Ch. 18
Chapter 18: Who Says Releasing Ginger Doesn’t Count as Releasing Something? Sending a Man to the Underworld Counts Too!
To avoid hitting Cheng Yu, the Jinyiwei subordinates aimed their shots at Li Da’s legs.
Even if they missed, the bolts would only sink into the ground and would not hit Cheng Yu by mistake.
Seeing how dense the incoming bolts were, Li Da hurriedly retreated.
But after taking several steps back, he suddenly remembered that Cheng Yu was still behind him and quickly turned to look.
The moment he did, he saw a terrifying saber light burst forth, carrying a dreadful aura as it slashed across.
The saber rose and fell.
VMM!
The Hundred-Forged Xiuchun Saber let out a sharp sound as it cut through the air.
Li Da’s entire weapon-wielding arm dropped to the ground in response, and the Xiuchun Saber in his hand struck the earth with a crisp clang.
“AAARGH!!”
Blood sprayed from the wound. As searing pain washed over him, Li Da clutched the stump and howled, beads of sweat the size of beans pouring down his forehead.
He had never imagined that Cheng Yu would have the nerve to strike him this heavily, for real!
“You dare do this to me? You’re finished!”
With one arm crippled, Li Da’s hatred reached its peak, and he cursed Cheng Yu through the pain.
“You openly attacked a fellow officer. No one can save you now! Lord Hundred-Household Commander will avenge me! When the time comes, I’ll use the cruelest methods imaginable to torment you and repay this hatred!”
Shrieking hysterically, he picked up his severed arm and tried to flee.
Wu Lenggang had deserved to die for colluding with outsiders, but Li Da had merely lost an arm at Cheng Yu’s hand. If Cheng Yu dared kill him too, then that would become an absolutely unforgivable crime!
As long as he could leave alive today, he would never let Cheng Yu off!
But the very next second, the Xiuchun Saber in Cheng Yu’s hand came down coldly onto Li Da’s shoulder.
“Did I say you could leave? You come when you want, you leave when you want—what do you take this place for?”
The blade nicked Li Da’s neck, and he felt a warm stream flow out at once.
Under the fear of death, he even forgot the agonizing pain from his severed arm.
His whole body trembled as he swallowed hard.
He turned back and looked at Cheng Yu in terror. “You can’t kill me. If you kill me, no matter what, you won’t escape a capital crime!”
“When you made the first move, did you not have that awareness?”
Cheng Yu’s tone was icy. He applied a little more pressure with his hand, and the wound on Li Da’s neck deepened.
“I was acting under the orders of Lord Hundred-Household Commander. You refused to admit your crimes, so only then did I strike to apprehend you! That is not a reason for you to kill me. If you kill me now, you’ll still be walking straight into death!”
If Cheng Yu really dared kill Li Da just like this, Lord Hundred-Household Commander would definitely never let him off lightly!
Li Da invoked the Hundred-Household Commander’s name for one reason only: to intimidate Cheng Yu and escape death.
But when he heard Cheng Yu’s cold reply, he fell into complete despair, his entire body turning cold.
“A reason to kill you? Isn’t that the easiest thing in the world? Driven by profit, you turned traitor, colluded with outsiders, and attacked a fellow officer. Is that enough of a reason?”
Li Da’s expression changed drastically. He admitted that he had struck at Cheng Yu, but that had been done in a moment of urgency.
But driven by profit? Colluded with outsiders? What did that mean?
Cheng Yu was framing him!
“Stop slandering me! When did I ever do any of that?!”
“Just now. Don’t worry—you’ll confess to it yourself soon enough…”
Li Da shuddered from head to toe. Cheng Yu was forcing him to admit to crimes he had never committed!
“Impossible! I will never admit to something I haven’t done! Don’t you dare smear me!”
“You’ve already admitted it.”
Cheng Yu paid no heed to Li Da’s resistance. With a smile, he spoke in a voice only the two of them could hear:
“Acting Hundred-Household Commander Li Da confessed fully to his crimes, but then refused to repent and attacked again, whereupon he was executed on the spot… The dead do not argue back.”
“You!”
Li Da stared at Cheng Yu with bulging eyes. No matter how he thought about it, he had never imagined that Cheng Yu would use the Jinyiwei’s favorite trick of leaving no living witness against him.
This was a tactic he usually used on others. He had never expected that one day he would become the victim instead.
