Chapter 23 Abyss, sing me a song, and I'll give you one...
Yu Ruxi has loved collecting fine horses since childhood, and the precious breeds she raised in her youth filled half of the Yu family's stables. Sha Po Lang was a Akhal-Teke horse she acquired during her conquest of the Linzhang sea area; it was powerful and fierce, and ran as fast as a shooting star.
The Ministry of Justice's Floating Pagoda Prison was quite far from the Great Huang Palace. Feng Tan rode at full speed, shortening the half-hour journey to half an hour.
The drums beat deep and resonantly. The Floating Pagoda Prison stood silently amidst the surging darkness and fog. Feng Tan stopped before the massive, ancient prison, looking up to see the eighteenth level already engulfed in the clouds, like a ferocious and sinister beast that had been dormant for a hundred years.
The area where the Floating Prison was located reeked of blood, and was deserted after nightfall. The prison warden, yawning in the cold winter night, saw someone riding a horse out of the mist. He opened his sleepy eyes and sternly asked, "Who goes there?"
Feng Tan dismounted, clutched the cotton rope of the ivory token in his hand, casually shook the token, and said loudly, "I am the Supervising Secretary of the Ministry of Justice. I came here to handle a case with Vice Minister Zhen Yongming a few days ago. I wonder if you remember me?"
The prison warden took Feng Tan's token, examined the patterns on it carefully, and then looked at Feng Tan's face. He smiled broadly and said, "Lord Feng, I remember you! However, Lord Gao has recently changed our procedures. After nightfall, the main gate can no longer be opened, and officials can only enter and exit through the side gate. Sir, just walk a few hundred meters along this road, hand over your token, and you can enter."
Night had fallen, and the area around the Futu Prison was still heavily guarded, with no one daring to relax their vigilance. Feng Tan went to the side gate where the officials were handling business, handed over her token, and lied that Lord Gao had summoned her. The Jinyiwei soldiers guarding the prison then led her into the prison.
The passageway was eerie, with flickering firelight. The nauseating stench of mold and blood grew stronger as you went up, perhaps because a prisoner had just been executed. Half-arm-long rats gnawed on the scraps of flesh left behind after the torture in the dark corners, their eerie green eyes sending chills down your spine.
When Feng Tan followed the guide, Yu Dian, up to the thirteenth floor, he worried that he might anger Gao Yu and implicate him, so he gestured for Gao Yu to step back at the iron gate.
Standing outside the impenetrable iron gate, unable to hear any movement from inside, Feng Tan realized that Gao Yu had been inside for three hours. He took a deep breath and pushed the iron gate open with all his might.
What Feng Tan saw was unforgettable for a lifetime.
Wan Niang's clothes were torn and her body was covered in blood. Two jailers held her up by the arms and made her sit on an iron horse sculpture. Her chin was pinched and forced open, and she was forced to suck on a third jailer's penis. Her expression was extremely painful, as if she was still enduring some painful punishment.
Beside them, four or five jailers watched the lewd and vicious scene unfold before them with smug expressions, their groins slightly loose, having already ejaculated inside Wan Niang.
The windows and doors were slightly ajar to dispel the foul air from the prison. Gao Yu sat behind a wooden table with a plate of fried peanuts and a large pot of rice wine on it, lazily watching the lewd scene before him as he ate and drank.
In an instant, all the blood in Feng Tan's body rushed to her head. Her usual cautiousness and humility were overwhelmed by her raging anger. She flew to the two jailers who were holding Wan Niang's arms and kicked them twice. Then she punched the jailer who was stuffing his penis into Wan Niang's mouth. Her moves were swift and caught everyone off guard, knocking the three of them to the ground, grimacing and exhausted.
With the constraints lifted, the suffocating nausea in Wan Niang's stomach surged to her throat like a flood. She leaned over the iron horse sculpture, tilted her body, and vomited.
Thick, bloody mucus mixed with gastric juices and semen filled the air with a nauseating stench. Wan Niang weakly braced her fingers against the back of the iron horse sculpture to keep her upper body upright, her shoulders trembling and tears streaming down her face.
