Night snow fell rustling. The gatekeepers at Pan Estate’s gate house were too frozen to sleep, so they simply gathered in a circle to drink wine and gamble.

Several dice rattled in a bowl. One person rubbed his hands together, covered the bowl, lifted his arms and shook it to make noise. The others were guessing high or low when they heard a series of urgent knocking sounds.

It was nearly the hour of the rat—who would come knocking at this time? The gatekeepers looked at each other, then two rose and went out, opening the bolt on the main gate.

As the two pulled open the main gate from inside, a warm yellow lamplight fell at their feet. One gatekeeper raised his gaze and saw the visitor held a glass lantern in his hand.

The gatekeeper noticed he wore only a fur-trimmed cotton jacket with no thick cloak. Probably frozen terribly, his body kept trembling. A strange expression covered his face as he opened his mouth: “I have urgent business. I must, must see your master…”

The gatekeeper felt he looked somewhat familiar but couldn’t quite place him. Seeing his wealthy attire, he dared not be negligent. He responded and quickly went to summon the estate’s steward.

“Director Ding?”

The Pan estate steward often followed Pan Youfang and recognized him at once.

“The master has already retired. Director Ding, you might sit for a moment.” The steward led Ding Jin inside while speaking.

Pan Estate was very large, with gatekeepers and guards living in side rooms connecting the corridors in both inner and outer courtyards. Even on such a cold winter night, powerful guards all carrying blades still patrolled on night watch, coming and going.

Ding Jin made no sound. Cold sweat covering his forehead slid down his face. The eerie chill made his entire body shake like chaff. He dared not look back, could only move his heavy steps forward.

A servant hurried over and whispered several words in the steward’s ear. The steward turned back and bowed to Ding Jin: “Director Ding, the master has already risen. I’ll lead you to the main hall.”

The steward had charcoal braziers prepared in the main hall in advance. When Ding Jin entered, he busily asked him to sit, then summoned a maidservant to serve tea.

Ding Jin didn’t speak or drink tea. The steward saw him sitting by the charcoal brazier still shaking uncontrollably, his face pale. He couldn’t help feeling somewhat strange. “Director Ding, this lantern—why not let me…”

Speaking thus, the steward reached out to take the lantern from his hand.

“No need!”

But Ding Jin reacted as if facing a great enemy, dodging his hand.

The steward was startled by this shout. He quickly stepped back several paces. Just as he wondered how he’d displeased this official, he heard a voice from outside the door: “So late—what are you here for?”

The steward turned his head. “Master.”

“You may leave.”

Pan Youfang drew his draped garment tighter while entering and speaking.

“Yes.”

The steward immediately bowed his head, then led the servants and maids out, closing the door.

“Tonight the Palace Command cavalry are searching for Zhang Xin’en of the Lotus Flower Sect. It’s curfew night—why are you running around at this time?” Pan Youfang scrutinized him, discovering his complexion was extremely ugly. “What exactly is the matter? Why this condition?”

“I…”

Ding Jin didn’t rise, still sitting rigidly stiff in the chair.

He was truly very strange.

Pan Youfang frowned. “Why this hemming and hawing? If you have something to say, say it directly! I have no leisure to waste half the night with you here!”

Candlelight dim and yellow, charcoal fire crackling.

Ding Jin’s neck stiff, he opened his mouth, even his voice trembling: “Pan Commissioner’s estate has so many guards skilled in martial arts, surrounding it three layers deep—is, is it because you’re afraid in your heart?”

Pan Youfang had just walked to the desk to pick up hot tea for a sip. Hearing this sentence abruptly, he suddenly turned his head, his eyes narrowing slightly. “What would I fear?”

He increasingly felt this person was very wrong.

Usually skilled at greeting people with a smiling face, yet now his facial muscles twitched intermittently, his face covered in sweat. He held a glass lantern of unknown origin and wouldn’t let go. That light and shadow spread out, illuminating him like a puppet on strings wrapped in human skin. His lips moved: “Fear that your collusion with Wu Dai, falsely transmitting military orders, causing the death of thirty thousand Jing’an Army troops at Mushen Mountain will be revealed to the world.”

At these words, the tea bowl in Pan Youfang’s hand nearly slipped. His complexion changed dramatically.

Inside the main hall, deathly silence.

