interrogation
As night fell, the torrential rain gradually stopped, with only rainwater still dripping from the eaves.
"Tick-tock...tick-tock..."
High in the vast sky, the stars were dim and lifeless, and the dark night enveloped the boundless earth. In the dead of night, the capital city was silent, except for the city patrollers who were still diligently patrolling.
The pale moonlight quietly fell on the plaque of Dali Temple, casting moon shadows all over the ground and swaying tree shadows. In the darkness, with a creak, a dark figure silently slipped out of the file room.
The night was silent. Using the shadows of the walls, the dark figure stealthily moved, precisely calculating the gaps in the patrol's movements. With a few leaps and bounds, he quickly and silently reached the secluded courtyard.
"Knock knock—knock knock knock—tap tap—"
Knuckles knocked on the door, sending out a pre-arranged signal.
An Yuan pressed himself against the crack in the door, his voice extremely low but rapid, as if afraid of disturbing someone: "Lord Song, my master has ordered me to rescue you. Zhou Ce'an is staying at Xiangguo Temple tonight, and the temple's defenses are lax. This is an opportunity not to be missed. Please come with me quickly..."
He stopped abruptly before he could finish speaking.
Inside the door, there was a deathly silence.
Besides the rapid beating of his own heart, all he could hear were the chirping of insects in the wind. There was no sound from inside the door, as if even breathing had stopped.
It was too quiet, so quiet that he subconsciously sensed something was amiss.
A chill ran down An Yuan's spine. He stopped knocking, and with a slight push of his fingertips, the two wooden doors opened inwards with a soft click.
The door wasn't locked?
An Yuan frowned. The room was dark, with no lights on. The only light for him was the bright moon hanging high above. The moonlight slanted in, vaguely outlining the shapes of the tables and chairs. An Yuan reached forward slightly with one hand, while his other hand was already on the short blade at his waist.
He stepped over the beaded curtain that was gently swaying in the wind inside the house, and the short sword at his waist was already half an inch out of its sheath.
"Sizzle—"
Suddenly, an unusual sensation came from beneath my feet.
With a "whoosh," the short knife in An Yuan's hand was instantly drawn.
At the same time, flickering candlelight suddenly lit up the four corners of the room, illuminating the room as if it were daytime, and a cold voice came from behind the screen.
"An Yuan, won't you try the taste of 'Wang Yue San' yourself?"
...
Accompanied by the cracking sound of whips, wails pierced the quiet winter night, sounding particularly mournful. The heavy stench of blood permeated the dark prison, making one almost want to vomit.
"Tap tap—tap tap—"
Dressed in a dark, close-fitting outfit, Zhou Yanzhi leaned back in the armchair in front of the rack with his eyes closed. His fingertips tapped lightly on the armrests, and the tapping stopped abruptly as the last lash of the whip fell.
Zhou Yan opened his eyes, his sharp gaze sweeping over the blood-soaked figure in front of him.
"An Yuan." His tone was calm, revealing neither joy nor anger. "Since you refuse to say who your mastermind is, then I will pretend you really don't know. I will only ask you one question: how long have you been at the Dali Temple?"
Upon hearing this, the man on the rack gasped twice, struggled to lift his head to meet Zhou Yanzhi's gaze, and forced a bitter smile at the corners of his cracked lips, saying self-deprecatingly, "Four years and five months. But if you count from when I truly started following you, it's been a full eight years."
At that time, he was just a street thug in Jizhou, about to be beaten to death, when he met Zhou Yanzhi. From then on, wherever Zhou Yanzhi was, he was there too.
Zhou Yanzhi had shown him great kindness and recognition, but in return, he...
An Yuan lowered his head, not daring to think any further.
Continuing to think about it will only make him realize how heartless he is, and that beneath the glamorous facade of the Dali Temple officials lies the same filthy, disgusting, and despised street thug.
But if he doesn't want to speak up, others might not be able to tolerate it.
"An Yuan!" Ji Feng, with one arm in a sling, stepped forward and picked up the branding iron. But when he saw An Yuan's eyes, which showed no remorse whatsoever, his arm trembled violently, and he couldn't bear it and smashed it aside.
With a loud clang, the red-hot branding iron was smashed straight into the blood-soaked ground.
"An Yuan, you know you've followed the Crown Prince for eight years, maybe even longer." Ji Feng wiped away his tears and roared with exasperation, "When you betrayed us in Danzhou, did you ever think of the brothers who risked their lives with you?!"
Upon hearing this, An Yuan trembled violently, his cracked and bleeding lips twitched slightly, and a look of pain appeared on his face, but deep in his eyes was a deathly resolute look.
Just then, Zhou Yanzhi slowly stood up.
He stepped over the blood-soaked ground, walked up to An Yuan, blocked Ji Feng, and shut out all irrelevant emotions.
He bent down and gently brushed away the messy strands of hair that were obscuring An Yuan's face. In a voice only the two of them could hear, he spoke softly, each word like a whisper, yet each one piercing to the heart: "Do you know that because you've been putting Wangyue Powder into their food every day, after they were poisoned at the Danzhou Prefectural Governor's Mansion, they've suffered various aftereffects, such as blurred memory, decreased vision, loss of smell, and so on... As a member of the Dali Temple, you should know how important these things are to them as an official engaged in criminal investigation."
