Chapter 7: Butcher's Greeting

The guards escorted Blood Owl into the interrogation room and put him in handcuffs and leg irons. They secured the leg irons to another lock beneath his chair. Only after everything was in place did they withdraw.

Before long, a man in his forties came in. He was tall and thin, with thick eyebrows, large eyes, and a stiff expression. He wore a peculiar dark blue uniform with a high standing collar and the cut of a long gown. Moving around in it had to be inconvenient. Its only insignia was the word “evolution,” printed on the collar.

“Blood Owl, at last you're sitting before me. Ever since I heard you'd been arrested, I've been looking forward to meeting you.” As he spoke, the man took the seat across the table from Blood Owl.

“If you're going to put on a storytelling performance, you should stand,” Blood Owl said.

The man pretended not to hear and went on. “First, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Edmund Lee. I belong to evolution. Some people also call me ‘Butcher.’”

Blood Owl said, “Well then, Butcher, old buddy, are you here to take over from that torturer, or from Francis? Judging by your nickname, I'd say the former is more likely.”

Butcher smiled, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth. He rested both elbows on the table and interlaced his fingers beneath his chin. “Francis left Hell Island on the fifteenth, yesterday's surfacing day. Perhaps EAS felt his work was getting nowhere and decided to stop wasting time.” He leaned forward a little. “As for your torturer, he left the island yesterday too. After torturing you for a month, he asked for six months off to unwind and see a psychiatrist while he was at it... Heh heh heh. Exactly as I predicted. You're practically Satan incarnate.”

Blood Owl tilted his head back slightly and looked down his nose at him. In a perfectly steady voice, he replied, “And your breath is practically Satan's fart. Could you move away from me when you talk?”

Butcher took no offense. He leaned back a little and said, “I'm not here to take over anyone's work. The torturer wanted the information inside your head. EAS wanted to study your ability itself. I'm different. I'm a scientist. I won't try to communicate with a beast to obtain information. I'll use my own methods—scientific experiments—to acquire the data I want.”

“Oh? It sounds as though we're kindred spirits,” Blood Owl replied. When it came to * experiments, if he ranked himself second, probably no one in the world would dare claim first.

“Heh heh heh... How interesting. There isn't a trace of fear in your eyes. I've never seen anything like it. You're simply the perfect experimental subject.” Butcher's smile grew increasingly hideous.

Blood Owl replied, “You'd make good material for * experiments yourself. I have plenty of new ideas I could put into practice on you, given the chance.”

“You're a prisoner of Tidal Prison now. I'm afraid you'll never have the chance to do that sort of thing again,” Butcher said.

“Are you sure?” A cold, sinister smile curled the corners of Blood Owl's mouth.

For one brief instant, Butcher felt afraid. He didn't know why. What Blood Owl proposed was clearly impossible, yet both his expression and his tone exuded confidence.

“Scared already? Looks like there's not much to look forward to after all,” Blood Owl added.

“What did you say...?” Butcher's body had been pieced together from all sorts of parts, and his face was naturally stiff. Unless he deliberately arranged it into an expression of joy, anger, sorrow, or pleasure, no subtle change could be discerned on it.

Having Blood Owl call out his fear had caught him completely off guard.

“I see... You really aren't an ordinary ability user. Even in the Divine Mist, you still retain some of your power,” Butcher said. “Heh heh... Heh heh heh heh...” He forced his face into a contorted smile, then abruptly roared, “Guard!”

The door opened, and a guard entered and saluted.

“I only came to say hello today and check on the condition of my experimental subject. Once my equipment arrives from evolution headquarters and the laboratory is ready, we can begin... Hmph hmph... Heh heh heh... Ha ha ha ha!” Laughing, he left the interrogation room.

Blood Owl found it very funny too. It had been years since he'd heard the sort of pointless, sleazy laugh Butcher was putting on, so typical of idiotic villains in black-and-white films.

Blood Owl knew perfectly well that Butcher was laughing to cover his unease. Presumably, the equipment's failure to arrive was only one reason he couldn't begin experimenting. What really held him back was very likely pressure from the Empire's upper ranks. Perhaps the warden, perhaps EAS, perhaps Tea Immortal, or perhaps some force Blood Owl knew nothing about.

Blood Owl couldn't be bothered with such things. Tales of regional and factional infighting within HL alone were enough to give him a headache. He didn't care about any of that political crap, so he couldn't even imagine what significance the inmates of Tidal Prison held for the Empire.

...

It was now the morning of the sixteenth, and Zuo Dao was working in a laundry room. He and Blood Owl were held in different detention sections, and Blood Owl had never been to a laundry room. Even if he lost his mind or something and suddenly decided to go one day, he wouldn't necessarily be assigned to the same laundry room as Zuo Dao.

The worst part was that Zuo Dao had mustered all his courage to come in and help Blood Owl escape, yet Blood Owl still didn't know whom Tian Yi was sending. He was still wondering, It's been a month. Did that kid con me? But I couldn't sense any deceit in him at the time... Did something happen outside that killed his plan before it got started?

Here, I have to say that the greatest distance in the world is not the distance between life and death; nor is it standing before you while you don't know I love you; nor is it loving each other yet being unable to be together. I believe that in some parallel universe, Zhizunbao and Zixia will be together. So none of those problems exist.

The greatest distance in this world is between two people locked up in different places, both serving goddamn life sentences.

Fortunately, Zuo Dao had now joined an organization that offered opportunities to contact people from other detention sections. At any rate, each section held fewer than a hundred people; that much was certain. His chances of locating Blood Owl through the Laundry Gang were far better than his chances of meeting him by waiting to be randomly reassigned to another section.

Although no one knew exactly how many sections Tidal Prison had, judging by the island's visible area after surfacing, surely there couldn't be more than a thousand? If there really were, Hell Island would have to be shaped like the Sea-Calming Divine Needle, reaching straight down to the seabed. Otherwise, there couldn't possibly be that much room.

...

After his meeting with Butcher, the guards removed Blood Owl's handcuffs and leg irons and escorted him back to his detention section. Since it was already free time, they left him alone once he was inside.

“Blood Owl.” An old man came over and sat beside him. “Taken out for another round of torture?”

Blood Owl glanced at him. “More or less.” He didn't want to explain.

The old man continued, “You still look perfectly fine.”

“Quit babbling. Get started on today's material.”

The old man smiled. “Hmm... Where were we yesterday? Oh, I remember. Using energy to run an ability in reverse...”