Wan Niang first wept softly, then burst into laughter, shouting, "Since Heaven treats prostitutes like straw dogs, why did my parents have to give birth to me! Hahahaha... Hahahaha..."
Her entire life was a struggle, a quagmire. As a child, her family members were involved in the succession dispute among the three sons of the Jianming Emperor, mistakenly identifying with the wrong master. After the plot failed, they were executed by being cut in half at the waist, and the women of nine generations of her family were forced into prostitution. She never enjoyed the privileges of being a government official's wife, nor did she suffer the hardships of being a prostitute. A man's strong body pressed her down; she accepted her fate and dared not slacken in trying to please them.
Now she's fallen into the even more filthy Floating Pagoda Prison, where all the guards treat her like a plaything. Seeing that she refuses to sign, Gao Yu, with a sinister smile, orders all the guards present to strip her clothes off. She's a prostitute; she doesn't have the right to choose her clients, but that doesn't mean she has no dignity. She shouts that she's confessing and signing, but Gao Yu doesn't stop her. So all the guards swarm forward and tear off her clothes.
The cloak on her shoulders was the one Feng Xiaoge had given her that night. She had planned to wash it clean and return it to him after she was released from prison. In her haste, she took off the cloak herself, and all the prison guards present laughed at her for being shameless. They stripped her naked and humiliated her in various ways and with words. After they had all vented their anger, Gao Yu had someone bring in a half-length iron horse sculpture, with a lifelike iron pear blossom blooming on its back.
She struggled desperately but was no match for the guards' brute force. They grabbed Tie Lihua, lifted her onto the sculpture, forcefully pried her legs apart, precisely located the bleeding spot, and pressed her down into a sitting position, aiming at Tie Lihua's position.
The Iron Pear Blossom Mechanism was connected to the horse's head reins. A jailer reached out and pulled hard, and the Iron Pear Blossom Mechanism, which was in a closed state, opened up instantly inside her body. Sharp iron plates hooked into her flesh and tore open her narrow lower body. Extreme pain struck, and she fainted. She was then awakened by Gao Yu with ice water and continued to endure cruel punishment.
In their eyes, she wasn't a person at all, but just an animal to be vented on.
Wan Niang's laughter grew increasingly maniacal. The open window blew her disheveled hair as she sat atop the iron horse sculpture and shouted wildly, "So you were born of lowly status, worthy only of being a beast between your legs!"
Wan Niang struggled to dismount, the iron hook caught between her skin and flesh. The violent release without a tight closure caused her lower body to bleed profusely. She swallowed her cries of pain, her eyes still showing a cold mockery of the world. She turned around and yanked the iron pear blossom off.
Wan Niang picked up the cloak that had been trampled on with her other hand, carefully draped it over herself, and then used her fingers to tidy up her messy sideburns. She said to Feng Tan, "Brother Feng, you shouldn't have come to such a filthy place... Also, thank you for coming to such a disgusting place to see me."
In this situation, all words seemed inadequate, and Feng Tan, standing beside Wan Niang, was at a loss for words.
Gao Yu put down his wine cup, his words laced with clear sarcasm, "Lord Feng, you were beaten, have you fully recovered?"
Feng Tan coldly stared at this hypocritical villain, his teeth bared, desperately trying to suppress the fire in his chest. "May I ask, Lord Gao, which punishment was used today? In which chapter and article of the 'Dahuang Penal Code'? Why was no one recorded in writing?"
Gao Yu looked at the thin young man who was coming to interrogate him, and leaned back in his chair leisurely. "There is no chapter or article number. Officials must learn to be flexible. Just because it is not in the penal code now does not mean it will not be in the future. Look, I can add today's penal code tomorrow."
"Which law should be added? One that allows undressing and sexual intercourse with women in prison until they confess? Or one that allows the torture of pear blossoms to be inflicted on women, regardless of whether they are innocent or not?"
