He had a premonition about where they were since so many had died at his hands in that same place, and indeed, when they finally took off his blindfold, he rolled his eyes. They couldn't be any less predictable.
There was a cliff at the end of the property, and when standing on it, the ground below was incredibly distant. There was only one way in and out of Mountain Hall: the gate entrance. There was no other exit, which made it an advantageous terrain for them.
It was very far removed from the city, isolated and protected by the government itself, thus home to a lot of dead bodies, top-secret operations, and meetings. He was very familiar with the place.
When they had stopped beating him, they dragged him to the edge of the cliff and forced him onto his knees. Below, there was a heavily flowing mass of water. One only saw a blanket of greyish-white mist when staring down the cliff from above.
The water itself was not visible, but one could tell how massive and violent it was by the raging sounds of flowing water. It was supposed to be peaceful and calming, making one become one with nature, but the nature of dealings taking place there had corrupted the serene feeling, or at least that is what Dian usually thought. So that place always gave him an eerie feeling.
To make it worse, he was most scared of heights. He would rather take a bullet.
The men who held him captive seemed to know this, for they were dragging him closer towards the edge of the cliff. He felt a chill run down his spine.
"Shit."
"Dian, still not a fan of heights?"
A lady's voice spoke from slightly behind him. He recognized it immediately. Lady Sorn, the mistress of the Pasatit family.
Of course, she had to be present. She was known for her cruel torture techniques. She was quite smart. She believed that humans tended to break easily like twigs when exposed to their greatest fear, which was more cruel than being cut bit by bit with a knife.
Dian had no impairing weaknesses or fears. On the surface, he was impossible to break. Even Lady Sorn knew that throwing him down from that cliff might not be enough. She had to work with what she could for now, though.
"Lady Sorn, don't waste your time, huh? Just throw me over."
He chuckled, trying to hide the trembling of his voice as one of the men grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced his head down over the edge so that he was staring directly below.
"Tsk tsk!" Lady Sorn was clearly enjoying this. "Don't worry about my time. I have plenty of it."
She said, laughing as she moved closer. Dian heard a couple of cars arrive. More audience came for the show. He wondered if all the families would be present. Would Kamman be there?
He was so brave when he decided to come out, but now the thought of seeing him again made his knees go weak with anxiety. The men held him up as he crumbled to the ground. His stomach began to hurt. Whenever it did that, he was really losing it.
"Dian, I'm impressed." Her voice held genuine admiration.
"He must have been shocked when you betrayed his trust so fatally. He trusted you more than his own son."
She was referring to Master Chen. Then she leaned down to his ear, her hand sliding down his open chest tenderly. The clothes that should have been covering it had long been torn away. She whispered in his ear in a way that was meant to be seductive, but Dian felt only disgust.
"I never really liked them anyway...." This lady was married, for heaven's sake.
"Show some self-respect. You're old enough to be my mother, and actually, my mother is younger..." Dian riled her up, as he usually did.
He felt his chest collide with something metal before he finished his sentence. It was excruciatingly painful. His head felt dizzy, and he felt gallons of blood gushing out from where the knuckles met. Lady Sorn had metal knuckles on, and they tore the delicate part of his skin from the punch she landed on him. She smiled.
"Don't push me. I've tolerated your condescension long enough, and today it ends."
She held her hand out, and her men dropped something in her hand. "Oh no," he rolled his eyes sarcastically. Death was the last thing he would have been worried about tonight.
"Enough," a booming voice of a man said strictly from somewhere.
"Remember why we're here."
He addressed Lady Sorn, who replied, "Alright," in a pouting, baby voice.
Being as old as she was and doing that was ridiculous. If Dian was not in extreme pain at that time, he would have burst out laughing.
Master Xie of the Xie Family was the one who spoke up. He was the second in rank of the five main families. Was he even here? Interesting.
He now fully turned to Dian and asked calmly,
"Where is the ring?"
The ring? Dian thought, then he remembered. Ah, that was why they were here?
He couldn't help but laugh. His ribs hurt like hell, but he laughed louder; his shoulders violently shook from laughter. The audience around him thought he was going mad.
"You! What's funny, huh? Why are you laughing?" She asked defensively.
"Your boss is dead. Shouldn't you want revenge? Or are your intentions different? What makes you so different from a murderer like me?" He was genuinely amused. One could hear it in his tone.
He had already forgotten about the ring. It was a bloody tool; it walked around with death. So he threw it away, or lost it; he was not quite sure.
"Our intentions are irrelevant to the dead. You won't need the ring in hell, so hand it over."
"You're too incompetent to own that."
Dian stared into Master Xie's eyes, his chilling words freezing the master in place. No one dared insult him so brazenly, yet Dian continued unflinchingly.
"I may have hidden or destroyed it, or..."
He smiled as he stared squarely at him.
"The ring is not what you should be looking for."
Master Xie lingered on the last words. Was there something else? He was about to ask when a fleet of cars drove past the entrance, not reducing their speed.
The fleet movement looked so familiar that Dian's breathing stopped for a moment.
The Chens had arrived.