These leaving welts that bloom purple and black. She stitches the gashes herself with curved needle and catgut, swabs them with alcohol, forces medication down his throat, not to ease his suffering.
But to keep his flesh viable for the next session. She drags him by the collar across the stones until his knees split open, then she bandages them, feeds him painkillers, and returns him to his corner.
Where he curls in his own filth, shivering, whimpering softly into the damp. Years pass in that crawling purgatory. His spine bows permanently.
His voice withers to a guttural whine, his eyes go flat and glassy, the man he once was leached out, replaced by a thing that breathes, obeys, and endures.
She keeps him alive, not out of mercy, but because a dead dog is useless, and she has not yet tired of the sound of his leash dragging across stone."
Luo He's eyes darkened with genuine interest. "I've thought about this thurrowly. So would you like to be his cruel female master and command him around."
"Those are only the basics. There are countless darker, more inventive ways to break him, ways that test how long obedience, fear, and sheer endurance can keep a man standing."
"And if he ever comes close to death, I'll happily play the veterinarian, dragging him back from the brink just so he can be put through it all again."
She gave him a small, almost amused look. "You know I'm not exactly going to lecture you about being cruel. I enjoy myself when someone has genuinely earned it."
"I've tortured people before, and I've killed more people than either of us could count. If someone hurts my people, threatens the ones I love, or actually puts me in danger, then I normally don't lose much sleep over making them suffer."
She paused, then lightly nudged him with her shoulder. "And yes, I know you enjoy the darker side of things. I married you knowing that. I'm hardly going to start clutching my pearls now."
Her expression greatly softened. "But this particular one? I don't know. He threatened me. He talked about what he wanted to do to me, and believe me, I haven't forgotten."
"If he'd actually tried, if he'd put his hands on me or on anyone I loved, I probably you will be the one asking me to stop because what I have on mind won't be pretty."
"But he never got the chance. We stopped him first. He's already beaten. Neutralized. He can't hurt me anymore." She shrugged. "So I don't have enough hatred for him to want that much suffering."
"I can punish him. I can enjoy watching him squirm a little."
A teasing smile touched her lips. "But turning him into a crawling, broken thing for years? Darling, you've apparently got a much larger grudge against him than I do."
She leaned closer, her tone becoming playful again. "So please, by all means, keep your wonderfully imagination. I'm not asking you to become soft." She smiled.
"I'm just saying that this particular victim doesn't seem to have earned the deluxe package." His hand tightened on her waist, pulling her closer until there was no space left between them.
"So do you have any better ideas, then?" Luo He asked knowing his wife was feeling uncomfortable following him along the path their currently talking.