Interrogation, Han Residence

"Then... Master Lu, name your price?" Han Lao Wu asked ingratiatingly.

"At least three thousand taels." Lu Chen opened his mouth like a lion.

Han Lao Wu's expression changed abruptly, the trace of obsequiousness in his eyes instantly swallowed by a savage gleam. "Lu Chen, don't push people too far! Master Feng is my son-in-law. If anything happens to me, none of you will live!"

Blind Man gave a sinister laugh. A cold glint suddenly flashed from the dagger in his hand, its sharp tip already pressed against Han Lao Wu's cheek.

His wrist gave a slight twist.

A strip of flesh was pared away as though peeling an apple.

Pain twisted Han Lao Wu's features into a knot, veins bulging across his forehead, yet he held his breath and refused to make a sound.

Shuan Hu's blade was pressed hard against the vital artery at his neck.

So long as he dared make the slightest noise,

Shuan Hu could take his life with one stroke.

"You've been lending usury and collecting debts fit for the King of Hell all these years. If you can't produce three thousand taels, you must at least have three hundred taels' worth of assets. You know exactly how much you own." Lu Chen spoke lightly.

"Heh..."

A strange laugh squeezed from Han Lao Wu's throat.

He had run the streets for over a decade. He had fought, killed, gone to prison, endured torture, stolen, and trafficked people. Everything the underworld had to offer, he had already touched.

In South City, whenever Han Lao Wu's name was mentioned, what hooligan wouldn't weigh it carefully?

At this moment, Han Lao Wu understood all too well.

The moment he handed over the money, he would certainly die. Lu Chen would silence him.

Since Han Lao Wu knew there was no way out alive,

with death waiting either way, the fear in him was crushed beneath a surge of vicious rage.

"Lu Chen! I'll fuck your mother! You want money? In your next life! This old man's got one rotten life—if you've got the guts, stab me dead! If Master Feng doesn't skin you alive and pull out your tendons, I'll take your surname!" he screamed hoarsely, his face twisted like a madman's.

Lu Chen sneered. "Kill you? No rush. I'll torture you slowly, until you're willing to talk."

"Pah! Come on! You little bastard, use whatever dirty tricks you have on your grandfather! If I make a single sound, I'm the son you raised!" Han Lao Wu roared, eyes split wide as he craned his neck.

Seeing that he had lost control, Shuan Hu said no more. He clenched his fist and smashed it viciously into Han Lao Wu's temple!

Han Lao Wu's head lolled to one side, and he fell completely unconscious.

They bound him into a bundle with hemp rope, stuffed a hemp walnut into his mouth, covered him with a sack, and slipped out of the city after dark, heading straight for North Mountain.

The mountain path was rugged. About half an hour later, Lu Chen and the others entered a ruined temple nestled in a mountain hollow.

Er Gou and the others had already built up the fire and were waiting.

Lu Chen's group tossed the sack onto a pile of dry straw. He said to Er Gou,

"Hang him from the beam. This old fox has hard bones. We can't rush it—we have to grind him down slowly."

The bonfire in the ruined temple burned through the entire night. Han Lao Wu hung beneath the beam, not a patch of good flesh left on his body. Blood ran down his pant legs, spreading into a dark stain across the dust-covered floor.

He gritted his teeth the entire time and did not utter a single word.

When dawn was just beginning to break,

Lu Chen left Blind Man behind to continue the interrogation, then quietly returned to the city with the others and slept until noon.

That afternoon, he went to the martial arts hall to practice boxing as usual, as if nothing had happened the night before.

As for the few thugs who had died in Yellow Rice Alley in North City, no one cared in the slightest.

North City was packed with gangs, fiercer and more chaotic than South City.

Gang vendettas and street killings were commonplace in its alleys and lanes. If no one died on a given day, that would be the strange thing.

The county yamen had long grown used to such unsolved deaths. With no victim's family pursuing a complaint and no profit to be made, they naturally could not be bothered to interfere. Once the case file was closed, it was simply ruled an underworld grudge, settled among themselves.

Blind Man wore him down on the mountain for two days and two nights.

This old hoodlum's bones were even harder than he had expected, tougher than a beast's.

Whipping, burning, bamboo skewers through the fingers—he tried them one after another, yet Han Lao Wu refused to make a sound.

Until—

Blind Man chopped down a man-tall wooden stake in the forest, as thick as an arm, and sharpened one end to a point. He braced the stake, lined it up, then shoved with all his strength—

The stake plunged in from behind his buttocks and drove upward along his spine.

