Even if the Emperor comes, he has to bow down.
Deputy Lieutenant Qian himself was dumbfounded. He opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to swallow this sentence back completely, but it was too late. The ears of the dozens of people present were not deaf; they heard it with absolute clarity.
To be honest, everyone present thought that Deputy Lieutenant Qian really had guts. With such courage, even the King of Hell would have to work overnight to add a seat for him in the Book of Life and Death.
Xu Qinghuan stood in place, her eyes lowered. She reached her fingers into the black water and picked up the confession. The paper had already been soaked half-soft by the bloody water. When she lifted it, the handwriting on the paper had already blurred into a blob.
Only that bloody handprint was blindingly red.
Xu Qinghuan held the confession up under the torchlight and examined it in the flickering shadows for a few breaths.
The Great Qian Code, Volume Four, Penalties Chapter.
Those who frame an imperial court official shall suffer the very punishment they sought to inflict.
Deputy Lieutenant Qian's lips had just trembled when he was pinned down by Xu Qinghuan's cold voice, leaving not even a sliver of room to interrupt.
She turned the confession over, the back facing the firelight. It was completely empty—no cross-page seal, no official stamp from the Ministry of War, and certainly no signature from the presiding judge, not even an interrogation date.
On this piece of paper, there is no presiding judge's seal, nor is there a verification document from the Ministry of War.
Her finger tapped the edge of the bloody handprint.
The blood print is stamped below the crime section, but the ink of the four characters 'colluding with the enemy and committing treason' varies in depth. 'Colluding' uses thick ink, while 'treason' is pale, and even the stroke direction is completely different.
This clearly did not come from the same person's hand!
Stamp the print first, fill in the crime later.
Xu Qinghuan spat out these words one by one.
Wang Biao set up a private court, abused torture, and extorted confessions from meritorious soldiers of the imperial court. This is the first crime!
The confession slipped from her fingertips and fluttered back into the sewage by Deputy Lieutenant Qian's feet.
Forging Ministry of War documents, plotting to murder border defense generals. This is the second crime!
Deputy Lieutenant Qian.
The moment his name was called, Deputy Lieutenant Qian's back pressed a bit tighter against the stone wall.
You just said a sentence that this official didn't hear clearly. I must trouble you to say it again.
Deputy Lieutenant Qian didn't utter a sound.
Even if the Emperor comes, he has to bow down, right? Xu Qinghuan repeated it for him.
The Great Qian Code, Volume One, Treason Chapter, Article Three.
Anyone who speaks treasonous words or slanders His Majesty, regardless of whether they are civil or military, noble or lowly, shall be treated as committing treason... their three generations shall be executed!
When the word treason landed, his brain was still spinning and his mouth still wanted to say something, but his body made the choice a step ahead of him. Deputy Lieutenant Qian's knees completely buckled.
It really wasn't that he wanted to admit defeat; it was that his bones simply couldn't bear the weight of exterminating three generations. With a heavy thud, his knees smashed hard into the black water, splashing sewage that directly covered half his face.
I—
He opened his mouth, his voice breaking into pieces.
This humble general misspoke, this humble general was talking nonsense after drinking—
After drinking?
Xu Qinghuan looked down at him from above:
Wearing an official uniform, drinking and making merry in the death row of the Ministry of War's garrison division. Eating large mouthfuls of meat while watching soldiers who risk their lives for Great Qian suffer such torture?
Knowing the law and breaking it, the crime is increased by one degree!
The blood completely drained from Deputy Lieutenant Qian's face. His brain finally understood; this woman was not scolding him or scaring him, she was convicting him.
Every single charge fit perfectly, and every single one was a capital offense written in the Great Qian Code.
As long as she reported tonight's events, Deputy Lieutenant Qian's head would not be saved, and more importantly, his entire family would be implicated.
Execution of three generations.
For Great Qian, which placed extreme importance on the concept of clan, such a crime was unacceptable to anyone.
At the entrance of the corridor above, Chen Kui lay on the stone steps, his forehead pressed against the stone slab, his body trembling non-stop.
Behind him, more than twenty jailers had thrown their swords all over the floor, lying prone one after another, not even daring to breathe loudly.
Chen Kui screamed frantically in his heart: Imperial Envoy! We never thought about rebelling!
This official patrols on behalf of the Heavens, holding the Emperor's Sword to supervise the Northern Frontier. Xu Qinghuan looked around. Slaying the traitor Wang Biao just now was to cleanse the national law! Under the Emperor's Sword, traitors are absolutely not tolerated!
She paused.
If you dare to obstruct the Imperial Envoy from handling a case again, it is blindly following treason. The Great Qian Code states that those who follow treason—their three generations shall be exterminated!
The repetition of the words three generations exterminated made everyone completely despair, and a continuous sound of kowtowing immediately echoed in the corridor.
This humble general wouldn't dare!
This lowly one wouldn't dare!
Imperial Envoy, spare our lives! It was all orders from superiors, this lowly one is just a gatekeeper!
The shouts overlapped chaotically, churning together in the corridor.
Deputy Lieutenant Qian knelt, his body trembling, not spitting out another half-word.
Xu Qinghuan withdrew her gaze.
Li Sheng.
Present.
Release him.
Li Sheng sheathed his sword and crossed to the torture rack in two or three steps.
