Clang.
The black [Iron Wok Spatula] lay flat and harmless on the stone dust outside the cage door.
Sitting cross-legged on the damp, filthy floor of the slag pit in his clean clothes, Gu Changsheng didn’t reach inside the cage to grab the trembling seven-year-old girl. He didn’t use a single wisp of his Rank 4 Peak Qi to hold her wrists down.
He simply sat three feet away from her corner, lowered his shoulders so he wasn’t towering over her, and showed her both of his empty, open hands.
“Look, little one,” Gu Changsheng said, his voice dropping into the softest, warmest cadence he used when coaxing Su Nuannuan to take medicine after a bad dream. “No iron paddle. No whips.
No hot brands. My hands are completely empty.”
In the corner of the cage, seven-year-old Jiang Tuntun froze with her thin, scarred forearm still pressed against her open lips.
Her wide, silver eyes—ringed with dark hollows from years of sleepless pain and swirling with the unstable black mist of 90% Darkening—blinked twice in confusion.
