Maiden Of The Splitting Moon - Chapter 731: Experiments

He ran his fingers through every part of the walls, looking for something. But the elder didn’t find it, it was only when he went back to the stone bed that he found something. Running his hand underneath it, his fingers suddenly stopped as they pressed on something.

There was an audible click as the room began to crank and tremble. She rested a hand on Blood Moon, prepared to fight if need be but she didn’t need to. The walls shifted and opened up, revealing something she wasn’t expecting to see.

She watched the walls open up and retreat into the shadows as new walls replaced them. These walls were spotless, clean, and pristine. However, they had this glass display with dozens of hooks inside.

One half had nothing but knives, needles, and other instruments hanging from each hook. The other side had a closed cabinet.

“What is this for? And… where have I seen tools like these?” she asked herself.

Ignoring everything else, Ming Yue walked forward and opened the display case. Looking and the clean knives and whatnot, she turned towards the closed cabinet, moving her hand over to open it.

But then Elder Shen gently grabbed her wrist, stopping her from going any further.

“Wha-”

She looked at him only to falter when she saw his expression.

It was… different. He had always had this gentle demeanor to him, an old man who could never get angry. But the look on his face, it was calm but serious.

Far from gentle but perhaps silent anger simmering within him.

“Do you really want to see what is inside?” he asked her, “I won’t stop you but I’m sure that this will not be pleasant.”

Ming Yue paused for a moment but nodded.

“This has to do with Hongyu. I have to know, no matter what”, she told him.

The elder sighed before letting go of her hand and he looked elsewhere.

“Then prepare yourself”, he told her.

Facing the closed cabinet, she took a deep breath before grabbing the little knob and opening the cabinet.

Her eyes widened in shock. She felt her heart drop the moment she saw what was inside.

Inside the cabinet were vials, vials of blood. It was red in color but had a faint golden hue to it. Everything suddenly clicked as her eyes darted to the knives and back to the vials.

“They… they were collecting her blood?” she exclaimed.

Then Elder Shen added on, picking up a journal and glancing through it.

“They weren’t just collecting her blood, they were running experiments on her. It seems that they had the same questions as us, trying to find out her origins. They just kept her sedated at all times, extracting a little bit of everything from her. Blood, hair, skin, flesh, bone, everything”, he said.

Ming Yue just stared at the vials, feelings of horror and disgust welled up within her.

“But why would they do this? Who could do such a thing to a small child like her?” she asked.

The elder consoled her but also gave her the reality of the situation.

“I know you’re young but you’ve seen what lengths people are willing to go to get what they want. Have you not come across those who would relish in the pain of others? Did your experience at the Demon Continent not show you? What about Redmist Sanctuary? There are many who have no hesitation in killing, hurting, and torturing anyone.”

He saw the indignant look on Ming Yue’s face and then sighed.

“I know that it’s because of Hongyu. You cared for the girl for over a year, bonding with her. If it wasn’t her but someone else, you would not feel so strongly but she is someone close to your heart. Me and the other two care for the child deeply as well but this is a time when you should keep calm and examine everything”, he told her.

The young woman looked stifled but ultimately swallowed her anger. She knew that he was right. Seeing such atrocities was not a first for her but knowing that it happened to Hongyu irked her.

“Alright, so they did all of this to her. What came of it? What does that journal say?” she asked.

Elder Shen flipped through the book, quickly reading through. His face was full of focus though it soon changed to surprise.

“This is… interesting. According to what this says, she was found from a meteor that crashed into the Human Continent. The meteor itself made such a commotion that multiple armies had come to investigate. They made several attempts to crack it open, succeeding and then discovering her inside. Knowing that she was not from this realm, they poured many resources into finding out who she was or what she was. Thus, she was secretly moved to somewhere more isolated which was this fortress here. And for several years, they kept her under a trance while experimenting on her.”

“But why would they do that?” Ming Yue asked, “Why would their first thought be to keep her confined?”

“It was fear. They were afraid of her, sure she looked human but that was it. They wanted to know what she was, why she came here, and where she came from. From the looks of it, they did try to talk to her or converse at first. That is why she knew how to read and write but she didn’t speak. Because of that, trying to ask bore no result so they did this instead. Some attempts were made to bring her out of this but they all ended up in failure. And while their experiments did have some result, it was nothing concrete”, he answered.

“Then… at the end, does it say what they abandoned the fortress? Why they abandoned her?”

Given this question, the Elder went to the final few pages of the journal, carefully reading it.

“Hoh, it was abandoned due to the Calamity, which came just a year after finding her. Seeing as they could not get much from her, thet left her to die”, he said.

Ming Yue stared at him before looking at the journal in his hands. She turned around, staring at the vials of blood.

“So they did all of this for nothing?!”

Elder Shen looked at her while closing the journal.

“What they did find was similar to our findings, her unique physique, the fact that her origins do not come from anywhere in this world. And since she came from a meteor, it would be plausible that she came from the Heavens themselves.”

“The Heavens themselves”, Ming Yue repeated, muttering under her breath.

She turned to the elder, looking at him for guidance.

“What now? Are we ready to leave?” the young cultivator asked.

“Mm, nearly, let’s just take another look around, to make sure that we didn’t miss anything.”

As he said this, Elder Shen put the journal away before searching around the room once more. Ming Yue watched him and waited by the door, not wanting to be there any longer.

But once the Elder was satisfied, he walked out of the room.

“Alright, we can leave now, there wasn’t much aside from the journal and those vials”, he said.

He suddenly stopped, looking over his shoulder at her.

“If it makes you feel better, you can destroy it”, he told her.

“Of course.”

Ming Yue took a moment before looking at the room where she found Hongyu. Remembering the tools and vials of blood, she made her move, bringing out a small Storm Lance that obliterated everything.

The room was nothing more than dust and rubble once she was finished.

Afterward, they went back up in silence, climbing the stairs one step at a time. But that silence was broken when Ming Yue asked Eldre Shen something.

“When you were doing your own tests on Hongyu… was it like this? Have you… ever done something like that?”