That day, Prince Ning arrived suddenly in Youzhou. Shortly after, all nine city gates of Youzhou were sealed shut.

Inside the home of a wealthy merchant surnamed Chen.

Li Chi sat in a chair, watching as the Tingwei officers carried out chest after chest of silver, watching the people kneeling on the ground tremble uncontrollably.

“Now, does anyone have something they’d like to say to me?”

Li Chi asked in an even tone.

“Prince Ning, we only… we were only gathering privately, playing a few rounds of cards…”

One of them knelt there and said: “This — even if it violates the law, it hardly warrants this kind of treatment, let alone this kind of slaughter.”

Li Chi let out a soft sigh.

He pointed at the man who had spoken: “So you must be Chen Dang.”

The merchant, who appeared to be around forty, kowtowed: “In reply to Your Highness, this commoner is indeed Chen Dang.”

Li Chi issued his instructions: “He’s useful. Take him back and put him to torture. See how long he can hold out. Yu Jiuling — you oversee the interrogation. As long as you don’t beat him to death, handle him as you see fit.”

“Ha!”

Yu Jiuling immediately stepped forward and, raising his hand toward Chen Dang’s face, delivered five or six sharp slaps in quick succession.

By the time the last blow landed, Chen Dang’s face had already swollen up.

Were he not bound hand and foot, he likely would have struck back.

Yu Jiuling gave a wave of his hand. From behind him, a squad of men filed in — dressed in black, though cut differently from the black worn by the Tingwei officers. Every one of them had eyes weighted down with hatred. Each wore a black armband on the right arm, and white cloth wound around the forehead.

Yu Jiuling crouched down in front of Chen Dang and looked him in the eyes: “We’ve already traced it — two people appear to have escaped to Yanzhou. And if nothing went wrong, those two who fled to Yanzhou would certainly have sent you word by now.”

He spoke with the utmost seriousness: “So whatever happened in Guan County, you should know it clear as day.”

“Two commanders of Prince Ning’s intelligence operatives were killed by Lü Wuman. The people standing behind me — they were the personal subordinates of those two commanders.”

“I brought them here specifically so that you’d know what they intend to do. They’ve taken an oath to avenge their commanders.”

“Do you know what intelligence operatives do? Your kind hides things away. The operatives’ job is to dig them out.”

Yu Jiuling stood: “I can guess it too — people like you must have had some training, and won’t confess easily. But what you don’t know is that I genuinely don’t want you to confess easily either.”

He waved a hand: “Take him away.”

The operatives stepped forward, pressing Chen Dang down and hauling him off.

Just at that moment, a voice came from behind Li Chi and the others.

“Your Highness Prince Ning, Commander — might I… might I try questioning these people?”

Yu Jiuling turned around and found it was the young tea house attendant who had followed them over.

This young attendant was one of the intelligence operatives, having joined just half a year ago — and he was someone that Gang Gang himself had personally taken in.

The attendant’s name was Zhang Tang. He was a child of hardship; his background was not unlike Yu Jiuling’s own.

So upon learning of Zhang Tang’s story, Yu Jiuling had paid him extra attention.

This young man was only sixteen. Both his parents had died when he was very small.

The tea house proprietor was the neighbor directly across from his family home. Seeing him alone and destitute, the proprietor had taken him in.

From childhood he had been mischievous — which made him more like Yu Jiuling — but in one way he was nothing like Yu Jiuling at all.

That was: he was ruthless.

Gang Gang had been making his rounds inspecting Jizhou’s various localities. When he arrived in Youzhou, he stopped to rest at this tea house, and by chance came to know of this young man.

Zhang Tang was an orphan. Growing up along the way, he had certainly not been spared from being bullied.

But he never suffered in silence. Once, when a group surrounded and beat him, he locked his arms around one of them and bit the man’s ear clean off.

Afterward, the man whose ear had been bitten off came back with a crowd looking for him. Zhang Tang grabbed a bone-scraping knife from the tea house kitchen.

At the time — a child of only twelve or thirteen, standing in the middle of the street with a knife in hand — not a single person dared approach.

