There was no place in the house to carry out torture, so Zhuge Zhongshen was interrogated in the woodshed. Fearing that the old man's howling during the torture would be heard by the nearby villagers, his mouth was always stuffed with cloth.
Zhuge Zhongshen was forty-seven years old this year. He was fat and big-eared, with a burly figure and a round belly. He weighed about two hundred pounds. He had been pampered for many years and had never suffered any hardship. He fainted after being whipped more than a dozen times.
He was doused with cold water, which woke him up, and the beating continued, just like when he had the jailer beat the imperial envoy and his entourage. The prison was fully equipped with torture tools, but in the woodshed, there were no other tools available besides whipping.
Every day, he only ate a bowl of rice porridge. Zhuge Zhongshen went hungry for three days. His stomach shrank, his face became thinner, and his complexion was terrible. His once rosy complexion was now as pale as paper.
When Zhuge Zhongshen woke up that morning, he felt a sharp pain in his stomach. His hands were tied and hung up, and his feet could not touch the ground completely; he could only touch the ground with his toes. He felt that he was about to ascend to heaven and die at any moment.
"Let me go, let me go! What do you want to know? I'll tell you everything."
Zhong Beiqiang was about to beat him up first, but he didn't expect the other party to break down and confess so quickly. Back then, more than 300 of them were tortured in prison for more than 20 days, and not a single one of them begged for mercy.
This guy couldn't take it for more than three days and surrendered. It's a good thing he's not one of their people; otherwise, if he were captured and tortured by the enemy, everyone would be in trouble because of him.
When Song Wu learned that Zhuge Zhongshen could not withstand the beating and was willing to confess, he immediately took a pen, ink, and paper to the woodshed, and his subordinates brought over a desk and chair.
"Speak, what conspiracy do you and Wanyan Xiong have?" Song Wu asked coldly after sitting down.
"Sit down, I want to sit down, put me down, I want to talk while sitting down," Zhuge Zhongshen pleaded in a low voice, his face pale.
"Sir, this corrupt official is very cunning. He must be tied up, otherwise who knows what kind of trouble he will cause next." Zhong Beiqiang was worried that Song Wu would be soft-hearted, so he actually moved a chair for Zhuge Zhongshen to sit on.
This corrupt official caused so much suffering to everyone back then, we can't let him get away with it. Even if he's willing to confess, we can't treat him kindly. He'll have to compromise no matter what, or he'll continue to be beaten.
Song Wu wanted to torment Zhuge Zhongshen a little more, but seeing the strange look on his face, he was afraid that if he didn't put him down soon, he might just die. Some people just can't take abuse.
The urgent matter is not settling personal scores, but rather finding out what he knows first. Once he's no longer of any use to us, we'll have plenty of opportunities to torment him.
"Bei Qiang, put the person down first. The important matter is at hand. Don't delay the task assigned by the Emperor. If this matter is not handled well, neither of us will have a good outcome." Song Wu's expression was serious and brooked no argument.
An hour later, Song Wu came out of the woodshed, where Zhu Lin and Xingxing were waiting in the courtyard.
“Princess, Young Master Zhu,” Song Wu walked over and cupped his hands to Xingxing and Zhu Lin, “That fellow Zhuge Zhongshen is very cunning. It took me quite a while to get the truth out of him.”
After Zhuge Zhongshen sat down, his mind calmed down a bit. When he confessed, he started to play tricks again and didn't intend to tell the truth. However, Song Wu was not easy to fool. He took advantage of Zhuge Zhongshen's low spirits and used various tricks to get information out of him. It took a whole hour to determine which of his statements were true and write them down.
"Lord Song, what are you planning to do?" Xingxing asked earnestly.
Song Wu was very respectful to the little princess. "I have decided to turn the tables on him and have Zhuge Zhongshen continue to contact Wanyan Xiong. When he raises an army to attack our Great Jin, we will give him a fatal blow."
Seeing that Song Wu seemed confident of victory, Xingxing felt relieved. She didn't know anything about fighting, so she wouldn't get involved. If the situation changed, she would have a mental image to remind them.
"Lord Song, I'll leave the border situation to you to discuss with the general guarding the pass. I, the princess, will stay in Xiyan City to await the arrival of the newly appointed prefect." Xingxing said solemnly.
Song Wulian agreed. He had come to Xiyancheng as an imperial envoy to provide disaster relief. However, it was hard to believe that Xiyancheng, a place that had always been arid, would suffer from flooding based solely on a divination by a so-called hermit.
However, the emperor believed him and issued an edict ordering him to resolve the matter personally. Song Wu dared not disappoint the emperor and felt it was his duty to do so.
Later, as soon as he arrived in Xiyan City, he was imprisoned by Zhuge Zhongshen and suffered physical pain every day until the princess sent someone to rescue him. During this time, he spent his time recuperating from his injuries and interrogating Zhuge Zhongshen, and almost forgot about the disaster relief.
It's truly shameful to admit that he has failed the Emperor's trust. He hadn't taken the flooding in Xiyan to heart, which is why he forgot about it so easily.
Upon hearing the princess mention disaster relief, Song Wu, feeling somewhat guilty, touched the tip of his nose and made an excuse to leave.
Xingxing shook her head, watching Song Wu's somewhat flustered retreating figure, and said, "Luckily we came. If we had really entrusted the disaster relief to Lord Song, even if he hadn't been imprisoned by Zhuge Zhongshen when he arrived in Xiyan City, he might not have taken the flood relief seriously."
Of course, he dared not disobey his father, nor dared to be inactive; however, he would inevitably be negligent in some ways. But when a natural disaster struck, even the slightest mistake could lead to utter ruin.
Zhu Lin gave a faint smile, understanding her feelings, and continued, "But you can't be angry with him. Who can blame you for not revealing this precognitive ability to outsiders? No one else has your ability. If you didn't have the ability to foresee things, you probably wouldn't believe that such a dry place could experience flooding."
“You’re just making fun of me, you rascal with that brocade bag,” Xingxing warned with her eyes. “Hey, last time you took out six bags of sweet potatoes in Dashu Village, weighing several hundred pounds, but you didn’t take that many into your brocade bag when you were in Yegou Village. So where did all those sweet potatoes come from?”
If anyone else asked Zhu Lin, he definitely wouldn't tell. Even if his senior brothers and sisters asked him, he wouldn't tell them. But since Xingxing wanted to know, he naturally had no intention of hiding it from her.
The white-clad youth beckoned with his finger and said in a low voice, "Come closer, I'll tell you quietly, but you can't tell anyone."
"I promise I won't tell, I'll keep this secret to myself." Xingxing's little face was serious, and her tone was solemn.
Seeing the little girl's soft face with a tense expression, the boy almost burst out laughing, but he held back and pretended to be serious, saying, "Of course I believe you, so I'm only telling you this. Cough, I took a lot of sweet potato seedlings into my space back then. There's soil in the space, so I just stuck the sweet potato seedlings in the soil, and they grew into sweet potatoes a month later."
“Isn’t that several times faster than growing them outside? I remember that sweet potatoes grown in Yegou Village take three to four months to harvest. Is your space big enough? Why don’t you grow more? That way, the national treasury can be full and the people can have enough to eat.” Xingxing’s eyes sparkled, as if she had discovered a new continent.
Zhu Lin's face was somewhat dark. He didn't want to farm; his space wasn't large, less than two acres, filled with spiritual plants. Last time, he was just curious, wanting to know if sweet potatoes could be grown in his space, so he tried planting some sweet potato seedlings in the area where he was growing spiritual plants.
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