V4C28: Servitude

Within the house of the Great Ping Family, their mansion in the mountains to the south west of the Ping District itself, servants were clothed in garbs not so different from the ones that Ping Gangze had made his servants wear, except that they differed as much as their respective residences.

Where every little tiny detail on the clothing of Ping Gangze’s servants was made with the most valuable thing that he was able to include, many little details including immortal gold mostly due to his plentiful supply of it, the Great Ping had slightly more reservation as they kept themselves to simpler planar materials, limiting the female servants only to a plain black and white dress that could, depending on the servant, showcase any assets of interest, although to the Greats, most such servants seemed to be little more than walking sacks of flesh.

In the case of the crimson-haired woman, there wasn’t that much to display on her top, and her lower regions were obscured as they were not to the liking of Ping Zhong or Ping Chao, so she almost appeared half-sensible. Provided with a long list of instructions and commands that each of their servants possessed, she was loosed into the manor to clean and tidy things while the Greats enjoyed themselves.

On the first day, she was mostly left alone, as the first generation was said to be absent, while the second and third busied themselves with sending out invites and generally relaxing without the requirement for a servant to assist them in their own activities. Some would occasionally stare at her or grab her while she was not occupied and enjoy the anger in her eyes, but such simple actions became uninteresting quickly for them.

For instance, when Ping Zhong suddenly walked up to her and tried to strike her arm, it did more harm to her than the crimson-haired woman.

“If these people weren’t always so insistent on acting up, we could have had servants with some parts of their mind left, allowing us to see her trying to thrash about as we threaten to do something…” she muttered, turning to her mother, “Could we make her body less sturdy and beat her?”

“That wouldn’t do, not this early on. We certainly possess some means like that, but we should let the others that were harmed by her see her in this state. After that, we can put her in the Bone Softening Pool, or feed her with an abundance of weakening poison, after which I am sure that you will be able to tear her apart without our assistance,” Ping Fu replied, “Instead, why not focus on the displeasures of others? For instance, I believe that it has been confirmed that the Ning and Chen brats have both lost one of their anchors.”

“What? How incompetent were they? Who did they even lose to?”

Ping Fu smiled – or, rather, grinned, “As embarrassed as those children were, they said that it was a woman from the Yi District, with striking crimson hair and deep silver eyes. Sound familiar?”

“This wretch had also attacked those two families? Also, isn’t her name familiar?”

“Yi Wei? Perhaps… some time ago, the Yi family had caught someone and thrown her into our prison realm, but I cannot rightly say that I recall that person’s name. So far as I remember, they were very reluctant to speak of her at all, and… well, have you heard that Yi Zhong has one less anchor than Yi Wu?”

Despite knowing that the crimson-haired woman besides them would do nothing, Ping Zhong still glanced at her as she was silently wiping the table beside them, paying them no attention at all.

“If she was in the prison realm, how did she escape?”

“There are no guarantees, but the letter said that Ping Wu had been able to gouge out something relating to a small passageway out of the realm from her before he had to forever silence her mind,” Ping Fu said, “Fortunately, she also supposedly remembered that doorway shutting, so she likely escaped at the last moment. We won’t be seeing any more escapees like this, even if a mixed breed like her is even more delightful to torment.”

Ping Zhong nodded along readily, “It would also explain how she had been able to do so much to us. Her blood empowered her just enough to be able to do the things she had done, but in the end, she is still no match for us.”

“Nobody is a match for us. Now, come, daughter, let us find entertainment elsewhere.”

They departed, leaving the silver-eyed woman to glare at the table that she was meticulously wiping with a cloth, going over the same spots several times to ensure their cleanliness.

That was the kind of thing that she continued doing throughout that day, occasionally being pestered and occasionally being a point of interest for those of the Great Ping Family to gather around and discuss, but save for that, she was not treated as immediately harshly as the Great Chu Family had seemed to treat her.

With the way that they had mercilessly killed the driver that had brought her there, however, whoever believed that this was going to remain that way had to be insane or blind, deaf, and stupid at once. Just like hunters playing with their prey once it is in a situation that it cannot possibly escape, not even with the assistance of the heavens, the Greats were intent to get everything they could out of her. They would first satisfy themselves with a more common form of servitude and obedience, and, just like with their other servants, once the Great Ping Family grew tired of their ordinary appearances, they would do as they like until the servant would inevitably be thrown away.