A ragged, tuneless rasp squeezed from Han Lao Wu's throat, his eyeballs nearly bursting from their sockets. His entire body shook like chaff in a sieve for a long while before several words finally burst through his clenched teeth:

"I'll talk... I'll talk..."

Then, like beans pouring from a bamboo tube, he spilled everything.

Blind Man spent two nights freezing in the mountains. By the time he returned, his face was numb from the cold, and his hands and feet barely obeyed him.

Lu Chen ordered a huge bowl of lamb noodle soup from a roadside restaurant, telling them to add extra meat and pour on extra chili oil, then had the waiter deliver it straight to his room in Sheep Dung Alley.

Blind Man took the steaming bowl. Not caring about the heat, he lowered his head and began devouring it in huge mouthfuls.

The hot broth and chili oil rolled down his throat, and only then did warmth flow from his throat through all four limbs and every bone in his body.

He slurped down every last drop of soup and every noodle. Fine beads of sweat seeped across his forehead, and only then did he let out a long breath, as if he had finally returned to the land of the living.

Blind Man set down the bowl and wiped his mouth.

"Big Brother, I got it out of him. The money is divided among three places: Changle Bank in East City, Baoguang Temple outside the city, and another portion buried beneath the doghouse at his home."

He paused, then continued, "The Changle Bank counter only recognizes the face, not the note. Han Lao Wu himself has to go to withdraw it. Baoguang Temple is even more ruthless. On the surface, it's a temple that burns incense, but it's actually an underground bank doing business with people of the martial world. Their rule is the same—without seeing the man himself, no one can touch a single coin."

After hearing this, Lu Chen merely nodded. "The bank and the temple are both difficult to touch. Looks like we can only dig up the doghouse."

"Han Lao Wu said there are at least a hundred taels buried beneath it. That's no small sum." Blind Man said excitedly.

"Where's Han Lao Wu?"

"One slash killed him. We threw him into the forest to feed the wolves."

"Clean work?"

"Rest assured."

That night,

Lu Chen and the others visited Dog Urine Alley again.

The gate to Han Lao Wu's residence stood ajar and opened with a push.

The courtyard was silent. The two black dogs that always barked softly at night were nowhere to be seen.

The house was such a mess there was nowhere to step.

Tables and chairs lay overturned, chests and cabinets stood open, and broken porcelain and torn scraps of cloth littered the floor, as though bandits had ransacked the place.

After Han Lao Wu disappeared, his men saw the guards' corpses and the bloodstains on the heated brick bed and knew something was terribly wrong. After discussing it among themselves, they simply looted every last valuable from his home, not even leaving behind a decent piece of clothing.

Once the money was divided, they scattered like birds and beasts, each finding somewhere to lie low. As for whether Han Lao Wu was dead or alive, no one cared anymore.

Shuan Hu made a round of the courtyard, then returned and said,

"The rice jar in the kitchen is empty. Even the pickle jars were smashed. They must have hated him deeply."

Blind Man sneered. "Han Lao Wu was harsh and stingy with his underlings. When trouble came, the tree fell and the monkeys scattered. I reckon Master Feng hasn't even received word yet. Those people were too busy running off with the money—who would go report it to the authorities?"

Baldy raised his oil lamp toward the corner. "Boss, the doghouse is still here."

They gathered around and saw that the doghouse, made from crude wooden planks, sat crookedly in the corner, looking as though no one had touched it.

"Dig." Lu Chen said.

Shuan Hu swung his shovel and smashed the doghouse's rotten planks apart in a few blows, revealing the packed yellow earth beneath.

They took turns digging downward. After excavating roughly three or four feet, Er Gou's shovel suddenly struck something hard with a CLANG.

Everyone brightened, knowing they had found something.

They hurriedly brushed away the loose soil, revealing a half-old pickle jar. Its mouth was tightly sealed with yellow wax, and when they lifted it, it felt heavy.

Lu Chen slapped open the clay seal with one palm.

Moonlight slanted into the mouth of the jar. Inside were tightly stacked copper coins, each string tied together with hemp rope. He stirred them with his hand. No more, no less—exactly twenty strings.

"There's more underneath."

Shuan Hu dug several more shovelfuls, uncovering four more identical pickle jars in succession, each sealed tight. When they broke the clay seals, the jars contained either strings of copper coins or chunks of loose silver. Adding it all together, there were indeed a hundred taels.

It matched the amount Han Lao Wu had confessed before his death to the slightest fraction.