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墨書 Inktalez
“What’s wrong?” I thought something terrible had happened and quickly jumped up. I saw my senior sister staring intently at a man standing upright, one hand covering her mouth.
Following her gaze, I looked over and didn’t see anything particularly frightening. At that moment, my senior sister raised her hand, her fingertips trembling slightly as she pointed at the man’s mouth.
Filled with confusion, I leaned in to take a closer look and discovered that it seemed like a stick was inserted into the man’s mouth. No wonder his neck was bent at such an angle. As my gaze swept downward, I suddenly froze, gasping in shock as I instantly understood why my senior sister had exclaimed earlier.
It turned out that the leg standing upright on the ground was not a leg at all but rather an iron rod that had been inserted through his mouth, entering through his throat and exiting from… well, it pierced the man completely!
My goodness, what kind of torture is this?! Even the most heinous criminals in the world wouldn’t deserve such a fate, would they?
At that moment, my senior sister suddenly said, “In Medieval Europe, religious courts often used this kind of punishment to discipline those who were disobedient. They would impale heretics on iron stakes, and the heretic's body would sink under gravity, enduring inhuman suffering. This state could last for at least three days.”
I quickly glanced back, feeling a chill run down my spine. “Could it be… that this place really is the Eighteen Levels of Hell?”
My senior sister didn’t confirm or deny it. “It’s not far off,” she said as she continued to look down.
Although I had prepared myself mentally after witnessing that scene, when I saw what came next, I still gasped in shock, my hair standing on end.
It was a place resembling a slaughterhouse. Four demons held down a man’s limbs, pressing him face-up against the ground. Behind him stood a derrick about two people high, with a sturdy rope hanging from it. One end was connected to a hand-crank device on the ground, beside which squatted a demon grinning up at me while joyfully cranking the handle.
The other end of the rope had a hook attached to it, which was currently hooked onto a bloody intestine. Yes, that intestine was being violently pulled out from the man pressed against the ground. With every turn of the crank by the demon beside the device, the man on the ground would groan in agony as his intestines were pulled out inch by inch and hung from the derrick.
Watching this gruesome scene made my head spin; it felt like the images before me transformed into a continuous animation. The man’s piercing screams echoed in my ears—he was suffering worse than death and could not even wish for an end to his torment.
I could find no words to describe my feelings at that moment. I stood there, staring blankly at my senior sister, who was below me, her eyes fixed intently on a painting on the wall. Her delicate brows were tightly knitted together.
I mechanically moved down, feeling as if a massive stone was pressing down on my heart, both uncomfortable and nauseating.
The painting depicted a woman hanging upside down from something resembling a horizontal bar, her legs spread wide apart, with ropes binding her ankles. Beside her stood two ghosts, each holding various torture devices such as a flowering pear, a saw, and pointed pliers, seemingly preparing to experiment on this unfortunate woman.
But what sent chills down my spine was the giant open-mouthed pliers inserted into the woman's private area, blood flowing from her abdomen and spreading across her body. The two ghosts beside her each held one of the pliers' legs, exerting pressure outward. It was easy to imagine that before long, the part of the pliers inserted into the woman would tear her apart.
At that moment, my senior sister suddenly moved quickly down several steps, and I followed suit. The painting on the wall behind featured another woman.
Her limbs were fully spread apart, nailed to the wall by four sharp spikes at her wrists and ankles. Blood formed a sprawling net beneath her. Between her legs knelt a grinning ghost, raising a glass orb resembling a light bulb towards the woman's private area. Another ghost stood beside her, holding an iron rod with a twisted expression on its face, aiming it at the woman's abdomen.
The woman displayed an expression of extreme terror; her eyes bulged out exaggeratedly, and her mouth was open wide enough to fit a man's fist. Her heart-wrenching screams seemed to echo in my ears.
I stood in shock for a moment and asked in confusion, "What are they doing?"
My senior sister replied, "They are inserting a light bulb into... that place and then striking the woman's abdomen with an iron rod. The bulb will shatter inside her uterus, causing pain a hundred or even a thousand times worse than direct harm to that area."
I was taken aback, unable to fathom how such cruel tortures could exist in this world. My head tightened with tension as I felt both suppressed and nauseated.
There were many more paintings like this behind us, but I had no desire to look any further; I just wanted to leave this place as quickly as possible, even if it meant heading toward the center of the earth.
At that moment, I suddenly realized that all the figures in these paintings were naked adults, both male and female, all appearing to be no younger than sixty years old. I noticed the obvious wrinkles on their necks and foreheads and the sagging contours of their muscles.
Although these sketches are simple, the handling of details is extremely delicate, which gives a sense of being right there in the scene.
I couldn't help but ask, "Why are all the punished individuals elderly?"
"Original sin," my senior sister replied. "Christ believes that humans are born sinful. The elderly and infants are closest to death and also closest to rebirth, carrying a great deal of original sin. Only through punishment can their souls be redeemed. If I’m not mistaken, the protagonists in the paintings further on will be newborn infants."
"Christ?" I asked in confusion. "What is something foreign doing here?"
My senior sister thought for a moment and said, "The Middle Ages were a catastrophic time in Medieval Europe’s history. It's possible that some foreigners fled to China for refuge. If you want to know the real reason, let’s go." She tilted her head down habitually.
We did not linger any longer, merely skimming over those paintings. My senior sister was right; after turning a few corners downwards, the protagonists in the paintings indeed transformed into infants less than a month old, and the punishments inflicted upon them became even more brutal.
Even though I only glanced at them briefly, my mind and body were still greatly impacted. I wanted to quickly find a topic to distract myself; otherwise, I would truly go mad.
I casually asked, "Senior sister, you seem to have quite a bit of knowledge about Medieval Europe. After we parted ways, did you ever go to Medieval Europe?"
She turned back to look at me and said something that nearly made me bite my tongue: "I've never been to Medieval Europe, but I've been to Foreigners' Grave quite a lot." (To be continued.)
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