At that point, he felt all hope of survival vanish completely. The weakness from blood loss surged over him.
In utter despair, his eyes rolled back and he fainted on the spot.
【The host displays the methods of the Jinyiwei and breaks through the enemy’s psychological defenses without wasting any effort. Reward: one set of mid-grade, top-tier hidden weapons, Tang Sect Poison Darts (twelve darts)!】
Cheng Yu put away the Hundred-Forged Xiuchun Saber and toyed with a tiny, exquisitely made poison dart between his fingers.
He had only just been thinking that Li Da’s iron pellet had been quite effective, and the system had immediately rewarded him with hidden weapons.
He glanced at the unconscious Li Da on the ground and gave a cold smile.
“Men, drag him into the prison and lock him up. Then find a physician to stop the bleeding. I’m going to interrogate him.”
Inwardly, he began considering the Jinyiwei Hundred-Household Commander of Qingjiang Prefecture.
Li Da was merely that man’s subordinate. After learning what had happened to the Red River Gang, that man definitely wanted both to recover his lost interests and to make sure Cheng Yu did not know anything that could threaten him.
So he had sent Li Da to deal with Cheng Yu, only to end up kicking solid iron.
“If you dare set your sights on me, then you’d better be prepared for the backlash.”
……
Inside the dark and damp prison, Li Da opened his eyes. In his hazy confusion, he felt pain all over his body.
When he realized his right hand was gone, he bolted upright in terror.
All he could see were gloomy walls on every side. A choking smell of rot filled the air, and heavy shackles were fastened around his feet.
Only then did he remember that he had come to Qinghe County.
He had originally thought this would be nothing more than teaching some ignorant Banner Captain a lesson, yet instead he had lost an arm and had even been threatened with death.
“Cheng Yu!”
Li Da ground his teeth in hatred, but he could not feel the slightest hope.
Having dealt for years with vicious criminals and madmen, he had naturally sensed the killing intent in Cheng Yu. It had absolutely not been a joke. Cheng Yu had genuinely intended to kill him!
And because of that, Li Da became confused again:
“If he really intended to kill me, then why keep me alive? Lord Hundred-Household Commander will never let him off no matter what…”
“Wait! Could it be that he really found out something and wants to force it out of me?”
At last, realization dawned on him.
Cheng Yu might really have uncovered something and wanted to pry certain secrets out through interrogation.
With that, he could gain leverage over the secrets of the Qingjiang Prefecture Jinyiwei Hundred-Household Commander.
At that thought, Li Da shuddered all over.
All his life, he had been the one interrogating others, prying secrets out of people’s mouths with terrifying methods.
He had never once imagined that one day the same thing would happen to him.
As he recalled the Jinyiwei’s methods, his whole body could not stop trembling.
But he still gritted his teeth.
“I can’t talk. If I’m the only one tortured here, Lord Hundred-Household Commander will still avenge me.”
“But if I dare reveal anything, then my whole family is finished.”
He made up his mind to keep his mouth shut no matter what. Whatever happened, he would say nothing!
It was not as if he had never seen those interrogation methods before. He was mentally prepared!
Just as Li Da was making up his mind not to utter a single word, the prison door happened to open.
With his hands behind his back, Cheng Yu walked in calmly.
He saw Li Da sitting there with a look of grim determination.
Cheng Yu smiled faintly at him. His young face carried an indescribably gentle air.
Only then did Li Da fully realize that Cheng Yu was no more than a young man of twenty.
But the moment he recalled the ruthless way Cheng Yu had cut off his arm, all that remained in his heart was tension.
“You dare lock me up? Let me out at once! Otherwise, none of you will meet a good end!”
“I’m going to ask you a few questions. If you answer obediently, then naturally there will be a chance for you to leave.”
Cheng Yu spoke blandly.
Just as I thought!
Li Da’s guess had been confirmed. He clenched his teeth hard.
“I won’t say a single thing!”
“Fine. Then don’t.”
Cheng Yu paid no attention to Li Da’s resistance and turned to look at his subordinates.
“Cover his head, hang him up, and whip him. Let’s see whether his mouth is still so hard after the lash lands on him.”
The Jinyiwei Strongman Guards quickly seized Li Da, pulled a sack over his head, and hung him upside down from a roof beam.
Then they took out soft whips braided with iron wire and began lashing Li Da fiercely.
SLAP!
“AAARGH!!”
SLAP! SLAP! SLAP!
“AAH! AAH! AAH!”
