Planting a lethal poison into the blood of the living.
These words weighed like a mountain, crushing his old bones nearly to the breaking point.
Xu Qin had demanded fifty death-row inmates to test poison on—live or die, so be it.
This gamble of exchanging life for life ripped open the most cruel bottom line of the Great Qian medical arts.
But with the rotting corpses of the plague filling the land beyond the northern border pass, there was no other road but this blood-soaked path staked on human lives. The city could only sit and await its doom.
Half an hour later, a wall of black-gray stone over two zhang high loomed ahead.
The Western City Death Prison, arrived.
No lantern hung above the gatehouse.
The two iron-wrapped doors were sealed tight; rusted caltrops bristled along the top of the walls. Two lion statues like tomb guardians stood before the entrance, buried in accumulated snow.
Zhao Heng had just halted his steps at the base of the stone stairs.
From behind the thick wooden doors came the faint crunch of footsteps breaking ice.
A warden captain stepped out from the sheltered side gate on the left.
He wore a greasy, tattered straw cloak over a regulation leather cuirass frozen stiff by the wind and snow. His breath froze into white frost on the stubble of his chin.
The captain stopped atop the steps, casting a scrutinizing gaze downward.
He first looked at Zhao Heng's armor—that of an adjutant commander to a personal guard unit—and said nothing.
Then his eyes drifted lower, past Zhao Heng's shoulder, and fixed on the figure behind him.
A thin blue medical officer's robe. Isn't that Lao Sun?
Suspicion gathered in the captain's eyes.
The frontline was mid-battle. Why under heaven would a medical officer leave the wounded soldiers' camp and come to the Western City Death Prison?
He stepped aside, one step to the side.
"General Zhao came through the snow to this place—I regret not having greeted you properly." The captain's voice was cold and hard, without any trace of pleasantry.
"But this medical officer here—I suspect he's taken the wrong path."
"The cells of the Western Prison hold only condemned murderers awaiting autumn execution. No matter how pressing the frontline situation, martial law is martial law. There is no precedent for releasing these scum to serve as auxiliary troops."
He said his piece as plainly as possible.
Since the founding of the Great Qian, military law had always declared death prisons forbidden ground. No matter how short the city was on pressed labor for filling ditches, a request here for manpower would never be answered.
Lao Sun drew his hands from his sleeves and received a rectangular purple-sandalwood case from the attendant beside him, raising it to chest level.
"This officer is not here to request troops." Lao Sun looked directly at the captain on the steps. "Everything I do follows the orders of the Grand Marshal. You need only follow your instructions and make way."
The captain didn't bite.
He had served in this death prison for years, and had seen all kinds of lowlifes using the name of the General's Mansion to get their way.
The death prison was a place of highest security. Without a real document of proof, releasing a single prisoner on his own authority meant losing his head.
The case looked expensive—but he wasn't ready to take a mere box as truth from this physician.
His gaze shifted off the sandalwood case and settled on Zhao Heng.
The captain waited for someone who could bear responsibility, someone who, if things went south, could vouch for his neck staying on his shoulders.
Zhao Heng met the captain's stare.
"Yes."
Zhao Heng spoke—one word only.
That was enough. The captain had his assurance.
His thumb pushed the sword at his waist back into its scabbard. He stepped back to the side, and raised a hand in a gesture.
"Please!"
Two gray-robed underlings emerged immediately from the dark.
Together, they carried a long iron key, longer than arm's length, and fit it into the heavy black-iron lock at the center of the doors.
With a bite of gears, the great doors split open inward, a thin crack.
A freezing breath surged out, colder by three degrees than the blizzard outside.
Lao Sun pocketed the case and followed Zhao Heng downward.
The lowest cells saw no light. And the deeper they went, the stronger the sour stench rose.
The corridor was long and narrow, flanked on both sides by cells enclosed in iron bars as thick as a child's arm. Lao Sun unfolded his register and, lifting his lamp, halted at the first cell.
Lying on the dead straw were several inmates sprawled haphazardly.
Lao Sun inspected the face of the one outermost. The man had high cheekbones, black under his brow, and short, rapid breaths.
Lao Sun shook his head and moved to the next cell.
With such potent poison, a weak body that absorbed even a drop would dissolve instantly into a pool of yellow, corrupt water—no use for testing efficacy.
