Minister Sun swept a cold glance over him.
Director Huang felt as though he had been plunged into an ice cellar. Head bowed, he shuffled forward in alarm.
"Your Excellency, it all happened so suddenly that I had no time to fetch a written warrant," he said. "The main reason is that this man is a martial artist — and the nephew of Xu Pingzhi of the Imperial Blade Guard. He has the ability to flee in fear of his crime." Inwardly, Director Huang thought: the Minister's slapping hand is only six feet away, but I can pass the buck in less than a blink.
"Young Master Zhou sent a retainer with a written accusation, saying a bandit had beaten him in the street and threatened to make his blood splash five paces..."
"The matter was urgent, and I decided it wisest to seize the man first, lest he make good his escape."
With the white-robed men of the Directorate of Celestials and the Grand Confucian Masters of the White Deer Academy present, he dared not lie, and had no reason to. Street brawls between two parties were, after all, the sort of affair in which both sides got fifty strokes and the matter was closed.
Apart from lacking that written warrant, everything he had done was strictly by the book. Throughout the Ministry of Justice, there were countless precedents of warrants being filed retroactively.
The white-robed officials of the Directorate frowned.
Li Mubai and Zhang Shen exchanged a look. The former stepped forward, and in a low voice declared: "The Sage said: 'A gentleman must be honest.'"
Thump, thump, thump...
Director Huang felt his heart hammering wildly, the blood rushing to his face. Shame at his own lie made him wish the ground would swallow him whole.
He loathed the lying version of himself. His spirit rose in fierce protest, protesting his own despicable conduct.
His mouth, now freed in fury from his command, opened on its own, and the words poured out against his will: "Young Master Zhou wants Xu Qi'an dead — he wants to kill him in the prison of the Ministry of Justice to vent the hatred in his heart! I, I... wanted to sell Young Master Zhou a favor."
That felt better... Director Huang slumped to the ground, sweat beading on his brow.
An uproar erupted around him. There were more than ten Ministry of Justice officials present, and their gazes upon Director Huang held every shade — contempt, disdain, schadenfreude, and shaking heads of regret.
"Base and shameless! I shall write a memorial impeaching you this very day." At once the Ministry of Justice's supervising official perked up.
Virtue, the fifth-rank Confucian realm... Minister Sun's expression never moved. He swept a glance over Director Huang's bloodless, dazed face, then instructed the officials under his hand: "Pass along my order — release the man."
......
Amid the clank of shackles, Xu Qi'an was brought into the interrogation chamber. Young Master Zhou had changed into a deep indigo robe — thick, yet not unpleasing to the eye.
He sat spread-legged and lordly, one foot propped on the chair, the ear Xu Qi'an had split wrapped in fine white cloth.
Beside him stood a gaunt old servant in a blue robe with gold-trimmed collar and cuffs, his pupils sharp as he fixed on Xu Qi'an, making no attempt to hide the murder in his gaze.
Two turnkeys stood by a rack of instruments, eyeing Xu Qi'an with ghoulish relish.
The brocaded young master waved a hand, and one turnkey drew a folded sheet from his breast and flung it before Xu Qi'an.
"You have two roads before you," Young Master Zhou declared, looking down his nose. "Admit guilt and sign. Or try every instrument in this room, and then admit guilt and sign."
Xu Qi'an glanced at it. The confession's gist ran: Xu Qi'an, runner of the Changle County yamen, fell into a quarrel with Zhou Li in the street, conceived a murderous intent, resorted to force, and gravely wounded Zhou Li. Constables then arrived, and the runner Xu Qi'an was taken into custody...
Assault on a main street — and against the son of the Vice Minister of Revenue, no less. If I sign this, the lightest sentence is banishment. With the Zhou family pulling strings, I could even be decapitated in the market square... This man means to leave me no way out at all.
Xu Qi'an withdrew his gaze and fixed it on the brocaded young master. "Sign the confession, and spare myself the pain of flesh?"
Young Master Zhou's lips curled, as one toying with an ant. "No. The choice I give you is this: sign first and then suffer, or suffer first and then sign."
The turnkeys burst into laughter.
Xu Qi'an's face darkened.
The darker it grew, the more delighted Young Master Zhou became. He savored the way others loathed him yet could do nothing about it.
"Tsk, tsk. Terrifying. Truly terrifying." Zhou Li chuckled. "Steward Chen, are those shackles solid? What if this bandit suddenly flies into a rage and starts killing people? Then what?"
The gaunt old servant smiled. "Young Master need not worry. He is but an ant. This old servant could crush him flat with a single slap."
"Then I'm relieved." Zhou Li rose and walked over to the rack of instruments, expounding at leisure: "Here there are twenty-four kinds of torture. Each one drives a man to the very edge of pain, yet never quite costs him his life. They are the finest tools ever devised for squeezing out confessions."
"I won't kill you — that would be far too kind."
"They say the Night Watch's great prison holds a hundred and eight kinds of torture, and that no one ever locked inside has walked back out alive."
"A pity you'll never get to enjoy them. Tsk, tsk. What a shame."
Xu Qi'an could not help but look at the instruments — a chair studded with iron nails, needles crusted with rust, an iron saw stained dark by years of blood... a motley assembly, every piece of it reeking of cruelty and gore.
Xu Qi'an's throat bobbed. His face grew pale.
Going by the time, Miss Caiwei of the Directorate should already have received Warden Wang's summons... Why hasn't she come? Is she unwilling to save me?
No — I wrote that book with a devil's seduction. Any alchemist would be scratching at his own heart to see the rest, unable to wait a moment longer.
If they don't come to save me soon, even if I survive at the end, a full pass through this rack of instruments will leave me a cripple... Sweat began to bead on Xu Qi'an's brow.
He was an ordinary man. He felt fear.
Young Master Zhou had been studying his face throughout, and found the sight most satisfactory. This game of toying with a rat drew him in completely; he relished it utterly. He went on: "I hear you were raised from childhood by your Second Uncle Xu Pingzhi. The two of you must be very close."
"Mmm. And so I have good reason to suspect this whole affair was a plot hatched by you and your second uncle together."
He's investigated me... The veins on Xu Qi'an's temples bulged.
"But... Young Master Zhou, that's not what the confession says." One of the runners spoke up, looking troubled.
"Idiot. Just have a new one written." Another turnkey swore at him.
"Then what are you waiting for? Write it here, right in front of him." Young Master Zhou cackled with abandon.
The laughter echoed through the interrogation chamber. Abruptly, the iron-bolted door swung open, and a turnkey led in a fifth-rank official in a green robe.
The official's eyes swept the room once, and at the sight of Xu Qi'an unharmed, with no blood on him, he let out a silent breath of relief.
"Hand the man over to me."
Finally — finally you've come... A great weight lifted from Xu Qi'an.
The turnkeys in the chamber instinctively looked to Young Master Zhou.
"This official — we are interrogating a prisoner." Young Master Zhou dragged his gaze from the green robe (the badge of the fifth rank) and studied the official's face, displeasure plain upon his own.
The green-robed official sneered, all smarm and mockery: "This is the Ministry of Justice, not the Ministry of Revenue. If Young Master Zhou wishes to interrogate a prisoner, go do it back at the Ministry of Revenue — assuming it has charge of criminal cases."
With that he barked: "A pack of curs — didn't you hear me? Take him away!"