The city should be lively the next day, right? Unfortunately, people weren’t gathered for something nice. It wasn’t something worth celebrating. It was an interrogation, or rather, an execution. The church and royal family tortured the assassin together. The assassin was only able to survive until today for this moment; otherwise, he’d have been tortured to death long ago. However, he wasn’t going to be executed with one swing. He was going to enjoy a torture session in the process.
The execution was held in the plaza where everyone gathered to witness a beheading execution. Mr. Lu Xun led countless executions. Watching an execution was a type of ignorant numbness. Meaning people used the life of another to kill time in their boring lives. Nevertheless, my stance was different, literally. I didn’t watch from below but from above.
Yesterday, the messenger from the church came to invite us to watch the execution. The man was caught red-handed, which was why there was no need to question him. He could’ve been killed on the spot. There was no need to worry about him being wrongly accused. Of course, the royal family just needed a scapegoat; it didn’t necessarily need to strictly be the true culprit. To the old church, however, executing the man from the new church was meaningful. Thus, they hung a board resembling a water droplet as a means of ridiculing the new church.
The new church killed a member of the old church, so the old church was understandably furious about it. There were two possibilities in the execution. One, they could appease the angry masses. Alternatively, they could turn it into full-on warfare. As for what the result would be, that’d depend on how cruel they were.
An appropriate level of cruelty would appease the enraged masses, while excessive cruelty would infuriate the members of the new church. I didn’t know if the church was well-trained at conducting such endeavours, but, if they didn’t use their brains and acted purely on their anger, they’d overdo it. Nonetheless, I was already sitting on the platform up high, watching what was happening below.
The execution platform was a makeshift wooden platform made from. The yellow wood made me feel a little dizzy. In the centre was a sharp iron awl. To the side was a fire stove with wood burning bright red.
“Are they planning to burn him with the fire, a method that I’m familiar with? That’d be too simple, wouldn’t it? Using an execution method that everyone has seen before will produce very little results,” I wondered.
To be frank, I couldn’t explain the method. In my mind, only the innocent and just who were oppressed were executed via incineration. I, therefore, sympathised with the murderer. But on top of the shawl was a rack. I didn’t know what it was for. Maybe they were intending to use an execution tool as a cable pulley?
It wasn’t summer yet, but the sky felt very much so comparable to summer. There were no clouds in the sky while the sunrays were hot. We had a piece of cloth overhead to keep the sun out. The hot breeze down below annoyed me when it blew in my face despite us having iced fruit and wine next to us. I sort of missed the cool temperature in the North. The burning fire down below also made me feel as though I was being grilled.
The crowd down below was clustered together. I genuinely couldn’t comprehend why they were so willing to watch someone’s execution. Not to mention the fact that it was such a hot day.
To avoid the people passing out from heat stroke, Mom went out of her way to have people pour cold water down where the people were below from the buildings on either side as a means of preventing it from getting too hot.
Nier, who sat next to me, felt frustrated. She didn’t want to let Daisy witness such a cruel scene; therefore, she left Daisy back in the Royal Palace. But nonetheless, she was absentminded since she didn’t have her daughter with her. Mom played with her glass of wine and didn’t utter a word. She wore a strange smile on her face. I instinctively put some distance between us after what she did to me yesterday. The pope sat in the seat closest to us on the left hand side.
The pope looked at the sun then bowed and stood up. He politely asked Mom, “Your Majesty, the time has come. May we commence?”
Mom placed her glass of wine down and nodded: “Go ahead.”
Mom kept her smile on her face that was hidden behind her black face veil. She crossed her legs and then adopted a slanted sitting posture.
The pope had someone go down to the platform. Not long after, the crowd begun to get rowdy. Accompanying their yelling were flying stones that they had prepared beforehand. The culprit was brought up to the platform. He was totally nude. His eyes were listless, body bruised and scarred. If he wasn’t standing, I’d perceive him as already dead.
The guards hung him up above the sharp awl. The guards next to him took out bits of burning wood. They pressed the wood onto the iron shawl to heat the tip. It took me a moment to finally realise it wasn’t execution by burning. They were going to pierce him from bottom to top with iron shawl, and then leave him there for crows and vultures.
I didn’t think Mom would allow such a disgusting corpse to be left in the Phoenix’s Nest. She’d probably throw it out into a desolate spot outside of the city. But nonetheless, he wasn’t going to be simply dropped down. He had several ropes around his arms and legs pulled apart. Two ropes would rip him apart. Below him was a burning-hot sharp awl. By the looks of it, they didn’t plan to let him die so comfortably. I shut my eyes and sighed. I really didn’t want to watch such a cruel scene.
I never imagined that such a young boy could kill somebody via such a cruel and disgusting method. The pope began to lividly and resentfully speak, explaining the man’s crime through the broadcasting instrument. His tone was extremely provoking.
Every time he finished a sentence, one rope would snap due to be being burnt through. Every time there was one less rope around his arms, the man would fall further down. His flesh had, in fact, touched the burning hot sharp awl. His sad and bitter cries encouraged the crowd below to erupt into cheers. In addition, his legs were stretched beyond what many dancers could achieve. His legs no longer formed a straight line as the Chinese character for the number ‘one’. I reckon it was more appropriate to describe his posture as the two raised bows of a ship.
“This is a war. Ladies and gentlemen, regardless of the reasons and regardless of what god one believes in, murder is a crime! This time, the new church used a method that would anger God enough to kill one of our believers. The act is a threat to us. If the new church continues to exist, the next person to die could be any one of us. We can communicate and debate, but killing is absolutely unacceptable! As you killed our believer, we swear on our God of War’s name that we will pursue our revenge to the very end!”
The last rope snapped when the pope finished his final sentence. I shut my eyes as I heard the crisp sound of the rope snap. Nier lightly pressed her hand onto my hand. I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to see the mournful sight. If simply stabbing one to death was considered going overboard, this method of snapping one’s legs and piercing them was excessively cruel… Truly too cruel….
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