Treacherous Magnates Drive Out Commoners, Building a Human Wall; Wails Across the Land Hinder the Constitution

Zhang Zhong's struggles finally ceased in the pool of blood.

Those once-arrogant eyes stared at the deepening dusk, their pupils dilated, devoid of even the slightest trace of life.

Beneath his brocade robe, his pale, fat body gradually stiffened. Blood slowly seeped from the two bloody holes in his chest and abdomen, pooling into a dark-red lake across the bluestone slabs, reflecting the wind-quelling lantern swaying before the county yamen.

On the long street, the remaining nearly thirty private soldiers stood frozen in place like wild dogs whose spines had been ripped out.

Their hands gripping their blades trembled, their sword tips hanging toward the ground, never to be raised again.

They looked at one another, seeing nothing but the same terror and bewilderment in their companions' eyes.

They wanted to run, but before that divine weapon, their legs had turned as limp as noodles. They did not even have the strength to turn around and flee for their lives.

Tu Lie was dead.

Even Lord Zhang...

Even Lord Zhang was dead.

These private soldiers who had lived under the Zhang family's roof were suddenly duckweed without roots.

Wang Ji held his gun in one hand and stepped over the county yamen threshold.

He descended the stone steps one at a time, his black robe billowing along the edge of the blood pool. His heels struck the bluestone slabs with steady, distinct tap, tap sounds.

The sound echoed through the deathly silent street, every step seeming to land on the private soldiers' heart tips.

The muzzle of the gun in his hand still retained its warmth, a wisp of blue smoke curling upward through the dusk. Like a savage beast that had just drunk its fill of blood, it seemed to be licking its fangs with lingering hunger.

As the