Chapter 141: Humans die for wealth and birds die for food.Chapter 141: Torture
Shota's confession was cut short by another agonized scream as Xiu mercilessly reapplied the glowing iron poker, this time pressing it firmly into the soft flesh of his lower abdomen.
Kurokawa, watching from the shadows, flinched violently again, unable to look away from the horrifying scene.
Xiu showed no reaction to Shota's screams, twisting the poker slightly with cold precision. The sizzling sound of burning flesh returned, mixing sickeningly with Shota's renewed wails. He seemed completely detached, observing the process with clinical interest.
When Shota's cries finally weakened into exhausted whimpers, Xiu withdrew the poker again, leaving another angry, blackened burn mark. He roughly grabbed Shota's hair, forcing his head up again, leaning close, his electronically altered voice dripping with menace beneath the deceptively cheerful Jigglypuff mask.
"Why," Xiu hissed, his voice low and dangerous, "did you think I came here after investigating? Did you think I didn't already know about the embezzlement? Were you trying to humiliate me? Test me by feeding me half-truths?"
Shota could barely focus, his vision swimming, consciousness threatening to desert him again. Pain radiated from the two severe burns on his torso.
Seeing his near-unconscious state, Xiu gestured towards Kurokawa. "Water."
Kurokawa quickly fetched the bottle used earlier and poured it unceremoniously over Shota's head. The cold shock jolted him back to awareness, though the agony from his wounds remained overwhelming, reducing his responses to pathetic moans.
"Mmmph… Hmmm…" As the water dripped down onto the floor, some of it touched the still-hot poker lying near the fire pit, causing it to sizzle loudly. Shota's body convulsed again at the sound, associating it with the searing pain.
"Heh," Xiu sneered, picking up the poker again, casually tossing it back into the flames. "Keep talking," he commanded softly. "The whole truth this time. Where did all the money go? Tell me something I don't already know… or next time," he paused, letting the threat hang, "this," he gestured vaguely downwards with the poker, "goes lower."
Shota gasped, pure terror momentarily overriding the physical pain. His eyes darted downwards instinctively. He finally broke completely. "Don't… please… I'll tell you! Everything! I'll tell you everything!"
Driven by fear, the words spilled out of him again, a desperate, unfiltered confession. He admitted to the full extent of the embezzlement – far more than initially suspected, hundreds of thousands of Poké Dollars siphoned over just two months. He detailed the methods – shell companies, inflated invoices, skimming cash sales. He explained where the money went – lavish personal spending, gambling debts, payoffs…
As Shota confessed, Kurokawa listened from the side, his initial shock turning to cold fury. 'This bastard… stealing so much while the rest of us struggle…'
"Where is the remaining money now?" Xiu interrupted Shota's panicked rambling, his voice sharp.
"S-some is hidden… at my place… the rest… I spent it…" Shota stammered.
Xiu glanced towards Kurokawa, who subtly shook his head, indicating the known hidden amount was far less than what Shota implied was left. Xiu turned back to Shota, reaching towards the poker again. "Still lying?"
"No! Please! I…" Shota saw Xiu reach for the poker and immediately panicked again, desperate to avoid more pain. "Wait! Wait! Okay! Okay!" He quickly confessed to hiding a larger sum, explaining the exact location. But even with this admission, Xiu, mentally calculating based on the figures Xiaoyuan had provided, knew a significant amount was still unaccounted for, likely gambled away or spent untraceably.
"Less than half recovered?" Xiu growled, stepping forward abruptly and delivering a vicious slap across Shota's face. The sound echoed in the cellar. Shota's head snapped back, stars exploding behind his eyes again.
"How am I supposed to explain this loss to the company?! You worthless piece of trash! You think you can just walk away from this?!" Xiu roared, the sudden burst of raw, unfiltered rage startling even Kurokawa as a palpable aura of brutality emanated from the masked figure, chilling the already cold air.
