The Merchant Guild's back courtyard contained an abandoned cellar that had been temporarily converted into a torture chamber.
Black Cloud Crane, Zhao Quan, and Liu Shirong were nailed to wooden frames, their limbs pierced through and unable to move.
Blood seeped from their wounds and gathered into small puddles beneath their feet.
Yan Lingji leaned against the wall, twirling a long, pitch-black venomous needle between her fingers.
Several puppet servants carried in a few enormous iron cages.
The cages were crawling with snakes, scorpions, centipedes, toads, spiders, and swarms of ants and leeches.
Dark green venom dripped from the scorpions' tails, while centipedes crawled along the cage walls with a faint rustling sound.
Black Cloud Crane's pupils suddenly shrank.
"You... What are you trying to do?"
Yan Lingji didn't answer. She simply waved her hand.
The puppets carried the cages to the center of the cellar and lifted the covers.
Snakes, insects, rats, and ants poured out, crawling across the floor toward the three people nailed to the frames.
"No... Don't..."
Zhao Quan trembled all over, his voice choked with tears.
"Let us go! Please, let us go!"
Liu Shirong was so terrified that he wet himself. Yellow liquid ran down his pant legs.
"Let you go?"
Yan Lingji walked up to them and looked down from above.
"I could let you go. Give back the lives of those innocent civilians."
The three men went deathly pale.
Those civilians who'd been kidnapped—
Hundreds of elderly people, women, and children had already been thrown into the Dark Blood Alliance's alchemy furnace.
How could they possibly bring them back?
"That... That's something only the gods could do..."
Black Cloud Crane's lips trembled.
"The gods?"
Yan Lingji chuckled softly.
"Then I'll send you to meet them."
She turned and nodded to the puppet servants.
All the cages were opened, and tens of thousands of venomous creatures swarmed out.
Black Cloud Crane screamed first. More than a dozen leeches crawled up his calves and burrowed into his wounds, greedily sucking his blood.
Then came the scorpions. Their stingers pierced his skin, injecting venom as his flesh swelled and turned black.
Centipedes crawled up Zhao Quan's pant legs and slipped inside his clothes, leaving swollen red welts across his body.
Ants covered Liu Shirong's legs in a dense mass, biting into every inch of skin.
"Argh—!"
"Help—!"
"Kill me! Kill me!"
Their screams echoed through the cellar, shaking the walls.
Yan Lingji watched without expression.
"When you kidnapped those people, they screamed just like this."
Black Cloud Crane could no longer speak. Only a muffled whimper remained in his throat.
The leeches, gorged with blood, dropped from his legs. Their swollen bodies hit the floor with a heavy thud, splashing a little pool of blood.
Scorpion after scorpion crawled up his face.
Zhao Quan's eyes bulged as he watched a centipede crawl into his nostril.
"Mm—!"
He shook his head frantically, but his limbs were nailed in place. He couldn't move.
The centipede wriggled into his nasal cavity, passed through his throat, and crawled deeper inside.
Zhao Quan's eyes rolled back, and drool ran from the corners of his mouth.
Liu Shirong had already passed out, but the ants didn't care. They continued gnawing at his eyelids, lips, and earlobes.
"Keep going."
Yan Lingji sat to one side and lifted her teacup.
"Don't stop until they're dead."
At the cellar entrance,
Na'er stood by the door, her body trembling slightly.
She saw snakes, insects, rats, and ants crawling all over the three men. Their bloodcurdling screams made her stomach churn.
"Scared?"
Jiang Ce's voice sounded in her mind.
The black bodysuit tightened slightly, wrapping gently around her.
Na'er shook her head, then nodded. At last, she whispered, "A little..."
"Don't worry. They're bad people. They got what they deserved."
A tentacle reached out and rubbed her head.
Na'er felt its warmth, and her body slowly relaxed.
She looked into the cellar. Black Cloud Crane's face was completely covered by leeches and scorpions. Only his two eyes remained, blinking frantically.
"What... did they do?"
"They kidnapped hundreds of civilians and handed them over to evil Soul Masters to be used in alchemy. The elderly, women, and children—they tortured them all to death."
