Zhongzhou. Zhongzhou Square.
At the center of the square stood a towering platform carved from a single massive piece of lapis lazuli. The people of Zhongzhou called it the "Execution Platform," or the "Beheading Platform."
It had originally been a key site where successive City Lords of Zhongzhou punished and executed serious criminals. Every year, countless fine heads were separated from their owners here.
Because too many heads had been hacked off there and the blood had flowed without end, years of soaking had driven the blood into the lapis lazuli. The enormous stone, originally blue-green and yellow, had turned a chilling reddish brown.
Today, Zhongzhou Square was packed with people. Countless citizens of Zhongzhou had crowded here to watch the beheading case that had been publicized in advance.
Because Peacock King Ying Boyan had personally led the campaign, he first dispatched the Peacock Legion to fight in the air and open Zhongzhou City's gates from within. Then a hundred thousand Snow-Cleansing troops surged in like a tide. When Zhongzhou City changed hands, the disparity in strength between the enemy and us sometimes benefited ordinary citizens instead. The former City Lord of Zhongzhou, whose head had been chopped off by a single stroke from Peacock General Meng Kuo, had never had the chance to defend the city to the death. Even less could he have forcibly enlisted the able-bodied young men among the common people after all his soldiers had perished.
Those seated high above, in order to protect their own interests, would resort to every means to sacrifice the interests and lives of others.
The people had not endured such a baptism of blood and fire. Moreover, after the Peacock troops entered the city, they did not commit the mass rape, looting, and slaughter that the City Lord's Mansion