Chapter 49: Interrogation

Let us set aside, for the moment, all that happened after that night—how Li Miao harassed the Taishan Sect’s cooks day in and day out, nitpicking over matters such as “the jelly is too cold,” “the soup is too hot,” or “the scallions aren’t sprinkled evenly,” to the extent that the wounded and reclusive Master Zuo went several days without managing to get a single hot meal.

Let us also leave for later the tales of how, in the days that followed, Liu Baiyun swaggered about under borrowed authority, arguing with the heroes of the martial world, piling ever more honorific titles upon the heads of the sect leaders and Zuo Lishan, and scaring the representatives of the smaller factions into fleeing down the mountain.

Instead, let us turn our gaze back to Wang Hai and Xiao Si.

Ever since they parted ways at Pingshan Garrison, the two had ridden together to the prefecture of Jinan, where they had been waiting for the rest of the Embroidered Guards to arrive for more than half a month.

And what were they doing now?

“Aaahhh!!!—”

In the pitch-black gloom of a dungeon, the wavering torchlight cast grotesque, writhing shadows upon the walls. A man was lashed to a post, his head drooping weakly, blood and saliva trickling from his mouth, so spent he could no longer even struggle.

Wang Hai reached out and washed his hands in a basin of clear water, then looked up at the man and said, “Master Li, there’s no need to hold out.”

“Tell me, these two manuals, this internal art and this lightness skill—” He pointed to the two books on the table. “Where did you get them?”

There was no answer.

Wang Hai stepped forward and pressed his hand lightly beneath the man’s armpit.

“Aaahhh!!!—You sons of whores, you dogs in office! Your emperor is fed by me! The empress is my mistress!!!”

“Kill me! Just kill me!”

The man, who had been slumped in defeat, suddenly jerked his head up and screamed in wild hysteria.

Wang Hai removed his hand. The skin beneath the man’s arm was unbroken, but underneath it was mottled black and red, with beads of blood oozing from every pore.

Though Wang Hai’s touch had seemed gentle, his true energy had twisted all the sinews and muscles beneath the skin into a tortured knot—though just barely short of tearing them apart.

Yet the man continued to shout in madness, his words a jumble of incoherent ravings, even as a trickling sound from beneath his robes betrayed his loss of control. He seemed nothing more than a simple soul driven mad by torment.

But Wang Hai only sneered. “Master Li, playing the lunatic might fool others, but I’ve seen it all too many times.”

“I’ve had a hundred or more feign madness before me, and a good score who truly went mad. You’d best use what lucidity you have left to consider what you ought to say.”

“Even if you lose your mind, the pain will still find you.”

Wang Hai placed his hand on the man’s body once more.

The dungeon echoed again with piercing screams. In the other cells, even the hardened murderers, hands still stained with blood, cowered like chicks in the corners, muffling their mouths and noses, not daring to make a sound.

After half an hour, the man could scream no longer. His entire body was blackened, his joints dislocated, and he hung limp as a rag.

“Well, that’s about all I can do,” Wang Hai said, stepping back to sit at the table. “Little Four, give me a hand, would you?”

“Of course, Brother Hai!” Xiao Si, who had been nibbling snacks at the table, stood up, wiped her hands and her mouth, and scurried over in her tiny steps.

She pressed her two small hands onto the prisoner.

A hoarse, animal gasp burst from the man. His head, which had hung limp, now snapped up high. The agony was so intense he couldn’t even scream; his eyes bulged, his mouth gaped wide like a black pit, and an inhuman wail tore from his throat.

As mentioned before, in Li Miao’s plans for the future of Xiao Si, Wang Hai, and Mei Qinghe, Wang Hai was in charge of getting things done, and Mei Qinghe was the one for breaking down doors.

But harmless-looking Xiao Si—she was the one responsible for interrogation.

However innocent she appeared, Xiao Si had, as a child, been tortured for years by witchcraft and venom, forged into a living vessel for poisons. Her true nature was even more sinister than Zuo Lishan.

With such a history and such an essence, how could her heart be that of a simple, lively, greedy little girl?

Wang Hai, after all, was Li Miao’s hand for the dirty work, his heart venomous and extreme, restrained only by Li Miao’s will.

The day the Tiger Guard’s people pursued them out of the city, Li Miao had specifically ordered Wang Hai, “Don’t kill anyone”—not out of mercy, but because he knew that without such instructions, Wang Hai would have slaughtered the entire escort.

Could an ordinary little girl ever have fallen in with someone like Wang Hai?

To put it bluntly, if Xiao Si truly were just a normal girl, Li Miao would have booted Wang Hai as far away as possible, not subtly encouraged the two to flirt under his very nose.

The things the pair whispered to each other all day were hardly ordinary sweet nothings—should any bystander overhear, they’d likely have run straight to the authorities in terror.

To return to the present: why was this man being interrogated by Wang Hai and Xiao Si in turns?

As previously mentioned, the thief You Zi’ang, who impersonated a ghost at Wu’s residence in Pingshan Garrison, had been escorted to Jinan by Wang Hai. The internal art and lightness skill You Zi’ang used, inherited from the Plum Blossom Thief, had been stolen from this man’s home.

Initially, Wang Hai thought the Plum Blossom Thief was a minor criminal long since dead, and that the manuals had accidentally fallen into this man’s hands, so he paid little mind—simply ordered the Embroidered Guards to investigate the household as background for You Zi’ang.

But by chance, they found a copy of “The Sutra of the Root of All Methods” hidden in the man’s home.

That was the fundamental scripture of Mani, one of the seven sacred texts—Mani, known in these lands as the Bright Sect.

The Bright Sect was a religious organization, binding followers by faith. No matter how deeply embedded their death agents might be, there would always be evidence of their beliefs nearby.

After all, religion by its nature has little to do with reason.

Li Miao had only learned in Taian City that the Plum Blossom Thief was alive, and that the manuals found by You Zi’ang were merely a cover for his faked death. Wang Hai did not know of Li Miao’s later discoveries, but he did know that years ago, the Plum Blossom Thief had gotten involved in a Bright Sect case and escaped from Li Miao’s grasp.

Now, with a Bright Sect scripture found in the home of a man who possessed the Plum Blossom Thief’s manuals, Wang Hai’s suspicions were immediately aroused.

He sent word, had the man escorted to Jinan, and began the interrogation himself.

The moment Wang Hai laid hands on him, he knew they had their man.

Though the prisoner had no internal energy, his tendons and bones were unnaturally tough—clearly honed by advanced methods. And after half a day under Wang Hai’s torture, any ordinary man would have confessed to stealing milk as a child.

Yet this man said nothing, only grew more crazed and silent. But to Wang Hai’s eyes, this was the classic conduct of a death agent—feigning delirium, refusing to speak, terrified he might accidentally let something slip in a moment of confusion.

But no matter how devout your faith or how steadfast your will, in Xiao Si’s hands, all that awaits you is greater suffering.

Xiao Si’s methods were not so simple as flaying the skin or crushing fingers.

Indeed, she had barely rested her hands on the man for the time it takes an incense stick to burn when he managed, with great effort, to squeeze out a few words:

“…I confess…I confess…”

“That…that manual…was left with me…on the orders of my Bright Sect’s Right Envoy…”

“It was…left in my care…”