Chapter 13: Interrogation

It gets light early in the mountains.

At dawn, Hao Ren and Bai Xun came out of the underground wine cellar with a few villagers. They had not slept all night but did not feel sleepy.

Bai Xun's knife was hanging at his waist, and a string of blood beads slid down from the end of the scabbard.

The blood dripped onto the tender spring grass like rouge-colored dewdrops.

Hao Ren and his companions interrogated the Green Snake Gang for a whole night, using various methods to force them to confess everything they had done.

The people who had been sold, the money that had been robbed, the officials who had been assassinated... and the so-called dignitaries in the court were all clearly explained.

The method of interrogation is very effective, but a bit bloody.

Qiu Ming was still hanging on with one breath left, with several hemp ropes tied around his body and being dragged along the ground by Kong Wu.

His face was covered in blood, and there was not a single piece of healthy flesh on his body. His original appearance was unrecognizable.

If he could choose again, he would rather die than come to this mountain.

These people are not ordinary villagers, nor are they ordinary bandits.

He is cruel in both hands and heart.

Especially the handsome and elegant village chief Hao Ren standing in the middle, who actually had his flesh cut off one by one.

Every time Hao Ren asked a question, someone would cut off a piece of flesh from Qiu Ming and the others.

Only the person who answers first will be spared once, and others who do not answer or answer late will be stabbed.

Then Hao Ren would ask the next question, and the cycle would continue.

The surgeon was very skilled, and each cut avoided vital points, ensuring that they were in excruciating pain but not in danger of their lives.

The people from the Green Snake Gang could tolerate it at first, but later they all rushed to confess.

Qiu Ming was tortured beyond recognition, and finally cried out in pain from the scraping of his bones:

"Can you afford to offend Minister Lu of the Ministry of War? You are just a bunch of village bandits. Minister Lu can wipe out your entire mountain with just a flick of his finger!"

He shouted, waiting to see the villagers' panicked reactions.

Hao Ren looked at him, his face showing no fear of being intimidated. He simply nodded in agreement.

"You're right, then we can't leave any of them alive."

puff.

Qiu Ming spat out a mouthful of blood.

By daybreak, the Green Snake Gang had confessed everything they should and shouldn't have said.

Qiu Ming was tied up and dragged out of the wine cellar, thinking that the villagers of Heifei Mountain were going to throw him into the wild to fend for himself.

"We're here." Bai Xun, who was leading the way, stopped.

In front of him was a damp cave, deep and dark inside, without a single light.

Kong Wu swung the hemp rope in his hand and threw Qiu Ming into the cave entrance.

A rustling sound came from the cave, and a huge python as thick as a bowl swam to the cave entrance.

"Oh...oh..." Qiu Ming's voice was hoarse, his hands dug into the mud beneath him, and his whole body was trembling.

He didn't expect that these people would drag him to feed the snakes!

The villagers had left without a trace, leaving only the python with its jaws wide open and its prey. The python bit Qiu Ming's ankle and dragged him into the cave.

Qiu Ming tried to grab the ground in fear, but he only left long bloody marks on his ten fingers wherever he passed.

Before his body completely sank into darkness, a pair of eyes filled with resentment and hatred appeared before his eyes.

The wealthy businessman who was eaten by the snake stared at him with his bleeding eyes before he died:

"After I die, I will turn into a worm and eat your flesh and blood!"

Qiu Ming's pupils dilated rapidly in fear:

“Oh…don’t…oh…”

The giant python wrapped itself around Qiu Ming's body, opened its huge mouth again, and swooped down towards him...

…

For the first time today, Su Zhizhi did not go out to make a fuss.

She fell last night and dislocated her arm.

Doctor Yu wrapped Su Zhizhi's arm tightly with a cloth strip, and hung the excess cloth behind her neck, with her arm suspended in front of her chest.

"Don't mess around anymore. Doctor Yu said you need to rest for thirty days."

Wu Yingniang came to give Su Zhizhi instructions early in the morning.

That incident last night really scared everyone.

Even if she was hit by a hidden weapon, no one would be killed because of Doctor Yu and Hua Erniang, but no one wanted to see Su Zhizhi get into trouble.

Su Zhizhi had her arm in a sling and obediently got dressed and washed under Wu Yingniang's care.

She drank the egg porridge cooked by Wu Yingniang, and suddenly smiled cleverly:

"Mom, I have to rest for such a long time, do I not need to study or write anymore?"

Wu Yingniang gently pinched her daughter's pink cheek:

"You're lucky. It was your left hand that fell, so it won't affect your calligraphy practice with your right hand. You can go to school as usual tomorrow."