He walked extremely slowly.
By the lamp's flame, he examined each prisoner's bone structure, skin tone, the weight of their breathing.
Before the fifth cell.
A withered old man was scratching himself against the base of the wall.
Lao Sun needed only a glance at the walnut-sized poisonous sore on his neck to know the blood-poison in him ran deep.
Plant new venom into such a body? Two poisons clashing would ensure no chance of survival.
Not suitable!
He raised his lamp and shuffled onward.
The eighth cell.
A prisoner with a bare torso sat in a corner, wiping his neck with droplets of water dripping from the edge of the stone wall.
He had a broad back and a thick waist. His muscles had withered from hunger, but their frame remained.
Lao Sun stopped—and listened to the man's breathing.
Long, deep breaths. No impurities.
Ah...! Fine—fine material!
At the sound of company, the man spun his head around. It hadn't collected yet? The whites of his eyes were slightly yellow, but his gaze was fierce.
"Select this one."
Lao Sun tapped his ink brush across the page.
An accompanying guard rattled his keys, opened the cell, and threw an iron shackle on the man, hauling him out.
Soon, the noise of shackles dragging over stone echoed through the passage.
Lao Sun called out names along the way.
Not those with scabies, not ones coughing each other down. He wanted only the healthy and hardened—with robust frames, unscathed and upright.
An hour later, fifty inmates were gathered in a deep open-air courtyard at the rock bottom of the prison.
High walls on all sides, the blades of iron-shuttered corridors rising in gloom.
Cooped together, the stench of rot and sweat stung the nose. Most were ragged, hands and feet bound in heavy irons.
Two were women.
One man, marked by an uneasy vision, right up front·the one first in line. A lean man with the scar said.
His skull is a clean shine across from left cheek. The one they called out front set his back against a stone pillar behind him, ankles crossed, chin up as his overdone way.
It didn't just happen without due manner. He observed repeated here in gloom-touched realms of cruelty.
Arms/ton? No sir, along jailers' dealings he didn't. Far from having fear.
"Officer—" the scarred mouth scraped slow. Dull-coy, no respect at all. "Used men start acting high an' mighty over why—ol' brick walls have nice dry litter, mealtime all hot. Good enough here — no want. Dressing my legs anywhere no."
A few nearby prisoners chuckled with him.
Men condemned had long forgotten dread-no.
"If it's cold enough to turn your snot to icicles, boi," another voice added, rubbing chapped hands like chopped ice. "We'd plutôt stay inside not give shifters work..."
The warden captain's face soured.
From the right rank, step out a cell attendant. Before anyone could jeer, snuffed on exposed shaft of braided leather—while he swinging for light room which it struck quick-fire hmm snap!
Crack! Crack!
Leather struck iron rails abreast the terrace locked.
"Empty mouths close—tight!" Baring yellow teeth bitten—he shouted out red.
The warden frost-glared at the Scarred Man. "Fools of the iron house—think old these dead ends’ve come past an they ever be rowdy? You are hauled down under order of rank; raised beast like a meal slot--Squared stance while presiding officer speaks!"
That thwack—better brand or raised– they dropped that tough-guy act, letting bar space slump straight not happy itself. I still spy in their eyes out sparks enough kindle the inn with:
One dragon ahead took.
Lao Sun stepped past Zhao Heng, walk in to front linen-she of, and let that survey move slowly across fifty pair of cold, snarly days-of-rage.
"This petty officer is carrying over within my sleeve—one decently weighted slab: drop-of-death-grade absolution paid up complete if fate keeps you breath-wise through current course. Once done, roll shall nullified, contract torn, walk free folks ground healthy own name."
The whole arc goes void. Quiet as air.
Once bright of "life-before-fire" wiped down e-mine blank stares from those death rows, when men’vies got words onto struck-eyes—something other than rot glowing barely lamplit, shadow.
Everyone exchanged uneasy glances.
The Scarred Man also dropped his flippant demeanor. He shuffled forward half a step, his shackles dragging, and looked at Lao Sun.
"Such a sweet deal—how could it land on our laps?" the Scarred Man said, his tone thick with disbelief, his eyes sweeping over the blades of the armored soldiers.
"Sir, you can't be expecting us to charge into battle bare-chested, going at those Hu dogs with our fists, can you?"
