The Tingwei Office.

That great compound in Yuzhou City, once regarded by ordinary citizens as an absolute forbidden zone.

The Plum Garden had in its time received officials and noblemen of the highest ranks — including His Majesty the Dachu Emperor himself — which had made it seem utterly beyond reach.

But the Plum Garden was different now. The Plum Garden’s guests were all prisoners.

In an interrogation chamber within the Tingwei Office, Qu Nanhuai was bound to a wooden frame, his eyes glassy and unfocused.

He had not been beaten. He had not been questioned. He had simply been left completely unattended for a full day and night, with neither water nor food. Naturally, this left him without much spirit.

Qu Nanhuai thought to himself: this was probably the standard method of every institution of this kind — nothing more than a period of starvation first, designed only to break the prisoner’s will.

And so Qu Nanhuai considered it a very low-level technique. Only those with insufficient willpower would surrender their dignity over a few missed meals.

The door creaked open. A young man dressed in the black brocade of the Tingwei Army stepped in.

The moment he set eyes on this young man, Qu Nanhuai felt as though he were looking at himself — because this man’s complexion was also very pale, that kind of cold, eerie white.

Each looked at the other. Each regarded the other. There was a strange illusion of looking into a mirror — except that the two men’s clothing was different.

The one who had entered was, of course, Zhang Tang.

Zhang Tang sat down across from Qu Nanhuai, crossed one leg over the other, and straightened his clothes.

Qu Nanhuai felt this was a deliberate pose — a show of superiority, the attitude of someone who held a prisoner’s life and death in his hands.

Zhang Tang looked at Qu Nanhuai with his customary expressionless face.

“You feel quite indignant?”

Zhang Tang asked.

Qu Nanhuai gave a cold laugh: “You mobilized at least twelve hundred cavalry to intercept us outside the city. You didn’t even engage my people directly — you used archers. Why should I feel anything other than indignant?”

Zhang Tang said: “You find it dishonorable to win by numbers?”

Qu Nanhuai said: “If this was a jianghu matter, deploying a military force — doesn’t that show that you can’t play fair?”

Zhang Tang looked at him and said: “Inside the Songhe Tower, you used the Sect Master to seize Cao Lie and the others as hostages, threatening Prince Ning’s forces to stay out. You must have been quite pleased with yourself at the time.”

Qu Nanhuai said: “Is it wrong to use the most reasonable method to accomplish what needs to be done?”

Zhang Tang said: “Is it wrong for Prince Ning to use the most reasonable method to accomplish what needs to be done?”

Qu Nanhuai froze.

Zhang Tang said: “I am the deputy commander of the Tingwei Army. I have twelve hundred black cavalry at my disposal. If some petty ruffian wanted to fight me one on one, I could indulge him — but then why would I be deputy commander of the Tingwei Army?”

Qu Nanhuai: “Why are you saying all these irrelevant things to me? Playing at airs and intimidating me will make me confess?”

Zhang Tang asked in return: “Do you think I came to interrogate you?”

Qu Nanhuai froze again.

Was he not here to interrogate him? If there was no need to interrogate him, why go to the trouble of capturing him alive? Wouldn’t it have been simpler to just have the black cavalry kill him outside the city?

Zhang Tang said: “I came only to look at you. To see what the last generation of eunuchs of Dachu looks like.”

This statement drove Qu Nanhuai into a fury.

Zhang Tang continued: “Just now, watching you from outside, I noticed that your expression held a degree of contempt. I suspect you were thinking that a day and night without anyone attending to you, without water or food, was simply an interrogation technique — and so you felt contempt for it. But I can tell you: it was not an interrogation technique. It was simply because there was no point. You are a man who must die. Why waste food on you? There are still many disaster refugees outside the city. Giving the food to the refugees would be putting it to good use. Giving you even the dung they expel from it would be a waste — better off going to fertilize the fields.”

The fury on Qu Nanhuai’s face looked as though it might explode.

But Zhang Tang was not the kind of person who would feel satisfied at enraging a prisoner. If he were, it would only make him seem low.

“I came to pronounce your crimes and your fate.”

