Feng Xuan's blood was boiling. There was no way in hell that this person knew more about what happened that night. He wasn't even there. She raised her hand sputtered with blood.
Oh no, her mind whispered. Then she started laughing.
The Zookeeper looked at her with a frown on his face but his face relaxed. "I have heard about the laughter. Go on then. Laugh at your own blood. Regretfully that didn't throw you off earlier when you were killing my men. Adrenaline, must be."
Feng Xuan moved to get up. The Zookeeper made a move to kick her in the face but before his foot could hit her, she caught it and pushed so hard that The Zookeeper hit the bed and slid down the floor.
The Zookeeper, as he was someone a little familiar with fighting in his younger days, had been able to move his foot immediately and tripped Feng Xuan when she got up. She stumbled but didn't fall.
But The Zookeeper caught her ankle and she dropped to her elbows. She groaned as pain shut through her arms and the smell of blood entered her nose again as she bleed more. The drops fell on the beige carpet, staining it dark.
She twisted her foot and looked down. She did not even hesitate to kick The Zookeeper's fat face. The first did not do much damage. The second made his nose bleed. The third would give him a black eye. On the fourth, he finally let go.
When she was finally out of his reach, Feng Xuan took a dagger from her waist and tore a strip from the bedsheet. Messily, she tied The Zookeeper's wrist on the bedpost.
"Don't you dare move!" she said when The Zookeeper tried to remove it. "Or the thing that would hold your hand there would be my knife. Take your pick."
The Zookeeper tried to reach her but she already backed away, tearing more pieces of the sheet. They needed him alive. Surely, there would be someone who would come for her.
"No!" The Zookeeper said when she crouched down near his foot. He started wriggling. He reached for his tied hand so Feng Xuan took the liberty of driving her dagger to his leg. His howl of pain was enough to call a lot of animals to his yard.
"I told you not to move," she wiped her lips with the back of her hand before she started to tie his ankles and knees together, too many times. "Now you know I mean things when I say them."
Feng Xuan made a longer strip to tie it to another bedpost. When she asked for The Zookeeper's hand, he ignored her. "Would you rather that I nail your hand on the floor with my knife? This is made of wood, right? Should be easy enough with the right amount of force."
When The Zookeeper still not move, she scrambled for his hand and as he was tied there was nothing else that he could really do. "Okay, okay!" he shouted and relaxed his hand.
Feng Xuan smiled at him. "I asked you nicely earlier. Too late now." In a splitsecond, she had produced another knife from her belt and drove it down the floor with The Zookeeper's hand in between.
His scream almost sounded like music to her ears but it almost deafened her too.
She dropped down on the floor in front of him. "Now, are we talking?"
The Zookeeper did not answer.
"Are you going to start crying?"
When he looked at her, his eyes were rimmed with red.
"Aw," she cooed. "You could feel pain. Don't worry, let's just wait for my husband. He'll be the one who would decide what we're going to do with you."
Then just at that moment, there was a loud crash that made Feng Xuan curl up and cover her head. She was sure that it was an explosion. She looked at the ceiling. It looked stable and the sound was not that loud as she thought. "What the hell?" she asked The Zookeeper. "You have missiles here?"
She tried to stretch her muscles, slowly, making sure that she did not have any broken bones before she reached for the small earplug. She tried putting it back together but when she pressed the button, it no longer turned on.
"It's busted," said The Zookeeper.
Anger boiled inside her and she kicked The Zookeeper in the chest which resulted with him on a coughing fit. She wished that his ribs caved and punctured a lung.
She felt her own ribs and she had not even pressed when she felt the pain shot through her entire chest. She whispered some curse words.
"I got you good," said The Zookeeper in between his coughs.
"I really should keep you alive so when I finally get how bad you've hurt me, I could measure the kind of pain we are going to give you." Feng Xuan slashed the side of her suit so she could take a better look.
The bruise took almost all the middle of her torso and was already in an ugly shade of purple blue. She looked at her stomach and found another circle there.
"I wouldn't look in the mirror if I were you," said The Zookeeper.
She already knew that her face would be a mess. She didn't need to have a look. Her face was already feeling numb. "How about I carve your face? No?" she said, already getting up from the floor. She chose a smaller knife and pressed it against his cheek. "Should I sign my name on your cheek?"
The Zookeeper inched his face away from her knife. But there was only so much his head could go with him tied down.
"Don't worry, quick and small," she said and pressed the knife on his cheek. Blood colored the edge of her knife.
Then she heard Qing Chen's voice calling her name.