The raw iron chains were pulled dead tight, and the iron hoops had long since embedded deeply into Xu Zhan's flesh. Li Sheng reached out and tested it; he couldn't pry it open barehanded at all.
He reached back and pulled out the fine steel dagger at his waist, wedged the tip of the blade into the gap of the iron hoop, gritted his teeth, and pried it outward bit by bit. The inferior iron hoop couldn't withstand the brute force of good steel, and after a few tries, it cracked open.
Li Sheng switched the dagger to his other hand and used both hands simultaneously to pry the iron hoop open.
The iron hoop on the left wrist loosened first.
Xu Zhan's left arm dropped down. The entire arm had no reaction, hanging limply.
And on the right side, there was only a shocking stump of a severed arm left. Li Sheng held his breath and carefully pried open the iron hoop on that side as well.
Even someone like Li Sheng couldn't help but suck in a breath of cold air when he saw the bloody, mangled flesh.
Hiss!
Without the support of the iron chains, Xu Zhan slid down from the torture rack.
Xu Qinghuan took a step forward and steadily caught him in her arms.
Too light. At this moment, Xu Zhan was so light that he didn't seem like a seven-foot man who had once swung a sword to kill enemies on the battlefield.
Xu Zhan's head rested on her shoulder, his breathing incredibly shallow and weak, as if it could stop at any moment.
Xu Qinghuan freed one hand, untied her outer garment, and draped it over him.
Second Brother.
Her voice was very soft.
I'm here.
Xu Zhan's lips moved a little.
He wanted to speak, but his mouth was full of bloody foam and black water, and the sounds he made were broken and indistinct.
Xu Qinghuan leaned her ear closer.
Listened for a few breaths.
I heard it all.
She pulled Xu Zhan's body closer into her embrace, letting him lean steadily, then raised her head to look at Li Sheng.
Find a clean door board to use as a stretcher and carry him out.
Yes.
Li Sheng made a hand gesture toward the upper part of the corridor, and two personal guards turned and ran out.
Xu Qinghuan half-knelt in the water, supporting Xu Zhan's back with one hand and pressing above his severed arm with the other.
Through the outer garment, she could feel the wound underneath still seeping outward.
Deputy Lieutenant Qian looked at Xu Qinghuan's half-kneeling back, and that outer garment covering Xu Zhan, then looked at the confession floating on the ground.
He suddenly understood another thing.
This woman was not here to save someone tonight.
This woman was absolutely not simply here to save someone tonight; she was here to flip the table and settle accounts!
Wang Biao's life was the first debt; the crime of the fake confession was the second debt; his treasonous words were the third debt.
His claim that even the Emperor would have to bow down if he came was the third strike.
Three strikes, each drawing blood, all aimed straight at He Minghu's vital points.
With Wang Biao dead, the actual control over the death row was lost. The confession having been publicly exposed as a fraud, the charge of treason and colluding with the enemy against Xu Zhan became nothing but a scrap of paper.
And that sentence from Deputy Lieutenant Qian was the most fatal of all; for the crime of rebellion, accomplices would have their entire extended families exterminated.
At this very moment, there was only one choice placed before everyone in the death row.
Either go down with Deputy Lieutenant Qian as sacrifices for He Minghu, or follow the Imperial Envoy to eke out a living.
There was no third path.
Using the Emperor's Sword and a forged confession, Xu Qinghuan had turned the death row that He Minghu had so carefully managed completely upside down.
The personal guards quickly ran down carrying a thick, heavy wooden door panel. Li Sheng took hold of Xu Zhan and extremely carefully laid him flat on the wooden board.
Throughout the entire process, Xu Zhan did not let out a single groan.
Xu Qinghuan stood up and walked over to Deputy Lieutenant Qian.
Deputy Lieutenant Qian buried his head even lower.
"Deputy Lieutenant Qian."
"Y-Yes!"
"He Minghu will definitely come tonight."
Deputy Lieutenant Qian's shoulders trembled.
"When he arrives, whether the doors of this death row are open or closed will depend on you."
She paused for a breath, allowing the fear to ferment in his heart.
"A forged confession cannot make an ironclad case, and we both know it. You are also well aware that what He Minghu wanted was never this confession, but my second brother's life. Now, I am taking him away."
"The charges are false, and the evidence is fabricated. I will write all of this down, word for word, in a secret memorial that will go straight to the Emperor's ears."
Xu Qinghuan bent down slightly, as if she were just making casual conversation.
"As for your words and actions tonight... I could easily treat them as the drunken ramblings of a man who had a few too many cups of cheap wine, and brush it off. Or, of course, I could report it truthfully, without missing a single word."
"How you choose to proceed is up to you to weigh."
Deputy Lieutenant Qian knelt in the water, motionless for a long time. Finally, he bent his spine, his forehead striking heavily against the surface of the water. The murky black water submerged a small portion of his face.
"This lowly general... will follow the Imperial Envoy's lead in all things!"
Xu Qinghuan did not spare him another glance, not even bothering to bestow a simple sound of acknowledgment.
She turned right around and followed behind the stretcher, stepping on the slippery, moss-covered stone steps, making her way up step by step.
The red glow of the torches gradually moved upward with their departure, and the lowest level of the water dungeon returned to darkness and dead silence.
Wang Biao's head was still floating on the surface of the water.
No one went to fish it out.