Zhang Tang’s tone remained utterly flat: “This is the rule of the Tingwei Army — even for those who must die, they are to be told when they will die, and why.”

Qu Nanhuai glared at Zhang Tang with killing intent in his eyes, not saying a word.

Zhang Tang said: “You said just now that winning by numbers is dishonorable. I suddenly find myself curious — since you were someone dispatched by the Dachu emperor, you should have witnessed how the Dachu court’s offices conduct interrogations. When they beat a prisoner, is it one person doing the beating?”

Qu Nanhuai’s eyes locked onto Zhang Tang with the intensity of a man who, if he could have lunged across the room, would have bitten through Zhang Tang’s throat.

Zhang Tang rose: “It doesn’t matter if you won’t speak. I’m not particularly curious about what goes on in the offices of Daxing City. But I can tell you how things work here — generally, it is not one person beating one prisoner. It is a group of people beating one prisoner.”

Having said this, Zhang Tang turned and walked out of the chamber. He left — and seven or eight large men entered.

In that moment, the expression in Qu Nanhuai’s eyes was no longer only fury. There was also fear.

—

A different interrogation chamber.

Zhang Tang pushed the door open and entered. The person inside was bound just as Qu Nanhuai was — except that the bonds here were not ropes, and this person was not bound to a wooden frame. Chains had been driven through this person’s shoulders, anchoring him to a massive stone pillar.

“Is the person next door cursing at you?”

The man bound to the pillar asked Zhang Tang.

Zhang Tang sat down and nodded: “Yes.”

The man on the pillar gave a short sound of satisfaction. He found this somewhat pleasing — even though the wound made any movement agonizing, still, he felt some small pleasure.

Zhang Tang being cursed at — that sat well with him.

Because the chains through his body were Zhang Tang’s doing. And Zhang Tang had said that when the time came to execute him, the chains would be pulled out again — they had other uses.

That word *pulled* — just thinking about it made a person wince.

“Yan Beicheng.”

Zhang Tang said, as if to himself: “When the great eunuch Liu Chongxin lorded over princes and ministers alike and was honored with the title ‘Five Thousand Years,’ he had seven men under him called the Thousand Years. You were one of them.”

The man on the pillar was indeed Yan Beicheng.

Zhang Tang continued: “At that time, the authority Liu Chongxin granted the seven of you was so vast that even members of the imperial family feared you to the bone. The reason you were called the Heard-and-Sentenced Marquesses was that you could act on rumor alone — no evidence required — to condemn people to death or even eradicate entire families.”

Yan Beicheng nodded: “Those were indeed glorious days.”

He had probably already understood that death was certain for him. And a person like him had far more composure than Qu Nanhuai — he was, after all, no longer a small eunuch. He was an old one.

The Four Directional Heard-and-Sentenced Marquesses, plus the Brush-Holding Secretariat and the Seal-Holding eunuchs — those three senior eunuchs — made up the seven trusted lieutenants of Liu Chongxin.

Yan Beicheng said: “Inside the Songhe Tower, I surrendered of my own free will. If the Tingwei Army had any dignity, they would not have subjected me to punishment.”

Zhang Tang raised a hand and pointed to the chains through Yan Beicheng’s body: “You call this punishment?”

He asked Yan Beicheng: “When you served Liu Chongxin, would you have considered this level of treatment to be punishment?”

Yan Beicheng did not answer. There was nothing to say.

When they had been in power, the punishments they had inflicted on others had truly left nothing unexplored. How many people had been tortured to death, while they treated the whole business as entertainment.

After a long silence, Yan Beicheng said: “In our day, if things had been different, you would already have been cut into several thousand pieces by now, and I would be using those pieces of your corpse as fish bait.”

Zhang Tang gave a short sound of acknowledgment: “Thank you.”

Yan Beicheng paused, then his eyes narrowed: “Thank you?”

Zhang Tang said: “I don’t like fishing. It is a tremendous waste of time. But I will thank you for the suggestion anyway. I will cut you into several thousand pieces and feed them to the fish.”

Yan Beicheng said: “You should not treat me with this kind of attitude. If you were kinder to me — I have already resolved myself to death, and I might, in my final moments, be willing to let slip some information, allowing you to apprehend more people.”