In the crimson-haired woman’s case, it was likely that they would stop before killing her entirely and send her off to wherever she had thought that she would be safe, just to permit anyone who had missed the display in the Chu District as well as the rumours that must have spread to despair.

There were other servants in the halls as well, wandering about and performing their allotted tasks just the same. Some were men, other were women, some were made to wear little while others were clothed fully. All of them had an absence of will within their eyes, however, and their bodies moved only due to the commands provided to them prompting their brain and muscles into action when there was no consciousness to command them.

Since they still needed to eat, as any living creature did, they had a room and bedroom to themselves, with the latter being mostly for the servants to be shoved into a room when they were not meant to be wandering the halls, and for when their bodies truly needed sleep. In the so-called dining room, a basic form of a planar herb grew from the natural planar energy within it, simultaneously ridding it of energy and providing them with a highly unpleasant meal to consume whenever they required more energy to continue. In that regard, their absence of a mind was a small blessing.

On the second day, all of the invitations that had been sent out had arrived at their destination, and the ones that had been called for made their way into the manor, most of them coming on their own.

The second and third generation of the Great Bai Family, and the second generation of the Great Luo Family had come and were greeted first by the servants made to do so, including the silver-eyed woman, then by the Great Ping Family themselves. Normally, that latter portion of the process would be of greater interest, but this time, the Great Bai Family were intrigued to learn just who had been worth the trouble they had gone to, Bai Fu in particular, while the second generation of the Great Luo, with Luo Fu clearly being pregnant, wished to see the face of the one that had killed their descendants. Naturally, they were both angry at her existence, wishing to punish her, and delighted at her capture.

When Luo Fu went to strike at her, Ping Chao appeared to stop her.

“Do not be so hasty, Luo Fu. This is only the first day of your arrival, when we invited you for a whole week. Let her remain and fester, slowly letting whatever part of her conscious mind remains fall into absolute despair,” he suggested, “Look into her eyes… Are they not simply wonderful?”

“You may be unaware, Ping Chao, but to birth another generation is a difficult task, and a burdensome one at that. To sit around for several months in that state is an incredibly tiring thing, and this is the woman responsible!” Luo Fu disagreed, slapping the crimson-haired woman’s face, “To simply let her wander around is too good for her, with or without a wisp of consciousness.”

“Do not worry, Luo Fu, we have accounted for that. Since she had hated us this much, we have made sure that she will serve us fully for the rest of her days, however long that will be, and for the first day, why don’t we limit that to more mundane matters?” Ping Fu said, waving down the corridor, “We will have her prepare food and drink, then cater to your whims. The day after, we shall permit her to do even more than that. Ping Chao has already reserved the first go with her, but the rest of you may also opt to come after.”

“Hmph. My brother will almost certainly agree, but I want more than that. When can I torture her? Could we forcefully impose our technique onto her and force her to experience the same thing?”

“You truly are lost in your emotions, Luo family,” Bai Fu giggled, “Her very cultivation had been dissolved to control her. How are you going to force a cultivation technique of any kind into her body, even if you do want to tax whatever is left down there?”

“Another issue is that we have been able to confirm her infertility, at least when it comes to her womb. The other part may still be fully functional, but I doubt that you wish to spread her pathetic seed around to anyone, be it another servant or some petty common fool in one of the districts,” Ping Chao said, grabbing the silver-eyed woman’s arm and forcefully pushing her onto the ground in front of them, “Do not worry, by the seventh day, we will let you do as you like.”

“Then I shall do exactly that. I don’t care if you invite the Ning and Chen here, since I will dismantle every part of her by the time they can arrive,” Luo Fu said as she walked in the direction previously indicated.

Her brother, Luo Chao, followed her with his gaze for a few moments, then turned back and said, “That does remind me, she did shred a planar anchor of both of those children, didn’t she? If she was going to go that far, she might as well have spared them the humiliation and have killed them outright, so that Ning Fu and Chen Fu could give birth to a new third generation with the full number of anchors.”

