Xuchu, 14th of the first lunar month, Tianbao Year 3, Tang Dynasty.

Yining Fang, Chang'an County, Chang'an.

"Out of contact? How's that possible?"

Tanqi watched the signalman in disbelief. The watchtower system was designed by her master himself. The message was not pa.s.sed on in a linear style. All scouts on watchtowers could directly communicate with any watchtower within their sight, which meant that even if one watchtower failed to respond in time, there was always another line to send the message out.

Under no circ.u.mstances would the department be out of contact, unless all those several hundred watchtowers in Chang'an were down.

The signalman said, "It is the main watchtower that is out of contact."

Tanqi became even more surprised. The big watchtower? That was the main relay watchtower of Jing'an Department, located in the garden right behind the main hall. It had two duties: receive messages from all watchtowers in the city at any time, as well as send out instructions to any watchtower in the city at any time. If it went offline, Jing'an Department would be like a paralyzed, blind person.

'How could master let such an important unit malfunction?' Tanqi craned her neck again and looked in the direction of Guangde Fang. However, the night was dark and there were glaring lanterns everywhere, which made it impossible for her to see a place that far away.

'It'll be restored soon. Master hates delayed messages the most,' she said to herself.

At the same time, Zhang Xiaojing was checking his trophies in the alley. Just now, when he knocked out the apprentice physician, he extracted a poison pellet. Zhang Xiaojing put the poison pellet under his nose, sniffed it and believed that it was a mixture of kudzu and aconite, but there was no unusual smell about it.

This kind of poison pellet was not something that an average citizen could get. It indicated how formidable the force behind these people was.

At this moment, Tanqi hurried to him and told Zhang Xiaojing that the main watchtower was out of contact. Zhang Xiaojing also frowned, feeling that the circ.u.mstance was very suspicious. Tanqi said, "Since we can't make contact with them, we might as well send the a.s.sa.s.sin back to Guangde Fang."

"No," Zhang Xiaojing flatly rejected her suggestion. "It's already the Hour of Xu. All streets are crowded with people. G.o.d knows how long it will take us to get them back. We don't have that much time."

"Then what should we do?"

"We get them to the Persian Temple and interrogate them on the spot." Zhang Xiaojing made a decision. Tanqi repeated her suggestion, but he glanced at her with his only eye and said blandly, "You don't need my permission to do anything, Lady. But I'm the one who's calling the shots here."

Tanqi curled her lip and said no more, but she was still worried. She sent a man back to Guangde Fang to check on the situation.

Soldiers of Lubi Army loaded the apprentice physician and the driver back onto the ox-drawn carriage. In surprised gazes of residents on the street, the carriage returned to the Persian Temple. Due to the noises and their number, even the bishop of the temple was alarmed. A deacon was sent to make an inquiry.

"Currently, some heretical ruffians are hatching a sinister plot. The Imperial Court needs our G.o.d's help to crack down on evil forces. So these people asked me for help. They wish catechize the accused and inflict suffering in our temple," Es said to his fellow monks. Though they didn't quite understand the words "catechize the accused" and "inflict suffering", they did know that this meant the Imperial Court's recognition of their G.o.d, so all of them said that they felt honored.

The place where the apprentice was detained happened to be the confessional in which Zhang Xiaojing and Tanqi had been locked up previously. Es explained that this was the quietest place in the temple, that it was the perfect spot for an interrogation. He had been acting quite obsequiously in fear that Zhang Xiaojing might transfer his anger onto the Nestorian temple due to what he had done.

Tightly tied up, the apprentice physician was stuffed into the small, narrow room and woke up after a bucket of icy water was poured on him.

"You don't want to see what's going to happen. Maybe you should leave," Zhang Xiaojing said to Es, cruelty glinting in his only eye. Es briefly hesitated but didn't move. "He committed murder in our temple. I should have a partic.i.p.ant's knowledge of the interrogation in order to show justice."

"Suit yourself."

Zhang Xiaojing opened the small window and looked inside. The man didn't move, his head down, water dripping down strands of his hair, but his quivering shoulders indicated that he was awakened.

This guy was a native of the Central Plains with a thin-face and short mustach. His muscles were not strong but well-proportioned. Two blue veins stretching from below his ears to his neck could barely be seen, which was a clear indication that he was a killer who had been working out for years. Zhang Xiaojing didn't say anything. He just looked at him silently.

"Kill me," the killer said feebly.

"Let me tell you what's going to happen next." Zhang Xiaojing's voice came into the confessional. "In the Dragon Dynasty (The period when the first emperor of Tang Dynasty ruled feudal China.), there was a Censor (An official responsible for impeaching corrupt officials) named Zhou Lizhen, who had orders from Wu Sansi to kill Huang Yanfan. Zhou Lizhen felled a patch of bamboo grove, leaving pointed bamboo stumps. Then he dragged Huang Yanfan around. The victim's skin was slit open, torn apart and mangled, revealing tendon and bones. He was dragged around for a full day before he died. When he died, almost all his flesh had been separated from his bones, and all bamboo stumps were dyed red, which was called 'sunset on the bamboos'."

Zhang Xiaojing told the story in such a racy and detailed manner, as if he had seen it happen with his own eyes. But Es, who was standing to the side, trembled. He couldn't help picturing the gory scene of "sunset on the bamboos" and immediately felt his stomach churning. He wondered how the prisoner in the confessional felt after hearing the story.

