Duke Yingguo and his son exchanged glances. The beard at Duke Yingguo’s lips trembled as he looked at his son, wanting to say something but unable to open his mouth.
Yan Zhen remained relatively composed and gave his old father a reassuring look before stepping forward: “I am.”
The Wolf Riders looked him up and down, then commanded the jailers to open the cell door and escorted Yan Zhen, whose hands and feet were both bound in iron shackles, toward the torture chamber at the end of the corridor.
Duke Yingguo watched his son’s back in prison garb and finally panicked. He stepped forward, grasping the wooden bars of the cell with both hands, and shouted hoarsely: “Zhen’er! Zhen’er!”
The small topknot made from his sparse graying hair at the crown loosened as he shook the cell door forcefully. His tear-filled eyes made him seem to have aged ten years in an instant.
The aristocratic ministers who had earlier helped him argue against Qi Simiao and the other officials also began to fear for themselves, each face ashen as earth.
Someone sat dejectedly against the wall, murmuring: “I said long ago that the Xiao clan’s wolf cub was no kind person…”
—
Yan Zhen was brought into the torture chamber and saw that someone was already seated on the grand master’s chair in the viewing area not far away. The candles in the torture chamber couldn’t illuminate that area, only casting a circle of dim yellow light at the chair’s feet, revealing the person’s brocade boots and a section of black whip stained with dark bloodstains.
He dared not look too closely. When the Wolf Riders locked iron chains on him and bound him to the torture frame, he barely managed to look directly toward that dark area, only to unexpectedly find that the person opposite was also watching him. Those eyes, oppressively fierce even in the dimness, made his heart suddenly leap, as if he were being targeted by some ferocious beast.
He forced himself to steady his nerves and said: “We have already surrendered to Your Lordship and are willing to serve Your Lordship like dogs and horses. I wonder what Your Lordship means by this?”
Xiao Li got straight to the point: “Does the Yan family have connections with Western Ling?”
Yan Zhen’s heart pounded wildly, though his face still had to present a confused expression: “How can this subordinate not understand what Your Lordship is saying?”
Xiao Li was too lazy to waste more words. When he had earlier rescued the Bashye tribe chieftain and captured that Western Ling junior general alive, the other party had personally admitted that there were ministers in the royal court collaborating with Western Ling.
The moment he led troops to surround the royal court, they immediately turned against Wen Yu. Looking at today’s city defense posture, they seemed to have no intention of surrendering directly, which meant they likely wanted to control Wen Yu to command the Liang and Chen kingdoms.
King Chen was a puppet pushed forward, so the spy wasn’t in the Yan family but should be among the several major aristocratic clans that rebelled together with the Yan family.
He had plenty of time to interrogate slowly and find the person.
He slightly raised his chin toward the Wolf Rider standing at the side, who immediately came forward with the torture whip.
Yan Zhen’s prison garb was stripped off. When that specially made torture whip embedded with barbs was swung down, it immediately tore skin and flesh.
His bones were quite hard. For the first few lashes, he could still cry out his innocence, but afterward, his entire upper body became completely unbearable to look at. The seeping blood soaked through his prison garb, dripping down along the hem bit by bit, pooling into a small puddle of blood on the ground.
His head hung forward powerlessly, sweat weighing down even his eyelids. He looked on the verge of death, yet still showed no intention of confessing.
The Wolf Rider dared not continue whipping him and looked toward Xiao Li: “Your Lordship—”
Xiao Li slightly raised his hand, and that Wolf Rider put away the torture whip and temporarily retreated to the rear.
Xiao Li sat up a bit straighter, leaning his body forward, his rugged handsome features fully exposed under the candlelight: “If you confess, your old master can suffer less.”
Yan Zhen raised his sweat-drenched eyelids but still refused to admit: “This subordinate truly does not know…”
He knew in his heart that since Xiao Li had already interrogated King Chen, then with King Chen’s spinelessness, he must have confessed everything about how they sidelined Wen Yu.
As a man himself, he could see what Xiao Li’s actions at the palace gates earlier meant, and a nameless feeling churned in his heart.
Fortunately, they father and son had originally coaxed King Chen into coming out as that target, and hadn’t let King Chen know too many of their plans.
What was more troublesome now was that if Wen Yu used Xiao Li to turn the tables, she would certainly settle accounts with them father and son. He had to quickly clear himself of the matter of rebelling against Wen Yu and plant a hidden trouble for the two of them.