“Do not wish death onto our own number, Luo Chao,” Bai Chao shook his head, turning towards the dining room and stepping on the woman on the ground as he walked off, “I’d prefer to get to it.”

The others also walked off, with Ping Zhong being the last to go as she turned and said, “Get up and serve us the things you have made, worm. Maybe if you manage to not displease us for the rest of the day, Ping Chao will go easy on you… He never does, though, from what I heard.”

With that command, the woman rose and followed the Great Family members into the dining room, then into the kitchen, from which she brought them a number of dishes and drinks that she had been told to make and provided with the information on how to do so during the previous day’s instructions. As a servant, she had naturally needed sufficient knowledge to serve, and as they were able to tell from her presentation, she had not done this many times before, even if she was good at following their orders.

Everything that she had made, save for the water that she had poured for Luo Fu, was at the very bare edge of being acceptable and being appealing to their tastes, meaning that while they did eat what she had presented, those who were already interested in damaging her body or torturing what little remained of her mind were only spurred on.

It was highly unfortunate in the eyes of those that liked her current appearance, but as even the youngest of them had lived for quite a while, they had grown to understand and accept the fact that none of their servants would last for long. To them, that was acceptable, especially as this woman was bound to only be twenty years old or so, and they could likely see another woman like this developing in just two dozen more years, albeit without the mixed blood that bothered all of them to an extent.

As could be judged by an outsider if they simply looked upon their expressions when they looked towards or otherwise spoke about the crimson-haired woman, even those that looked with the least hatred towards her, all of them put together could match the absolute rage that remained within the woman’s eyes, and not long after, one of them chose to put their feelings into words.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Luo Fu that did this, smashing a fist into the silver-eyed woman’s stomach with the full power of her fifth realm, finally eliciting a reaction as she was pushed back and nearly doubled over, her face twisting instinctively with pain. As part of her orders, she managed to keep hold of the dish she was bringing over to Luo Chao, and tried to proceed onwards, but her body was clearly quivering, and her limbs were shakier than before. From the sudden strike, a tear dripped from her eye, but without any instructions, she could not wipe it away.

“- and look at her! If she had lost her cultivation normally, she could just redo it all and get her anchor back. But now that my children are dead, I need to give birth to so many of them again, just so that we can graft the anchors onto the new Luo Zhong and Luo Wu…”

“That is a necessary process for us to guard the world, sister,” Luo Chao stated, lifting the plate out of the crimson-haired woman’s hand and placed it before himself, “If you would, could you not hit her while she is carrying the things that she has made? Her creations are barely passable as they are, and the more you shake them, the more difficult it is to find the few good qualities that she has managed to include.”

“I will not apologise for my actions. That reminds me, could we not transfer my experience to her? It is bound to be incredibly satisfying to watch her writhe…”

“Do any of you ever get the feeling that we might be a little too sadistic at times?” Bai Fu suddenly asked, earning a confused look from every single person present. Most of them did not believe themselves to be a particularly vile group – nobody would typically consider themselves to be acting immorally no matter what they did, since they would otherwise act in a different manner – but to hear such a thing coming from this person in particular was nearly as strange as if the crimson-haired woman suddenly straightened her back and launched an attack on all of them with a fifth realm power.

To them, it was so odd that Ping Chao and Luo Chao both reached for their weapons.

“Just kidding! Pfft, all of you are so serious all the time. All of us need to display our power over the ordinary creatures out there that think that they have any right to decide their own lives, but what I actually meant was that you are thinking far too simply, don’t you think?” Bai Fu asked again, this time the gazes towards her being more akin to curiosity rather than confusion, “She’s from the Yi District, no? We can just bring her there once we’re done with our own fun. Show her to those she knew, those she had spoken with, maybe even her friends, and make her body and mouth do and say all kinds of things… hehe… Wouldn’t that just be fantastic?”

“From what I could gather, she had few friends,” Ping Fu said, glancing at the woman as she walked past them again, the stain of a tear and eyeliner that they had made her place onto her own body clearly visible upon her face, “Those that were present were likely killed.”