Zhang Xiaojing continued, "But I don't have a full day, so I'll resort to another method, which is the one that Zhou Xing once used against Hao Xiangxian. It's called 'hurling a stone to lure the immortal'." Surprisingly, he was quoting allusions when talking about such cruel things. Es pulled a wry face.

"I'll stuff an iron hook into your a.n.u.s to attach one end to your intestine. The end of the hook will be fastened to a horizontal wooden bar. A rock will be attached to the other end of the wooden bar with a rope. I'll put this wooden bar on a wooden shelf. You and the rock will be on different sides of the shelf, just like a scale. You've used scales before, right? Then I'll pull the rock on this side to raise the other side of the wooden bar, and the hook will slowly pull your intestine out of your a.s.shole. You'll be able to distinctly feel every inch of its movement. If I pull hard enough, your intestine will be instantly pulled out, flying into mid-air."

"Of course, it's a pretty good idea to replace the iron hook with a pointed bamboo. Your whole body will be thrown up by the elastic force of a bamboo pole and then the pole will go straight into your body."

Then Zhang Xiaojing grinned, and his grin was pretty smug. If the prisoner raised his head and saw his only eye which had just pa.s.sed the small window, he would have realized that Zhang Xiaojing was serious.

Listening to him speak, Tanqi knew clearly Zhang Xiaojing was intimidating the prisoner, but she still couldn't help shuddering. The air about Zhang Xiaojing made it difficult to breath. She had to move a couple steps away from him.

She had always regarded Zhang Xiaojing as a lascivious wastrel, a duteous commandant of Jing'an Department as well as a reliable companion. At this moment, she finally recalled who this man truly was -the Five-Honored Yama of Wannian County.

Which five Yama? Ruthlessness, viciousness, cold-bloodedness, willfulness and cruelty.

He had been the General of the Indecent for nine years. n.o.body knew how many times he had used this method and how many people he had tortured with it.

She tried her best to get rid of this thought. After making eye contact, both she and Es detected a trace of regret in each other's eyes. If they had known things would go this way, they would have waited in the corridor. In the awkwardness, Es scratched his head, wondering whether he should stop Zhang Xiaojing or not if he really decided to inflict torture. This was a sacred place after all...

"Kill me," the killer repeated this sentence in a muted voice.

Zhou Xing curved his lips and said in a frightening voice, "There's no need for you to doubt the effects of it. For your information, torture methods of both Zhou Lizhen and Zhou Xing as well as criminal officials like us have the same origin -Lai Junchen. The Eight Techniques of Lai Family is very well-known."

The moment the three characters "Lai Junchen" were uttered, the other three people in the room felt as if the air temperature dropped drastically. Though this person had died many years ago, his name could still be used to scare children to stop crying at night, and it was sometimes even more effective than all those torture methods he had created.

"Faugh!" The prisoner tried to spit but failed to spit the saliva out, since his lips had been quivering all along.

Zhang Xiaojing noticed all these details.

If this person were a Turkish Wolf Guard, Zhang Xiaojing wouldn't feel confident of getting him to talk, but these people were different. They carried poison pellets on them, which indicated that though they were unafraid of death, they did fear torture. His trembling was a good sign.

Zhang Xiaojing closed the small window with a whoosh to let the horror ferment inside the prisoner. In a pitch-dark closed s.p.a.ce, the prisoner would replay the scene in his mind again and again, and he wouldn't be able to stop even if he wanted to. Any sound coming from outside -footsteps, the sound of moving a tetable -would all be regarded as potential signal of imminent torture. Some prisoners were literally scared to death during the process.

Intentionally, Zhang Xiaojing didn't ask any questions. He wanted the prisoner to think that the torturer wanted nothing from him, so that the prisoner would become more and more terrified and thus more eager to prove his value.

Inquisition by torture was an art. Just like s.e.x, foreplay was the key.

After the arrangement was made, Zhang Xiaojing turned around and left the confessional. Tanqi and Es, who were standing at the doorway in the distance, looked at him with somewhat frightened expressions in their eyes. Zhang Xiaojing rubbed his eye sockets but didn't explain. The world these two people had been living in was too good, so they had no idea what the bottom of society was like.

After hesitating for quite a while, Es stepped up to him and said, "Commandant Zhang must have referred to a lot of ancient books and records. I could tell that the a.s.sa.s.sin was really horrified."

"It's not from books that I learned those," Zhang Xiaojing smiled. Es felt a chill shoot up from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, his white skin growing ghastly paler.

"Stay here and keep an eye out. Once the prisoner talks, tell me as soon as possible. I'll go and check the grounds."

"The grounds?" Es didn't understand.

"'Hurling a stone to lure the immortal' works best on level ground where the shelf is steady."

"Hey. Isn't... isn't this inhumane... " This time, Es was really scared. 'This guy really wants to inflict torture on the prisoner in this Nestorian temple? How are Nestorian monks supposed to live with the thought of it if he really does this?'

Zhang Xiaojing ignored him, walked out of the confessional and started reconnoitering the ground. Occasionally, he held up two fingers to measure the distance or stomped on the dirt to check the solidity, as if he was a builder highly dedicated to his job.

Before long, hitching up his robe, Es ran out of the hall with a stagger. "Commandant Zhang! Stop making the shelf! He confessed! He confessed!" In his anxiety, he didn't even bother weighing his words but just talked in plain language.

"Oh? He confessed all of it?"

"Yes. All of it!"