So he coughed blood in his throat, his breath faint as gossamer: “This subordinate… this subordinate and the others were not rebelling against the Princess. Rather, the Princess had long ago discussed with the court ministers that if the royal court couldn’t be defended, she would personally leave the city to beg Your mercy, taking all past blame upon herself alone. The Princess even wrote a letter early on, which Your Lordship should have already seen…”
“We have long disagreed politically with Prime Minister Qi, unwilling to let the Chen Kingdom that the Princess worked so hard to preserve fall into the hands of Prime Minister Qi’s faction. That’s why we rebelled against Prime Minister Qi’s faction…”
Xiao Li’s expression was ice-cold and oppressive. What Yan Zhen said, he currently couldn’t distinguish truth from falsehood, but it was an indisputable fact that Wen Yu had written such a letter and gifted him a beauty.
The evil beast at the bottom of his heart became frenzied again. He forcefully suppressed his full body’s violent energy and looked coldly at the person on the torture frame: “Did you find King Chen’s royal heir?”
When Yan Zhen heard this, he knew King Chen must have confessed everything to save his life.
Blood and sweat mixed together on his face, his breathing heavy from the burning pain of the whip wounds on his body: “The King… the King has a hidden ailment and hasn’t concerned himself with court affairs for a long time. In the past, the Jiang faction covered the sky with one hand in court, so the Empress Dowager… the Empress Dowager wanted the Princess and a son of the Jiang family to raise a child together to present as the royal heir. Once the Jiang faction fell, the Princess personally supported the Qi faction. Though she only gave birth to a princess after becoming pregnant, the princess was still quite supported by the ministers of the Wang faction. This subordinate and the others worried that the princess also… also had connections with Prime Minister Qi’s faction, which is why we thought to push forward another royal heir to divide the court against the Qi faction.”
He spoke half-truths.
King Chen was a useless person, so the child Wen Yu gave birth to had someone else as the biological father—he just didn’t know who.
When they father and son intended to eliminate Wen Yu’s daughter during the palace upheaval and only keep Wen Yu to control the Liang region, this reason was also part of it.
After all, if the biological father of Wen Yu’s daughter was someone from Prime Minister Qi’s faction, then everything they did in the future might become a wedding garment for others.
The pine resin on the torch stuck in the wall was almost burned out, the firelight growing smaller and smaller. The already dim torture chamber became even more gloomy and dark, making it impossible to see clearly what expression was on Xiao Li’s face at this moment. One could only hear his voice extremely deep and extremely cold: “So who is her daughter’s father?”
Yan Zhen said barely alive: “This subordinate truly does not know. It’s just that the Princess has always trusted and valued people from Prime Minister Qi’s faction, and in this past year has also promoted quite a few outstanding young talents under Prime Minister Qi’s tutelage…”
Xiao Li said not a word. The air inside the torture chamber seemed to congeal, like tidal waves layering up one after another, making even breathing difficult.
After an unknown amount of time passed, he finally made a gesture.
The Wolf Riders released Yan Zhen, who was no different from a dead dog, from the torture frame and dragged him out.
Xiao Li sat alone in the blood-reeking torture chamber for another while, until a crisp “crack” broke this silence.
It was the sound of him forcefully crushing the armrest of that hard pear-wood grand master’s chair.
—
Fine rain fell for an entire day. In the evening, the wind was urgent, and a window that wasn’t closed tightly caused the curtains in that corner of the hall to flutter.
Wen Yu sat before an octagonal palace lamp, holding a scroll and reading quietly.
Zhaohua Palace was surrounded by Wolf Riders outside. She couldn’t leave. Only at mealtimes would palace servants come to bring her food.
In this silence filled only with the sound of wind and water dripping from the eaves, rapid footsteps suddenly came from the courtyard outside the hall.
In a moment, the hall door was knocked upon: “Has the Princess retired for the night?”
It was a Wolf Rider.
Wen Yu asked: “What matter?”
The Wolf Rider outside the hall answered: “Your Lordship has matters to invite you to the Council Hall to discuss.”
Wen Yu’s dark eyebrows furrowed slightly. She couldn’t understand why Xiao Li was summoning her to the Council Hall at this hour, especially since this afternoon’s conversation between them could hardly be called pleasant.
