—

The Guihua Mountain Villa.

The room was lavishly decorated — every furnishing chosen with exacting care. An ordinary person laboring an entire lifetime might never earn enough to fill that single room.

Cao Dengke was bound to a pillar — more accurately, suspended from it.

Two lengths of hemp rope had been threaded through his shoulders, the ropes tied to the pillar, leaving him hanging there.

Zhang Tang glanced back. A sand timer sat on the table, its fine grains flowing steadily.

That sand timer marked the countdown to death’s arrival.

He turned to look at Cao Dengke, a faint distaste in his eyes.

“In the past, when I read records of various methods of suspension, I always found them somewhat lacking.”

Zhang Tang pointed at the hemp rope threading through Cao Dengke’s shoulders. “In Dachu’s interrogation practice, the method typically used is the lute hook.”

He stood and traced a shape at the position of Cao Dengke’s shoulder. “Roughly here — an iron hook is run through the flesh and the person is suspended from it. This renders them helpless.”

He asked: “But do you know where this method falls short?”

Of course Cao Dengke had no intention of answering — he only glared.

He wanted to curse, wanted to curse at the top of his lungs — but he felt himself growing weaker and weaker. Even his eyelids felt increasingly heavy.

An overpowering urge to sleep, growing harder to resist by the moment.

Zhang Tang asked: “Are you feeling weaker and weaker, less able to speak?”

He circled around Cao Dengke as he spoke. “An iron implement under the lute bone — the bleeding can be stanched. Even without treatment, the body will stop the bleeding on its own.”

“The human body is remarkable in that way — it always tries its utmost to recover after injury, though most of the time it doesn’t amount to much.”

He completed his circuit and came back to face Cao Dengke. “Iron implements aren’t ideal — but hemp rope is different. Hemp rope threaded through your shoulders keeps drawing your blood. I’ve done experiments on animals — they don’t last long before they’re completely drained.”

He glanced at the sand timer again. “It seems you don’t have much time left either.”

Cao Dengke’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth, and a very faint sound escaped his throat.

Zhang Tang leaned in and listened. Cao Dengke was cursing him.

Zhang Tang sighed. “Very well — I respect your choice.”

He turned to leave.

Hanging there, Cao Dengke’s face had turned a ghastly white — as though dusted with powder.

He strained to turn his head and looked at the hemp rope threading through his shoulder — it was a deep brown now.

His vision was blurring. What he seemed to see was no longer rope, but a vein exposed to the open air — his own vein.

Zhang Tang pulled the door shut behind him, and the room fell immediately quiet.

So quiet it was surreal — so quiet that Cao Dengke’s own labored breathing suddenly sounded piercing to his own ears.

Then Cao Dengke heard a sound — very faint, but it struck his eardrums hard. In truth, it struck his heart.

*Drip.*

That should have been the sound of a water droplet falling.

But where in this room was there any water?

That was his blood, surely. Somewhere he couldn’t see — a basin placed there, its bottom already stained with blood.

*Drip.*

Another one.

Cao Dengke could hold out no longer. He began to struggle with every last ounce of strength he had.

He was suspended there, body hanging in the air — and as he struggled, the places where the rope threaded through his shoulders screamed with unbearable pain.

Perhaps because the rope had been soaked in blood for too long — the hemp on his left shoulder snapped.

But this was no relief for Cao Dengke. With only one shoulder still suspended, the pain was worse — more acute, more agonizing.

The sound must have carried outside, for a Tingwei soldier pushed the door open and looked in with an expressionless face.

He made no move to take Cao Dengke down. No move to re-hang him properly either.

He simply watched.

It was then — for the first time in his life — that Cao Dengke saw in another person’s eyes a complete indifference to human life.

Just then, Zhang Tang came back. He gave a single glance, and said in a perfectly flat tone: “Thread a new rope through and hang him again. Also — change the basin. It’s full.”

“No!”

Cao Dengke suddenly screamed: “Spare me! I beg you — spare me!”

