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

When the effects of the anesthetic wore off completely, Bai Ye felt an excruciating pain that felt like it was being torn apart.

The pain surged from deep within the bullet hole in his abdomen, like a red-hot iron chain being pulled out of the wound, only to be pushed back in halfway, repeatedly, slowly, and relentlessly grinding against every nerve.

The pain surged up like a tide, each wave higher and more intense than the last, almost shattering his consciousness.

He gritted his teeth, cold sweat trickling down his forehead and into his eyes; he didn't even have the strength to blink.

He had bitten his lip until it bled, and blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, dripping onto the fabric of his shirt along with his sweat, but he couldn't utter a single word.

He didn't want to shout. He knew that shouting would please the viper, and he wouldn't give the viper anything it wanted.

I don't know how much time passed—maybe twenty minutes, maybe an hour—the iron gate was pushed open.

When Viper came in, he had changed his clothes. He was wearing a dark gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his forearms, revealing slightly bulging veins on his exposed forearms.

He wore a white disposable rubber glove on his left hand and carried a metal tray in his right. On the tray were several items neatly arranged: a pair of medical tweezers, a roll of gauze, a small bottle of alcohol, and a piece of cotton wool for stopping bleeding. He walked up to Bai Ye, placed the tray on a small table next to him, then pulled over the folding chair, sat down, crossed his legs, and wore the same smile as when he last came, as if he were visiting an old friend.

"Bai Ye," he called out, his tone light as if greeting, "have you thought it through? Will you work for me, or continue to be tortured here?"

Bai Ye looked up at him.

His face was so pale it was almost transparent, and there were still traces of blood on his lips from when he bit himself. Sweat and blood mixed together, leaving thin streaks on his face, but his eyes were still fixed on the viper. There was no pleading, no wavering, only a kind of stubbornness, a cold hardness that suppressed all emotions to the deepest level.

He spoke, his voice hoarse and soft, as if squeezed from a crushed trachea, but every word was clear: "...dreaming."

The viper shrugged, as if it had expected this answer.

He didn't get angry or change his expression; he simply picked up the tweezers from the tray and twirled them between his fingers.

"Then there's nothing I can do." He stood up and walked to Bai Ye. "Since you still haven't figured it out, let me help you think about it some more."

The tweezers were inserted into the wound on Bai Ye's abdomen.

Bai Ye's body tensed up abruptly in that instant. His back left the wall, his whole body like a fully drawn bow, the veins on his shoulders and neck bulging, and the iron handcuffs on his wrists rattling loudly.

His mouth opened, but he didn't make a sound. He simply suppressed all the sound deep in his throat, turning it into a very low, muffled groan that seemed to be squeezed out from the bottom of his chest, which he then bit off and swallowed back down.

Viper's fingers, gloved with rubber, probed into the wound. When his fingertips touched the edge of the bullet, Bai Ye's abdominal muscles convulsed violently.

The viper didn't stop moving; his fingers slowly and precisely searched, pinched, and adjusted the angle inside the wound.

The tip of the tweezers gripped the edge of the bullet and pulled it outwards, but slipped due to the angle. They probed again to find a new gripping position. Each movement brought a new wave of excruciating pain, grinding against Bai Ye's already torn nerves once more.

Bai Ye's clenched teeth began to tremble, the muscles at the base of his teeth ached so much he could barely hold on. His forehead pressed against the cold wall, beads of sweat slid down his nose, hovered for a moment on his chin, and then dripped onto the ground.

His chest heaved violently, and each breath aggravated his wounds, sending more pain throughout his body.

Viper's tweezers finally gripped the bullet firmly. He pulled it out slowly, as if deliberately prolonging the process, so that Bai Ye could feel every tactile sensation of the bullet being withdrawn from the wound in his most lucid state.

When the bullet left his body, it brought with it a small trickle of warm blood that flowed down Bai Ye's abdomen and soaked into a dark patch on the fabric of his trousers.

Viper tossed the deformed bullet into the tray with a crisp metallic clang. Then he picked up the bottle of alcohol, unscrewed the cap, and aimed the bottle at the wound on Bai Ye's abdomen.

"This will hurt more." Viper's tone was very gentle, as if giving a child who was about to get a shot a simple reminder.

When the alcohol was poured into the wound, a burst of white light exploded before Bai Ye's eyes.

The burning sensation was even more intense than when the bullet went in; it felt like a red-hot iron skewer had been pierced into his abdominal cavity, burning from the depths of the wound all the way down to his spine, up along the nerve bundles, to the back of his head, to his temples, and then exploding into a ball of scorching white inside his skull.

The burning sensation from the alcohol subsided slightly, and then a roll of gauze was torn open and began to be wrapped around the wound.

"You're very tough," he said. "I like tough people. But do you know what happens to tough people in the end? They all get ground to dust."

Bai Ye's consciousness began to blur. The excruciating pain in his abdomen and the burning sensation of the alcohol were constantly tug-of-war within his body. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and the edges of his vision began to darken, as if someone were slowly turning off the lights from the outside.

Just as his consciousness was about to slip away, he felt a needle prick his arm. The cold liquid injected into his veins was like a bucket of cold water poured on his sinking consciousness, forcefully pulling him back to wakefulness.

"Don't sleep." Viper's voice rang in his ear, with an almost gentle tone. "We agreed to talk slowly."

When Bai Ye was pulled back to consciousness by the injection of the forced awakening drug, the pain in her abdomen returned with even greater intensity.

The viper stood before him, having changed its gauze, and was slowly wiping the blood off the tweezers.

The second round, the third round. Every time Bai Ye's consciousness was about to slip away, Viper would give him another injection, forcibly pulling him back from the brink of unconsciousness, keeping him awake to endure the next round of pain.

Later, the medication stopped working, and Bai Ye's body was already pushed to its limit. Even the forced sobering medicine could no longer pull him back to reality.

Viper looked down at him and put the empty syringe back on the tray. Then he stood up, took off his gloves, and threw them, along with the roll of used gauze, into the nearby trash can with a soft thud.

"Take him back," Viper said to his follower standing in the shadows by the door. "Let me know when he wakes up."

The basement fell silent again, with only Bai Ye's faint breathing amplified and dispersed in the empty room.