Torturing someone into confessing was easy to talk about, but in practice, it was far from simple.
That was especially true of someone with bronze skin and iron bones. Many methods were reduced to a joke.
Fang Shuwen gave it a try as well. With his internal force, hurting the man was not difficult.
But forcing him to talk was another matter.
Fang Shuwen even tried some rather brutal methods, such as breaking his fingers one by one, prying open his eyelids, and plucking out his eyes.
It certainly hurt, but he still refused to talk.
In the end, Fang Shuwen was at a loss too. He could only spread his hands at Zhou Qingmei.
Zhou Qingmei said helplessly:
"Then kill him."
Even if they could get nothing out of a menace like him, they still had to kill him to eliminate future trouble.
Fang Shuwen nodded, and the Black Sha Cult member split his mouth in a grin.
His face was covered in blood. One eye was open, while the other socket was empty, making his grin especially vicious:
"You... you'll die sooner or later too!
"My Black Sha Cult... will rise again!!"
As soon as he finished, Fang Shuwen pressed a palm to his head and struck him dead on the spot.
They found a place to bury the two bodies.
When Fang Shuwen returned to the room, he saw Zhou Qingmei holding her long sword and leaning against the corner of the kang, her face scrunched up.
"Young miss, are you examining yourself three times a day?"
Fang Shuwen smiled, took off his boots, and climbed onto the kang.
"I keep feeling that the major undertaking they're planning is no small matter.
"Brother Fang, I'm a little worried. If we can't get to the bottom of this soon, I'm afraid it could lead to disaster."
A hint of worry appeared on Zhou Qingmei's face.
She had not worn such an expression even when she learned that people were hunting her down.
Fang Shuwen said helplessly:
"Unfortunately, the two of us are far too green when it comes to extracting information.
"Do you know anyone good at it? Once we reach Guangning City, we'll have at least two leads that might bring us to traces of the Black Sha Cult.
"One is the bank, and the other is the lecher.
"But if we still can't get anything out of them after we find them, all our work will have been for nothing."
Zhou Qingmei shook her head:
"You don't know this, but the jianghu has all sorts of people from every walk of life.
"Some cling to life and fear death. Give them a scare, and they'll tell you anything you ask.
"But others are extremely tight-lipped. No matter what torture they endure, they'll grit their teeth and refuse to talk.
"Of all of them, cult members' mouths are the hardest to pry open.
"These people have faith and a purpose. To achieve their ambitions, they can even put life and death out of mind.
"A little pain can't shake them at all.
"Alas, if only I knew the [Pain-Person Sutra]."
"The [Pain-Person Sutra]? What's that?"
Why did Fang Shuwen feel that the name sounded a little odd?
"I only came across it by chance in an old text. There was a martial art in the jianghu that caused pain without injury.
"And the extreme pain it inflicted was something no one could endure.
"The text said that those subjected to it would suffer as though they had repeatedly cycled through the eighteen levels of hell for hundreds upon thousands of years, only to open their eyes and find that a mere instant had passed.
"Unfortunately, the martial art was later lost."
Zhou Qingmei's face was full of regret.
Fang Shuwen, however, grimaced as he listened. Putting himself in the victim's place for a moment, it was not hard to imagine just how desperate someone subjected to that method would feel:
"What evil fiend came up with a martial art like that?"
"Don't talk nonsense. A master created that martial art to guide people toward goodness.
"He used it to turn many great evildoers away from evil and back to the righteous path."
Fang Shuwen fell silent for a long moment:
"That master certainly had a rather unusual idea."
After everything that had happened that night, neither of them was much in the mood to rest.
So they lay down and chatted off and on.
Zhou Qingmei came from a merchant family and had joined a renowned righteous sect like the Pearl Pavilion. Her breadth of knowledge was beyond Fang Shuwen's.
Fang Shuwen seized the chance to ask her about many curious tales and anecdotes from the jianghu.
Zhou Qingmei spoke with enthusiasm, but her voice grew quieter and quieter. By the time Fang Shuwen asked her how many sects in the jianghu could stand alongside the Pearl Pavilion, she had fallen fast asleep and did not answer.
Fang Shuwen sighed. After everything they had been through, the young miss was growing less and less guarded around him.
"I really don't know whether to call her careless or say she doesn't see me as a man."
He turned over and sat up, crossing his legs.
His mind was on the [Pain-Person Sutra]. Zhou Qingmei had said the old text devoted only a few lines to the martial art.
It had not explained the principle behind causing pain without injury.
But Fang Shuwen reasoned that the human body had all kinds of nerves spread beneath the skin.
If he used internal force to stimulate them, could he cause pain without injury?
As he pondered, he also recalled that when he had done odd jobs in a medicine shop, he had chanced upon a few medical books. One of them recorded some of the acupoints on the human body.
If those acupoints were stimulated, they would cause tremendous pain, leaving a person wishing for death.
The only thing was, doing so required the use of silver needles.
"If I use my internal force as a needle and guide it through the various acupoints, could I achieve the same effect?"
Fang Shuwen felt as though inspiration had suddenly struck him.
All sorts of ideas sprang to mind, but for the time being, he had no suitable opportunity to try them.
So he pressed his index and middle fingers together and tried to condense his internal force into a thread and draw it out of his body.
That required tremendous control over internal force.
Fang Shuwen happened to possess that very quality, but things still did not go smoothly at first. His inner breath shot out of control with a whoosh and struck the wall, leaving a hole the size of a needle prick.
Only after more than a dozen attempts did he manage to condense the True Qi at his fingertips and keep it from dispersing.
But he still could not make it as tough as a silver needle.
It was like a limp thread, floating at his fingertips as he circulated his inner breath.
The changes in the thread were invisible to the naked eye, but Fang Shuwen, who had made it, could feel them.
After a moment's thought, he sent the thread toward the wall.
The thread entered the wall, but left it undamaged.
At the same time, though, a question arose: could this thing actually hurt anyone?
Fang Shuwen was not so deranged as to try it on himself, though he looked at Zhou Qingmei, somewhat tempted to give it a try.
After careful consideration, however, he decided he still could not subject his employer to such an inhumane act.
He sighed and released the True Qi, and the thread vanished without a trace.
"I'll try it next time I catch someone from the Black Sha Cult.
"Who knows? It might work wonders.
"If someone else could create a martial art like the [Pain-Person Sutra], why can't I?"