Gourd Pass, the highest cliff.
The cold wind howled, sweeping up the snow on the ground and stinging people's faces.
Below the cliff lay an unfathomably deep abyss, wreathed in clouds and mist. One glance was enough to make your head spin.
Yesen was bound hand and foot, suspended from a wooden beam that jutted out over the cliff's edge.
Beneath his feet was the void, ready to swallow everything.
"You... What are you going to do?"
Yesen looked at Zhu Zhanjun, who stood at the other end of the beam, leisurely peeling an apple with a small knife. His voice trembled uncontrollably with fear.
He had spent his whole life at war and killed countless people. He had never feared death.
But now, with his life entirely in someone else's hands, teetering repeatedly on the brink of death, he felt a fear unlike anything he had ever known.
"Nothing much."
Zhu Zhanjun took a crunchy bite of the apple and spoke indistinctly.
"Just brought you here to enjoy the view and have a little chat."
"A... chat about what?"
"Let's talk about how my two dear uncles got in touch with you."
"Who the messenger was, what the token was, what the secret code was, where you met... I want to know every last detail."
Zhu Zhanjun's tone was as casual as if he were asking about the weather.
"I won't tell you!"
Yesen stuck out his neck and shouted, trying to sound fierce despite his fear.
"If you've got the guts, kill me! There isn't a single coward among the Oirats' warriors!"
"Kill you? That'd be no fun."
Zhu Zhanjun smiled. He walked to the edge of the beam and gently nudged the rope holding Yesen with his toe.
The rope creaked, and Yesen's body swung violently in the air.
"I'm not fond of all that bloody fighting and killing. It's too crude."
Zhu Zhanjun spoke at an unhurried pace.
"I prefer games that take a little skill."
"For instance, I had someone test it. With your weight, this rope can probably take about 3,427 swings like that."
"Any more than that, and it'll snap from metal fatigue."
"And this wooden beam can bear a maximum of eight hundred jin."
"I just had one of my guards jump on it. Now it probably can't take much more than three hundred jin."
With every word Zhu Zhanjun spoke, Yesen's face grew paler.
"You... You devil!"
Yesen stared at him in terror. He realized that the young man before him wasn't human at all. He was a complete madman, a demon who took pleasure in tormenting others!
"Don't rush. This is just the appetizer."
Zhu Zhanjun tossed away the apple core and clapped his hands.
"Let's play a game called 'The Test of Trust.'"
He took a few stones of different sizes from his robes and weighed them in his hand.
"I'm going to throw stones at you at random."
"Guess which one will be the last straw for this fragile rope, unable to bear the 'weight of trust' between us, before it goes... snap?"
As he spoke, he picked up the smallest stone and flicked it gently at the rope suspending Yesen.
Smack!
The stone struck the rope with a crisp sound.
Yesen's body suddenly dropped!
"Ahhh!"
The sensation of falling hit him, and Yesen let out a pig-like squeal.
He felt as if his heart were about to leap out of his throat.
"Don't scream, don't scream. The game's only just begun."
Zhu Zhanjun picked up a slightly larger stone.
"What... What do you want from me?!"
Yesen completely broke down and began to sob.
"I'll talk! I'll tell you everything! Please, just give me a quick death! Give me a quick death!"
He could endure physical torture.
But the mental torment—the endless terror of not knowing when death would come—had completely shattered all the dignity and will of a great warlord.
"Why didn't you say so sooner?"
Zhu Zhanjun curled his lip and put away the stones.
"You've wasted so much of my breath."
Over the next half hour, Yesen spilled every last detail of his collusion with Prince Han and Prince Zhao.
His account was even a hundred times more precise than the testimony given earlier by the other Commanders of Ten Thousand.
Beside Zhu Zhanjun, an Embroidered Uniform Guard squad leader scribbled furiously, recording every word of the confession.
"Excellent."
Zhu Zhanjun nodded in satisfaction when he was done.
"I told you everything! Everything!"
Yesen clung to his last lifeline and looked at Zhu Zhanjun with pleading eyes.
"Let me go! If you let me go, I'll work like an ox or a horse for you!"
"I can help you win over every Oirat tribe! I can help you fight the Timurid Empire! I... I'm still useful!"
"Useful?"
Zhu Zhanjun looked as if he'd heard something hilarious.
"The greatest use you'll serve is your death, which will drive the final coffin nail into my two dear uncles."
"You..."
Despair flooded Yesen's eyes.
"Oh, right. There's one more thing."
Zhu Zhanjun suddenly remembered something. He walked to the beam, looked at Yesen, and spoke one word at a time.
"I'm a very vindictive man."
"You wanted to kill me earlier, didn't you?"
"So, in return, I won't let you die quite so quickly."
After saying that, Zhu Zhanjun looked away and turned to the Embroidered Uniform Guard squad leader who had been recording.
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