A pain like his heart being torn asunder surged through Chen Youzai. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to flee. He tried to run, yet even standing took all his strength. Everything was gone—his final shred of hope extinguished. In such wretched days, he would not last ten more. If hunger did not claim him, the lash surely would.
Tears would not come though he longed to weep. A sweet, metallic taste welled in his throat. He saw clearly the two pools of blood spreading beneath him. As he collapsed, a fierce unwillingness seized him—unwilling to let his seventeen years end so carelessly upon this barren land.
“Die? It won’t be that easy.”
A strange voice brushed past his ear.
He wanted to open his eyes, to tell that unseen speaker he had never wished for death—he feared it with all his being. Yet after struggling for a long while, he managed only a faint groan. Even his eyelids would not lift.
“The day I decide you may die, even if you wish to live, you will not.”
Was it the God of Death? Or King Yama summoning him below? Terror swallowed him whole. A blaze of white light flooded his vision; his body felt lighter and lighter, as though about to drift away.
Is this the end?
His heart turned to ash.
Someone pried open his clenched teeth. A stream of warm liquid slid over his tongue and down his throat.
Meng Po’s soup, perhaps… he thought dimly. Cruel though she may be, the soup tastes rather good.
If this was release, then so be it.
And he surrendered to despair.
When he awoke, strength had inexplicably returned to his limbs—yet nothing of his surroundings had improved.
Alive again.
Overcome with gratitude, Chen Youzai clasped his hands and silently thanked Heaven for its mercy. To live—that alone was now his greatest wish. So long as he lived, there remained hope of finding the silver coin.
In the days that followed, however, he came to understand what it meant for life to be worse than death. This was but the beginning.
He had once assumed this body required no food—after all, he had not known someone had fed him broth while unconscious. Staring at the foul-smelling lump of wild greens tossed before him, his soot-blackened face twisted in mute misery.
At last, unable to endure the gnawing in his stomach, he pinched his nose and bit down.
In the next instant, he doubled over and retched violently. Bile mixed with threads of blood spilled forth, and he began to cry again.
He did not consider himself weak, yet these days he seemed always on the verge of tears. Crying was the only outlet left to him.
No rice. No water. He scarcely dared open his mouth; in such arid heat, one breath too long and his tongue would cling to the roof of his mouth. Beyond the crushing labor came sudden beatings without warning.
He had begun to hate this body most of all.
No matter how fiercely it was struck, it would not break.
If only it would rot, lose sensation—anything to escape this torment. Instead, after days of lashes, his skin would heal smooth as before, only to be branded anew with fresh wounds.
It was a living hell.
They were granted but a few hours’ sleep each night. Yet the countless wounds kept him groaning in pain. By day he dared not utter a sound. Only in the deepest hours before dawn would drowsiness finally claim him—only to be shattered by the crack of a staff or whip, dragging him back into the next day’s torment.
Futile Devices Scans 
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