Does it hurt?
Hearing those two words, Shang Ruyi did not feel comforted; instead, even the bit of ill temper she had been suppressing sank a little.
Of course it hurts…
This was the first time she realized that there was a Purgatory in the human world, and it was when a woman gave birth. In the past, watching the soldiers charge into battle, blood clogging their blades as they slew the enemy, flesh flying amidst flashing swords and cold steel, had made her feel those men were brave and fearless; yet now she knew, that kind of swift slash of the knife, even the severing of limbs, was only pain of the flesh, one wound here, another there. Even if one could not endure it, one could simply choose death and be done with it.
But true agony was like a tide surging in from all directions; when it hurt so much she could not even breathe, it was as if axes and blades were hacking apart her body from within. That pain, she realized, came from inside her own flesh.