Gao Yu chuckled upon hearing this, picked up a golden-fried peanut, put it in his mouth, and said while chewing, "Look at what Lord Feng is saying! I could never write such a thing. Since Emperor Jianming established the dynasty, my Great Huang has always governed with benevolence, but there is no provision in our laws that stipulates the limits of torture, is there? Let alone when the prisoner is a prostitute?"
Feng Tanyi said sternly, "Article 46 of the Dahuang Criminal Code states that if the law does not fully cover all matters, and there is no specific article for sentencing a crime, the law shall be cited for comparison, and the appropriate increase or decrease shall be determined. The crime shall be drafted, and then forwarded to the Ministry of Justice for a final draft. If the decision is made without due process, resulting in discrepancies in the sentencing, it shall be considered an error! Lord Gao's actions today are cruel and lawless. If this matter becomes public, the people of the world will no longer support our Dahuang Criminal Code!"
Gao Yu didn't care about the threat from a seventh-rank civil official. To him, Feng Tan was nothing more than an insignificant ant in the officialdom. He said fearlessly, "Feng Tan, I don't think you've learned your lesson from this beating. The laws of the Great Huang Dynasty cannot be disobeyed, and the will of those in power cannot be defied! The laws are made for the common people to see, but when it comes to actually doing things, we can only rely on the will of Heaven! Today's matter is what Heaven commands me to do. Does Lord Feng intend to defy Heaven?!"
After Gao Yu finished speaking, he took a sip of rice wine, smacked his lips as if savoring the taste, and looked at the figures of the boy and the prostitute with his cloudy old eyes. "Two officials in the court were poisoned to death by the Yin Ghost Poison. His Majesty takes this matter very seriously. The Ministry of Justice submits memorials to the palace every day to report the progress of the matter to His Majesty. His Majesty's latest decree is to kill Wan Niang, the instigator in the Futu Prison, to close the case."
Feng Tan looked directly into Gao Yu's eyes and said, "Has the Ministry of Justice really investigated thoroughly?! Is Wan Niang truly the murderer of two high-ranking officials? What reason could she have to kill Gu Junwei, the son of the Minister of War, and Zhu Youqing, the Vice Minister of Revenue? Can you, Lord Gao, just cover up someone's crimes with your words? Even if His Majesty wants to kill Wan Niang, he must produce evidence! Even if he is the emperor, he cannot rule unilaterally!"
"How dare you, Feng Tan, speak so disrespectfully!" Gao Yu raised his murky figure, narrowed his eyes, and said, "I have naturally presented the evidence, which will be published in the Imperial Gazette tomorrow, at which time you will know. Furthermore... I have served as Minister of Justice for twelve years, and there has never been a wrongful conviction in my hands!"
Feng Tan was filled with shock and rage. Emperor Chongming had instructed Gao Yu to execute Wan Niang, and Gao Yu, to satisfy his cruel nature, tortured and killed her. By extension, what kind of torture did the 130 women imprisoned in the Floating Pagoda Prison for three months in the female calamity case eight years ago suffer...?
Emperor Chongming and Xiao Yinshi shared the same idea: to use Wan Niang as a scapegoat to mislead the public and then lure out the real mastermind. The difference was that Xiao Yinshi, in his deal with Feng Tan, wanted to fake Wan Niang's death to save her life, while Emperor Chongming didn't care about the life or death of a prostitute, so he instructed Gao Yu to kill Wan Niang directly.
Feng Tan calmed herself down. Given her status and position, she couldn't shake Gao Yu's power. She could only hope that Ren Pingsheng would arrive quickly, and she would do everything she could to delay until Xiao Yinshi came.
Looking at Gao Yu's composed face, Feng Tan sneered, "No wrongful convictions? Then please, Lord Gao, face my question directly. If you are truly a good official who can clear up injustices, why was the interrogation today not recorded?"
A cold mist surged toward the windowsill; within the thirteen stories of the pagoda, a hazy fog gradually rose; beyond the thirteen stories, the moon was shrouded in mist.
“Yue Yuda said you are worldly-wise, but I don’t think so. I’ve made myself perfectly clear, so what’s the point of Lord Feng pretending to be stupid and pressing me for answers? The confession for this case is right here,” Gao Yu stood up from the window, the thick fog behind him gradually merging with him. He picked up the confession that had already been written and placed on the table, and smiled at Wan Niang, “Look, I’m tired of watching you make love here. Sign it soon, so I can finish my shift sooner.”