After a long while, Pan Youfang raised his face, gloomy color shattering the calm at the bottom of his eyes. “Ding Jin, do you know what you’re saying?”

He had clearly never discussed this matter from sixteen years ago with this person. Those who knew of it had either disappeared or died by now.

Du Cong was thus. Dou Yingzhang was thus.

Then from where had Ding Jin learned of it?

Pan Youfang had known from the start about Wu Dai’s son Wu Jikang switching Que County candidate Ni Qinglan’s examination paper—Du Cong had helped with that. Later when the matter was exposed and Yinye Bureau Director Han Qing traced it to Du Cong, he had his estate steward deliver a message to Du Cong telling him to end things himself.

Who knew the next day Du Cong disappeared.

Zhang Jing’s words before death made Pan Youfang suspect Du Cong might have fallen into Zhang Jing’s hands, but even after Zhang Jing’s death, Du Cong still hadn’t appeared.

Could it really be Du Cong?

“These aren’t words I want to ask.”

Ding Jin trembled. “Someone told me to ask you.”

“Who?”

Pan Youfang looked at him coldly. “Ding Jin, you’d better explain clearly your purpose tonight. Whoever told you whatever, you must weigh your own situation clearly. Where is this person? I want you to bring him here personally.”

“He’s right here.”

Ding Jin murmured in a low voice.

Right here?

Pan Youfang immediately looked around, but in this room now, apart from him and Ding Jin, where was anyone else?

He frowned, about to speak, when he saw Ding Jin’s entire body shake even more violently. He seemed to have his throat gripped—not daring to move at all, just sitting there stiffly, eyes wide, staring at his own hand.

Pan Youfang also looked toward his hand.

In an instant, a gust of wind from somewhere extinguished the candles in the room. Only that glass lantern in Ding Jin’s hand remained lit. That light illuminated the mist suddenly appearing behind Ding Jin, now thick, now thin.

This moment, Pan Youfang almost couldn’t believe this extremely eerie scene he was witnessing.

The mist floated ethereally, condensing into a figure. Cold wind billowed his wide sleeves. He extended one hand, and Ding Jin tremblingly offered up that glass lantern.

Just this instant—

The mist thinned. The warm yellow lamplight revealed such a pale face with refined bone structure.

Wind and snow beat the windows. Ghosts wailed and wolves howled.

The garment draped over Pan Youfang fell to the floor. The calm expression on his face cracked apart in this instant. The tea bowl fell to the ground with a “crash,” shattering into pieces.

Eerie cold enveloped his back. Sharp chill stabbed his muscles and bones into trembling. He watched wide-eyed as that figure thin as mist walked toward him. He immediately wanted to retreat, but his knees went soft. He stumbled several steps and fell backward.

Broken porcelain pierced his palm, the pain making him even more awake.

This wasn’t a dream.

This actually… wasn’t a dream?!

Pan Youfang’s eyes opened wide. He couldn’t care about the broken porcelain on the ground. Both hands braced on the floor, he frantically moved backward.

Xu Hexue walked before him. The glass lantern’s light illuminated such a deathly pale face on Pan Youfang. His earlier composure, even all the killing intent hidden at the bottom of his eyes when he heard Ding Jin’s words—all was shattered by his current terror.

“Pan Youfang.”

This voice was cold as if soaked in ice and snow, stabbing Pan Youfang’s eardrums with pain. His entire body shuddered. His whole heart seemed wrapped in ice—cold and suffocating.

He couldn’t forget this face.

A nineteen-year-old youth in crimson robes and silver armor, riding across battlefields, high-spirited and vigorous.

More than ten years ago, Pan Youfang at Juhan Pass had more than once drunk strong wine with him, discussed poetry and literature. Though the general was young, he possessed both the gentle modesty of a scholar and the decisive killing nature of a military commander.

“Whatever General wants to do, however you want to do it, I Pan Youfang will listen to you. As for the court, you need not worry—I have my own ways to negotiate with them.”

One night by blazing campfire light, Pan Youfang held a wine bowl in his hand. Whether from the fire’s heat or wine going to his head, his face glowed red. “In our court, if there could be fewer of those who cling to peace and conservatism, if all could show some backbone and steel themselves to contend with the barbarians, this war—why would it be fought so hard…”

“That’s because they haven’t yet seen through the barbarians’ ambitions.”

