Remote Combat (Part 1)

The entrance to the prefectural yamen's dungeon was behind the yamen, concealed behind a picturesque artificial rockery.

Pushing aside the flowers and grass on the right side of the rockery revealed a narrow entrance, pitch-black within.

"Brother Jiang, are you really going in?" Qian Bochou confirmed repeatedly, then added, "How about I go down first..."

Jiang Yun stared at him suspiciously. "Constable Qian, there isn't something shameful down there, is there?"

"No, no, absolutely not." Qian Bochou shook his head. Seeing Jiang Yun grow suspicious of him, he hurriedly said, "Don't worry, brother."

Qian Bochou scratched the back of his head and said awkwardly, "Your old brother here does all kinds of things, but I never collude with Demons and Monsters. Demons and Monsters and I cannot live under the same sky!"

"Then let's go."

The dungeon entrance was very narrow. Jiang Yun followed behind him, and the moment he entered, he caught a whiff of mildew. The conditions inside were clearly not good.

Naturally, Jiang Yun remained somewhat on guard.

If there were no ghosts in his heart, he would not be acting so evasively, unwilling to let Jiang Yun enter the prison.

But Jiang Yun's doubts were quickly dispelled, and he finally understood why Qian Bochou had not wanted him entering the prison.

"Are you paying or not? Paying or not?! Write a letter to your family! Tell them that if they don't hand over thirty taels of silver, don't even think about getting out!"

Before they had even gone inside, they heard the sounds of beating and miserable screams.

The dungeon was a straight passage, with prison cells lining both sides.

The air inside was stagnant, thick with mildew and traces of blood.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The moment he entered, Jiang Yun saw a constable beating a prisoner on the left.

The prisoner was in his thirties, his face battered black and blue.

"Chief, why have you come down here?" Hearing footsteps, the constable turned around and greeted Constable Qian obsequiously. Then he picked up a whip from nearby. "How's your mood today, sir?"

"Want to take a few lashes yourself and have some fun?"

"I'm in a very good mood." Qian Bochou's face darkened.

"What about this little brother? Don't be polite."

"Will you shut up? He's not whipping anyone either."

Jiang Yun was somewhat dumbfounded. Had he entered a bandits' den?

This was the prefectural yamen, for heaven's sake...

Qian Bochou coughed and explained to Jiang Yun beside him, "This man colluded with bandits outside the city and oppressed the common folk. We finally caught him."

"Come on, come on. Let's go farther in."

Soon, the sounds of another beating rose up, this time demanding an even higher price.

"My wife has already sent forty taels of silver. Officer, please stop beating me, stop..."

"Forty taels? Are you trying to fob off a beggar? Constable Qian said that without a hundred taels, there's no way your worthless life is leaving here alive."

As he spoke, the constable doing the beating spotted Constable Qian as well. "Chief, this man's still being stubborn. How about you sign an arrest warrant, and I'll bring that little wife of his in for questioning too?"

Constable Qian explained awkwardly, "This man poisoned his parents... his crimes are heinous."

Then, afraid Jiang Yun would tell Xu Suwen about this and ruin his image, costing him his official post, he hastily added, "Out of a hundred taels, I can only take one tenth. The lords above take the lion's share."

"Don't pity these people either."

"I still have my bottom line. These people really did commit grave crimes. We're only squeezing a little more oil out of them."

"If I don't squeeze them, some Constable Liu or Constable Wang will do exactly the same. They might even be harsher."

"I hear the neighboring prefecture is even worse. Anyone without connections gets dragged in for interrogation. Even if they've committed no crime, they can still be interrogated into having a whole pile of them."

"That's what you call fast money."

Jiang Yun took a deep breath. It seemed this sort of thing was far from rare in the Zhou Dynasty.

Of course, he understood this matter clearly enough. One ate according to one's ability.

He should not meddle in matters that were not his to manage.

The two walked about a hundred meters and reached the end of the dungeon.

"Any problems, Brother Jiang?" Qian Bochou looked at the wall at the end, then said with a chuckle, "See? I told you there was no problem."

"Come on. Staying in this ghostly place too long is bad for the body. Let's get out first."

Qian Bochou turned and took several steps back. Jiang Yun, however, frowned and glanced around. "Constable Qian, haven't you noticed something strange?"

"Something strange?" Qian Bochou furrowed his brows, looked around several times, and shook his head.

"Haven't you noticed that it's gone quiet?" Jiang Yun reminded him.

The beating, screams, pleas for mercy—all those sounds had vanished the instant they reached the end of the prison.

The entire dungeon had fallen into an eerie silence.

Qian Bochou's face twitched slightly as he looked toward the cells.

The constables and prisoners had all vanished, and the temperature inside the cells was slowly dropping.

"What do we do, brother?" Though Qian Bochou appeared carefree and thick-nerved, his mind was actually meticulous. "Let's get out of here, quickly."

"We've fallen into a Ghost Wall," Jiang Yun said gravely. "We can't run out."

"My legs are attached to my own body. How could I possibly be unable to run out?"

"Try it."

Qian Bochou drew a breath and ran toward the dungeon exit.

But as he ran, Jiang Yun appeared before him again.

At some point, he had somehow turned around and returned to Jiang Yun's side.

"Try again!" Qian Bochou took a deep breath.

"I'll try again!"

In a dark little room within an unnamed residence in Nanzhou Prefecture.

An old woman in her seventies sat there. Her face was covered in wrinkles, the tip of her nose slightly long, and a heavy medicinal stench clung to her body.

Before her stood a small table, upon which two palm-sized straw dolls were standing.

One of the straw dolls was strangely running across the table. Whenever it neared the edge, the old woman would extend a long finger, pick it up, and turn it around.

The straw doll would turn back and run toward the other doll, which stood motionless in place.

Again and again it went. A cold smile appeared on the old woman's face as she gently plucked out a strand of hair and looped it around the running straw doll's neck.

As Qian Bochou sprinted wildly, he too became certain that he could not escape this dungeon.

He gritted his teeth and cursed, "Damn it, this really is haunted, I..."

Before he could finish, a mark suddenly appeared around his neck out of thin air and tightened more and more.

In an instant, Qian Bochou's face flushed crimson. It was as though a rope had tightly strangled his neck. Veins bulged on his forehead as he clawed desperately at his throat.

He wanted to tear away whatever was binding his neck.

But his neck was completely bare.

"Help... help me."

Jiang Yun, not far away, was shocked by the sight. He hurried to Qian Bochou's side, took out the Chicken Blood he had prepared, and smeared it across Qian Bochou's neck. "The rooster crows, the rising sun ascends; demons, ghosts, and monsters have nowhere to hide."

The neck smeared with Chicken Blood erupted in a burst of green smoke.

In that cold, dark little room, the old woman had been tightly winding her strand of hair around the straw doll.

Suddenly, the strand of hair snapped.

The old woman's gaze fell upon the other little doll. "You want to engage this old woman in Remote Combat?"

"Courting death!"