“Oh, please, you know how those ordinary things act. They speak with so many people, come into contact with so many groups, and there’s no way the idiots at the Yi family got all of them.”

“Your tone is hardly acceptable by the rules of Testament, you know that, right?” Bai Chao said.

“Brother, those old people at Testament, who now sit around the realm and discuss whatever dull things they want now that they’re the primary participants in the seal, likely talked exactly like this when they were Bai Fu and Bai Chao, and when we get to their place, we might carry on the same rules, but to say that we had never done this would be silly.”

“The point of age is for us to grow up, Bai Fu,” Ping Chao said, “That’s why I will take her how I like, and then tell my descendants to do the same.”

“You really think so? If those old fogies at Testament had those thoughts back then, as you say, they sure aren’t doing this now that they are in their current place. Have you ever thought about the exact consequences of what they do? None of them are quite the same afterwards, so I do not think that we should rush a single thing. Take it slowly. Tear the remains of her lovely mind apart, turn her into our delightful toy… and then crush her!”

Her hand, with the power of the fifth realm, shut into a fist, crushing the air, and causing a small explosion of air that fluttered through her pure white hair. A grin was on her expression, one that grew as she looked at the back of the crimson-haired woman as she walked out of the room.

There was a brief period of quiet as they ate what was left, with some contemplating what had been said so far while others, judging by their partial inability to prevent themselves from drooling at their very thoughts, were clearly pondering what they could do to the woman now in their possession, or perhaps some other servant elsewhere. Their family members would usually reprimand them quietly, but all of them understood one another well enough to not particularly care about the minor actions of one another as much as total strangers might.

“Could I ask something?” Ping Zhong suddenly said, waiting for one of the second generation to give her the confirmation she had requested, “What does happen at Testament? To the west of-”

“Never speak of the exact location of Testament, daughter,” Ping Fu stopped her, involuntarily glancing over at the returning crimson-haired figure, “We may be the strongest among all in the modern world, but some do not realise that they should not be meddling with our affairs. They try to intervene, to act, to attack us, and some of them try to listen in to our words. You know where Testament is, right? Then, none of us need to hear it again.”

“Sorry. What does happen to them?”

“They naturally have to participate in the seal, and that does take some mental power. Hence, they need to respond a little more instinctually than we may, and it is best not to bother them unless there is truly some kind of calamity, or else their grip over the seal will be slightly less stable. If too many of our first generations are forced to part from Testament, it would be in danger.”

“And thus, we do their job for them,” Bai Fu said, “Annoying, but that was what they had chosen all that time ago.”

“I think we should discuss something other than this,” Luo Chao said, putting down his glass of authamite wine, “We have a wonderful toy at our disposal, and yet we are all just sitting around worrying about things. That is hardly particularly amusing, don’t you think? All of us need something to relax ourselves with, so, Yi Wei, come over here. Drop that trash that you’re trying to feed us and stand still.”

As with all of the other commands given to her, she had little choice in the matter, even while her eyes moved as much as they could to glare onto the people ordering her about. Even that was limited, since she needed to look forwards when her spiritual perception was just like her cultivation, non-existent as it was swallowed up by the void of the method used to control the slaves of the Greats.

After being ordered once more to straighten her back, put her hands to her sides, and then present her figure to them without obstruction.

With that sight, the Great Family members observed her and pondered just what they should do with her. Ping Chao’s desires hardly needed to be explained again, but as the rest of his family kept insisting, rushing into things this very moment would be of no benefit, not when they had however much time they desired to play around with her and break her physical body down to whatever they desired. However, with his mood, the rest had also begun to think in the same direction, and soon they had a few ideas.

“Since everyone here seems to have forgotten to take care of themselves up to this point, we shall proceed with that,” Ping Fu said, although her voice was clearly reluctant, “Just remember to suggest commands rather than giving them. If we all start ordering her about, the commanding technique will just cause her body to explode- don’t you start, Luo Fu!”

The pregnant woman huffed, but she did not start shouting out commands as she had wanted to.

“Alright, Yi Wei, remove the dress, and so slowly.”