The young general braced one hand on his knee, chin slightly raised. “I don’t care what they think. As long as I remain at the frontier one day, if I don’t reclaim the Thirteen Prefectures, I absolutely won’t give up.”

“I must also thank you.”

He lifted his wine bowl, clinked it against Pan Youfang’s, and laughed. “No matter how I want to fight, you never interfere. When the court asks, it’s always you bearing the pressure for me.”

“The general and I serve together here with only one purpose in mind.” Pan Youfang also smiled. “That is to drive the barbarians back to their grasslands so they never again dare violate our Great Qi territory. For this, I’m willing and glad.”

Hearing this, the young general reached out and patted his shoulder. “I absolutely won’t let you suffer the court’s censure. Every battle I fight, I must win.”

“As long as I win, even if they have countless mouths, they won’t dare easily criticize you.”

The youth was bold and unrestrained. He raised his head and drained a bowl of strong wine in one gulp, then stood up.

“Where is the general going?”

Pan Youfang looked at his retreating figure.

The youth didn’t turn back. His clear voice held a trace of laughter. “Suspended Star got too dirty. I’m going to give him a bath.”

Cold wind howled. Tree shadows swayed.

In the courtyard, the night-watch guards walked in orderly steps, back and forth. The drip, drip sounds brought Pan Youfang back to himself. He saw before him this person—crimson blood had soaked his originally white lapels, his bamboo-green sleeve cuffs were wet. Blood droplets fell, right before him, transforming into eerie gleaming dust, floating in scattered points.

The steward stood just outside the door, his shadow falling on the door and window. Pan Youfang discovered the people outside seemed not to notice the lamplight in the main hall had gone out, didn’t even hear the sound of him smashing the tea bowl.

Ding Jin slid down from the chair, his body going limp.

“In the Battle of Mushen Mountain, I suspected many people.” Xu Hexue’s cold gaze fell on his face. Sixteen years had passed—this person had already aged. “Yet I alone never suspected you.”

“Pan Youfang, I trusted you.”

Not worn down by sixteen years, he had died that year. Now this appearance was identical to back then. Pan Youfang’s chest heaved violently. His lips trembled, but he discovered he had no way to refute a single word before this person.

“General…”

Pan Youfang murmured. While retreating backward, he spoke: “It was Wu Dai! He credulously believed Prince Rili. He set a trap for me…”

The eerie cold suddenly drew near. Pan Youfang’s voice cut off abruptly the instant that hand with pale joints gripped his collar. He didn’t dare meet those eyes at all, yet felt his body beyond his control. The floating gleaming dust became ropes binding him. Fear squeezed his heart until he could barely even breathe.

“The false military order to Tan Guangwen—wasn’t it you who had Du Cong deliver it?”

“…Yes.”

Pan Youfang’s throat tightened. The gleaming dust attached to his body became sharp-edged, penetrating his clothing, viciously breaking his flesh. This sharp, burning pain made Pan Youfang’s entire body tremble even more violently. “But that was all Wu Dai forcing me! He used my relatives’ lives as threat. I thought, I thought there was time, so…”

“Your relatives’ lives are lives.”

Xu Hexue’s hand clasped his neck, fingers pressing harder, tightening. “My thirty thousand Jing’an Army soldiers’ lives—they’re not lives, is that it?”

Because of using magical arts, countless wounds beneath his robes cracked open. The originally clean new robe was again stained with spots of blood. He bent down. “So many people bore the heavy crime of treason because of you. They died at Mushen Mountain—no one to collect their remains, no one to care. All this was bestowed by you.”

“How did you dare?”

Resentful qi almost filled Xu Hexue’s chest. The gleaming dust around his body drilled into Pan Youfang’s flesh like mad, torturing him until he screamed continuously.

“Among them were people who saved your life, people who drank wine with you, who sincerely called you ‘Director Pan’ with genuine hearts. Yet I ask you—in your heart, were these soldiers who protected our Great Qi’s territory all insignificant as ants?”

He released Pan Youfang’s neck, stood straight, coldly watching him curl up on the ground, coughing, struggling, watching him tormented by gleaming dust until he rolled back and forth.

“If Wu Dai hadn’t harmed me!”