Wan Niang scoffed, then laughed loudly, as if possessed. After laughing enough, she walked step by step toward Gao Yu, her feet stained with blood, but she seemed to feel no pain at all. Only when she was half a foot away from Gao Yu did she slowly say, "Lord Gao has won the emperor's heart. What a loyal dog!"
The owl cawed, flapping its wings as it flew away from the window, its feathers falling silently into the dark corner of the wall. Gao Yu could tolerate being scolded by Feng Tan, but being commented on like this by a prostitute with no dignity or status was absolutely intolerable. He was about to grab her when he was startled by Wan Niang's suddenly close-up, blood-stained face.
"Gao Yu, how many lives have you taken under that old face? People always say that those who do evil and are utterly immoral will go to hell. Look at me, I may have done a lot of bad things in my past life, and today I've entered this hell in the mortal world. Lord Gao, I'll help you and save you from suffering torture in hell after you die."
Outside the window, the foggy night was pitch black and cold. The woman in front of him had a sinister appearance. Gao Yu's heart skipped a beat, and he suddenly felt that something terrible was about to happen.
But it was too late.
Wan Niang picked up the iron pear blossom in her hand, and with a swift motion, she scraped it across Gao Yu's face. The sharp, flower-shaped piece of paper ripped open his skin, tearing away the flesh beneath as it left. In an instant, a bloody rain fell between the two of them.
"Ah!!!" Gao Yu cried out in pain, forcefully shoving Wan Niang away and clutching his blood-covered face, yelling, "Quick, grab her! Grab her!"
Tie Lihua crashed to the ground. Wan Niang's arms were tightly bound by two prison guards. She laughed until tears streamed down her face, shouting curses with a voice filled with utter despair, "Hahaha! It's a pity I didn't kill you! Who should I kill? Hahaha! The incompetent and tyrannical emperor, or this unfair world! Hahaha! I can't kill anyone! Let it rot away like this! This kind of world should rot until it's rotten and stinks!"
"Rebellion! Rebellion!" Gao Yu shouted, pointing a trembling finger at Wan Niang. "Beat her! Beat her! Make her put her fingerprint on the confession first, then beat her to death!"
Wan Niang was right. Emperor Chongming now holds absolute power and secretly rules alone. He seems to have not held court for eight years, leaving the power of the emperor to the officials to make their own decisions. In reality, he controls everything in the Huang Dynasty. He uses the officials as tools to support his imperial power. His mind is not on enriching the country and its people. The people in the border areas of Huang are suffering and have been repeatedly invaded by other countries. In the interior, taxes are heavy, corrupt officials are rampant, the national treasury is empty, and bandits are rampant. Officials are not allowed to embezzle anything. They only care about whether their power is threatened by factional strife.
Wan Niang spoke these words with the determination to die, and when she heard Gao Yu's words, she only sneered and was no longer afraid.
The jailers were ruthless, punching and kicking Wan Niang until she was knocked to the ground. Instinctively, she covered her head. They brought her a confession and forced her to sign it. Wan Niang curled up tightly, hiding her fingers in her bosom, refusing to comply.
The prison warden, who was holding Wan Niang's arms, grinned maliciously, took out a red-hot iron rod from beside him, and burned it against the back of Wan Niang's neck, sneering, "Why don't you sign it now!"
"Ah!!!" Wan Niang cried out in pain, her voice piercing the eardrums. In a state of extreme grief and anger, a person's willpower is hard to shake. They didn't know where the strength came from, but they still couldn't do anything to Wan Niang, who was curled up in a ball.
Gao Yu, clutching his bleeding face, cursed loudly, "A bunch of good-for-nothings! You're nothing but a piece of trash ridden by a thousand men and slept with by ten thousand! Are you grown men just sitting around doing nothing?! Have you spent all your daily salaries draining your kidney essence?!"
