"What do you want?!" Diyi shouted, her eyes filled with anxiousness and fear. Yan Zaizen's masked figure stood imposingly nearby, looking at her without staring. Currently, the skyship was making its way to Sky Heart City, a location with a spatial platform that would primarily be used for trades, but on occasion, one could pay an exuberant fee to use the platform for personal use.
Tao had suggested this location, but this still meant with the current speed of Ying's skyship, they would take nearly two months. This left him much time.
"Do you know who I am?" His tone was like the song of hell behind the mask. Diyi was shocked, in truth, she didn't think she would be killed, but that she would be ransomed back to her father for a massive fee by this greedy fellow. Unfortunately for her, she was within the Meteor Ring during the battle, so she just assumed this person was simply a greedy individual out for profit.
"I-I...You're his master, right?" She asked cautiously, a little dumbfounded by the question.
"Hahaha!" Yan Zaizen laughed maliciously. "No. I'm not his master."
"Wh-what? Then…" If this person wasn't his master, then all he said was made-up, so who was he? Unless he's lying, but why would there be a need for that? It's not like it scared her, her situation remained the same regardless.
Yan Zaizen didn't continue but walked up to Diyi. Currently, she wore the qi diffusion cuffs, the same one he was forced to wear for two years. As she saw him approach, she backed up with fear. One could see the anxiousness and her folding her arm around her chest, that she believed Yan Zaizen was going to take other measures. Witnessing this, Yan Zaizen softly chuckled.
As if he would ever give this woman such pleasure.
Instead, he rose his right hand high and struck down.
SLAP!
This slap resounded for several hundred meters, echoing throughout the entire skyship, and accompanied by a scream of horror and pain. Diyi's body flew backward and slammed against the wall, several of her back teeth shoot out of her mouth, and blood sprayed the walls. A crunching sound resounded, indicating a few bones of Diyi's was fractured when she hit the wall.
"Do you know who I am?" He asked once again, approaching once more.
Diyi was dazed from the previous strike, her eyes blurry, tears welling up, and her hands held her swollen face. She tried to gather her bearings as she looked towards the approaching masked man with eyes filled with fear. "Who are you?!" She screamed, but her words were accompanied by bits of blood and shattered teeth.
Yan Zaizen didn't answer. He approached once more. This time, his left hand raised, and without her being able to react, he struck the other cheek.
SLAP!
Her body slid across the floor and smashed heavily into some items near the other side of the wall. As her body made contact with the wall, the ship shuddered from the impact. At this point, one could see her spewing out copious amounts of blood, and barely able to lift her body up. She could barely speak as she grumbled some words together that seemed to be pleading.
However, Yan Zaizen didn't care. "Do you know who I am?"
SLAP!
SLAP!
SLAP!
SLAP!!
SLAP!!!
He kept slapping her, keeping her awake for each and every resounding slap, and using just enough force for it to hurt, but not enough to kill. Despite Diyi's beauty and frail looking appearance, her body had been tempered and refined by a myriad of energies, and her qi-cultivation was at the initial-Qi Unification Realm, so she wasn't a weakling.
She could take this much.
After several more slaps that totaled twenty-six, one for each month that he was forced to work as a slave in those mines. "Do you know who I am?" He asked again, this was the twenty-sixth time. However, at this point, Diyi could no longer speak, her eyes misty with blood, her teeth were either shattered within her mouth, inside her stomach with copious amounts of blood or on the floor.
Diyi didn't even try to answer, she had given up trying to answer after the seventh slap. Yan Zaizen approached, causing her body to flinch in fear and anxiousness at the pain of being slapped once more. However, Yan Zaizen didn't strike, but simply got face-to-face with her with barely two inches of space between them.
"This is who I am."
He slowly removed his blank black mask. As he did so, he slowly revealed an appearance of handsome masculinity, light bronze skin, a head of short black hair, and bright amber eyes filled with vibrancy. Diyi would definitely not notice Yan Zaizen before, as their appearance were simply too different, but as she looked at those amber eyes, her eyes widened with shock.
She may not remember how he looked, but she remembered those lustrous amber eyes filled with vibrant light. "Y...Y-You! YOU!!!" Her body trembled as she came to a realization. When she did, she realized that this person was a little older but also a much more handsome version of the reason she was in this predicament.
"Yes." Yan Zaizen said, his voice filled with anger. "I am Yan Zaizen."
Diyi felt like she was losing her mind.
How?! How could he still be alive? How could he be so strong? Why did this happen?
Observing her reaction, Yan Zaizen felt incredibly satisfied. However, he just couldn't hold it in as he clenched his fist. This fist was filled with much of his anguish and anger during his stay in the Deep Mines, it was filled with his unpleasant memories, and he struck down harshly towards her face.
BOOM!!!
The punch nearly caved in her pretty little face, knocking her unconscious almost immediately, and slammed her violently into the wall. This time, the wall was imprinted with her outline, and several sounds of shattered bones resounded a lot deeper than before.
"Tao!" He shouted, calming his breathing and feeling liberated slightly. He could feel his Dao reaching a particular point, but he felt it wasn't yet accomplished.
Tao reacted quickly, arriving into the room, and seeing the mess filled with broken tools, tables, and filled with scattered bits of blood. Diyi's body which would have made any man fall into bedevilment was tainted with blood and deformed in shape. As for her face? There's no need to say anything else.
At this moment, Tao had already informed Yan Zaizen that he was wholly dedicated to following him. It wasn't going to be a position of partners but of subordinate and friend. Initially, Yan Zaizen didn't like this due to the time spent in the Deep Mines, but Tao was adamant on this. His words were, "If it wasn't for you, I would've jumped off that cliff and died sooner or later. I owe you my life, and I intend to pay you back with it."
Considering the determined gaze in his eyes, Yan Zaizen relented. Now, their relationship was similar to leader and subordinate. "Clean her up, set her on the post and ready it. I'm not done with her yet." He slowly walked off out the door.
Tao looked at Diyi and couldn't help but shake his head in sympathy. "I've said it before, the one who offended a monster like him was going to be washing their neck to be claimed later. Now, let me go wash your neck." Despite his words, he didn't feel this was undeserved. Yan Zaizen may not know her dark deeds deeply, but how could he not? Especially considering who he was before.