After Yuanli was captured, he was sent to Lujiang, along with the radio equipment and papers with writing that had been searched out.
Wang Dun carefully examined them. From these preserved written records, he seemed to see a group of people chatting face-to-face, their language concise, mostly discussing important matters, yet the exchange flowed naturally.
Because transportation was inconvenient and transmitting messages took time, each letter would contain as much as possible, even repeatedly mentioning the same matter across several letters for fear the other party would forget.
Like Wang Dun writing to Wang Dao, enticing him to rebel together—he repeatedly discussed the Wang clan’s future and Sima Rui’s suspicions of him.
But the “letters” they had searched out showed questions and answers, back and forth, like the dialogues between Confucius and his students in the Analects—extremely concise. Above each line of dialogue were corresponding numbers.
Wang Dun looked at the characters decoded from those numbers, thought about those seemingly plausible rumors, then looked again at the large copper box they’d searched out whose purpose couldn’t be determined. He vaguely guessed at something.
Wang Dun had already cross-referenced the Analects and the Thousand Character Classic, using his method to decode some parts. Strangely, some characters he found matched, but others didn’t.
He vaguely felt his method wasn’t wrong—rather, the reference text was wrong. For a time, he couldn’t find a way forward.
With too many unknown mysteries, he wanted to extract more information from Yuanli’s mouth.
Wang Dun summoned a cruel torturer and had every torture method used on him once, barely keeping Yuanli alive.
The torturer was very excited—this was the first time he’d seen someone who could withstand such punishment. If Wang Dun hadn’t restricted him, insisting on keeping Yuanli alive, he felt he could do so much more.
Seeing Wang Dun arrive, the torturer bowed his head and stepped aside. He knew he wasn’t well-liked, and Wang Dun had never been good-tempered.
Wang Dun saw Yuanli hanging there with his head drooping, smelled the heavy scent of blood in the air, frowned, and glanced at his attendant.
The attendant stepped forward to lift the man’s face, checked his breathing, and said: “Still alive.”
Wang Dun: “Wake him. I have questions to ask him.”
The torturer brought over a large iron needle and viciously jabbed it several times into his foot. Yuanli, who was on the verge of death, shuddered throughout his body and weakly lifted his eyelids.
The figures before him were blurred. His mouth was pried open and something rushed down his throat. After a while, Yuanli began to feel real sensations and tasted bitterness.
This was medicine—medicine to keep him alive. In the past two days he had drunk three bowls, meaning he had nearly died three times. This was the fourth.
Yuanli didn’t want to die. He firmly believed that if the Lady learned he had fallen into Wang Dun’s hands, she would do everything possible to save him. So after realizing this was medicine, he actively swallowed, getting more of the medicine into his stomach.
Wang Dun saw his will to survive and said after he finished drinking the medicine: “Yuanli, as long as you’re willing to speak, I’ll not only let you live but also grant you the rank of general, bestow upon you fine land and beautiful women. Whatever you had under Zhao Hanzhang, you’ll have with me. What you didn’t have, I’ll give you everything here. How about it?”
The voice buzzed. At this moment, Yuanli’s vision was still blurred—he could neither see people clearly nor hear words clearly. But using his toes to think, he could guess what they were saying, so he remained slow and unresponsive, not engaging with them.
Wang Dun frowned. The torturer looked once and knew Yuanli’s condition, reporting: “General, he just woke and hasn’t recovered yet, so he can’t hear sounds and seemingly can’t see people clearly either.”
Wang Dun was displeased but still waited patiently for a while. After Yuanli’s eyes regained clarity and the torturer nodded, Wang Dun repeated what he had just said.
Since being captured, Yuanli hadn’t seen Wang Dun, but while in Jiankang he had stood in crowds observing him more than once, so he recognized him immediately.
He sneered derisively: “What face do you have to compare yourself with our Great General? A provincial governor who abandoned his city and people—worse than a deserter fleeing for his life.”
Wang Dun’s anger surged, his face flushing red. He snatched the whip from the torturer’s hand and struck Yuanli.
The barbs on the whip brought out blood foam, but Yuanli only grunted twice before laughing loudly. This degree of pain meant nothing to him.
Except for the torturer, probably no one knew that being whipped was just an appetizer to him. Among all tortures, it had the lowest pain level.
But Wang Dun didn’t think so. Seeing two more bloody welts added, his anger dissipated somewhat. He pressed the whip against Yuanli’s chest: “You hope Zhao Hanzhang will come save you? Dream on! To her, you’re just a cruel torturer, not even worth as much as a dog. Someone who lives in darkness—I’m giving you a chance to stand in the sunlight. That’s the fortune of your three lifetimes.”
Yuanli spat the blood foam from his mouth, dirtying his whip, looking at Wang Dun with fearless eyes: “You know nothing about my sovereign. Don’t try to speculate about my lord with that sesame-sized brain of yours.”
Wang Dun was provoked by Yuanli again. He instinctively moved to torture him further when his attendant rushed forward to grab his swinging fist. If this punch landed, Yuanli would probably really die. “General, why not hand him over to the men below? They have experience with torture—they can make someone wish for death without actually dying.”
Yuanli laughed wildly: “Torture me? You’re all far behind. When it comes to torture, I’m your ancestor!”
Wang Dun stared at him for a moment, then suddenly smiled and turned his head: “Bring everything here.”
He said to Yuanli: “You’ve been tortured since your arrival and still don’t know the situation at your private residence, do you?”
“Your people were very loyal. They were more self-aware than you, knowing they might not withstand torture, so they took their own lives early.”
Yuanli immediately guessed it was Zhao Bingzhong. Except for that child, the people at the private residence were all soldiers he had personally trained. Never mind anything else—better to live miserably than die well was executed most thoroughly. They would absolutely never commit suicide. Even in death, they would drag others down with them, taking one if they could.
Zhao Bingzhong…
Yuanli didn’t want to feel sad, but he had never liked that child. Yet he didn’t realize that his eyes were now red, filled with tears, making his vision blur.
Zhao Bingzhong was very intelligent, the smartest in their training group. He learned things extremely quickly, just too naive and kind-hearted. Having been a refugee himself and witnessed the deepest evil in the world, he somehow believed most people in the world were like the Lady—that they would save him, would save all suffering people they encountered.
So he was the same way.
He had only been under Yuanli’s command for a short time when Yuanli wanted to send him back to the north. His usefulness under his command was less than ten percent—better to return north and become an official.
But Zhao Bingzhong was stubborn. Having received orders, he wouldn’t go back, and Yuanli truly couldn’t find anyone smarter than him.
He wasn’t just responsible for sending and receiving telegrams. All intelligence gathered from various channels was sorted and categorized by him, with useful information screened, recorded, and submitted.
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