Pan Youfang’s entire body in severe pain, his voice trembling. “If not for him! I wouldn’t have reached this point! I didn’t want to harm you, didn’t want to harm the Jing’an Army! I truly didn’t want to…”

Whether from pain or this bloody past matter pressing until he couldn’t breathe, his eyelids grew moist. “General… I truly didn’t want to.”

Walking this path of no return for sixteen years, Pan Youfang had killed Dou Yingzhang, abandoned Du Cong. Every step he walked was treading on thin ice.

He didn’t believe there were no walls in this world without cracks, because he had already paid the price. Even enduring resentment and disgust to coexist peacefully with Wu Dai, even becoming the lapdog of Prince Nankang and his son—whoever it was, Zhang Jing or Meng Yunxian, or those young, naive people like Dong Yao—as long as the current sovereign lived, they could only shut their mouths.

But—

Pan Youfang could never have imagined that one day he would encounter a returning ghost.

The general he had personally force-fed muting medicine now stood before him.

Sixteen years of accumulated scheming and calculation utterly crumbled. Pan Youfang only felt all the blood in his body had frozen through. “Even at the frontier, neither the general nor I could escape the court’s power struggles.”

His fear, his guilt toward this General Yujie—piercing heart and gouging bone.

“If possible, I’d rather have served alongside the general than not being a proper person and becoming someone’s dog…” Pan Youfang’s eyes filled with tears. “But General, one wrong step, and every step afterward was wrong.”

He suddenly struggled to rise, trying to grasp Xu Hexue’s robe hem. But his figure was too faint—Pan Youfang’s hand reached out, grasping nothing.

Dou Yingzhang had brought this general back from Mushen Mountain’s mountain of corpses and sea of blood.

It was he who personally had someone send him to Yongzhou.

He knew General Yujie couldn’t survive. The court would sentence him to death, would have him executed in Yongzhou.

The new Prefect of Yongzhou, Jiang Xianming—it was he and Wu Dai and others who with their own hands pushed him into that position, precisely so that an upright loyal minister who knew nothing would do this deed in place of people like them.

But he never expected that Yongzhou’s public opinion would surge, causing Jiang Xianming to follow public sentiment and change beheading to death by a thousand cuts.

“All these years, I never dared go to Yongzhou.”

Pan Youfang’s voice choked. “I feared seeing that execution platform. I feared your bloodstains might still remain above. I feared your spirit would forever be there…”

He suddenly seemed to go mad, banging his head against the ground again and again until his forehead was covered in blood. Then he raised his head. “If there had been no Wu Dai, I could still have been a clean person, a clean official. If I hadn’t gone down the wrong path, I wouldn’t have, in one moment’s error, caused you to…”

“I also don’t understand how I reached today.”

He shook his head. “General, worldly matters are unpredictable.”

Xu Hexue suddenly raised his hand. Gleaming dust enveloped Pan Youfang, suspending his entire body in air. The gleaming dust pierced his flesh but drew no blood. The heart-piercing pain tormented him until his mind grew confused.

“Is Wu Dai the only one in this world?”

Xu Hexue said coldly: “Pan Youfang, I never knew your bones were originally this soft.”

“Rest assured—you and Wu Dai, I won’t spare either one.”

Xu Hexue extended one hand. Gleaming dust like rope dragged Ding Jin over. Ding Jin’s legs were completely soft. He prostrated on the ground. “I beg you, General Yujie! I beg you to spare me! I knew nothing of these matters! I, I never participated. Sixteen years ago, I was only a minor official!”

“At Yong’an Lake, was it you who drove Dong Yao to death?”

Gleaming dust transformed into a long sword, the blade’s cold light fierce, pressing against Ding Jin’s face. The bone-chilling cold made Ding Jin’s entire body shudder. His lips trembled but he couldn’t speak a single word.

“Stand up. Help me kill him.”

Xu Hexue turned his wrist. The blade pressed against Ding Jin’s face withdrew.

Ding Jin was dazed. That sword hung suspended before him.

If not for still having Wu Dai, Xu Hexue would rather kill Pan Youfang with his own hands. If he acted personally to kill Pan Youfang now, he didn’t know if he’d still have the chance to reach Wu Dai’s estate.

Ding Jin thought this was a chance to live. He suddenly raised his head, looking toward Pan Youfang. Because he’d broken his forehead, blood covered his entire face.

“Don’t dare?”

Xu Hexue looked down.

