Chapter 418: The Loyal Minister
"Loyal subject? Hah..."
Su Zhan let out a laugh dripping with utter contempt. "Qin Bai, put away this self-indulgent performance. Do you truly believe you're some loyal general concerned for the nation and its people?"
"For your case clearance rate, for your steady climb to power within the Aberrant Purge Division, how many times have you abused your authority, extracted confessions through torture, forced admissions under duress? How many innocents have you falsely accused, left to suffer endless torment in pitch-black prison cells, just so you could pad the cold, hard numbers on your merit ledger? And how many more, simply because they disagreed with you or inadvertently crossed your interests, had crimes fabricated against them, thrown into prison, vanishing without a trace?"
"Is it only Aberrant blood that stains your hands? The blood of your own people, wrongfully dead under your torture and schemes—does their blood not count as blood!?"
"You paved your path to promotion with the bones of your own kind, dyed your official cap and peacock feathers red with the blood of the innocent. Someone like you, daring to label yourself a loyal subject? Daring to talk about acting for Daxia? You're nothing but... a butcher cloaked in loyalty, practicing the ways of a cruel official, selfish and self-serving, stopping at nothing for power and reputation! Don't you dare sully the words 'loyal subject' here!"
Su Zhan didn't stop. He took a step forward, standing face to face with Qin Bai.
"As for what you did to me... Qin Bai, every single incident, every detail, I remember it all clearly, etched into my bones. You led your men, crashing into my life just as I had achieved a bit of success and was filled with hope for the future, casting me into the abyss. In that interrogation room, your certain gaze had already pronounced me guilty. You laid out an inescapable net, driving me like a stray dog with no home to return to, forcing me to flee into the Mist World where survival was one in ten."
"Do you have any idea what I experienced in there? How many times I almost became a pile of dry bones? And now... it's time for reckoning. Qin Bai, debts owed must be repaid."
"I remember, in your Aberrant Purge Division's torture chambers, there are methods that make a person wish for death but not get it, techniques that won't kill immediately... Tell me... how interesting would it be to experience those exact same methods used on yourself? Would it let you taste the final despair of those you tortured to death?"