Chapter 17: Interrogation

“You found a suitable research target?” Patelocke asked, now in the study.

He could guess what Su Chen wanted to do as soon as Su Chen asked him for a technique to speed up the growth of life.

“Yes, someone came right up to my front door,” Su Chen replied.

He explained in general terms what had happened earlier.

Upon hearing that Su Chen had captured the Young Miss and Young Master of the Lian and Long Clans, Patelocke cackled, “You dared to go against the ten great Bloodline Nobility Clans on your own? I respect you.”

“First of all, I was just carrying out the law impartially and never thought about going against anyone. They were the ones who came looking for me. Second of all, things might not be as bad as you think they are. If I’m willing to make a move, naturally it’s because I am confident.”

“Okay, okay. That’s your issue, and I won’t bother myself about it. I do have a technique to speed up the growth of life, but I need to remind you that any baby whose growth is sped up will definitely be a stillbirth. There’s no way for the baby to survive.”

Su Chen laughed, “That’s quite the coincidence. The babies from the Li Clan are also all stillbirths. I wonder if the two ‘deads’ will cancel each other out, letting it survive?”

“……”

“......”

Since Su Chen said as much, Patelocke didn’t waste any more of his breath. Instead, he directly imparted the catalysis technique to Su Chen.

Upon returning to the research lab, Su Chen began to use the catalysis technique on Lian Jiao.

Very quickly, Lian Jiao realized that her situation was suddenly very strange.

She stared at her stomach in a panic. In just a short amount of time, it had already begun to bulge slightly.”

“You...... what did you do to me!?” Lian Jiao yelled in fear.

“It’s exactly as you see,” Su Chen replied.

He placed his hand on Lian Jiao’s stomach, sensing everything that was going on in Lian Jiao’s stomach.

At first, he could still feel a lifeforce present, but that lifeforce completely disappeared very quickly.

Lian Jiao felt a corresponding effect.

At that very moment, her expression immediately became much uglier, and she instantly seemed to have aged a few years.

Su Chen wrote down, “Fetuses grown by the catalysis technique can only reach three or four months. Simultaneously, due to a lack of nutrition, the fetus can only draw nourishment from the mother, placing a huge burden on the mother’s body and resulting in a serious loss of blood Qi......”

After carefully recording Lian Jiao’s physical condition, Su Chen used his Origin Energy, and a formless force entered Lian Jiao’s body, pulling the stillborn out of Lian Jiao’s lower half.

“AH!” Lian Jiao yelled in fright.

Thankfully, since she wasn’t a virgin, and the stillborn was only three or four months old, it slid out of her lower body very easily.

Su Chen held the palm-sized fetus in his hand and inspected it. His microscopic eye scanned carefully over every inch of the fetus’s body, all while Lian Jiao screeched in the background, “You monster! You’re going to meet a tragic fate because of offending the Lian Clan!”

“It really isn’t human,” Su Chen muttered to himself.

Flames suddenly sprang from his hand, incinerating the stillborn.

Lian Jiao was still cursing at him.

“You still have quite a lot of energy, huh? Let’s try another experiment,” Su Chen said.

“What are you thinking of doing now?”

Su Chen pulled out the metal block again. “This time, I want to see if a woman who has already given birth can give birth again. After all, every woman who was given a baby by the demons was a virgin. This time, you might not get pregnant. But don’t worry......”

He paused for a moment. “Perhaps I’ll find a way to break through that restriction and make it so that someone who’s already given birth can become pregnant again.”

Like hell I’ll be worried!

Lian Jiao’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as she fainted.

————————————————————

Su Chen left the research lab and wiped off the blood on his hands before heading to where Long Shaoyou was being kept.

In comparison to Lian Jiao, Long Shaoyou’s circumstances were much better.

He hadn’t been tied up to a bed and forced to undergo pregnancy experiments. Instead, he was sitting down on a chair, devoid of strength after being forced to ingest some medicine.

When Su Chen arrived, he was still sitting there, cursing and yelling with quite a bit of energy.

“I’m the Long Clan’s Young Master! You dare capture me!? Just wait for the Long Clan’s revenge! I’m going to level your palace!”

Upon seeing Su Chen arrive, Li Shu came forward and said, “He’s been cursing the whole time and hasn’t stopped once. He only seems to know how to say these few sentences.”

“He’s an idiot.” Su Chen made his evaluation.

He walked in front of Long Shaoyou and pulled out a research needle, stabbing it into Long Shaoyou’s body.

“AHHH!” Long Shaoyou cried out bitterly, as if he was being subjected to “Death by a Thousand Cuts[1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_a_Thousand_Cuts_(book)]”.

After a long period of research, Su Chen had become clear about where a human’s pain points were. Sometimes, breaking a person’s arm wouldn’t incapacitate that person with pain since people with broken arms could still fight. But if some places were hit by a precise strike, that person would lose the ability to continue fighting.

At the very least, this had been true to everyone at or below the Yang Opening Realm. Only once a person reached the Light Shaking Realm would they be able to escape outside of the realm of medicine due to the strengthening of their bodies.

Su Chen had targeted one of Long Shaoyou’s pain points. Even the most hardcore individuals wouldn’t be able to endure it, let alone a second-generation heir like Long Shaoyou.

Only when Long Shaoyou’s throat was beginning to go hoarse did Su Chen pull out the needle and say, “If you cooperate now, this needle won’t have to go in again.”

“I’ll cooperate. I’ll cooperate!” Long Shaoyou yelled hysterically.

“Who was the one who told you to buy the Li Clan’s residence?” Su Chen asked.

Long Shaoyou visibly froze. Evidently, he hadn’t expected Su Chen to ask this question.

“I...... I just wanted this house......”

“That’s not possible,” Su Chen said calmly, inserting the needle into Long Shaoyou’s body again.

“AHH!” Long Shaoyou cried out in pain.

The needle was pulled out.

The pained howls stopped.

Su Chen said, “You definitely didn’t want this house for yourself. If you wanted it for yourself, with your ‘Young Master temperament,’ you would have continued to raise the price if someone was bidding against you, not back off. Since you backed off, that means that you weren’t that set on buying the place, which in turn means that you weren’t clear about the exact situation of this residence. But I don’t believe for a second that you just wanted it for no reason; it’s too much of a coincidence, and I never believe in coincidences. Thus, there must have been someone who secretly instructed you to buy it. This person’s status is probably not that high, so that person’s influence over you is limited, which is why you gave up in the end. He’s probably someone close to you, most likely a hired guard or a personal bodyguard. Think about it. Is there someone who talked to you and influenced you to think about buying this residence?”

“I...... I remember now...... There was someone who said to me that treasures are usually found in places where strange occurrences take place. When I heard about it, my interest in the Li Clan’s residence was piqued, so I wanted to buy it and take a look. But you raised the price, and I didn’t feel like it was worth it to spend that much money. Afterwards, I heard that you were the new Knowledge Executor. Since Liu Wuya is under our control, I was planning on waiting for you to get here before trying to force you to hand over the residence,” Long Shaoyou said as he gasped for air.

“Who was that person?”

“He is called Wei Liancheng, one of my guards.”

“Was he at the massacre at Nan’an Street?”

“No, he was sent to go guard a shipment and wasn’t at Clear River. He is a very mysterious person, and I don’t like him much, which is why I always send him to do a bunch of miscellaneous tasks. I was wrong, Knowledge Executor Su. Please let me go! I promise I won’t be your enemy anymore!”

“It would be better for this promise to come from your father.” Su Chen turned around and left.