None of them had the opportunity to observe her back in the Chu District, occupied as they were with other matters, so they chose this time to take a look instead, with both their men and women doing so.

Despite the strict structure within each Great Family, where any one of their third generation must marry to another next down the line, with the surname of the mothers of the children being considered to be more significant than that of their father, most of them tended to possess various tendencies. Of course, it could also be said that it was due to it, as the women especially had to endure a lot for the birthing of the next generation, and often came to prefer the company of other women in their free time. As a result of this behaviour, some of the men would also have the opportunity to experiment, and sometimes things would get out of hand with far larger groups ending up together.

Due to the nature of the methods typically used by the Greats to reproduce, they are also free of any risks at other times, and their close relations to one another have mostly prevented them from caring about overly tight familial bonds, so to speak.

The tightest boundaries would be around their direct relatives, and also between the three generations of the Great Families. As the first was almost always at Testament, only the second and the third got to interact outside of it, and the age gap between them tended to be around a hundred years due to the manner in which they permitted each new third generation to grow for a hundred years. While it was difficult to see simply based on their physical appearances, that gap did significantly affect their views of the world, as well as their mind-set.

For them, such a gap could occasionally lead to very different thoughts and experiences, and that could be rather off-putting in more intimate situations than their current lecherous observation.

Before their eyes, with the crimson-haired woman’s eyes still locked onto them with fury blazing within them, she proceeded to slowly obey their command, getting through the various parts that kept the dress upon her body with a rigidity that could only be expected of someone that had no mind or proper intuition to follow. Without those, all that could be followed were the previous motions of putting the dress on, but to invert them and do so efficiently was more difficult without thought.

Nevertheless, with the comparatively simple design, she was able to get her top out of the dress first, then pull it down and reveal the rest of her body to the members of the Great Families, earning a mixture of expressions and noises as if in reply to her actions.

“Damn, that girl is packing. Was she born with that?” Bai Fu asked, the look in her eyes changing.

“Not from what we know about her, but perhaps the Yi family had withheld a few things from us,” Ping Chao muttered, “Also, our blood should be dominant over that of the wretch that must have caught the eye of the initial Yi Zhong, so even if it was some kind of strange creature with four sets of breasts and four cocks, those features shouldn’t have made their way over.”

“I don’t care, I am taking that second spot right away… I can’t wait to crush them-”

“Can you not do so while the rest of us are here? Our balls hardly appreciate the implications, and what you are about to say.”

“Such a feeble thing you are, Luo Chao. Look at my brother, he doesn’t care about my comments. He knows that I wouldn’t do anything to him, so why are you getting so antsy, huh?” Bai Fu grinned, leaning forward with an evil grin that displayed her teeth, in particular her canines, “Why are you so afraid, unless you know that you are weak, that you cannot do anything against me, that you will only be sitting there-”

Ping Fu interrupted, “If you are going to do this right here and now, you may want to head off to your room, and we can proceed onto this the following day. At that point, you will be able to relieve your frustrations as you like with her, so long as you don’t permanently damage anything.”

“Have you seen that glaring bitch? She can take it. Her body needs the strength of the fifth realm to be concentrated, so more common acts will probably just bounce right off! Whatever is left of her mind may even like the touch, whether or not it wishes to do so,” she replied, although she did pull her hand out of her robes and rose, “You’ve gotten me all excited now. I’ll be off. Brother, what about you?”

“Yes, those of us who are interested may get to her tomorrow. For the rest of us, it would be better to rest after the journey.”

“Tch, cutting it short. Let’s just leave her standing here, then, it’s bound to be fun to find her here the next day,” Ping Chao exclaimed, rising also as he looked to the silver-eyed woman, “Stand there and don’t hide yourself. I will find you tomorrow, you can be sure of that.”

After him, the others departed quickly, although not before one of them also ordered to put her hands behind her head and to obscure herself even less. Many things could be said about the Greats, but they were nothing if not thoughtful about how to best take advantage of the people at their disposal, in whoever ways they could think of. For today, their creativity had been suppressed, but the next day they would be certain to unleash everything that they had come up with and truly make the little wisp of will within that woman suffer.