But since it was the front hall where ministers discussed politics, he should have important matters.
Wen Yu put down the scroll and said lightly toward the outside: “Wait a moment.”
A short while later, Wen Yu, wearing a peacock blue cloak to block the wind, opened the door of the sleeping chamber. A drizzle of ox-hair rain was still falling. The Wolf Rider kept his head half-lowered, not daring to glimpse the heavenly countenance even once. Only after Wen Yu said “Let’s go” did he respectfully turn to lead the way.
Wen Yu held up an umbrella and stepped into the wet traces covering the ground laid by this night rain filling the sky.
—
When they arrived outside the Council Hall, there weren’t many Wolf Riders standing guard outside. The Wolf Rider who led the way told her to wait outside the hall for a moment while he went in to announce her. Wen Yu even heard the sound of some vessel shattering from inside, faintly accompanied by a phrase “Second Brother, stop drinking.”
Wen Yu’s eyebrows knitted slightly together, but before she could think much, hurried footsteps came from inside the hall.
Coming out together with the Wolf Rider who went in to announce was a burly black-bearded man, with a full beard covering half his face. Upon seeing Wen Yu, his face immediately broke into a smile as he called out “Sister-in-law.”
Wen Yu’s furrowed brow didn’t relax—she remembered him. A few years ago when she was taken in by the Xiao family at Tong City, this person had visited the Xiao family and seemed to have an unusual relationship with Xiao Li.
“I heard Your Lordship has important matters to discuss with this Palace?” Her voice sounded even clearer and colder in this rainy night.
Zheng Hu scratched his ears and cheeks, “Mm-hmming” and “ah-ahing” a few times, his gaze darting everywhere but not daring to look at Wen Yu.
Ever since Xiao Li returned from the heavenly prison, he had been drinking in sullen silence in this Council Hall without saying a word. Zheng Hu couldn’t persuade him to stop and couldn’t get any reason out of him by asking. The only thing he could think of was that it was probably still related to Wen Yu.
Given Xiao Li’s drinking capacity, this way of drinking would lead to trouble. That’s why he falsely claimed that Xiao Li had matters to discuss with Wen Yu and quickly had someone go to Zhaohua Palace to invite Wen Yu over.
He wanted to say a few words on Xiao Li’s behalf, but last time he saw Wen Yu, at least it was from a distance. Now with such a divine immortal-like figure standing right in front of him, he didn’t even dare look at Wen Yu’s face for fear that his uncouth behavior might accidentally offend Wen Yu and lose face for Xiao Li, making Wen Yu look down even more on their group of rough folk.
Let alone opening his mouth that was accustomed to speaking coarse words to say good things for Xiao Li. At present, he could only respond with a few “mm-mms” and “ah-ahs” vaguely, then make a gesture of “please enter,” saying somewhat haltingly: “My… my Second Brother is inside. Just go in.”
After speaking, he exchanged a glance with the Wolf Rider who brought Wen Yu over, and they all swiftly left together.
Wen Yu looked at their retreating backs and felt something was strange. After hesitating for a moment at the hall entrance, she pushed open the hall door and walked in.
Inside the great hall, bright candles burned high, stretching her shadow extremely long at the entrance. The night wind rushed in, forcing out the alcohol smell filling the room. Smelling it, Wen Yu’s brow furrowed even tighter.
She raised her eyes toward the person sitting in the high seat. The other party didn’t know how much he had already drunk—below the imperial platform were empty wine jars thrown everywhere in disarray.
Those excessively sharp eyebrows and eyes, along with the melancholic aura around his body that faintly revealed violence, concealed his drunken state, making it momentarily impossible for Wen Yu to distinguish whether he was sober or drunk.
She lifted her foot and slowly walked closer. Only when she nearly reached the imperial platform did the other party finally seem to notice, lifting a pair of heavy, oppressive wolf-like eyes to look at her.
The hall door wasn’t closed. Occasionally, the white light of lightning illuminated the interior of the hall, reflecting everything into a patch of frost white.
Wen Yu’s cloak hung to her shoe tips. Her face was like beautiful jade, her eyebrows and eyes clear and cold. Her entire person in the white light of the lightning seemed like a jade goddess statue carved from jade stone. She looked at the person on the throne and said: “Lord Xiao, is this to celebrate conquering my royal court?”