Heart-rending screams rose and fell with the cracks of the whip, pitiful enough to echo through the entire prison.
But Li Da was still a Third Rank martial artist, after all. Gradually, he endured the pain.
His screams grew weaker and weaker.
He even had enough strength left to shout provocations:
“If you’ve got the guts, beat me to death! Lord Hundred-Household Commander won’t let any of you off! None of you are getting away!”
Seeing that Li Da still had the strength to sneer, Cheng Yu not only failed to grow angry, he actually smiled.
He liked this kind of person best—the kind whose hardest part from head to toe was his mouth.
“Go get me a sack of salt. Dip the whip in it before striking again. It’ll be a nice way to disinfect this brave warrior’s wounds.”
“Yes, sir!”
SLAP!
The whip, now dipped in salt, lashed down onto Li Da again. This time, on top of the pain from the whipping itself, the wounds being cured with salt made the agony even more unbearable.
Li Da felt as if countless worms were gnawing at his flesh, and he let out a howl unlike anything before.
“AAAAAAARGH!!!”
He had only just started to grow accustomed to the pain of the whip and had finally relaxed a little, only to be tortured like this all over again. His entire mental state collapsed completely.
He screamed miserably.
“AAAH!! Stop hitting me! Stop! I’ll confess, I’ll confess to everything! Please stop hitting me!”
At that, the subordinates paused their whipping.
“My lord, he’s confessed!”
“Confessed?”
But Cheng Yu, who was sitting nearby drinking tea, merely lifted a brow.
“I haven’t even asked him anything yet, and he’s already confessed? Then he must be trying to deceive us. For a prisoner to act this brazenly—keep hitting him!”
He had not even started questioning him yet!
What was there to confess to?!
“I haven’t been asked yet?!”
Hearing Cheng Yu’s words, Li Da suffered a double blow to body and mind. His entire will broke. He wailed and begged for mercy even as he screamed.
Then the whip landed on him again.
The cries that came out of him became more horrifying than ever.
This continued for quite a while.
Li Da’s screams gradually weakened, but not because he had adapted to the torture. It was because he no longer had the strength to scream no matter how much it hurt.
Only then did Cheng Yu order them to stop and have Li Da, now covered in mangled flesh and hovering on the brink of death, taken down.
“Well then, may I now ask Acting Hundred-Household Commander Li a few questions?”
“I’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything.”
Li Da, now weak to the extreme, no longer showed any of his earlier arrogance or stubbornness.
【The host conducts a strict interrogation and crushes the arrogance of the disobedient. Reward: Internal Energy!】
Not long afterward, Cheng Yu finished asking his questions.
Just as he had expected, Li Da had indeed come here under the orders of Ma Yuan, the Jinyiwei Hundred-Household Commander of Qingjiang Prefecture.
His purpose was to recover the account book.
And, while he was at it, to bring back Cheng Yu, who might know something.
If Cheng Yu refused to obey, then he was to find a way to drag him back by force if necessary.
Unfortunately, Ma Yuan had underestimated Cheng Yu’s strength. He had not expected that even Third Rank Li Da would fail to take him down.
Instead, Li Da had gotten himself trapped in Qinghe County and spilled everything.
One thing Cheng Yu had not expected was that the Red River Gang and major figures like Hundred-Household Commander Ma had not been in an equal cooperative relationship.
In truth, Sha Yue and the Red River Gang had merely been gloves they raised to fleece the common people for wealth!
The interests behind the Red River Gang were never something a mere Third Rank like Sha Yue could have held on his own. It was only because of the backing behind him that others had not dared covet it.
Yet none of them had expected Cheng Yu to crush him at lightning speed, without giving him any chance at all to summon reinforcements.
After finishing everything he knew, Li Da began pleading for mercy.
“Lord Cheng! I’ve said everything. Please spare my life and stop tormenting me!”
“All right.”
Puchi!
The blade in Cheng Yu’s hand sank into Li Da’s chest.
“You lied to me…” Li Da, already weak beyond measure, slowly toppled over with wide eyes. “You said you’d spare my life…”
“I did spare you. I just never said where I’d spare you.”
Who said releasing ginger was not still a kind of release?
Sending a man to the underworld still counted as sending him off!
Cheng Yu sheathed his saber and rose to his feet, no longer looking at Li Da, who died with his eyes still open.
The moment Li Da dared strike at him, he should have been prepared for this outcome.