The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 62

The day before, the pickling workshop had been turned inside out, revealing a register of names.

The entire Jingning Guard had mobilized. Mounted agents followed the register through the capital, arresting everyone on it.

The city was so tense that even vendors at roadside stalls knew something serious had happened.

By noon, both the Jingning Guard’s Imperial Prison and the jail of the Five Cities Military Patrol Office were packed with prisoners.

Old Liu, the torturer, and his apprentices were so busy their legs nearly buckled beneath them.

Their greatest gain, however, came from the scar-faced man who had been captured first.

He held out beneath Old Liu’s hands for a day and a night. In the end, he could bear no more and finally started talking.

“Let’s go.”

Shen Yan reached out, caught Zhao Li by the wrist through her sleeve, and led her toward the Imperial Prison.

As he guided her along, she could feel his body heat through the thin cloth.

They had held hands twice before in moments of danger, but now there was no threat at all. Being led along at such an unhurried pace brought an involuntary warmth to Zhao Li’s face.

“Mind the step.”

Shen Yan’s warning sounded beside her ear.

Zhao Li hastily gathered her thoughts and told herself not to imagine things. He was merely guiding her. There was nothing unusual about it.

She did not know that Shen Yan was looking at her, his eyes dark and intent.

They walked very slowly. The guards followed far behind, and not one of them was tactless enough to draw closer.

After a long while, and after crossing corridor after corridor and passing numerous buildings, they finally reached the entrance to the Imperial Prison.

It no longer looked as it had before.

A shrine had been erected before the doors, housing an image of Bian’an.

The unique nature of the Imperial Prison made it exceptionally prone to breeding resentful banes, especially since the main structure lay underground.

Fortunately, the reigning Emperor Longqing was exceedingly benevolent and had abolished many cruel punishments and harsh laws. Shen Yan might look sinister, but he was not pointlessly bloodthirsty as the rumors outside claimed.

As Lu Zhao once put it in private, their superior merely had a naturally severe face and did not like to smile. In truth, he was generous with the men under him.

The Jingning Guard had changed greatly since Shen Yan took command several years ago.

The chaos and wrongful convictions of the previous emperor’s reign had fallen by eighty percent. That was the only reason the Imperial Prison had not already transformed into a nest of supernatural anomalies.

Under the previous dynasty, this place would long since have become a supernatural domain of its own.

Even so, it was hardly a wholesome place and remained riddled with hidden dangers.

After joining the Guard, Zhao Li had suggested that consecrated, eye-opened images of Bian’an be enshrined throughout the Imperial Prison and the Pacification Office.

Bian’an, the dragon’s seventh son, resembled a tiger and delighted in litigation. As the emblem of prisons and the law, he could suppress baleful energy.

Shen Yan naturally had no objection to Zhao Li’s proposal.

Thus, the Pacification Office began making offerings to Bian’an. Even the public court displayed a properly consecrated image with its sacred contents sealed inside.

Every member of the Jingning Guard offered a stick of incense when leaving in the morning and returning at night.

The aura of incense that clung to them might offer some protection if they encountered something unclean.

And once the images had received offerings for long enough, they might even be able to summon a portion of Bian’an’s divine presence.

Still holding Zhao Li by the wrist, Shen Yan led her to the great incense cauldron.

Rules were rules, and everyone had to observe them.

Shen Yan respectfully offered a stick of incense to Bian’an, then lit another and handed it to Zhao Li.

Zhao Li raised it before her brow. An apple on the offering table abruptly shifted and rolled toward her with a series of little thumps.

Shen Yan paused, then picked up the apple and gave it to her.

Zhao Li’s lips curved into a smile. “Thank you, Lord Bian’an.”

In this short span of time, the Bian’an image had already developed the first stirrings of awareness. Naturally, it had a special fondness for Zhao Li, the person who had arranged for its worship.

Zhao Li planted the incense in the cauldron. Only then did she accept the apple from Shen Yan and let him lead her farther in.