In that moment, those men were afraid. No one dared lay a hand on him. The tea house proprietor also stood by his side. After a brief standoff, the group withdrew.

That night, those men came back and set fire to the place — torching the tea house. Though the fire was put out in time, the losses were severe.

The following night, Zhang Tang slipped out alone and tracked down the man whose ear he had bitten off — and cut off his other ear with a single stroke of the knife.

The man was several years older than him, yet was so frightened he wet himself.

Using the man’s blood, Zhang Tang left some words written on the wall. From that point on, that family truly never dared come trouble him again.

The words he left were:

*I can leave the tea house. From now on, I do only one thing — I hide in the shadows. All of you remember this: never be alone. If I spot you, I will kill you one by one. My life is worthless — trading it for yours is no loss.*

After Gang Gang learned of this child, he found him and said: if you’re willing, from now on you belong to Prince Ning’s intelligence operatives.

Zhang Tang asked Gang Gang what the operatives were there to do.

Gang Gang told him the operatives only did three things: first, give their loyalty to Prince Ning; second, protect their brothers; third, punish evil and uphold good.

Zhang Tang memorized those three things at that very moment — as if carved into his bones.

Yu Jiuling saw him approaching and frowned slightly: “Zhang Tang, you’re still young. The scene here is bloody—”

Before he could finish, Zhang Tang bowed and said: “Commander Chen, I am not afraid of blood. I can make blood work for me.”

Li Chi was drawn by that line to take a longer look at the young man. In the boy’s eyes, he saw a very heavy, dangerous edge.

Zhang Tang turned and looked at Li Chi, bowing: “Your Highness Prince Ning, the Commander was someone good to me. He is dead now. I want to do something for him.”

Li Chi nodded: “Come try.”

Zhang Tang walked with his head slightly lowered, steps not large but moving at a slightly fast pace.

He came before the people kneeling there and studied them carefully — looking to see who was looking at him.

Among them, one recognized him as just the young attendant from the tea house across from the Chen family estate, and so there was a trace of contempt in his gaze.

Zhang Tang pointed at that person: “You first.”

Zhang Tang went in front of the man. He undid his outer robe. Though the garment was nothing expensive, he did not simply toss it aside when he took it off — he folded it neatly and set it down beside him.

Once the outer robe was removed, people noticed that around his waist he wore a belt that was not small. This belt was unusual — covered densely with many items hanging from it.

He removed from it a cloth pouch about the size of a palm. When he opened it, inside was a packet of iron needles.

Zhang Tang ran his hand along the belt again and drew out a small hammer — no bigger than a thumb.

Then Zhang Tang set his foot on the man’s palm, bent down, and drove the iron needles one by one into the gaps beneath the man’s fingernails.

No matter how the man thrashed and wailed, Zhang Tang was unmoved — not even a flicker of expression crossed his face.

He didn’t ask anything. He simply drove needles in silence.

After a moment, he had driven iron needles into all five fingers of the man’s right hand. The man was contorted with pain.

He released that hand. Zhang Tang, still silent, set his foot down on the man’s other hand.

“Stop!”

The man called out hoarsely: “Whatever you want to know — I’ll tell you everything I know!”

Zhang Tang’s hands paused for a moment. He slowly turned his head to look at that face, twisted with pain.

Then he suddenly reached out and pinched the man’s earlobe — and tore downward with force, ripping the lobe apart and tearing off a long strip of the ear cartilage.

“You wouldn’t try to deceive me, would you? That wouldn’t be good.”

Zhang Tang looked the man in the eyes. The tone in which he spoke was nothing like that of a sixteen-year-old.

“No… I won’t deceive you. I’ll say everything I know.”

Zhang Tang reached forward again. The man flinched back in terror.

Zhang Tang glanced at him. The man was clearly a man in his prime — and one with martial skills, which was why he had looked at Zhang Tang with contempt moments before.

Yet now, at a single reach of Zhang Tang’s hand, he shrank back in fright. And because Zhang Tang had looked at him, the man — his face covered in blood — crawled back and knelt on his own.

