Aoife knelt on the ground, pulling at Finn’s pants.
Watching Aoife compromise time and time again for others, Finn felt a surge of anger in his chest, driving him crazy.
He wanted Aoife to become his plaything, but when she willingly complied, he found that it did not bring him the happiness he had imagined.
“Aoife, don’t kneel down for someone like him, he doesn’t deserve it. Stand up, you have done nothing wrong, don’t be afraid.”
Aoife turned to him, her body trembling like a sieve, tears streaming down her face.
Ethan was wrong, she was wrong, guilty. If it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t be hung here enduring this pain.
She was wrong, she was truly wrong.
Finn was too terrifying, she couldn’t escape him, couldn’t hide. Her resistance would only hurt more people.
She couldn’t die either, if she died, more people would suffer because of her. She was a sinner, sinners should suffer every day.
Her body almost curled into a ball, her stomach touching the ground, her head against Finn’s feet, hands clutching his pants, begging him in the lowest posture not to harm others.
Finn lifted the chain around Aoife’s neck, not lightly, causing her to struggle to breathe.
Aoife endured the pain without a sound, her hoarse voice coming from deep within her chest, muffled, like a cat.
“Since you say so, I will release him, but I must take some interest.”
Instead of hurting others, Finn preferred to crush souls, always enjoying it.
“Let him go.”
Efficiently, his men untied the chain from Ethan’s wrist, causing him to collapse to the ground.
Ethan tried to crawl towards Aoife, but was pinned down by someone grabbing his shoulder, unable to move.
“Finn, if you have the guts, kill me. Torturing a woman doesn’t make you a man!”
“Whether I’m a man, Aoife knows best.” Finn did not expect Ethan to be so defiant at this critical juncture, making him even more disgusted with this man.
This was the first direct confrontation between the two of them. After being brought here by Finn’s men, Ethan had been kept locked up. Finn couldn’t be bothered to deal with someone like him, only instructing his men to take care of him.
While he went to be with the unconscious Aoife, after bringing her here, he had someone customize chains to restrain her limbs and a collar.
During the time Aoife had been on the run, Finn’s greatest desire had been to catch her and break her Achilles’ tendons, rendering her bedridden or wheelchair-bound for life.
However, after some consideration, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Was he going soft? Not really. Aoife’s legs were well-shaped, slim without excess flesh, her fair skin, legs as delicate as the finest jade. If her tendons were severed, the muscles in her legs would atrophy and become unsightly due to lack of movement. That was one reason, and there was another: he thought of Elisa with severed legs.
With examples in mind, what if Aoife was set on fire like Elisa with severed legs and couldn’t escape?
…
Although it was the first direct confrontation between Finn and Ethan, they were both very familiar with each other.
Their gazes locked, Ethan had been used as a test subject for injections during his captivity. These injections wouldn’t kill him but caused excruciating pain, three times a day, morning, noon, and night, resulting in his body being depleted by two-thirds in just two days.
Apart from the injections, there were no other substantial injuries, it was too calm, more like the calm before the storm.
Bound to the wall, he couldn’t sleep for twenty-four hours, let alone in such an environment.
The basement was so quiet that any sound seemed loud. Ethan heard the faint rustling of snakes in the cage, rabbits bumping into the cage.
With each sound, his heart would skip a beat. Ethan was on edge, even worrying about Aoife being harmed.
This fool had promised to take care of himself, but he was sure she wouldn’t, always putting others’ feelings before her own and neglecting herself, leaving herself the only one hurt in the end.
In the dark of night, malice could run rampant, and Finn saw the ring on the ring finger of Ethan’s left hand, matching the one he had just thrown away.
It was glaring.
Finn pushed Aoife aside and had his men hold her back as he approached Ethan, his malicious gaze making Ethan wary.
Before Ethan could react, Finn delivered a heavy punch to him.
Ethan fell to the ground, his face taking the hit, burning and tasting blood, with a buzzing sound in his ears.
Ethan was bleeding from the hit, and Finn didn’t stop there. It felt like he was beating him to death. With his foot on Ethan’s shoulder, he pressed down with such force that it felt like his shoulder was about to shatter.
Just when everyone thought Ethan would be beaten to a pulp by Finn, Ethan grabbed Finn’s ankle, in a desperate struggle like a trapped beast, determined to take the enemy down with him.
He seized Finn’s foot, and bit down on his calf.
The bite was strong, it hurt Finn but his foot was no match for his mouth. Finn kicked directly into Ethan’s mouth, sending him flying and bleeding on the ground.
“Cough, cough…” Ethan coughed in pain, blood flowing from his mouth, spitting out a tooth, his eyes half-closed in agony unable to even see the ceiling.
In the haze, he heard someone crying hoarsely. Ethan followed the sound and saw Aoife kneeling on the ground.
Aoife was crying, crying for him.
Ethan tried to crawl over, wanting to wipe away the tears of his beloved girl, but he was in too much pain, he couldn’t move…
“Aoife, stop crying, I can’t wipe your tears now.”
Aoife’s arm was grabbed by someone, she cried out in pain, begging Finn while kneeling on the ground. She knew no matter how much she begged, it would be useless, but she was helpless.
“Finn, I kneel to you, release Ethan, release him!” Her stomach ached, like something was falling down, a hot flow beneath her, making her face turn pale.
At this moment, no one paid attention to Aoife’s distress, not even Finn. Aoife cried and pleaded for Finn to spare Ethan, fueling the cruelty within him.
Finn had never thought of killing Ethan because he knew that killing Ethan would make Aoife hate him.
When did Ethan’s place in Aoife’s heart become so high? Had he surpassed the old him by now?
Finn didn’t want to think about it, much less judge, but suddenly a rebellious thought arose in his heart, pushing him to prove a point.
Finn grabbed a knife, and in a piercing scream, he severed Ethan’s middle finger bearing the ring.
With this cut, Finn shattered the last bit of hope in Aoife’s heart, overwhelming her physically and emotionally. She seemed on the verge of collapse.
A huge shadow filled the space, weighing down on Aoife until she couldn’t breathe. She stared blankly at everything happening before her.
Ethan in a pool of blood, the severed finger, the lonely ring stained with blood, the bloody knife… everything felt like thousands of knives stabbing her heart, like countless insects eating away at her body, like falling into an endless abyss.
The scene before her not only robbed Aoife of her soul, but also briefly distracted the people holding her back.
Finn picked up the severed finger, tossing it into the snake-filled pool as callously as he fed rabbit meat to snakes. The pool emitted a faint noise, disappearing into the screams.
Aoife found a burst of strength from somewhere, breaking free and rushing towards the pool as if in a frenzy. As she stepped in, the snakes surged towards her, coiling around her feet, tearing at her flesh.
The myriad snakes were too much for her to handle, unable to see where the severed finger was thrown by Finn. She could only keep walking deeper into the pool.
Aoife was terrified of snakes, ever since she was a child and got bitten by a venomous snake while cutting grass for the pigs, the wound got infected and swelled up high.
Her family was poor, no one to take care of her, burning the midnight oil, it was her grandmother who took her to the hospital, staying by her side day and night.
Her fever subsided, the wound healed, but her grandmother fell ill, an illness that never improved, quietly leaving her one quiet night.
Her body was too weak to resist, and her family was too poor to afford treatment. That’s how she lost her grandmother.
In a daze, Aoife fixated on the pool, overwhelmed by memories and the forces around her.