Jiang Ce spoke in a calm voice, but Na'er's pink eyes grew darker by the moment.
She thought of the beggars and orphans she'd seen while wandering, and the little girls who'd been snatched away by bad people and never came back.
"Then they really deserve to die."
Na'er's voice was quiet, but there was a firmness in it she'd never shown before.
Jiang Ce fell silent for a moment, then rubbed her head.
"Good girl. Don't watch anymore. Let's go."
Na'er nodded and turned away from the cellar entrance.
Behind them, the screams gradually faded, replaced by the faint rustling of crawling insects and ants.
An hour later,
Yan Lingji emerged from the cellar and brushed the dust off her skirt.
"My king, it's all taken care of."
"Good."
Jiang Ce's voice came from Na'er's body.
"Have the puppets seal the cellar, then bring in a few carts of quicklime and dump them inside."
"Understood."
Yan Lingji went to give the orders.
Na'er sat on a stone stool in the courtyard, gazing at the sky.
"What are you thinking about?"
"I was thinking..."
Hearing her big brother ask, Na'er paused.
"Why are there so many bad people in the world?"
"Because good people are too kind."
"Kind people are easy to bully."
Na'er thought about it. It seemed she understood.
"Then... Is Big Brother a good person or a bad person?"
"What do you think?"
Na'er tilted her head and pondered for a while.
"Big Brother is... someone who's good to Na'er."
Jiang Ce chuckled.
The venomous mass formed a hand above her head and gently rubbed her long hair.
"Good girl."
Jiang Ce controlled Na'er's body as she stood on the Merchant Guild's terrace, looking out over the distant Heaven Dou Imperial City.
A breeze passed, gently stirring her hair.
"My king?"
Yan Lingji came over with a teacup. Seeing him lost in thought for a long while, she asked curiously,
"What are you thinking about?"
Jiang Ce didn't answer right away.
He paused, then slowly spoke:
"This world is pretty interesting."
"A few days ago, we killed those nobles. You saw their mansions—gilded and glittering. Even their toilets were plated with gold."
"Now look at the civilians they kidnapped. They lived in thatched huts, ate husks and wild vegetables, and could only wait to die when they got sick."
"They both ate and shat, yet the difference between them was this enormous."
Yan Lingji blinked, unsure why her king had suddenly brought it up.
"Yesterday, I looked through those account books. The Heaven Dou Empire officially uses Gold Soul Coins, but the coins privately minted in each territory vary wildly in purity. The ones from Iron City South have little gold, while those from Star Dou North are mixed with copper. You have to calculate the exchange rate before you can do business. It's a nightmare."
"Even the units of measurement aren't standardized. A foot in one city is one length, and in another city it's something else."
"Same with writing. One marquis uses one style, another earl uses another, and official documents even need to come with translations."
"Do you think this broken empire can ever be any good?"
Yan Lingji nodded thoughtfully. "My king is right."
Jiang Ce paused, then continued:
"I don't consider myself a saint, and I don't pretend to be able to bear the suffering of all living beings—that kind of talk is too hypocritical."
His tone was calm, as if he were discussing something perfectly ordinary.
"I'm simply a villain. Using evil to curb evil, using killing to stop killing."
"But if I'm going to do it, I'll do it right."
"Yan Lingji."
Yan Lingji started. "Yes?"
"You're going to be an empress."
"Unify the Heaven Dou Empire. Standardize its units of measurement, its writing, and its laws."
"Scrap every one of those chaotic rules and govern it all by a single standard."
"Make sure nobles can't just seize civilians and use them as ingredients."
"Make sure merchants can't swindle, cheat, and cut corners."
"Give Soul Masters rules to follow, so they can't act above the law."
Jiang Che might not have been a good person.
But at least he'd received some education.
He couldn't stand seeing such filthy, vile things happen.
Since he'd come to this world for a while,
he had to do something with his time here.
Yan Lingji's eyes widened slightly.
"My king... You mean, you want me to..."
"Yes."
Jiang Ce controlled Na'er's hand and pointed toward the distant imperial city.
"That imperial palace will be yours one day."
