The Torture Chamber

When the boys went to pay their respects to the young madam, there was no sign that anyone knew of Han Shiqi's death. The young madam hadn't noticed that two servants were missing, either. Only Xue Niang frowned and asked about it. The six boys exchanged helpless glances, unable to answer. She shook her head in displeasure but didn't press them.

Back at Kindling Courtyard, Han Jinu still hadn't noticed that two boys were missing. It wasn't until nearly noon, when he went looking for Qi Nu to question him again, that he finally realized only six boys remained in the courtyard.

"Where are they?"

Han Jinu looked utterly astonished. To him, someone going missing inside Golden Peng Fortress was simply impossible—unimaginable.

The boys exchanged helpless glances again.

Han Jinu's astonishment turned to fury. He swung the Rosewood Cane and struck blindly at the boys. "You dare plot behind my back! You dare plot behind my back! You're all in it together. Did those two little brats go with Third Brother?"

The boys dodged and said they didn't know.

The courtyard was in an uproar when the east gate swung open. But the people who entered weren't servants bringing in the dying. They were a group of men dressed in black, their garb slightly different from the killers': their belts weren't red but green or yellow, and none of them carried a saber.

At the sight of them, Han Jinu looked even more alarmed than he had at the sight of the killers. The Rosewood Cane slipped from his hand and hit the ground. He gaped, his knees bending of their own accord, unable to utter a word. It was impossible to tell whether he was trying to bow or about to collapse.

The black-clad men said nothing and didn't introduce themselves. They rushed forward, hoisted Han Jinu, who had gone limp as a rag, and carried him away. Someone locked the west gate from the inside, though it had never been locked before; when they left, they locked the east gate from the outside as well.

No one explained anything to the anxious boys. They were now, for all intents and purposes, imprisoned in Kindling Courtyard. Except for Gu Shenwei, none of them had any idea what they were accused of.

Two injured men who had been brought in the day before yesterday were still in the courtyard. Usually, everyone did their best to stay out of their rooms. Now, however, they all ran inside, hoping to prove to Golden Peng Fortress that they were still useful.

No food was delivered at noon. It was a bad omen.

The two injured men didn't last much longer. They died before nightfall, and the west gate leading to Ghost Cry Cliff was locked, so their bodies had to remain on the kang, growing stiffer by the moment.

"I didn't do anything. None of us did anything, right? Han Jinu caused the trouble. It won't get us in trouble too, will it?"

The boy named Zhao Nu suddenly spoke. No one had said anything for a long time. They only felt uneasy, without knowing exactly what had happened. Only Gu Shenwei could guess at the truth, but he wouldn't reveal a word.

"Xue Niang will save us. We belong to the young madam. We swore an oath." Another boy, Lei Nu, searched each of his companions' faces with hopeful eyes, trying to draw a little confidence from them.

The boys nodded hurriedly, and suddenly they all felt relieved.

Gu Shenwei nodded too, but thought, The young madam and Xue Niang won't save them. If they had the desire and the power to do so, they wouldn't have left the boys in Kindling Courtyard to tend to the dead in the first place. The Eighth Young Master's courtyard needed servants too, yet he hadn't taken them.

The days when Great Head God's daughter had wielded power in the bandit camp ended the moment she climbed into her bridal sedan.

At dusk, the men in black with yellow belts came again. This time there were only two of them. One gave the six frightened boys a brief command:

"Come with us."

The boys were uneasy, but didn't dare ask questions. They obediently followed the men out of Kindling Courtyard. Once, it had been the place they'd most wanted to leave. Now they felt reluctant to go, as if it were home.

Gu Shenwei kept calm, even allowing himself a little optimism. The men with yellow belts hadn't tied anyone up, so perhaps they just wanted to ask a few questions. The facts were obvious: a killer had disappeared, and two servants had suddenly vanished. Anyone would connect the two events, one after the other. No one would suspect those who remained.

Gu Shenwei wasn't entirely right.

The man with the yellow belt was the disciplinarian of Heart Washing Courtyard. The boys had been brought there for a formal interrogation.

Heart Washing Courtyard wasn't far from Kindling Courtyard. Only a small courtyard of unknown purpose stood between them. This place was also called Ghost Courtyard, and it was where Golden Peng Fortress administered punishment.

Gu Shenwei had once wanted to search this courtyard for his sister. Now he knew there would have been no point. The prison cells in Heart Washing Courtyard were all underground, guarded so closely that no outsider could possibly spy on them.

Even a killer organization had "prisoners." Gu Shenwei found it ironic.

The boys were taken to an underground torture chamber. It seemed to be in frequent use; greasy muck coated the floor. The boys had once helped carry out several dying men sent from Heart Washing Courtyard. They had all been smeared with this muck. When Yao Nu was still alive, he had said the mud was mixed with human flesh. Judging by the dying men's mutilated bodies, he'd been nearly right.

Strange instruments of torture filled the room, and iron chains hung everywhere. In one corner, a prisoner dangled limply from a wooden frame, his skin torn and flesh exposed, hardly human anymore. When he groaned, the boys cried out in unison.

It was Han Jinu.