Zhang Tang reached over and tore a strip of cloth from the man’s clothing, wiped the blood from his own hands with it, then wrapped the strip around the man’s wound.

“I know your name.”

Zhang Tang said: “You are Wu Guiyi — vice-head of the Youzhou constabulary. Your father is the prison warden of Youzhou. You’ve come to our tea house to drink tea.”

Wu Guiyi nodded rapidly: “Yes, yes, that’s me.”

Zhang Tang asked: “Do you know what Prince Ning wants you to say?”

Wu Guiyi hesitated — clearly not genuinely willing to speak, but simply unable to bear the torment any longer.

“You’re afraid that whatever you say will implicate your father.”

Zhang Tang crouched in front of Wu Guiyi, opened another cloth pouch, and withdrew from it a pair of pliers.

He pointed at Wu Guiyi’s uninjured hand: “Place it on the ground in front of me yourself.”

Wu Guiyi kept shaking his head: “Don’t — please, I beg you, I’ll talk. I’ll say everything.”

Zhang Tang sighed softly, reached out and placed Wu Guiyi’s hand on the ground. Because Wu Guiyi’s wrists were bound together, both hands were pressed down at once — one bloody, the other drained of color, evidently pale from sheer terror.

Zhang Tang gripped a fingernail with the pliers: “Now you speak on your own. If what you say is not what Prince Ning wants to know, I will pull out one of your nails. You have many chances — twenty nails in all.”

Wu Guiyi thrashed wildly to pull his hand free, but Zhang Tang held it in place and he could not pull away.

The strength of this young man was evidently considerable.

“Speak!”

Zhang Tang suddenly barked the order.

Wu Guiyi startled with a full-body shudder, hesitated for a moment, then said: “I… as vice-head of the Youzhou constabulary, I should not have gathered others to gamble—”

Before he could finish, there was a soft pop as Zhang Tang pulled out a nail.

With a cry, Wu Guiyi’s entire body convulsed in pain.

“I don’t know what matter this concerns, but it is certainly not what Prince Ning wants to know.”

Zhang Tang’s pliers gripped the second nail: “You have nineteen chances remaining. Prince Ning does not appear to be in a rush, so I am not in a rush either.”

Tears and blood streaming down his face, Wu Guiyi knelt there wailing — sobbing so wrenchingly that a grown man of fighting age had been reduced to this.

“Prince Ning would probably prefer not to watch you cry.”

Zhang Tang’s hand moved, and he pulled out Wu Guiyi’s second nail.

He gripped the third: “Eighteen chances remaining.”

“I’ll talk… Chen Dang bribed us to provide him with information about the Youzhou constabulary’s affairs — as well as information about the Youzhou military.”

Wu Guiyi sobbed and wailed: “He also had us tell him which officials in Youzhou would be easier to bribe. Especially those within the Youzhou military — from common soldiers and squad leaders and section leaders all the way up to captains and generals. Anyone who could be bought, he wanted to know about.”

“He also said that for every person one of us reported, that person would receive a thousand taels of silver as reward…”

Zhang Tang looked back at Li Chi. Li Chi gave him a nod.

It had to be said: Zhang Tang’s methods — the cold composure, the ferocity, and the state of mind behind it all — even Li Chi found somewhat startling.

Seeing Li Chi nod, Zhang Tang moved the pliers away. Wu Guiyi visibly exhaled with relief.

“That one is safe.”

Zhang Tang’s pliers gripped another nail: “Let’s start counting from here. You have seventeen chances remaining.”

Wu Guiyi’s eyes snapped wide open.

Zhang Tang spoke in a flat tone: “Because I don’t know specifically what His Highness wants to know, nor do I know exactly what has happened, I can only try things out.”

He said: “I try things out, and you can try things out too. Try speaking next about which officials in Youzhou have been bribed. I’m guessing it might be useful.”

Wu Guiyi looked at Zhang Tang in terror, as if gazing upon a demon.

Zhang Tang said expressionlessly: “Let me give you a starting point. Begin with your father.”

—