Shi Guang’s state was that of a man who had fully lost his mind. In that moment, he had completely disregarded the hand coiled around his throat like a noose.

Even if he ultimately failed, he was going to drag everyone down with him — he would have every person present serve as his burial companion.

“Shi Guang, what are you trying to do?” the Commander barked sharply. “Are you truly too stubborn to repent, even now?”

Shi Guang only laughed — a laugh that grew louder and more unhinged by the moment. Everyone watched him as one might watch a man on the verge of total collapse.

Shi Guang laughed until tears ran down his face. He wiped them away with his hand. “There’s no need to keep holding me. We’re all going to die together anyway.”

The man behind him remained unmoved, his grip not loosening in the slightest.

“This courtyard is packed with bombs all around its perimeter,” Shi Guang said, “and before I came in here, I already activated the timing device. If I do not walk out of this courtyard within the time I’ve set, every single bomb will go off. Why do you think I’ve been talking so much nonsense with you all? Because I’m stalling for time — ha ha ha.”

Shi Guang burst into laughter again. “Don’t rush. Even if you run now, it’s too late. Even if you make it out of the courtyard, with this many bombs going off at once, the blast would be enough to level half the Shi Mansion.”

He lowered his eyes to the watch on his wrist. “Though if you want to run, you still can. There are thirty seconds left before the detonation — thirty seconds, half a revolution of the second hand. Feel free to try. See how far you can get in thirty seconds.”

Shi Guang had barely finished speaking before he expected to see terror on the faces of Shi Ting and the others. Instead, Shi Ting’s expression was utterly calm. He regarded Shi Guang with a detached, indifferent gaze — the look of a man watching a one-man performance, a comedy written, directed, and acted by its sole player, with no one in the audience laughing.

“Why aren’t you running?” Shi Guang’s eyes suddenly flew wide open. “Run! Let me watch you scramble away in disgrace — or are you telling me you already know it’s hopeless, and you’ve given up entirely?”

Shi Guang watched Shi Ting remain completely unmoved — and even Yan Qing, held protectively in his arms, showed not the slightest flicker of alarm. In the wake of his frenzy, something suddenly became clear to him, and his pupils contracted sharply.

“Impossible. This can’t be.” Shi Guang’s voice was rough and stunned with disbelief. “How can this be possible.”

He looked down at the watch. “Ten seconds. There are still ten seconds. Nine. Eight. The bombs are linked directly to my watch — the timing cannot be off.”

His eyes were flooded red, and even as he counted down, he glared with fierce hatred at Shi Ting.

“Allow me to count for you,” Shi Ting said, his voice deep and measured, enunciating each word with deliberate weight: “Three — two — one.”

The surrounding area fell utterly silent — so quiet that only the sound of breathing remained.

The men Shi Guang had personally handpicked were all chosen as men prepared to die. They hadn’t known that Shi Guang had planted bombs throughout the courtyard, but they had long since readied themselves to face death without flinching.

Yet now, even they sensed that something was wrong — because thirty seconds had come and gone, and no explosion had occurred.

“It was you!” Shi Guang glared with bloodshot eyes. “Why — why didn’t my bombs go off?”

“Because the bombs you buried were all defective. They were never going to explode.”

“How did you know I’d buried bombs?”

“Shi Guang,” Shi Ting said calmly. “Knowing you as well as I do, you’re the kind of man who always keeps several escape routes prepared. I simply thought through everything from your perspective — if I were you, what would I do when pushed to the absolute brink?”

Shi Guang stared at the man before him with such force his eyes looked ready to burst from their sockets.

“The only thing Second Elder Brother could think of was to die together with me. And the most effective way to do that would be to level this entire place. So I made arrangements with Xie Yan in advance and asked him to keep watch. For you to acquire high-grade explosives, you would have had to go through an arms dealer — and nearly every reputable arms dealer in Shun Cheng has ties to Xie Yan. Whoever you approached, Xie Yan would have received word immediately. A simple substitution during the supply delivery — swapping the merchandise for defective gunpowder — and it wouldn’t matter how precisely you’d set the timing. The explosives would never go off.”

Shi Ting glanced toward the courtyard gate. “Second Elder Brother, after all this time, I know your methods through and through. Why are you still so blind to what should be plain?”

“Shi Xing Zhi!” Shi Ting’s words hit Shi Guang like a public humiliation laid bare in broad daylight. He gnashed his teeth, his eyes blazing with fury, and driven by a surge of brute force, he lunged at Shi Ting with no regard for anything else.

If he couldn’t drag everyone down with him, then even taking just Shi Ting would be enough.

But the moment his body lurched forward, he heard a sharp crack — both his arms had been simultaneously dislocated.

Shi Guang let out a cry of agony. Drained of strength by the searing pain, he staggered and crashed to the ground, his right cheek slamming directly onto the hard surface. Blood poured immediately from the impact.

With both arms dislocated and utterly useless, Shi Guang could only lie there, pinning his opponent with a gaze full of festering hatred — his eyes staring up at the imposing figure of Shi Ting standing far above him.