Zhou Yanzhi's fingers tightened suddenly, pulling An Yuan's head, which was deliberately lowered and trying to avoid him, back up.
Zhou Yanzhi's gaze was dark, his eyes filled with pain: "An Yuan, look at me. Don't you feel any guilt? It's pitiful that they didn't perish in the battle against the enemy, but instead fell at the hands of you, who were like brothers to them."
A tearing pain shot through his scalp. An Yuan took a deep breath and said with difficulty, "Your Highness, 'Those who achieve great things do not concern themselves with trifles,' that's what you once told me."
Droplets of blood spurted out again from the dry, cracked wound, and the faint smell of blood mingled with the air.
A glint of madness flashed in An Yuan's eyes, "For my ideals, I'm willing to give up everything, even..."
Before he could finish speaking, he was suddenly and violently slammed onto the rack behind him. The heavy iron chains rattled loudly, and the uneven protrusions hurt his back.
A feeling of suffocation came over me.
Zhou Yanzhi grabbed An Yuan's neck with one hand and casually picked up the tempered fire tongs from the charcoal brazier next to him. The tongs, red-hot from the fire, emitted a thick heat. The tongs were pressed against An Yuan's cheek, as if they would slam down at any moment.
Zhou Yanzhi's slightly mocking voice came: "An Yuan, you're always the one interrogating others with the fire tongs, but you've never tasted the fire tongs yourself, have you?"
As he finished speaking, the hot pliers moved slightly, as if they were about to touch An Yuan's face.
Faced with danger, An Yuan instinctively tried to dodge to the other side, but the hand gripping his neck was too strong, and he couldn't break free at all. He could only watch helplessly as the scorching pincers approached his face.
Unable to avoid it, An Yuan subconsciously closed his eyes tightly, a layer of despair creeping into his heart.
What landed on his face wasn't a pair of hot tongs that could burn his skin until it curled up, but a cool hairpin. It was gold-plated and adorned with a few pieces of clean jade; it was a simple hairpin, but not cheap.
The hairpin has a small "cloud" character engraved on its end.
The strokes are not very smooth, and it doesn't look like it was carved by a hairpin maker. It looks more like it was carefully carved by the person who gave the hairpin, but because their hand was unsteady, the carving was a bit hasty.
“An Yuan, your ideal…” Zhou Yanzhi gently traced An Yuan’s face with his hairpin, bringing a chilling shiver to his ears. Hearing An Yuan’s sudden rapid breathing beside him, he suddenly smiled and said, word by word, “Is it this Miss Yun?”
Feeling the familiar engraving on the end of the hairpin, An Yuan suddenly opened his eyes, "What have you done to Yun'er?!"
Zhou Yan stepped back to avoid An Yuan's sudden lunge, casually twirling the hairpin in his hand, and said indifferently, "You want to stand higher, you want to get rid of the reputation of being a street thug in Jizhou, you want to return to Jizhou in glory, you want to ride a tall horse to marry Miss Yun, and you want to completely replace the thug 'A Yuan' in the memories of the people of Jizhou."
After a pause, Zhou Yanzhi smiled sarcastically, looked at An Yuan, and said in a flat tone, "This is your ideal, am I wrong?"
An Yuan glared angrily: "What exactly did you do to Yun'er?!"
"What's wrong?" Zhou Yanzhi lifted his eyelids, his eyes full of mockery: "You mean... rescuing that poor girl from the 'cage' you carefully prepared for her?"
Without waiting for An Yuan's reaction, he continued, "Yun Qiao, a native of Jizhou, is a textile worker at the Jinfang Pavilion in Jizhou. She is naturally free-spirited and kind-hearted. When you were still a small-time hoodlum in Jizhou called 'A Yuan,' she gave you a steamed bun. But it was this kindness that led to her being entangled with you and having nightmares every night ever since."
Upon hearing the last four words, An Yuan immediately retorted, "You're talking nonsense! Yun'er and I are clearly in love!"
"Ha, you've lied so much that you've even fooled yourself." Zhou Yanzhi sneered, giving him a pathetic look. "You like Miss Yun, but she doesn't like you. Helping her when you were young was just an act of kindness. It was you who harbored evil thoughts, which secretly grew, and imagined that Miss Yun was also in love with you."
The sharp end of the hairpin plunged deep into An Yuan's collarbone, and warm blood gushed out. Zhou Yanzhi stirred the hairpin in his hand as he said, "Unrequited love drives one mad. The person behind the scenes offered to help you get Miss Yun, and you couldn't resist the temptation. So, you betrayed me and turned to someone else."
"And Miss Yun, because of your disgusting idea, was fed a large amount of drugs that can cause dementia and was forced to become your secret lover."
Seeing the madness in An Yuan's eyes, Zhou Yanzhi changed the subject, "Do you know, when our men broke down the door, her wrists were covered with marks from the struggle. She looked into my eyes and said, 'Sir, he ruined me. Please, you must kill him.'"
"An Yuan, you've clipped the wings of a bird that wanted to soar high."
Pulling out the blood-stained hairpin, Zhou Yanzhi pinched An Yuan's chin and said in a deep voice, "Tell me who your mastermind is. Otherwise, I think a proud girl like Miss Yun would definitely want to pay back double for the pain you inflicted on her."
"An Yuan, are you willing to appear before her looking like this?"
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