Zhang Tang sighed. “You made your own choice, and I only respected it. Perhaps you don’t realize — the Tingwei actually admires courageous people like you. Not everyone can be a hero.”

He walked to stand a short distance before Cao Dengke and said, word by word: “The Tingwei always chooses to honor the choices of people like you — to help them preserve the dignity they hold dear.”

As he spoke, a Tingwei soldier came in carrying a fresh length of rope.

This soldier moved in silence to Cao Dengke’s back, grasped the broken rope still threading through his shoulder, and pulled—

With a wet thud, the rope — thicker than a thumb — was wrenched free from the flesh.

Cao Dengke let out a shriek of agony.

But what came next would be worse.

He couldn’t see behind him, no matter how he strained his neck to look — but he could feel it. That damned Tingwei soldier was working a new length of rope into the bleeding wound in his shoulder.

“Tell me what you want to know — tell me what you want, and I’ll answer.”

Cao Dengke looked at Zhang Tang, his voice ragged and trembling.

He practically screamed it: “Everything I know — I’ll tell you everything I know!”

Zhang Tang made a faint sound of acknowledgment, and said with a note of genuine regret: “Until this moment, I truly did admire you. If I had been the one hanging there, I probably would have broken sooner.”

After saying this, Zhang Tang raised his hand: “Take him down. Dress his wounds. Then bring him before me.”

He turned and left.

Half an hour later, in another room.

Zhang Tang set a bowl of meat porridge in front of Cao Dengke. The fragrance of it made Cao Dengke’s eyes open just slightly wider.

“Feed him.”

Zhang Tang gave the order.

With both shoulders having been threaded through, eating on his own was clearly going to be difficult.

A Tingwei soldier picked up the bowl, scooped a spoonful, and held it to Cao Dengke’s mouth.

Cao Dengke turned his face away.

Perhaps this was his last shred of dignity.

Zhang Tang waved his hand, and the Tingwei soldier stepped back.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand.”

Without waiting for Zhang Tang to question him, Cao Dengke posed a question of his own.

“Since the Prince of Ning has long suspected the young Marquis — why has no action been taken until now?”

Zhang Tang felt this question deserved a genuinely serious answer, and sat in thought for a long while.

At last, Zhang Tang replied: “Because the Prince of Ning once truly wanted to be friends with the young Marquis.”

He paused, then added: “It goes back to after their return from Anyang — because at that time, the young Marquis didn’t yet know that the Prince of Ning was Li Chi.”

At those words, the corner of Cao Dengke’s mouth gave an involuntary twitch.

After a long, long silence, Cao Dengke let out a bitter laugh. “So… if from that point onward we had done nothing — things might have turned out better?”

Zhang Tang nodded. “Yes.”

He sat down across from Cao Dengke and looked at this man whose face had gone hollow with despair.

“The Prince of Ning once said — that everything traces back to the time after he returned from Anyang to Jizhou.”

Zhang Tang said in a steady tone: “And at that time, the Prince of Ning thought — it could really only be Cao Lie.”

“Because what happened in Anyang convinced Cao Lie of one thing — that His Highness had great promise.”

Zhang Tang asked: “That part’s not wrong, is it?”

Cao Dengke nodded. “No. At that time, Li Chi…”

He paused, then gave a self-mocking smile.

Cao Dengke continued: “At that time, the Prince of Ning displayed a caliber in Anyang that the young Marquis found deeply impressive.”

“His Highness’s stratagem for leaving Anyang wasn’t dazzlingly brilliant — but it was practical, and impossible to guard against.”

“But if the young Marquis had wanted to, he could have kept the Prince of Ning there without much difficulty.”

Cao Dengke let out a long sigh. “Perhaps — the young Marquis should have done exactly that.”

He looked at Zhang Tang and said: “After the Prince of Ning left, the young Marquis returned to Yuzhou — in great haste to get back.”