That morning, he had still been the steward of Kindling Courtyard. Now he had earned the right to go back to the courtyard and wait to die.

One boy fainted on the spot. Two others stood rooted to the floor, unable to move. Liquid trickled from their trouser legs.

More than ten people stood in the torture chamber. Besides the yellow-belted disciplinarians, there were others, and a few weren't even dressed in black. They paid no heed to the boys' terror. Anyone who entered Heart Washing Courtyard and stayed calm would have surprised them.

Gu Shenwei felt his legs trembling, and had an urge to turn and run.

He was a son of the Gu Family of the Central Plains, born into an official household. His childhood playmates in the Central Plains had all been the sons of generals and ministers. To them, torture had been a tale of ghosts and spirits.

How had he fallen so low? Was the destruction of his family not enough? Did he also have to endure the most humiliating kind of death with his own body?

No one guessed that one of the boys was a young master of the Gu Family, much less spared a thought for his feelings. The disciplinarians expertly tied the six boys to separate wooden frames. Without asking a single question, they began the flogging. At the first lash, Lei Nu, who had fainted, let out a piglike squeal. Then screams filled the room.

No one dared resist.

That was the rule of Heart Washing Courtyard. Whether you had done anything or not, whether you confessed or not, you first had to endure a round of torture. Flogging was already the mildest way to knock you down a peg.

After the flogging, the disciplinarians ordered the boys to speak, without telling them what they wanted to know.

The boys rushed to confess, telling them everything. They even admitted to having once poured tea for Han Jinu. They still thought the person who had caused trouble was the steward of their own courtyard.

Next, the disciplinarians asked the boys to talk about the missing Qi Nu and Xie Nu, bringing out another jumble of trivial details.

Though it was all useless chatter, the disciplinarians remained impassive. They were looking for inconsistencies in all those ramblings, trying to find out who really knew something.

Before the torture, Gu Shenwei's legs had still been trembling. But once the whip came down, his fear vanished. The pain in his flesh was just pain, insignificant beside the suffering he kept hidden in his heart.

But he screamed too, and babbled confessions. It was his first time in a torture chamber, his first time facing disciplinarians, yet his mind was astonishingly clear. He saw through every trick. He had to pretend to be no different from the other boys while secretly observing everything.

The people asking questions were all minor underlings. There were only two people with real authority, and they stood at a distance, acting as though none of this concerned them.

One wore black and a yellow belt. He was tall and thin, with a gloomy expression, and was obviously the steward of Heart Washing Courtyard. The other wore a gray robe. He was very short and thin, and wore a pensive expression, like a pedant.

Neither carried the Narrow Saber that marked a killer.

The questioning ended, and the disciplinarians stepped aside. As expected, it was the two men who made the judgment.

"They can't tell us anything. Those two servants acted alone." The tall, thin man with the yellow belt spoke first. The boys felt a weight lift from their hearts.

"Mm, it does seem that way. But we shouldn't be careless. Some children can be very devious, especially when adults have been coaching them," the short, thin man in the gray robe remarked casually, a trace of humble deference still on his face. He sounded as if he weren't talking about the case at hand, but stating a general truth.

"That's possible too. These boys haven't been in the fortress long, and they haven't had much contact with adults. Finding the person behind them should be easy enough. What do you think, Mr. Guo?"

Mr. Guo looked plainly astonished. "Commander Shen, you've misunderstood me. I only meant that we can't trust these little fellows too easily. Han Shiqi was a killer. It doesn't seem likely that a few boys could have plotted against him."

Han Shiqi was his real name. Most killers in Golden Peng Fortress were obscure, so there was no need to use false names when carrying out a mission.

Commander Shen and Mr. Guo disagreed. The former seemed to want to minimize the matter, while the latter wanted to dig deeper and pursue it relentlessly.

Gu Shenwei reminded himself that if he made it out of Ghost Courtyard alive, he would have to learn more. Every little conflict within Golden Peng Fortress might help him in his quest for revenge.

The questioning went on in fits and starts, but never got to the point. The disciplinarians seemed to ramble from one subject to another. Gu Shenwei had a feeling this was deliberate. Whenever the boys mentioned Xue Niang or Eighth Young Madam, the disciplinarians didn't follow up. The clever boys had already understood and stopped bringing up anything about the Eighth Young Master's courtyard.

He didn't know how long it went on. Commander Shen and Mr. Guo left and returned several times. After that, neither said much. They no longer showed any disagreement or conflict, but neither looked at the other.

Eighth Young Master Shangguan Nu came by once. This was the second time Gu Shenwei had seen the enemy who had wiped out his family. He was farther away than before, and revenge seemed even more out of reach.

Shangguan Nu only glanced around. He left without saying a word. At one point, he nodded to Commander Shen but acted as if Mr. Guo weren't there. Mr. Guo, for his part, respectfully paid his respects to the young master.

It was probably around midnight when several men in black rushed in without warning. They threw something onto the ground, bowed to Commander Shen and Mr. Guo, and immediately left.

That thing was a living person. He raised his head, and the first person he looked at was Gu Shenwei.

Qi Nu had been captured and brought back.