Su Zhizhi stopped laughing:...This luck is really bad!

Su Zhizhi didn't go out, but Xue Che came to the village chief's house to visit her.

Xue Che rested for a few days and his fever subsided. Doctor Yu told him to go out for a walk more often in addition to taking medicine.

Xue Che learned that the Green Snake Gang was targeting him, and he felt embarrassed for causing trouble to the village again and again.

He also heard that Su Zhizhi had injured her hand in the chaos, and he felt that it was both moral and rational for him to come and visit her.

It was a pity that he was not in the capital at the moment, and there was no housekeeper to prepare a gift. Xue Che had to draw a painting himself so that he would not go home empty-handed.

When Xue Che arrived, he saw a lamb with a broken leg lying outside the door, eating grass with its head down.

Su Zhizhi's stern little face appeared in the window next to her, with big words written with deep hatred and bitterness.

"I know." Xue Che knocked on the door.

Su Zhizhi turned around and saw her playmate, her brows relaxed and a smile blossomed in her eyes:

"Ache, come in quickly!"

Xue Che walked over to Su Zhizhi and looked at her hanging arm:

"How are you feeling? Is it still painful?"

Su Zhizhi shook her head carelessly:

"The pain goes away after I sleep. It's not as bad as the pain in my hand from practicing calligraphy."

"What are you holding in your hand?" Su Zhizhi noticed the scroll in Xue Che's hand at a glance.

Xue Che handed the scroll over: "This is for you."

"Let me see." Su Zhizhi happily urged Xue Che to open it.

The scroll slowly unfolds. The sky is high and the clouds are light. A giant eagle spreads its wings in the sky. On the ground, villagers in groups of three or four carry hoes.

Among them is the back of a little girl with two small flower buds on her head, and the red rope tied with it fluttering in the wind.

Su Zhizhi pointed at the giant eagle and asked, "Is that Po you're drawing?"

Xue Che nodded.

Su Zhizhi: "Then where am I?"

Xue Che pointed at the little figure in the painting with a red rope tied around its back.

"You drew Po so big and me so small?"

Su Zhizhi gestured with the tip of her right little finger and found that the little man was not even half the height of her little finger.

Compared to Po's body, she was as small as an earthworm.

"Ah Che, the painting you gave me doesn't even have my face on it. It even looks like a bug!"

Xue Che: "That's not what I meant."

Su Zhizhi: "What do you mean?"

Xue Che felt a little awkward.

He has never painted girls, and usually only paints landscapes and animals.

Before he put pen to paper, he also thought about drawing Su Zhizhi touching Abao's head, but he was too embarrassed to know how to start, so he changed the layout.

"Don't you know how to draw people? I'll teach you."

Su Zhizhi picked up a pen and added a little man on the scroll, with an oval face and eyes and a nose.

The painting is very simple, but it actually bears some resemblance to Xue Che's expression.

"Look, it's not difficult to draw a person. Just draw me like this next time."

Su Zhizhi said as she was about to write Xue Che's name next to the little figure, then she turned her head:

"How do you write the word 'Che'?"

Xue Che drew a few strokes on the table with his fingers to demonstrate how to write the character "澈".

Su Zhizhi sighed, "Your name is so hard to write. It's harder than mine and my parents' names combined. Do you have any other names?"

Xue Che paused for a moment and wrote a new word:

"My father gave me the name Yuzhi."

Because he was afraid that his son would not live to adulthood, Xue Yucheng gave his son a courtesy name very early on.

Su Zhizhi felt her head swell as soon as she saw it: "Isn't this even harder to write?"

She still chose to write the word "Che".

After Su Zhizhi wrote Xue Che's name, she added her own name next to the figure with the flower-bud hair.

Xue Che was puzzled: "Why did you write everyone's name on the painting?"

Su Zhizhi's eyes widened as she asked, "Isn't it because you drew the people too small? How can we tell who is who without marking them?"

Xue Che had no words to refute and let Su Zhizhi add her name.

Anyway, it was a gift from him to Su Zhizhi, so she could do whatever she wanted with it.

But after Su Zhizhi finished writing her name, Xue Che looked at the "Su" character whose ink had not yet dried, and finally asked a question:

"Zhizhi, why is your surname Su?"

Village chief Hao’s surname is Hao, and Wu Yingniang’s surname is Wu.

Zhizhi is their daughter, but her surname is Su.

Su Zhizhi put the scroll aside to dry and answered naturally:

"Because that's the name my biological mother gave me."

"My full name is Su Zhi, but the villagers like to call me Zhizhi."