“For what reason?” Mu Xueshi asked blankly.
The Third Prince frowned, “You really dare to ask?”
Mu Xueshi did not react as expected. There was no hysteria, no panic. Instead, he was terrifyingly calm—so calm that for a fleeting instant, he resembled the Mu Xueshi of old. Since awakening, he had grown increasingly inscrutable: at times naïve to the point of endearment, at others so complex as to invite hatred.
Then he spoke again, his voice small and helpless.
“Why are you trying to scare me?”
The absurdity of the question only deepened the prince’s irritation. Mu Xueshi’s words were erratic, unfathomable. Was he deliberately unsettling his mind? One thing, however, was certain—the Third Prince was experiencing frustration for the first time.
That frustration fanned the embers of cruelty in his chest.
He shoved two fire pellets into Mu Xueshi’s mouth and pulled the threads long. Standing at the other end, he watched with a cold smile. The pellets were hardly lethal—at worst they would leave the mouth aching for days, not disfigure it. The true pleasure of this punishment lay in the terror of watching the burning thread shorten inch by inch.
The moment the pellets settled in his mouth, two crystalline tears welled in Mu Xueshi’s luminous eyes and slipped down, like a child denied a promised toy.
“You’re only frightening me… I know you wouldn’t have the heart to blow me up…” he murmured.
The Third Prince ignored him. He took a torch from the doorway and brought it closer and closer to the thread, so near that a careless motion would set it alight.
“You slipped from the courtyard and went to the Second Prince’s manor. What was your true purpose?” he demanded at last.
He had stepped back from immediate punishment. Why ask again? He did not wish to admit that a single foolish sentence had shaken him.
Mu Xueshi’s face went ashen.
“I went to save Su Ying. That’s all. But I regret it now. I see that in this place, there is no such thing as humanity. Everything I did looks like stupidity to you.”
The prince’s anger flared at his stubborn defiance. He refused to believe Mu Xueshi would risk himself for a child he had only just met.
The thread caught fire.
Mu Xueshi’s eyes flew wide. “You’re really going to detonate it?”
Silence.
The second thread was lit.
The sparks crept closer. All Mu Xueshi’s earlier composure crumbled. He had thought this was only intimidation. Ruthless though the Third Prince was, surely he distinguished between people. Otherwise, why had Mu Xueshi clung to such foolish hope?
Seeing his disbelief, the prince spoke coolly, “If you refuse the truth, you deserve punishment.”
“What truth haven’t I told?” Mu Xueshi cried, voice breaking. “If I meant to rely on the Second Prince, why would I come back? I shouldn’t have returned! If I’d known you’d treat me like this, I would never have come back… never…”
This time, he spoke nothing but the truth.
Yes, he had wanted freedom. Yes, he knew the prince was merciless. But in this alien world he knew no one and trusted no one. Apart from clinging to the Third Prince, whom else could he turn to?
Futile Devices Scans 
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