30: I repent! I am guilty! I repent!

The two massive bronze doors were not tightly sealed; the gap in the middle, wide enough to fit half a fist, was spewing out waves of scorching air.

Su Chen squinted, his gaze sweeping over the intricate Cloud and Thunder Patterns before finally settling on the massive door knocker's base.

It wasn't a beast's head, but thirty relief-carved female heads, each with a different expression.

Their eyes were closed, their faces contorted, and their eye sockets were sunken into dark, hollow voids—as if waiting to be filled, or perhaps letting out a silent scream.

"What is this? A stamp collection?"

Su Chen mentally complained, but he didn't feel the slightest bit of relief.

Because he realized that the facial contours of these reliefs looked incredibly familiar, no matter how he viewed them.

The one in the top-left corner with slender eyes was clearly Li Sisi.

The one in the bottom-right corner biting its lip was a carbon copy of Qin Ya, who was currently standing behind him.

This door was a "test" tailor-made for him.

Without a word, Su Chen sliced his right thumb across his index finger, and dark-golden blood surged out instantly.

In this post-apocalyptic world where even antibiotics were more expensive than gold, every drop of blood was a non-renewable strategic resource, but he couldn't afford to be stingy now.

He slammed his bleeding finger into the gap of the door that was spewing heat.

"Sizzle—"

Like cold water poured into boiling oil, a muffled roar echoed from deep within the bronze doors.

Immediately after, the thirty closed-eyed female reliefs seemed to come to life, and two lines of bloody tears suddenly gushed from their previously hollow eye sockets.

The bloody tears didn't fall; instead, they rapidly condensed in the air, transforming into thirty crystal-clear, red-glowing Bone Spikes.

"Take them."

Su Chen withdrew his hand, the wound on his fingertip quickly scabbing over under the circulation of his Yang Energy.

"These are the admission tickets."

The girls tremblingly caught the "keys" floating in front of them.

The Bone Spikes were ice-cold to the touch, yet they became scalding hot the moment they contacted skin.

Just then, a sudden explosion erupted from the hidden compartment beneath the driver's seat.

Zhao Wanting, who should have been unconscious from the intense pain, somehow found the strength to kick open the latch.

She rushed out with disheveled hair, emitting a nauseating burnt smell, and snatched the key closest to her.

It belonged to Qin Ya.

"It's all a scam! This door wants living sacrifices!"

Zhao Wanting's voice was as shrill as rusted brake pads. Her bloodshot eyes glared fixedly at Qin Ya as she raised the Bone Spike and lunged toward Qin Ya's slender neck.

"Teacher Qin, don't you love playing the saint? Then die for everyone's sake!"

Qin Ya didn't dodge.

She simply looked at Zhao Wanting quietly. The indecisiveness of the past was gone from her eyes, replaced by a touch of almost cold pity.

Just as the Bone Spike was about to pierce Qin Ya's skin, the key seemed to gain a mind of its own. It suddenly flipped in mid-air, defying physical inertia, and stabbed fiercely into Zhao Wanting's own collarbone hollow!

"Puchi!"

Blood splattered.

"Ah—! Why?! I was doing it for everyone..."

Zhao Wanting screamed and fell to the ground. The Bone Spike seemed to take root inside her, frantically draining the chaotic energy within her body.

Su Chen watched coldly, a mocking curve playing on his lips.

"Who told you the keys were for unlocking? They're for closing the circuit."

On the other side, Lin Mengyao was staring intently at the relief that belonged to her.

She discovered with horror that the expression on the relief...

...that mixture of endurance, longing, and submission, was exactly the same as the expression she had every time she secretly watched Su Chen practicing his cultivation.

It was a projection of her innermost feelings that she had tried so hard to hide.

"Aren't you going to start?"

Su Chen's voice rang in her ears, carrying an unquestionable pressure.

Lin Mengyao gritted her teeth, tremblingly pressing the Bone Spike against the carotid artery acupoint on the side of her neck.

That was the most lethal and vulnerable part of the human body; the slightest mistake would lead to massive hemorrhaging.

In the moment she hesitated, a warm and domineering surge of Yang Energy rushed over from a distance, instantly taking control of the nerves in her arm.

"Puff!"

There was no imagined agony, only a numbing sensation as if her soul had been pierced.

The Bone Spike sank into the acupoint, merging perfectly with her bloodline.

At that moment, Lin Mengyao seemed to hear the bronze relief whispering in her mind.

"Admit it, you've been sacrificing your loyalty for a long time."

As the first key settled into place, the other girls followed suit.

For a moment, muffled groans echoed throughout the bus, and a strange, sweet, metallic scent filled the air.

Su Chen had no time to admire this "portrait of beauties undergoing torture." He walked a few steps to the side of Zhao Wanting, who was twitching on the floor.

The Bone Spike stabbed into her collarbone had turned pure gold, and countless fine golden threads were spreading along her blood vessels, tightly entangling her heart.

"Even though it's a defective product, it's a good use of trash."

Su Chen crouched down and, in front of everyone, ripped open Zhao Wanting's collar, which was soaked in pus and blood.

Her originally ulcerated chest cavity was now glowing. Those golden threads were like living parasites, forcibly maintaining the functions of this mangled body.

"Listen up, she wouldn't have survived the night."

Su Chen's finger tapped on Zhao Wanting's heart, and a surge of pure Yang Energy was violently injected.

"But now, I've used high temperatures to seal her necrotic nerves."

"This pain is ten times worse than death by a thousand cuts, but it will allow this 'battery' to last a few more hours."

"Sizz—"

Golden flames flared up at Zhao Wanting's wound, instantly charring the oozing black blood.

Zhao Wanting couldn't even let out a scream; she could only gape her mouth, gasping violently like a dying fish.

"Rumble..."

At that moment, the two massive bronze doors that had been silent for countless ages slowly slid open to both sides with a tooth-grinding sound of metal friction.

Behind the doors was a bottomless darkness, with only a few flickering green Ever-burning Lamps in the distance.

"I repent! I am guilty! I repent!"

Perhaps terrified by the so-called "miracle," or perhaps hoping to win a final chance at life, Zhao Wanting suddenly scrambled up on all fours and rushed recklessly into the darkness behind the doors.

However, she had barely stepped half a pace past the bus door when an invisible force, like a giant unseen hand, grabbed her hair and slammed her back.

"Tear!"

This time, it wasn't just her clothes; even the layer of necrotic skin on her back was peeled off entirely.

It revealed dense, golden patterns underneath, resembling a circuit board.

She was no longer human; she had clearly been transformed into a Living Puppet.

Su Chen stepped on her blood-drenched back, his sole grinding against the exposed nerves. He scanned the room, his tone as calm as if he were discussing the weather.

"Now, who else wants to taste the flavor of betrayal?"

No one dared to meet his eyes. It was a trembling that came from the depths of their souls.

Suddenly, an even more violent vibration came from beneath their feet.

It wasn't the door opening; it was the entire world moving.

The sound of massive gears meshing came from inside the bronze doors, followed by a strong sense of weightlessness felt by everyone.

Su Chen snapped his head toward the bus window, only to see the steep rock walls on both sides slowly rotating.

The originally flat canyon floor was actually like a seesaw being lifted by a giant god, beginning to tilt toward an unknown abyss.

The bus, which hadn't yet come to a complete stop, let out an overburdened wail from its tires on the gravel ground as the vehicle suddenly slid down a large distance.