After speaking, Jiang Shi took several deep breaths and looked at Xuanwu once more.

Based on past experiences, he should gradually get injured, with the wounds and pain intensifying as the battle reached its climax.

But this time, Xuanwu directly took away his heart. The sudden massive pain nearly made him faint.

Xuanwu also noticed that the heart she had crushed seemed to be emitting a faint black color. It looked familiar, but she couldn’t remember on whom she had seen this state before.

She could only casually throw the heart at her feet, then stomp it flat with one step.

Jiang Shi hunched over violently at that moment, waiting for the immense pain to subside.

“After a body full of sins… retribution comes from the beginning…” Jiang Shi said through clenched teeth. “Xuanwu, now neither you nor I have hearts, yet we ‘monsters’ can’t die even without our hearts. How pathetic is that?”

“Pathetic.” Xuanwu nodded. “For a monster like me, how can the word ‘pathetic’ alone suffice to describe…?”

“Want to try again?” Jiang Shi said. “Xuanwu, you still have a chance.”

“A chance…? How to try…?”

After hearing this, Jiang Shi smiled slightly. “Let me think about how that phrase goes…”

After a few seconds, Jiang Shi extended his hand and beckoned to Xuanwu.

“Come on, Xuanwu, isn’t killing me good?” Jiang Shi smiled. “Good, very good, come kill me.”

After hearing this, Xuanwu tilted her head slightly. The crowd didn’t know what she was thinking, but they saw her reach toward her own shoulder and pull out that broken bone.

Seeing this scene, Jiang Shi became even more energized. “Come on, Xuanwu, put down your weapon and enjoy killing me.”

But today, first it was Qinglong, and now this child in front of her—they both could stand here after having their hearts removed. Had she already gone mad…?

Or had “Taoyuan” long since changed?

Xuanwu also threw the broken bone on the ground, then extended her hand once more.

At this moment, she felt there was still a bit of difference between the child before her and Qinglong.

After all, she had no way to pull out a second heart from this child’s body.

Her hand grasped at empty air three times, meaning that the child before her was actually standing here without a heart.

“Strange.” Xuanwu paused, then shook her left hand and pulled out a lung lobe from thin air.

“Cough…” Jiang Shi once again felt a chill in his chest, and coughing sounds involuntarily came from his mouth.

“There are other things too…” Xuanwu tilted her head. “So you still feel pain?”

She exerted force with her left hand, crushing the lung lobe into fragments as well.

“Cough cough cough!!” Jiang Shi coughed violently. The feeling of having his lung crushed was strange—it didn’t hurt as much, but he instantly had difficulty breathing.

The immature muffled groans once again floated through the venue. If not for the “Silence” covering this place, it might have already attracted a large-scale crowd.

Jiang Shi clutched his chest, feeling that his “Immortality” still had quite a difference from Xuanwu’s.

A normal person in his current state should already be dead, yet he was forced to endure all this pain while still standing here.

After Xuanwu froze for a few more seconds, she simply stopped talking and pulled out all of Jiang Shi’s various organs at once, throwing them on the ground.

Besides heart, liver, spleen, and lungs, there were also severed fingers and teeth.

Jiang Shi only felt himself wrapped tightly in massive pain, his consciousness confused, his speech slurred.

“Cough…”

After a few minutes, Jiang Shi knelt before Xuanwu, neither uttering words of mercy nor retreating a single step.

The atmosphere in the venue was terrifyingly quiet. Everyone stared at Xuanwu and Jiang Shi, and that ground full of horrifying organs.

If it had been any other person at this moment, they should have died on the spot.

“So you really won’t die?” Xuanwu looked down at Jiang Shi on the ground and said.

“Of course…”

“So you, like me, also want to die very much, don’t you?”

“Heh… hehehe…” Jiang Shi wiped the liquid he had coughed up from the corner of his mouth and said haltingly, “I don’t.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to die?”

“Well… how should I put this…” Jiang Shi knew his chances were slim this time, so he simply rolled over and lay on the ground, saying, “I often hold my severed hands, severed feet, and severed head… and run at high speed to find Fifth Brother to save me. What tremendous trouble have I given him?”

“What…”

“But he doesn’t want me to die, and I don’t want to die either.” Jiang Shi said softly. “Every time I’m in terrible pain… every time I feel like I’m going to die…”

“Then what meaning is there in you living?”

“Living is the meaning.” Jiang Shi said. “As long as I want to live, it must have meaning. It’s just that I’m still young, and I haven’t had time to think about it.”

“This is wrong.” Xuanwu said. “If a person can’t even die, then there is no meaning in living.”

“You are you… I am me…” Jiang Shi coughed a few times. “You can try every method possible to kill me… but I don’t want to die at all.”

After hearing this, Xuanwu remained silent, just lowering her head.

“Xuanwu… do you see the eyes of everyone around me…” Jiang Shi asked. “Not one of them hopes I’ll die.”

Xuanwu paused for a long time before speaking: “But in Taoyuan, not a single person hopes I’ll live, not even myself.”

“It’s precisely because you yourself don’t want to live that we’re willing to work together to send you to your death.” Jiang Shi said again. “Think carefully… are we really enemies?”

Bai Jiu, who had the closest relationship with Jiang Shi, seemed unable to watch anymore. Without using her rope, she jumped directly down from the platform. The ground beneath her feet instantly became a water pool, buffering part of her descent speed.

She walked quickly to Jiang Shi’s side and lowered her head to look at him.

Jiang Shi had already been tortured beyond recognition. Half the teeth in his mouth had been pulled out, and even one eyeball had deflated.

“Cough cough…” Jiang Shi stared at Bai Jiu and said, “Looks like my time is almost up—even hallucinations are appearing.”

Bai Jiu raised her head with a serious expression and looked at Xuanwu. “Xuanwu, since you want to die so badly, what meaning is there in you living?”

“Me…?” Xuanwu paused. “The reason I’ve lived until now is for only two things.”

“Can you tell me?” Bai Jiu asked again.

“First is to protect the rules…”

But after Xuanwu said “first,” she never said “second” for a long time.

Bai Jiu seemed to think of something and gently interjected, “Is the second wanting to die?”

“Yes.” Xuanwu nodded. “First, I must protect the rules. Second, I must die. These two things have a sequence that cannot be disrupted.”

Bai Jiu carefully pondered the two points Xuanwu raised. Before she could respond, she heard Song Qi’s whistle sound again from the rooftop.

Qiu Shiliu was ready.

She removed her leather jacket from her upper body, revealing her sports tank top underneath, and walked slowly toward Xuanwu with an angry expression.

Seeing this scene, everyone walked to Jiang Shi’s side, picked him up, and quickly retreated backward.

“Hey, Xuanwu, let’s discuss something.” Qiu Shiliu said with an angry smile on her face.