The city should be lively the next day, right? Unfortunately, people werenât gathered for something nice. It wasnât something worth celebrating. It was an interrogation, or rather, an execution. The church and royal family tortured the assassin together. The assassin was only able to survive until today for this moment; otherwise, heâd have been tortured to death long ago. However, he wasnât going to be executed with one swing. He was going to enjoy a torture session in the process.
The execution was held in the plaza where everyone gathered to witness a beheading execution. Mr. Lu Xun led countless executions. Watching an execution was a type of ignorant numbness. Meaning people used the life of another to kill time in their boring lives. Nevertheless, my stance was different, literally. I didnât watch from below but from above.
Yesterday, the messenger from the church came to invite us to watch the execution. The man was caught red-handed, which was why there was no need to question him. He couldâve been killed on the spot. There was no need to worry about him being wrongly accused. Of course, the royal family just needed a scapegoat; it didnât necessarily need to strictly be the true culprit. To the old church, however, executing the man from the new church was meaningful. Thus, they hung a board resembling a water droplet as a means of ridiculing the new church.
The new church killed a member of the old church, so the old church was understandably furious about it. There were two possibilities in the execution. One, they could appease the angry masses. Alternatively, they could turn it into full-on warfare. As for what the result would be, thatâd depend on how cruel they were.
An appropriate level of cruelty would appease the enraged masses, while excessive cruelty would infuriate the members of the new church. I didnât know if the church was well-trained at conducting such endeavours, but, if they didnât use their brains and acted purely on their anger, theyâd overdo it. Nonetheless, I was already sitting on the platform up high, watching what was happening below.
The execution platform was a makeshift wooden platform made from. The yellow wood made me feel a little dizzy. In the centre was a sharp iron awl. To the side was a fire stove with wood burning bright red.
âAre they planning to burn him with the fire, a method that Iâm familiar with? Thatâd be too simple, wouldnât it? Using an execution method that everyone has seen before will produce very little results,â I wondered.
To be frank, I couldnât explain the method. In my mind, only the innocent and just who were oppressed were executed via incineration. I, therefore, sympathised with the murderer. But on top of the shawl was a rack. I didnât know what it was for. Maybe they were intending to use an execution tool as a cable pulley?
It wasnât summer yet, but the sky felt very much so comparable to summer. There were no clouds in the sky while the sunrays were hot. We had a piece of cloth overhead to keep the sun out. The hot breeze down below annoyed me when it blew in my face despite us having iced fruit and wine next to us. I sort of missed the cool temperature in the North. The burning fire down below also made me feel as though I was being grilled.
The crowd down below was clustered together. I genuinely couldnât comprehend why they were so willing to watch someoneâs execution. Not to mention the fact that it was such a hot day.
To avoid the people passing out from heat stroke, Mom went out of her way to have people pour cold water down where the people were below from the buildings on either side as a means of preventing it from getting too hot.
Nier, who sat next to me, felt frustrated. She didnât want to let Daisy witness such a cruel scene; therefore, she left Daisy back in the Royal Palace. But nonetheless, she was absentminded since she didnât have her daughter with her. Mom played with her glass of wine and didnât utter a word. She wore a strange smile on her face. I instinctively put some distance between us after what she did to me yesterday. The pope sat in the seat closest to us on the left hand side.
The pope looked at the sun then bowed and stood up. He politely asked Mom, âYour Majesty, the time has come. May we commence?â
Mom placed her glass of wine down and nodded: âGo ahead.â
Mom kept her smile on her face that was hidden behind her black face veil. She crossed her legs and then adopted a slanted sitting posture.
The pope had someone go down to the platform. Not long after, the crowd begun to get rowdy. Accompanying their yelling were flying stones that they had prepared beforehand. The culprit was brought up to the platform. He was totally nude. His eyes were listless, body bruised and scarred. If he wasnât standing, Iâd perceive him as already dead.
The guards hung him up above the sharp awl. The guards next to him took out bits of burning wood. They pressed the wood onto the iron shawl to heat the tip. It took me a moment to finally realise it wasnât execution by burning. They were going to pierce him from bottom to top with iron shawl, and then leave him there for crows and vultures.
I didnât think Mom would allow such a disgusting corpse to be left in the Phoenixâs Nest. Sheâd probably throw it out into a desolate spot outside of the city. But nonetheless, he wasnât going to be simply dropped down. He had several ropes around his arms and legs pulled apart. Two ropes would rip him apart. Below him was a burning-hot sharp awl. By the looks of it, they didnât plan to let him die so comfortably. I shut my eyes and sighed. I really didnât want to watch such a cruel scene.
I never imagined that such a young boy could kill somebody via such a cruel and disgusting method. The pope began to lividly and resentfully speak, explaining the manâs crime through the broadcasting instrument. His tone was extremely provoking.
Every time he finished a sentence, one rope would snap due to be being burnt through. Every time there was one less rope around his arms, the man would fall further down. His flesh had, in fact, touched the burning hot sharp awl. His sad and bitter cries encouraged the crowd below to erupt into cheers. In addition, his legs were stretched beyond what many dancers could achieve. His legs no longer formed a straight line as the Chinese character for the number âoneâ. I reckon it was more appropriate to describe his posture as the two raised bows of a ship.
âThis is a war. Ladies and gentlemen, regardless of the reasons and regardless of what god one believes in, murder is a crime! This time, the new church used a method that would anger God enough to kill one of our believers. The act is a threat to us. If the new church continues to exist, the next person to die could be any one of us. We can communicate and debate, but killing is absolutely unacceptable! As you killed our believer, we swear on our God of Warâs name that we will pursue our revenge to the very end!â
The last rope snapped when the pope finished his final sentence. I shut my eyes as I heard the crisp sound of the rope snap. Nier lightly pressed her hand onto my hand. I didnât want to look. I didnât want to see the mournful sight. If simply stabbing one to death was considered going overboard, this method of snapping oneâs legs and piercing them was excessively cruel⊠Truly too cruelâŠ.