“I, I…” Ding Jin avoided Pan Youfang’s gaze, suddenly gripped the sword hilt. One hand braced on the ground, he barely stood up.

Pan Youfang struggled with all his might but still couldn’t break free of the gleaming dust’s restraints. Even because of his struggles, the pain throughout his body intensified. Cold sweat soaked his broken forehead with stinging pain.

“Someone come! Someone come!”

Pan Youfang shouted hoarsely: “Quickly, someone come!”

The floating mist isolated his screams. The steward’s shadow still reflected on the door and window. He could even clearly hear the steward speaking in low voices with servants outside.

His guards were discussing whether to drink a bowl of hot wine.

“General…”

Pan Youfang watched Ding Jin raise that sword with both hands and approach. He looked toward Xu Hexue standing to the side in panic. “General, I was wrong! I wronged you! I beg you to spare me!”

“I beg you to spare me!”

“I don’t want to die.”

He shook his head forcefully. “I don’t want to die…”

This was perhaps his true face—no longer using Wu Dai as excuse, no longer having so many reasons. He only repeated one phrase: “don’t want to die.”

“Ding Jin, aren’t you very skilled at using your tongue to easily deprive people of their lives? How is it that when truly holding a sword, you instead don’t dare kill?”

Xu Hexue raised his hand. Gleaming dust scattered from between his fingers, transforming into several silver threads coiling around Ding Jin’s neck. He tightened his fingers with force. Crimson blood droplets slid down his pale wrist bone.

“I’ll kill, I’ll kill…”

Ding Jin’s face turned dark purple. He spoke with difficulty, hands constantly touching his own neck, wanting to escape the restraint, yet touching nothing.

The silver threads suddenly loosened. Ding Jin immediately coughed violently.

This time—

He gripped steady the sword in his hand.

“Ding Jin! You dare!”

Pan Youfang shouted: “Don’t forget who gave you everything you have today!”

Ding Jin was startled by his shout again. The eerie cold at his back remained. Ding Jin didn’t dare turn his head even slightly. “The living need these fortunes. Once dead, there’s nothing left.”

“My apologies, Commissioner Pan.”

Ding Jin raised the sword, as if steeling himself, and thrust toward Pan Youfang’s chest.

Just this instant, chaotic noise erupted outside.

The shadow outside the door and window frantically moved aside. With a “bang,” the main door was violently kicked open from outside. Simultaneously, a sharp arrow cutting through cold wind made a piercing sound, suddenly piercing through Pan Youfang’s back.

Ding Jin’s forward sword blade pressed exactly against the arrow shaft piercing Pan Youfang’s flesh.

The blade shattered into light.

Heavy cold mist—lamplight from under the eaves shone in.

The gleaming dust binding Pan Youfang instantly dispersed. He fell heavily to the ground, blood spilling from his mouth. Not yet dead, but Xu Hexue saw scattered soul fire floating from his body.

Outside the door, armored soldiers surrounded a person.

That person held a longbow in hand.

Xu Hexue raised his eyes and saw his face.

“…Yonggeng?”

The person outside almost couldn’t believe his eyes.

But the next instant, he watched with his own eyes as that faint figure suddenly transformed into mist and disappeared.

A glass lantern fell to the ground.

A crisp shattering sound rang out. The flame within extinguished.

“Ziling!”

Prince Jia suddenly strode forward several steps. He threw down the bowstring, circling the entire room. “Xu Ziling!”

What he’d just seen seemed like a dream.

“I am Zhao Yonggeng, I am Yonggeng…”

Prince Jia turned his head, looking at Pan Youfang collapsed on the ground, barely breathing. He kicked Ding Jin aside, drew his personal guard Yuan Gang’s sword, and strode forward.

Like a madman, he brought sword after sword down on Pan Youfang’s body—cutting his flesh, severing his finger bones. Blood almost covered his robes.

Yuan Gang stood to the side, turned his face away, didn’t watch.

“How did you dare harm him like that?”

Prince Jia’s voice trembled, as if trapped in nightmare. Again he thrust down a sword. Pan Youfang’s weak struggles were utterly useless. Blood splattered on Prince Jia’s face. “How did you dare betray his trust? How did you dare let an innocent person suffer those hundred-some cuts?”