“Hmm…”

Zhang Tang said again: “Thank you.”

Yan Beicheng frowned: “And what do you mean by that?”

Zhang Tang said: “I will have your associates be the ones to cut you. If I tell them you were planning to sell them out like this, they should be quite willing to do the cutting.”

Yan Beicheng was silent for a long moment, then suddenly laughed: “A person like me will not die well. A person like you will not die well either.”

Zhang Tang nodded: “What you say may be correct. After you die you will certainly go to hell. After I die I will certainly go to hell too. But the difference between you and me is this — in the mortal world I am an officer of the law, and in hell I will still be an officer of the law. In the mortal world, falling into my hands will be a fate worse than death. In hell, you will also be in my hands.”

Yan Beicheng fell silent again.

Zhang Tang simply watched him, sitting quietly, apparently in no hurry to leave.

After some unknown stretch of time, Yan Beicheng asked: “So even if I confess, the best outcome I can hope for is dying with an intact corpse?”

Zhang Tang looked at him and said with complete seriousness: “Intact won’t be possible.”

Yan Beicheng’s expression shifted.

Zhang Tang said: “You are a eunuch. A castrated man. You want an intact corpse — am I supposed to go and fashion you a replacement piece and attach it?”

The fire in Yan Beicheng’s eyes ignited just as it had in the chamber next door in the eyes of Qu Nanhuai.

Zhang Tang said: “You must have ordered many men to be executed by slow slicing in your time, so you should not find the process unfamiliar.”

Yan Beicheng drew a slow, deep breath, and then said in a voice of absolute conviction: “If I tell you everything — then this old man wants that replacement piece!”

Zhang Tang nodded: “Deal.”

Yan Beicheng: “Hmm????”

Zhang Tang stood, walked to where Yan Beicheng sat, and asked: “Do you want it in wood, or in iron? Your choice. Even gold would be fine.”

Yan Beicheng fell silent again for a long time, then let out a long sigh: “A person like you truly deserves a bad end.”

Zhang Tang shrugged: “You are that eager to end up in the same place as me after death?”

He turned and walked toward the door: “I’ll send someone in shortly to record your statement. You can take this time to think carefully — don’t have any gaps in what you say when the time comes.”

Yan Beicheng: “May you die without an intact corpse.”

Zhang Tang looked back at him: “Mine should be more intact than yours. I won’t need a replacement.”

—

Half a shichen later, Yan Beicheng had disclosed almost everything he knew — except for what he had genuinely forgotten, which for a man of his former standing was understandable.

Sitting across from him was a young Tingwei officer. His features were rather delicate and fine. He had a pair of clean, neat hands, with long fingers — handsome hands.

His handwriting was equally fine — precise and orderly, every character formed perfectly, every line of text perfectly level and straight.

Zhang Tang walked in front of the young officer and took the completed confession from his hands. Then, into those originally beautiful hands that had been holding the record, he placed a length of rope.

Zhang Tang gave the young officer a pat on the shoulder: “A debt of blood for a father’s death — that is a wound that can never be passed over. Such a debt is better repaid by one’s own hand. But I promised him he would keep a whole corpse.”

Having said this, he stepped out.

The moment Zhang Tang finished speaking, Yan Beicheng suddenly understood — and found, with some surprise, that he was not quite as afraid as he might have expected. He actually let out a laugh: “Zhang Tang, you are indeed a devil.”

The young officer stood. Those clean, fine hands were trembling ever so slightly. But his gaze was steady.

He walked toward Yan Beicheng.

Yan Beicheng slowly exhaled and said: “Your name is Jin Zhanyi, isn’t it. The red cloud embroidery on that fine brocade uniform was dyed red by your father’s blood. Don’t you forget that.”

The young man walked to stand behind Yan Beicheng. He looped the rope around Yan Beicheng’s throat and said, one word at a time: “You say this embroidery was dyed red by my father’s blood — you want me to resent the Tingwei Army, to resent Prince Ning. Thank you for the reminder. And so I will keep this red cloud embroidery clean and spotless — for only then will it truly not be a desecration of my father’s blood.”

The rope snapped taut.