Shota stared back, utterly terrified, skin crawling, goosebumps rising despite the heat from the nearby fire. Kurokawa too felt a strange pressure, his heart pounding uncontrollably, sensing a dangerous shift in the interrogator's demeanor.
"Wait! Please! I have… I have other assets!" Shota babbled frantically, urine staining his trousers as fear completely overwhelmed him. "Things I… acquired…" He desperately tried to offer anything to appease the terrifying figure before him.
Xiu looked down at the pathetic, trembling man with utter disgust, taking an involuntary step back from the spreading puddle and foul smell. Listening to Shota desperately list other minor assets, trying to bargain for his life, Xiu's earlier cold fury began to subside, replaced by weary contempt. He cut him off irritably.
"Do you even realize," Xiu asked, his voice dripping with scorn, "what you threw away? The company valued you. Saw your potential. Promoted you to a mid-level management position, gave you responsibility, a chance at a real career…"
Shota, perhaps sensing a shift away from immediate physical threat, suddenly found a spark of defiant resentment. "Value me?" he spat back, his voice raspy but filled with bitterness. "Stuck managing that dead-end bookstore while Kurokawa gets the real stack of cash? My sales figures were better than his! Why should I bust my gut for peanuts while he handles the high-volume piracy routes?!"
Xiu actually laughed at the sheer ignorance and misplaced entitlement. He turned his head towards Kurokawa in the shadows. "Kurokawa," he instructed calmly, "why don't you enlighten our friend here about the company's current 'business transfer' strategy?"
Shota looked confused, turning his head awkwardly towards Kurokawa.
Kurokawa stepped forward reluctantly, sighed, and explained patiently. "Shota… the company started phasing out of the piracy business months ago. It's too risky long-term. What I manage now? It's just residual inventory liquidation. Sales are handled entirely through outsourced distributors now."
Shota stared, stunned into silence.
Xiu picked up the explanation, his tone laced with pitying contempt. "You really thought that bookstore manager position was a dead end? You fool. Piracy is profitable short-term, yes, but it's shady and unsustainable. If the company wants legitimate growth, wants to eventually operate within the system, it has to transition away from illicit activities. That bookstore, the legitimate front operations… that's the company's future expansion direction. You weren't sidelined; you were placed in a key position for future growth."
He leaned closer again. "Speaking of which… do you know who recommended you for that position? Who argued for giving you that chance, despite your history?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Miss Yuan. Xiaoyuan. She saw potential in you, believed you deserved a chance to turn your life around. She personally vouched for you to the real boss."
He let that sink in. "Working in the bookstore wasn't meant to be boring. It was an opportunity— a chance for you to learn skills, gain legitimate experience, maybe even," he added pointedly, "use the quiet time to actually read some of those books, improve yourself.
Run the store well, get promoted, handle your job with real responsibility, and maybe you could've even snagged a senior executive position down the line… it was all possible. A pity," Xiu concluded coldly, "you threw it all away."
"What… what did you say?" Shota stammered, reeling from the revelation, looking utterly bewildered. "Yuan… Xiaoyuan… she's not… she's not the boss?"
"The boss?" Xiu laughed again, genuinely amused this time by Shota's complete misunderstanding. "Who told you she was the boss? She's just an employee, Shota. Like you. Like Kurokawa. Higher-ranking and more trusted, yes, but still just an employee."
He decided to twist the knife one last time. "And don't think the real boss hasn't been watching," Xiu added conversationally. "He knows everything you've been doing. Every fake invoice, every skimmed sale. The only reason I wasn't sent to deal with you sooner was because Xiaoyuan kept defending you, kept believing you could still turn things around, kept vouching for you." He shook his head sadly.
"And now? Because of your greed, your betrayal… she's the one taking the heat. Badly implicated because she trusted you." He sighed dramatically. "Recruited you herself, I heard. What a fool she was, believing in someone like you!"
"Asshole!" Shota suddenly screamed, not in pain this time, but in pure, unadulterated rage, directed at Xiu, "What did you just say?!"