“I will kill you all…”

“I will kill you all…”

How many years of suppressed hatred, how many years of pain—almost all made him go mad in this moment. Prince Jia’s eyes filled with tears. He gripped Pan Youfang’s jaw, knuckles white, the blade pressing inch by inch into his mouth, bit by bit cutting off his tongue.

Blood pooled all over the ground. Ding Jin screamed in terror.

Pan Youfang was already without breath, his entire body a mass of bloody flesh, no longer showing his original appearance. Prince Jia looked at the blood droplets falling from the blade. He turned his head.

In dim light, his pale face was stained with blood.

“Your Highness! Your Highness, this subject is Ding Jin, this subject is Palace Censor Ding Jin!” Ding Jin watched him approach and frantically moved backward in fear. “Your Highness, don’t kill this subject! Those matters have nothing to do with this subject! This subject knew nothing, Your Highness…”

Prince Jia thrust a sword through his chest.

The ear-piercing pleas for mercy cut off abruptly.

All the guards in the courtyard had already been killed by Palace Command cavalry soldiers. Goose-feather snow came rushing down. Prince Jia stood dazedly in the main hall holding his sword.

He turned his head. The lamplight under the eaves was somewhat blinding.

“Defying the edict to return to the capital—does Your Highness know the consequences?”

That night when the relay station was attacked, Prince Jia forced the people sent by Meng Yunxian to rescue him to secretly bring him back into the capital city. At the Meng estate, he met Meng Yunxian.

“I know, but I wanted to see Minister Meng. I wanted to ask you—do you know more about his affairs than my teacher does?”

At that time, he asked thus.

“His affairs?”

“His affairs.”

Meng Yunxian was silent for a long while before saying: “It was Pan Youfang. He colluded with Wu Dai, falsely transmitted military orders, caused Tan Guangwen to increase troops to Jianchi Prefecture, delaying the battle opportunity at Mushen Mountain.”

“For their own lives and futures, they buried Ziling and thirty thousand Jing’an Army soldiers’ lives, making your close friend, Chongzhi’s excellent student, bear the infamy of treason.”

“That night, Pan Youfang personally told me—”

Meng Yunxian’s throat choked. “To prevent Ziling from saying anything he shouldn’t before Jiang Xianming, he… personally force-fed Ziling muting medicine.”

“When he suffered death by a thousand cuts, he couldn’t cry out even one word of injustice, one word of pain…”

Tears flooded his vision. The heavy stench of blood made Prince Jia bend over and retch. Yuan Gang hurried forward to support him but was waved away. He threw down that sword stained with flesh and blood.

He staggered out the door.

Cold wind struck his face, blowing until his head felt about to split.

“Is Lord Ge still searching for Zhang Xin’en?”

His voice was hoarse.

“Yes.”

The commander surnamed Lin answered respectfully.

Just at this moment, a team of soldiers hurried over. One person held a wooden box in his hands. He bowed, opening that wooden box before Prince Jia. Inside was unmistakably a bloody human head.

“Your Highness, Grand Commandant Miao had this lowly one bring Wu Dai’s head to see Your Highness!”

“How did he die?”

“One hundred and thirty-six cuts—not one cut less!”

Prince Jia suddenly laughed. Between wind and snow, this laughter was desolate, making all the soldiers present feel somewhat sour in their hearts. They only heard him suddenly call out loudly: “Good!”

“Commander Lin, don’t let Lord Ge come here. Let him continue searching for Zhang Xin’en.” Prince Jia felt somewhat dizzy, barely standing straight. “I know your two battalions both come from Lord Ge’s Dingqian Army. Once you also fought barbarians together under General Yujie’s command. That’s why you were willing to risk your lives to join me in avenging General Yujie.”

“If we hadn’t seen no more hope, how would we reach this point? But I cannot let you die because of me.”

Prince Jia raised his head. “So, after tonight, you must all stick to one statement—say that while the Palace Command cavalry were searching for the Lotus Flower Sect’s Zhang Xin’en, I falsely transmitted an imperial edict claiming Pan Youfang and Wu Dai had private dealings with the rebel Zhang Xin’en, ordering you to immediately execute these two.”

“No matter who interrogates you, you must say this. The law does not punish the masses. You are people who guard the imperial city for His Majesty. Certainly nothing will happen to you.”

“It was I who killed them.”

“If His Majesty sentences me to death, I alone will accept it.”