"The emperor of the Heaven Dou Empire will be you."
"The entire continent will be yours, too."
"The good things Spirit Hall does—awakening Martial Souls for free, providing support to civilian Soul Masters—must continue, and you'll do them even better."
"What Spirit Hall can't do—standardizing measurements and writing, cleaning up the bureaucracy, establishing order—you'll do."
"Spirit Hall isn't exactly an enemy. They have their strengths. But you can't govern an empire with Spirit Hall alone."
"Spirit Hall has no empire, and the empire has no Spirit Hall... So I'll make sure you have both an empire and Spirit Hall."
"Give Soul Masters rules to follow, give civilians a way to survive, and give merchants laws to abide by."
"That's what true unification means."
Yan Lingji's eyes reddened.
She'd thought her king was just saying it offhand, but she hadn't realized he'd given it so much thought.
"My king..."
"What, are you scared?"
"I'm not afraid."
Yan Lingji bit her lip.
"I just... didn't expect Your Majesty to have thought so far ahead."
At some point, Xiaomeng had come over and was standing quietly to one side.
She looked at Yan Lingji. After a moment of silence, she suddenly spoke.
"Do you know about the Qin State?"
Yan Lingji turned her head. "The Qin State? I've heard of it. It's very powerful. I heard it destroyed the Six States."
Those were some things His Majesty had told her before.
Otherwise, she would never have known the Qin State was so powerful that it had destroyed all the Six States.
"It did more than destroy the Six States,"
Xiaomeng said calmly.
"The king of Qin—the one who called himself the First Emperor—standardized weights and measures, writing, and currency. He made the tracks of carriages uniform and the written language the same."
"For thousands of years, no one had ever done what he did. He achieved it."
She looked at Jiang Ce.
"You want Yan Lingji to become this world's First Emperor."
Jiang Ce did not deny it.
"The First Emperor used harsh laws to fight evil with evil and sweep across the land."
"I'm an evil man, too."
"So this corrupt world needs evil to fight evil."
"I'm training an empress and putting her out front. She'll unify the land, while I enjoy the process."
"Damn, that feels good."
People came in all shapes and sizes.
Jiang Ce couldn't deny that he was a lecherous man.
When he trained a woman of high status and standing, he couldn't help feeling a thrill.
But while training her, he was also making the world change according to his will.
That, too, was a satisfying fantasy every man harbored.
Xiaomeng's gaze shifted.
"A transformation the likes of which history has never seen... If she truly manages it, she'll stand shoulder to shoulder with the First Emperor."
She looked at Yan Lingji, then at Jiang Ce.
"And you—you're controlling it all from behind the scenes."
"You're more frightening than she is."
Jiang Ce smiled.
"What, are you scared?"
Xiaomeng shook her head. "I'm just... impressed."
"The Daoists teach 'governing through nonaction.' That's a luxury only possible in peaceful times. In a chaotic age, someone has to step forward."
"You... are that person."
Yan Lingji's eyes glistened with tears.
"Your Majesty..."
"How could a lowly woman like me deserve such devotion from you..."
She had once been no more than an assassin from Baiyue.
How much had her own king sacrificed to cultivate her?
All she had done was offer her body to serve Jiang Ce.
Na'er's eyes were full of admiration.
"Big Brother..."
She spoke softly, her voice sweet and small.
"Na'er doesn't really understand... but she thinks Big Brother is amazing."
"You're a hundred, a thousand times more amazing than those dukes and marquises!"
"Big Brother wants Sister to become empress. What about Na'er?"
Jiang Ce reached out a tentacle and gently rubbed her head.
"You? You'll be the empress's younger sister, the Protector Princess."
"Really?"
"Really."
Na'er nodded vigorously, light shining in her pink eyes.
"Then Na'er has to get stronger quickly and help Sister!"
"Na'er will do her best,"
Na'er said firmly, clenching her little fist.
"But first, you have to learn how to serve your Big Brother."
Yan Lingji immediately leaned close to Na'er's ear and whispered to her.
"Ah—"
"With my mouth?! And from behind, too?!"
Na'er's face flushed, her heart pounding as she cried out.
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