2 - Brutality

As Lin Hai headed towards the prince's courtyard, he noticed that the princess, Yan Daiyu, was walking just a bit behind him, occasionally shooting a pitiful and helpless glance at him.

But he dared not interact with her, because he knew that they were from two different worlds, and all that would happen from interacting with her would be more beatings.

Perhaps even the king himself would beat him if he found out that Lin Hai had interacted with his daughter. If that happened, he had little chance of survival.

In fact, he dared not even look into her eyes. All he did was occasionally glance in her direction, curious as to why she was coming over here.

Generally, she avoided her brother like the plague, so why did she seem to be going to his courtyard?

However, he quickly ignored her and continued on his way. He then soon arrived and started his duties for the day.

A few hours later, Lin Hai was watering the massive garden, when a small rock suddenly hit him in the head. He didn't even need to look to know who threw it.

His heart sank as he knew that it was time for his beating of the day.

'If only it wasn't when I was watering the garden. This job will be a hundred times harder to complete after he beats me,' he thought.

He didn't even have the thought to resist the prince but instead was thinking about how much harder it would be after he beat him.

The reason he thought this was because he had to carry around heavy watering cans back and forth from the faucet (outside faucet) to the garden and water the plants.

"My lord?" Lin Hai didn't dare to be disrespectful in hopes that the prince would go easy on him today.

"What are you doing? You need to hurry up if you want to water this whole garden," the prince chuckled evilly.

"May I ask what you mean, my lord?"

"I mean that Qian Chao broke his leg and can't do anything to help you today." It was obvious from his tone that he had broken Qian Chao's leg himself just to make Lin Hai suffer.

This was one of his favorite tricks. He would disable the other slaves, beat Lin Hai severely, then force him to do all of the work of him and the other slaves combined while suffering from the pain of being beat.

"Okay, my lord, I'll get started right away on that," Lin Hai said, hurrying off, hoping to avoid today's beating and possibly find the princess. After all, although he didn't really want her help, he would obviously not reject it if it could get him out of a beating from the prince just this once.

"And where do you think you're going?" Asked the prince, clearly enjoying Lin Hai trying to get away.

He enjoyed it when his slaves would try to get away from him by doing their work, but every time, he would always rip away their hope of escape and beat them senseless. He truly was the cruelest of the cruel in this world.

"Going to get started on the watering of the plants, of course," Lin Hai responded, trying his best not to be disrespectful. However, inside, he had already accepted his fate. But despite accepting his fate, he didn't really care. After all, this was his way of life.

"Not quite yet. Come here. Now." Said the prince with the cruelest of smiles.

Knowing that it could no longer be avoided, Lin Hai simply accepted his fate and walked over, bowing in front of the prince.

Seeing this, the prince proceeded to punch Lin Hai in the stomach with the full force of the fourth stage of the martial arts path. Being at only the beginning of the first stage, Lin Hai could only manage to take this one blow before collapsing on the ground, struggling to catch his breath.

The difference between each stage was massive, and it simply couldn't be overcome.

This was just the beginning though.

The prince then proceeded to kick Lin Hai in the gut while he was down on the ground so hard that he nearly barfed out what horrible breakfast he had this morning. He then continued to kick Lin Hai for the next few minutes.

Every hit was just weak enough that it wouldn't break bones but strong enough to make Lin Hai thoroughly suffer.

At this moment, Lin Hai even felt a little bit of killing intent permeating the air, coming from the prince, as he continued to beat Lin Hai much more severely than normal.

At the same time, the prince's expression had gone from one of enjoyment to one of rage, as he vented anger from something else on Lin Hai.

Inside his mind, Lin Hai seemed to be trapped in a cage bound in blood, and in front of him stood the prince, laughing with a demonic smile plastered on his face, as he tortured Lin Hai endlessly with a thorny whip, the cage around him ever shrinking.

...

A few minutes later, a surprised gasp sounded as princess Yan Daiyu came back only to see Lin Hai on the ground with blood leaking out of his mouth and the prince standing over him and kicking him while laughing, seeming to be in bliss from hearing the grunts and groans of pain from Lin Hai.

"Stop it!" she yelled, to which the prince turned around in confusion as to who was there.

"Yan Daiyu?" he asked as she came running over.

"What are you doing? Leave him alone!!!" Yan Daiyu yelled, running over to Lin Hai's side. When she saw that he was unconscious, she pushed her brother away and tried to find someone to help.

When she saw there was no one here, she turned around, only to be horrified by what she saw: The prince was winding up another kick, this time much harder than before.

"Noooo!!" she screamed, but it was all in vain. He had already swung his foot.

