Rebirth of a Mercenary: The Ace Mercenary Forced to Be the Beloved of the Group

"Number Nine".

Number Nine emerged from the shadows, carrying a stainless steel tray. Neatly arranged on the tray were a row of tools—scalpels, hemostats, bone saws, skinning pliers, a bundle of thin steel wire, and several bottles of chemical solvents with faded labels.

Bai Chen's fingers slowly swept across the tray, as if selecting a suitable musical instrument. His fingertips brushed past the bone saw, the hemostat, the skinning forceps, and finally stopped on the scalpel.

He picked up the scalpel; the blade was so thin it was almost transparent, and the edge reflected a very fine silver line under the light.

"Your hand," Bai Chen strode up to the man in black, his icy blue eyes fixed on his right hand, his tone as calm as if he were commenting on the doneness of a dish, "stabbed my brother with a knife. Several times. Below his collarbone, in his arm, in his side. And finally, you even tried to stab him in the heart."

The man in black shook his head frantically, his lips trembling as he squeezed out a few incoherent syllables: "No—no—I didn't—I just—"

"You didn't?" Bai Chen raised an eyebrow slightly, his expression showing curiosity and confusion, but no anger. "Then tell me, who was chasing a sixteen-year-old boy with a dagger in the alley? Who cornered him against the wall, stepped on his knee, and held a knife to his chest?"

He placed the scalpel against the back of the man in black's hand. The moment the cold blade touched the skin, the man in black shuddered violently.

Bai Chen didn't use any force; he simply slid the back of the knife slowly along the back of Bai Chen's hand—from the knuckles to the metacarpals, from the metacarpals to the wrist bones, as if measuring a piece of cloth about to be cut.

"I'm a very fair person. Whichever hand you used to stab my brother, I'll start with the same hand."

The tip of the knife pierced through.

The screams of the man in black echoed through the cramped basement, rattling the chains.

Bai Chen didn't stop—his fingers were as steady as a precise surgical robot, the tip of the scalpel slowly advancing along the gap between the skin and muscle fascia on the back of his hand.

His technique was so precise it was almost supernatural—he cut just the right distance between the epidermis and dermis, maximizing blood flow and pain, but never damaging any major blood vessels or nerves.

This person will not die from excessive blood loss; he will be fully aware of the entire process of every inch of his skin being peeled off.

"Breaking Through the Void has a tradition—actually, I set it up." He spoke as he peeled away the layers, his tone as casual as chatting with an old friend. "Any enemy who lays a hand on a member of Breaking Through the Void has a specific reception procedure after being captured. But do you know why no one has dared to touch anyone from Group A all these years? Because when I was in charge, I set the rules in greater detail. Touching someone from Group A, especially someone from mine—the reception standard doubles. Touching Bai Ye?"

He chuckled very softly, the sound rolling out from deep in his throat like a piece of ice sliding across glass.

There are no standards for messing with Bai Ye. Because no one has ever dared to touch him before.

A single, intact piece of skin was peeled off the back of the man in black's right hand. Bai Chen used tweezers to hold the still-warm skin up to the man's eyes. It was as thin as a cicada's wing, and beads of blood rolled down its edges.

"Look, your skin is actually quite nice."

He casually tossed the piece of skin into the metal tray beside him, making a soft thud. Then he continued cutting. Wrist, forearm, upper arm.

His technique remained abnormally consistent, the tip of the knife piercing through the thinnest gap between the dermis and fascia, peeling off the skin of an entire arm completely, like peeling a banana.

The man in black fainted several times, but each time he was revived by Number Nine using some kind of chemical agent.

"Don't sleep. My brother wasn't asleep when you stabbed him four times. He's only sixteen. Do you know what sixteen means? His bones haven't hardened yet. He's still growing. He should be eating and sleeping properly every day. You, a thirty-something-year-old adult, chased after a sixteen-year-old with a dagger and stabbed him four times."

"He was only ten years old when I left. He couldn't even hold a gun steady back then. Now he can hold a gun, he can fight, he can gouge out people's eyes—you know what that means? It means no one was protecting him. It means he had to learn all these things himself."

The scalpel was returned to the tray. Bai Chen wiped the blood off his fingers with a white cloth and then picked up the bone saw from the tray.

He crouched down, his legs level with the man in black. His icy blue eyes swept over the man's knees, as if examining a piece of ham about to be chopped.

"You kicked my brother and stepped on his knee. His knee. He just bumped his knee this afternoon."

The teeth of the bone saw were embedded. The sound of the saw cutting through the bone echoed in the cramped basement, like someone scratching glass with their fingernails.

The man in black let out a scream that sounded inhuman, followed by wailing, and then begging for mercy—begging for a quick death. Bai Chen didn't stop; he didn't even speed up, but continued the back-and-forth at an almost pleasurable pace.

"Feeling good? What right do you have to talk to me about feeling good?"

The entire leg had been completely removed. The bone fragments were uneven, with bone chips and bits of flesh stuck to the cut surface, and blood was gushing out.

Bai Chen put the bone saw back on the tray, wiped his hands, and then picked up a cleaver from the tray.

He placed the severed leg on the iron table and began to chop—chop after chop, the sound of the blade striking the metal dull and rhythmic, interspersed with the crisp cracking of bone. He chopped with meticulous care, each cut controlled to the same thickness, like a top-tier dish about to be born in a culinary competition.

The minced meat filled half of the iron plate.

Bai Chen picked up the iron plate, walked to the black-clad man whose pupils were dilated from the pain, and squatted down.

He grabbed the man in black by the hair with his left hand, pulling up his face, which was smeared with tears, snot, and blood. His icy blue eyes reflected the man's deathly pale face, then curved into two shallow arcs.

Open your mouth.

The man in black gritted his teeth and shook his head desperately.

Bai Chen's patience seemed to run out in an instant. He punched the man in black in the stomach, and in the brief moment the man opened his mouth in pain, he wedged the edge of the iron plate between his teeth. Meat paste was forced in, bone fragments scraped through the esophagus, and the stench of blood assaulted his senses.

Every expression he made, every disheveled moment, revealed that he was being forced to experience a part of himself.

"Was it tasty? When you stabbed my brother, did you ever imagine you'd end up like this?"

Bai Chen stood up, casually tossed aside the iron plate in his hand, and then took the hot towel handed to him by Number Nine. He slowly and deliberately wiped the bloodstains off each of his fingers, from the base to the tip, even carefully cleaning the bloodstains remaining under his fingernails.

After wiping his hands, he casually tossed the towel onto the still convulsing body of the man in black, then took two steps back and leaned against the edge of the iron table.

He turned his head to look at the black-clad man on the rack, whose human form was no longer recognizable, and a slight smile appeared on his lips.

"This is just the beginning."