“Once he returned, he reorganized the Cao family’s positioning, directing a large portion of their resources toward Jizhou.”

“The young Marquis intended to establish a foothold in Jizhou — to plant a large number of operatives around the Prince of Ning in advance, so that when the Prince of Ning achieved success, the Cao family could swiftly seize control of the situation.”

“We had done this kind of thing before and knew the way of it well. No one anticipated so many setbacks.”

Zhang Tang said: “Tell me about the setbacks.”

Cao Dengke replied: “Lu Wuman failed in Jizhou — partly because he underestimated the Prince of Ning’s people — meaning your Tingwei soldiers.”

“And partly because Lu Wuman and Mei Wujiu failed to anticipate that the local officials under the Prince of Ning’s rule were different from those under Great Chu. The old officials were easy to bribe. But the officials appointed afterward had a stubbornness in their bones — they couldn’t be persuaded, couldn’t be bought. And so…”

Zhang Tang said: “So the only option was to eliminate them. You engineered one so-called accident after another, killing the good officials who truly served the people. Then, while things were in disarray, you had local merchants and gentry quickly nominate someone to take temporary control of local affairs.”

“And since the Prince of Ning’s primary attention was consumed by the campaigns, most of those temporary appointees would be kept on permanently. Even if things went wrong, you weren’t afraid — at the very least, you had removed the officials who refused to cooperate.”

As Zhang Tang spoke, his expression grew cold.

Those genuinely good officials — eliminated by the Cao family, for the sake of private gain.

Cao Dengke again breathed out a long, slow breath: “But looking back now — we were wrong. If from the very beginning we had done nothing, and simply let the young Marquis maintain a direct personal relationship with the Prince of Ning, perhaps things would actually have turned out better.”

He raised his head to look at Zhang Tang. “What I wanted to ask just now was — why haven’t you moved against the young Marquis even now? You said the Prince of Ning wanted to be his friend. But at this point, it’s time.”

Zhang Tang replied: “Because the target was never Cao Lie. The target is Cao Lie’s father — the master of the Mountain and River Seal.”

Cao Dengke suddenly recalled something — not long ago, Zhang Tang had said that perhaps before much longer, Cao Lie’s father, his own elder brother Cao Zilu, would return to Yuzhou City.

This had been the Prince of Ning’s plan all along.

If Cao Dengke’s elder brother Cao Zilu wasn’t convinced that Yuzhou was safe — convinced that the Prince of Ning’s suspicions of the Cao family had been lifted — how could he possibly return?

And who would be most convincing as the bearer of such news? If it came from Cao Lie himself — would Cao Zilu doubt it?

Cao Dengke breathed out heavily.

“Perhaps our greatest mistake was ever crossing the Prince of Ning in the first place.”

He looked at Zhang Tang. “You’ve won. Give me a clean end.”

Zhang Tang shook his head. “We haven’t fully won yet. Many things still need to be clarified. For instance—”

He leaned forward, studying Cao Dengke’s eyes. “Who exactly is Mu Fengliu? How did he escape from the Tingwei soldiers? And who is the Tingwei’s internal informant?”

Cao Dengke finally showed something resembling a smile — a smug smile.

He made a visible effort to look smug.

He said: “So you’re not all-knowing after all. As for who Mu Fengliu is — he’s simply Mu Fengliu. And as for who the informant is — I don’t know.”

Cao Dengke smiled and said: “Because there are many things that not everyone is privy to.”

Zhang Tang gave a slow nod. “I believe you.”

Then he asked: “But do you want to live?”

Cao Dengke shook his head. “No.”

Zhang Tang smiled too — a smile not unlike Cao Dengke’s just then.

He said: “But you will live. And a great many people will come to know that you personally turned against your own family to serve justice.”

He continued: “And that is precisely what we need. We’ll use you as bait to draw out more fish. From today onward, you’ll enjoy the full protection of the Tingwei. Happy about that?”

His smile gradually faded. “Don’t look smug in front of me. Please remember those words.”

—