A dull *thud* resounded across the garden, followed by a spine-chilling sound of bones breaking.

As the kick landed on Lin Hai's chest, his ribcage shattered as he was sent flying.

If he was awake at this moment, he would be in more pain than he had ever been before.

A visible dent could be seen on his unconscious body, and he was now almost vomiting out blood. The broken ribs had punctured his lungs and they started to fill with blood.

As his lungs filled with blood, he began violently choking while still unconscious.

If he was awake, he might be able to stop a little bit of the choking, but as he was unconscious, all he could do was sit there and cough and gag and choke on his own blood.

At this moment, Yan Daiyu charged over with tears in her emerald eyes as she unleashed her full cultivation onto her brother. Despite being younger than him, her strength was actually far higher because she was far more talented than him.

As her full strength was unleashed, the prince didn't have a chance to fight back as he was sent flying away from Lin Hai's unconscious and convulsing body.

As she arrived next to him, Lin Hai was already close to death.

She then proceeded to pick up his body carefully and run as fast as she could without hurting him further.

She was running towards the only doctor she knew: her personal doctor, the royal doctor of the Princess. The only job she had was to serve the princess, no matter what she requested and at almost any cost.

Being at the 5th level of the martial arts path, Yan Daiyu was very fast and managed to get there within about a minute or two. She burst in the doors and yelled "help me please!!!" while laying Lin Hai on the table.

The doctor rushed over and asked, "what the heck happened to him?" she couldn't bother to ask who he was, as her only job was to serve the princess and not ask questions.

Yan Daiyu then told her what happened with her brother.

At this moment, the doctor's expression was extremely ugly.

"His entire ribcage is shattered and his ribs have punctured his lungs. His lungs are filling up with blood and choking him. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do to save him. I can only ease his pain and hope for a miracle to happen," she said grimly as she placed medicine on his body.

When she placed the medicine on his body, he instantly started choking less and seemed to be in less pain, but it was clear that it was not enough to save him.

"I've done all I can. I'm sorry," the doctor couldn't do much more, and the only way to save him would be the life-saving medicines that were reserved only for the princess and nobody else to use.

"If you don't mind, could you tell me who he is?"

Yan Daiyu thought for a moment before speaking, "He is my brother's slave."

Trying her best to lighten the heavy mood, the doctor said, "Although he is very badly hurt, with a lot of rest, he does have a certain chance to fully recover. Luckily you got him here quickly, otherwise there would be absolutely nothing I could do for him to help him."

Hope flashed through Yan Daiyu's eyes when she heard this. She then looked at the royal doctor in front of her and said, "Thank you for your help. I don't know what I would do without you."

..

As all of this was happening in the outside world, Lin Hai, completely unaware of the events transpiring outside his body, was having a strange dream.

Inside his mind, he awoke to the smell of flowers and warm spring air.

Unknowingly, he sat up as he woke up, and he found himself under a tree and in front of a field filled with grass and flowers, filled with life.

All around him was a peaceful feeling and the sounds of life; birds were chirping, the wind was blowing, and there was even the sound of water gently flowing down a nearby creek.

In all his life, Lin Hai had never seen anything even remotely close to as peaceful as this.

But he still didn't know what was going on. As he tried to remember what happened, he remembered the prince beating him, and the bones he had broken. Surprised, he felt his chest, only to realize that it was perfectly normal.

In fact, his body had never felt this good, and looking at it, he realized that his entire body was muscular and bursting with unlimited life, though he was naked for some reason.

But he found another thing odd. If he listened closely, he was somehow able to faintly hear his own heartbeat. He didn't even know how that was possible, yet he could very clearly hear it, and he even checked his pulse to be sure.

In fact, the sound of his own heartbeat seemed to be getting stronger as time passed.

After looking around a little bit, Lin Hai got up, and he felt that his body was unreasonably light, which was the result of his strong body in this place. He even felt as if he wasn't even a human anymore.

As he breathed in the air, he felt a sense of overwhelming relief the likes of which he had never felt before, and even the violent thoughts in his mind of what had happened to him started to fade away.

Suddenly, he had a thought, 'Oh no! Did I die?!'

But he quickly dismissed this though as he could do nothing about whether or not he died, and if this was heaven, then he might as well enjoy it.

But just as he was thinking, a transient and beautiful voice sounded from behind him, filled with infinite life and calmness.

Words couldn't describe how beautiful this voice was, and it even dazed Lin Hai for a few moments, making him unable to understand what was being said.

"Did you not hear me? I said your time is limited! Accept the power of the Ruby Heart now or you will die!"