In the chaos, Feng Tan rushed forward to push Yu Dian aside and said, "Stop!"
Gao Yu said, "Meng Sheng! Seize him! Disrupting the Ministry of Justice's trial proceedings, so what if he's from the Criminal Division!"
Meng Sheng was the warden of the Futu Prison under the Ministry of Justice. He had been waiting not far outside the prison, refusing to participate in the lewd acts that had just taken place. However, Gao Yu had summoned him, so he had no choice but to come in and personally deal with the chaos inside.
Meng Sheng rushed up behind Feng Tan in a few quick steps. As a seventh-rank expert, he effortlessly restrained Feng Tan and whispered, "Lord Feng, please don't struggle. I, Meng, am just a martial artist and don't want to hurt you."
The jailers continued to beat Wan Niang relentlessly, each punch and kick delivered with full force. If this continued, Wan Niang would surely be beaten to death. Feng Tan, her eyes wide with rage, her hands bound behind her back and unable to move, shouted at Gao Yu, "Lord Gao, you have no right to beat a prisoner to death in private! If anything happens to Wan Niang, I swear I will never let this go!"
Gao Yu squinted at the fine sweat beading on Feng Tan's forehead, his eyes gleaming with lust. He slowly walked up to Feng Tan, his withered, bloodied hand slapping Feng Tan's cheek. "Will you never give up on me? How will you, Lord Feng, swear to never give up on me?"
When Gao Yu spoke, his facial muscles twitched, and he hissed in pain.
Bloodstained fingers left their mark on Feng Tan's fair face. Gao Yu gripped the swaying chin of the man in his hand. "Feng Tan, you're new to officialdom, thinking you're all-knowing. But you still can't understand the intrigue and deceit. Tonight, you think you're defying me, but it's actually the Emperor's command! The way of the Emperor and Father—which of us doesn't obey? You defy me, and tomorrow the Embroidered Uniform Guard will arrest you with swords drawn! Because you've disrupted the Emperor's system of checks and balances! If the way of the subject is not understood, and the way of the Emperor is not clear, you won't even be able to stay in the capital for three years, let alone be promoted to the fourth or fifth rank!"
Feng Tan understood Gao Yu's words perfectly: conforming to the ways of the ruler and the court, and to the ways of officialdom, would not come at a price, while going against the grain would inevitably result in a bloody defeat. But does conforming to the established rules necessarily mean that the rules are correct? Was Wan Niang's life worthless in the eyes of those in power, and should she be cruelly tortured to death? She was merely forced into a huge power conspiracy, where everyone used her as a pawn, and no one cared whether she lived or died.
Ke Fengtan cared, Ren Pingsheng cared, and all the ladies in the Red Sleeve Pavilion cared.
For Feng Tan, Wan Niang used most of her earnings to support her studies, which was a great kindness; for Ren Pingsheng and the ladies in the pavilion, Wan Niang was a good friend because they lived together, helped each other, and shared joys and sorrows.
Feng Tan does not approve of the rules they set, yet she has no right to overturn them. Doing the right thing comes at a price. Tonight, she is not only defying Gao Yu, but also Emperor Chongming.
The master said, "An ant trying to shake a tree may die, but it still lives on."
Feng Tan's eyes blazed with intense light, forcing Gao Yu to loosen his grip on her chin. He said slowly, "Gao Yu, show mercy when you can, otherwise one day, the axe hanging over Wan Niang's head will chop you open and leave you bleeding."
A thick fog permeated the prison cell. Those at the top were indulging in a life of power-hungry revelry, indifferent to the lives of those at the bottom. The Great Heavenly Kingdom, established for three hundred years, was already showing signs of collapse in the power struggles. Those in power concealed these signs, fearing that the less fortunate would see through them.
The boy's tone was firm, his stance unwavering, and the threat in his words penetrated Gao Yu's chest and back: "In this world, it's nothing more than one person finishing their act and another taking the stage. Today, I may not have the power or status of you, but as long as I live, I will have the opportunity to make you... pay with your life."
Gao Yu's eyes trembled violently. After a moment, he laughed cruelly, realized what he meant, released Feng Tan's chin, and slapped Feng Tan across the face.