The moment they entered the Imperial Prison, the air became noticeably damper and colder.

They descended one flight of stairs, and at once the clamor reached her ears.

“I’m innocent… I’m innocent!”

Countless cries of injustice merged into a single tide of sound.

The prison was much livelier than the last time Zhao Li had visited.

Clearly, her colleagues had been working very hard.

Listening to the prisoners proclaim their innocence, Zhao Li let Shen Yan guide her down to the third underground level, where the most serious offenders were kept.

Compared with the noise above, the people held here were much quieter. Perhaps they had accepted their fate. Perhaps torture had simply left them without the strength to shout.

As they passed one cell, a voice suddenly called out.

“Hundred-Household Commander Zhao, how is my elder brother?”

Song Hongfu stood with both hands wrapped around the bars.

His father was on good terms with Shen Zhixing, and Song Hongfu himself had been reasonably cooperative, so he had not been subjected to severe torture.

There was even a clean chamber pot and a thick cotton quilt inside the dim cell—clearly first-class treatment.

“The Mother-and-Child Bane has been broken. Song Hongjun is safe now,” Zhao Li replied, turning toward his voice.

Only then did Song Hongfu clasp his hands. “Thank you.”

Zhao Li had little acquaintance with him. She nodded and continued onward.

Before they even fully opened the thick door of the torture chamber, groans and agonized screams spilled through the crack.

Among them came Old Liu’s unmistakable chuckle.

Even Zhao Li felt her scalp prickle at the sound.

When Old Liu saw Shen Yan and Zhao Li enter, he smiled like a friendly uncle cooking in the house next door. He wiped the blood from his hands on the gore-smeared leather apron tied around his waist.

The scar-faced man who had been so defiant before now hung naked from a wooden frame, bound in place and barely breathing.

Curiously, Old Liu was splattered all over with blood, yet there was little of it on the prisoner.

The instant Shen Yan saw the naked man on the frame, he instinctively moved in front of the blindfolded Zhao Li.

Then he narrowed his eyes and shot Old Liu a warning look.

Old Liu’s smile stiffened. He hurriedly found a scrap of cloth and wrapped it around the prisoner’s waist.

Shen Yan led Zhao Li to the table and seated her before walking over to the scar-faced man.

He, too, was curious how Old Liu had pried open the man’s mouth.

Only when he drew close did he notice something unnatural about all four of the man’s limbs. The ropes had sunk deep into his flesh, as if binding sacks of flour with no resilience at all.

Shen Yan wrapped a handkerchief around one finger and gently pressed the man’s arm. His touch immediately left a hollow that did not spring back.

Beneath the skin, there was no sense of muscle or bone. It felt as if the limb had been stuffed with rotten cotton.

Shen Yan arched a brow. Then he spotted several bloody fragments of bone piled in a corner and understood.

He gave Old Liu a slight nod, discarded the handkerchief, and returned to sit beside Zhao Li.

“What happened?” Zhao Li could tell from the smell in the torture chamber that Old Liu had used one of his special techniques.

She did not really want to ask and disgust herself, but she could not suppress her curiosity.

Seeing her tilt her head, listening intently and plainly eager to know, Shen Yan hesitated before answering.

“Old Liu extracted the bones from his limbs.”

Stripped them out?

The corner of Zhao Li’s mouth twitched. She was suddenly grateful she could not see.

She felt no pity for him, however. “A White Lotus heretic who practiced ritual harvesting and mutilation deserves no less.”

As they spoke, Old Liu had someone bring in a bucket of warm water and fling it over the prisoner.

It was not that he feared cold water might make the man ill. Warm water simply hurt more.

Sure enough, as soon as the water doused him, the scar-faced man shrieked awake.

For him, every minute and second spent conscious and alive was torment.

Old Liu then forced an entire pot of medicinal brew down his throat.

Dazed, the scar-faced man raised his head and saw Zhao Li and Shen Yan sitting there.

“Kill me,” he rasped. “Please.”