Pain was fire, scorching his nerves and searing his reason. Two silent orcs half-dragged, half-carried Gu Liang to the bitter-smelling fence surrounding the Medicine Woman's small courtyard, where they dumped him like a sack of trash.The herbalist emerged at the commotion. Seeing Gu Liang's blood-soaked, contorted hand and his face twisted beyond recognition, her wrinkled features remained expressionless. She merely clicked her tongue, muttered "Trouble," and gestured for them to carry him into a storage shed in the courtyard.
No comfort, no sympathy—only routine, businesslike treatment. The herbalist worked with brutal efficiency: rinsing the wounds with a more potent, stinging solution, scraping away the rotten flesh, reapplying a thick layer of deep green ointment, then roughly securing it with broad leaves and tough bark.The pain nearly knocked Gu Liang unconscious. Cold sweat soaked through his tattered clothes, but he clenched his teeth, refusing to utter a single cry.
Those eyes, once filled with fear, unease, and occasional glimmers of light, now held only the lifeless ashes of death, with a single crimson, wildly flickering flame burning deep within the ashes.
Hatred.
What A Lie crushed underfoot wasn't just the clay pot and his hand—it was the pitiful sliver of hope he'd painstakingly preserved, the fledgling illusion of "worth" that had just begun to sprout. Must one live to hate? Emma's words carved like an icy chisel, etching those two characters deep into his nearly still heart.
He was left in the medicine woman's side hut, forgotten by all. She tended only his wounds, nothing else. Food came each evening: a piece of jerky hard enough to shatter teeth and a small bowl of water, tossed in by an apprentice. His wounds healed slowly amid excruciating pain, his body tormented by hunger and weakness.
During this time, Fang Claw had sneaked in to see him once, slipping him a small piece of charred meat wrapped in leaves. His face was etched with guilt and fear. "I'm sorry, Gu Liang... I... I couldn't..." He stammered incoherently, clearly terrified by A Lie's brutality.
Gu Liang didn't take the meat. He just stared at him with those lifeless eyes, making Lao Zhao's heart race. Finally, he awkwardly dropped the food and ran away.
Hope from others? Kindness? It was all fake, all fragile. Only hatred was real—it belonged to him alone, something A Lie could never completely destroy.
He no longer anticipated Emma's arrival, nor did he dwell on her cryptic actions and words. Whatever her purpose, she had failed to prevent this catastrophe. Her "guidance" and "protection" proved utterly powerless against absolute force and malice.
Days later, the wounds ceased their relentless agony, settling into a dull ache and itch. Gu Liang struggled to sit up, leaning against the cold earthen wall. He stared at his tightly bandaged hand, his eyes holding no joy at recovery, only cold calculation.
Could this hand still knead leather? Could it still grip a knife? Could it still... wield a weapon?
He slowly shuffled to the hut's entrance and peered through the crack. He watched the herbalist drying medicinal herbs in the courtyard, sorting them, pounding them, and simmering them. His gaze was like that of the most voracious apprentice, fixated on every step, every herb's appearance and scent (sniffing whenever possible), and the different ointments the herbalist occasionally applied to the wounded.
Knowledge. Power. He needed truly useful knowledge, not those flashy, useless "tricks."
One day, while treating an orc with a festering, pus-filled wound from a venomous insect bite, the herbalist applied a different ointment—black, with a pungent, sour smell. The orc screamed in agony, but soon after the application, the rot seemed genuinely suppressed.
Gu Liang committed the ointment's scent and color to memory.
Another day, the medicine woman shook her head at a feverish, delirious beastman. She whispered something to the tribe members who had brought him, and soon he was carried away. They say he didn't make it through the night. Another beastman, suffering only from diarrhea, was given some dried grass roots steeped in water by the medicine woman. By the next day, he had recovered.
He observed, memorized, and frantically absorbed every piece of information that might pertain to survival. Language barriers no longer hindered him; pain and hatred became his greatest teachers, unlocking every latent ability within him.
During this time, the priest's apprentice visited once—not to see him, but to deliver animal hides to the medicine woman as "payment for treatment." The apprentice cast a distant glance at Gu Liang in the side hut, his gaze cold and detached, as if appraising a damaged tool awaiting repair, weighing whether it held any value worth salvaging.
No mention of the skin shed. No mention of future work. Nothing. As if his fledgling "value" and the "deal" that secured it had been proven, along with those clay pots, to be nothing but a complete farce.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2CoSL6ekje
A cold, barren wasteland spread through Gu Liang's heart. This was "gaining a foothold." This was the outcome of the rules he had followed with such careful, treacherous precision.
Several days passed, and the swelling in his hand subsided considerably. The herbalist came in, unwrapped the bark and leaves, and examined the wound. It had healed crookedly, leaving a gruesome scar, and several fingers remained noticeably stiff and awkward.
"You won't die," the herbalist announced dryly, tossing him a small bundle of the purple dried grass used before. "Apply it yourself for a few more days. Now get out. Clear the space."
He was shooed out of the herbalist's small courtyard.
Outside, the sunlight stung his eyes. He blinked until it faded, then stared down at his scarred, misshapen hand. Slowly, he tried to clench his fist—a sharp pain and stiffness shot through him, but he gritted his teeth and pushed until his nails dug deep into his palm, drawing a trickle of blood.
He could clench it. That was enough.
He didn't return to the tents. They were now nothing but ruins, a mark of shame. He headed straight for the corner where the slaves usually gathered to rest.
The orcs he passed along the way regarded him with varied expressions. Some were indifferent, some curious, some openly contemptuous. A few rare glances held an indescribable hint of sympathy, but most were simply observing—observing what would become of this slave who had angered A Lie and been "abandoned" by the priest.
Ignoring all eyes, he dragged his still-weak body silently to that familiar, filthy corner. Finding a spot, he sat down and closed his eyes, like a lifeless stone statue.
Yet within, that crimson ember burned ever brighter in the dark silence, madly licking at everything within its reach—despair, fear, and those fleeting, laughable dependencies and illusions.
He hated A Lie. He hated this brutal world. And he hated... that woman who taught him to "stand his ground," only to make him witness firsthand how easily that ground could be crushed beneath her heel.
Emma stood at a distance, watching Gu Liang return to the slaves like a walking corpse. She stared at his obviously crippled hand, at his lifeless, silent posture, her brow furrowed.
[System Warning: Target Gu Liang exhibits persistent physical and psychological trauma. Hatred has solidified, with survival instincts and vengeance deeply intertwined. Darkening value stabilized at 25%. Trust in Host has plummeted to freezing point; positive dependency value reset to zero. Subsequent guidance difficulty significantly increased.]
"Zeroed out, huh..." Emma murmured, a faint trace of weariness flickering in her eyes before being swiftly replaced by resolve. "Fine. Perhaps pure hatred suits this world better than wavering dependence."
She knew the previous strategy had failed. Soothing words and indirect guidance were useless now. Gu Liang had learned the world's first lesson through the most painful means: value requires strength to defend.
Next, she needed to show him true "power," not petty cleverness. She needed him to understand that living wasn't just for the sake of hatred, but for the ability to let that hatred burn his enemies to ashes.
But first, he had to crawl out of that silent ruin on his own.
She needed a fire—one that could reignite him, even if it burned with destruction as fuel.
And perhaps that fire could begin in the forgotten ruins of the leather tents.
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