"Smack!"
Gao Yu flicked his sleeves and leaned forward, gritting his teeth and sneering, "A greenhorn who's just starting out, trying to threaten me with his words? If you have that kind of skill, you should practice your words like your lover and serve a good man! How about this, you sing me a song, and I'll give your lover a quick and easy way to die."
Looking up and meeting Feng Tan's arrogant gaze, Gao Yu felt a burning pain in his wounds and his anger flared up. He shouted, "Make him kneel down and sing!"
Meng Sheng grabbed Feng Tan's arm from behind, forced her to kneel down, and said in a weak voice, "I'm sorry."
Feng Tan's knees snapped with the force of the impact, and he knelt heavily on the ground, his knees hitting the cold, hard floor with a loud thud.
As Wan Niang lay sprawled on the ground, witnessing Feng Tan's humiliation, the emotions in her eyes gradually shifted, finally settling into a hopeless sorrow. She slowly loosened her tightly clenched fingers and said to the jailers who were beating her, "I sign... I sign!"
Gao Yu looked down at Feng Tan's unwilling expression of humiliation, leisurely wiped his blood-covered fingers, and then slowly sprinkled wound medicine on his face before saying, "She only agreed to sign after being tortured, but she refused to sign when you came. Look, now she has to sign obediently. What's the point of all this fuss?"
Feng Tan clenched her fingers so tightly that her nails pierced her palms, drawing blood. "Wan Niang, you didn't do it, you can't sign it... You'll die... You can't..."
Wan Niang slowly walked to Feng Tan, knelt down in front of him who was also kneeling, and shook her head, saying, "Brother Feng, I should have died the day I was implicated by my clan and sent to the Red Sleeve Pavilion at the age of nineteen. If it weren't for Ren Pingsheng's persuasion that there is freedom everywhere, I wouldn't have survived for these twelve years... In these twelve years, you gave me hope to live, although..."
Although Feng Tan doesn't yet have the ability to restore them from their lowly status to good status, having this hope has sustained them through the years, giving them something to look forward to in life.
Wan Niang wiped away Feng Tan's tears, then used the last clean lining of her cloak to wipe his blood-stained face, and said softly, "Brother Feng is a sincere young man, it's not worth him kneeling for me. A young man's knees are worth gold. Today, Wan Niang has received ten thousand taels of gold, and the money Brother Feng owed me for his studies over the years is now settled. You...you shouldn't feel guilty...you must take good care of yourself..."
Wan Niang bowed and knelt to express her gratitude. She then got up, walked to the table, picked up the confession, and couldn't help but laugh when she saw the absurd words on the page.
Gao Yu narrowed his eyes and sneered, "What are you dawdling for? Hurry up and sign the document!"
Wan Niang picked up the confession, stood on the table, and leaned over to sit on the open windowsill.
She lowered her eyes, smiled, and read the rest of her confession: "...Influenced by Zuo, I ordered Gu Junwei, the son of the Minister of War, and Zhu Youqing, the Vice Minister of Revenue, to kill him...Afterwards, I tried to fabricate a confession to escape punishment, but the evidence was irrefutable, so I confessed without hesitation..."
"Hahaha... What conclusive evidence! Justice is not served, and I am at their mercy..." Wan Niang laughed as she tore the confession in her hand to shreds, then stood on the open windowsill as she threw the pieces of paper away.
She gazed at the cold, foggy night outside the window, then slowly turned to look at Feng Tan, her smile tinged with despair and resignation in her moist eyes. "Wan Niang accepts her fate... Goodbye, Brother Feng..."
Feng Tan's pupils contracted sharply as she suddenly understood something. She knelt on the ground and struggled violently. Meng Sheng took a deep breath and subtly loosened his grip on Feng Tan.
Feng Tan broke free of her restraints and, as she ran towards the window, she watched Wan Niang close her eyes and lean back, falling from the thirteenth floor of the Prison Pagoda.
Author's Note: ① *The Great Ming Code, Official Law* (No specific articles for judging crimes)
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