Seeing Shi Guang go down, the men in the courtyard raised their weapons and moved to resist, but the Commander’s troops swarmed in from all sides, outnumbering them several times over.

The two sides locked into a standoff, but neither moved to strike first. The atmosphere in the courtyard was taut as a bowstring, ready to snap.

The Commander’s voice rang out powerfully: “I know each of you has been forced here by circumstance. You may feel that your own lives are worthless — but think about it. Back in Shun Cheng, your parents are there. Your wives and children are there. If you choose to die as soldiers for a losing cause, what becomes of them? Will they have to pay the price for your reckless choice?”

The words visibly shifted something in the crowd. Expressions wavered.

“I can give you my word — lay down your weapons and surrender, and I will spare your families and let them live out their days in peace. But if you insist on resisting, with such an overwhelming difference in numbers, it is no different from seeking your own deaths — and you will drag your families into suffering along with you. I believe any person with a clear head would not choose to leap blindly into a fire, ruining themselves and taking their entire household down with them.”

The Commander’s words began to sow doubt among the men. Some had already set down their weapons and raised their hands in surrender. Those who had no one to lose and still wished to resist fought on, and the encircling troops opened fire without hesitation.

Chaos broke out across the courtyard. Shi Ting quickly shielded Yan Qing and Luo Huaimeng and ushered them inside the building. Outside, Shi Guang still lay flat on the ground — like a fish on the verge of death, gasping in great heaving breaths.

“What are you all standing around for — do something!” Seeing his men wavering and stalling, Shi Guang roared in outrage.

But the moment the words left his mouth, a boot came down directly on his face. Shi Guang’s features distorted beneath it, and he couldn’t even manage a muffled groan.

Mu Bai looked down at him from above with empty, expressionless eyes. He had no patience for this man’s incessant talking. If not for the fact that Master Xie had instructed him to follow Shi Ting’s orders, he would never have allowed him to remain alive this long — under his hand, Shi Guang should have been a dead man long ago.

Shi Guang’s face was crushed nearly beyond recognition. He tried to struggle, but both arms were useless, and only his legs kicked uselessly against the ground.

Through his rapidly dimming vision, he watched his men lay down their weapons one by one and surrender. The few who had tried to resist were taken down to the last man.

He watched with his own eyes as the trap he had painstakingly set collapsed completely. In the end, he had obtained nothing.

A pair of boots appeared in Shi Guang’s fading field of vision. He couldn’t see the face of the man wearing them, but he knew without question who it was.

The Commander looked down at Shi Guang, his eyes holding not a trace of pity.

From the moment Shi Guang joined forces with Qian Lan to harm him, he had never again harbored a single shred of trust toward him. No matter how Shi Guang had tried to ingratiate himself — even going so far as to invoke the Di Kingdom’s prince — it was impossible to ever regain his faith.

He had kept him alive rather than killing him outright purely out of deference to Prince Wenren’s dignity. But now, Shi Guang had gone so far as to imprison Hui Cun as well. In Prince Wenren’s eyes, the Commander clearly already had his justification — it was for the sake of rescuing Hui Cun that he had been forced to act.

On the other hand, he knew that Shi Guang had spent years scheming in secret, quietly cultivating a network of loyalists. Those loyalists had never surfaced in the open — they had remained carefully concealed in the shadows.

The Commander could not tolerate sand in his eye. Under his rule, he would not allow such people to play both sides.

So he had seized upon this opportunity to drag all of those hidden loyalists into the open light of day — sparing himself the trouble of rooting them out one by one through painstaking investigation. Like a net cast across water, it had gathered every last fish that swam together.

Seeing the Commander approach, Mu Bai lifted his foot and stepped aside, standing quietly to one side with his hands at his sides.

Shi Guang’s face was twisted and mangled beyond recognition. He could barely form words anymore. When his conspiracy with Qian Lan had fallen apart, he had never been brought so low as this. Now, he lay like a stray dog with nowhere to go, with no chance of ever turning his fortunes around.

“Shi Guang,” the Commander said, his face expressionless as he regarded him. “I once considered making you the Young Marshal. After all, your mother was the legitimate wife, and the Meng family’s support stood behind you — you were the natural choice. But now, it is you yourself who has dismantled your own future, step by step, and walked willingly down this road of no return.”

The Commander sighed. “I never wanted to see things come to this — brothers turning on each other, father and son at each other’s throats. Your eldest brother, your mother, the Meng family — they made their mistakes one after another and came to their respective ends. And you, rather than learning to rein yourself in, chose to repeat the same pattern. Shi Guang, you have truly disappointed me.”

Shi Guang’s mouth hung open, but no words came out. Mu Bai’s kick had been no ordinary blow — beneath that foot, his jawbone had snapped. Even the slightest movement now sent fire shooting through him, let alone trying to speak.

“I originally intended to execute you with my own hands, but considering that Yan Qing is pregnant and must not be frightened — and that this courtyard belongs to Xing Zhi and should not be stained with a brother’s blood — I think it better to have you locked away first and then executed publicly on a chosen day.”

The Commander chose public execution specifically to send a warning to the world. He wanted everyone to see — clearly, with their own eyes — what fate awaited those who betrayed him.