Each Had a Foolproof Plan

A Square Inch could store puppets, and puppets could likewise return to the human world.

Only...

The price that had to be paid was incomparably brutal.

At that moment, Li Shun felt as though a rusty, blunt blade had forcibly cleaved his soul in two from the crown of his head. One half remained with his true body, while the other was violently crammed into that illusory shell.

The agony was like ten thousand poisoned steel needles stabbing into his brain, making his entire body tremble uncontrollably. The immense tearing sensation of dividing his mind in two made his thoughts sluggish and bogged down as though trapped in a mire.

"The Square Inch puppet manifested in the real world possesses roughly half the strength it had within the space. Fortunately, a puppet neither lives nor dies. Even if it is blasted into powder in the real world, it will not truly damage the source within the [Square Inch] space."

"It only needs some time to repair itself and return to normal."

"More importantly, with a single thought, I can take it back into the Square Inch at any time..."

Li Shun endured the churning dizziness in his head and slowly turned these thoughts over. Trembling, he took out a stalk of Cold Mountain Grass and swallowed it whole, chewing it. Borrowing that faint, icy aura, he forcibly stabilized his spirit on the verge of collapse.

At the same time, he split off a thread of divine consciousness to control the puppet that had just descended into the world, silently sending it into the underground refuge burrow.

At first, the puppet's movements were somewhat awkward and stiff. But as Li Shun's true body continued digesting the medicinal power of the Cold Mountain Grass, the puppet's mannerisms visibly became no different from those of an ordinary person.

Li Shun's true body slumped where he sat, closed his eyes, and regulated his breathing.

Nourished by the Cold Mountain Grass, he barely recovered a little.

About half an hour later, footsteps suddenly sounded outside.

Li Shun abruptly opened his eyes, a sharp glint flashing through his profound pupils.

The man who pushed open the door and entered was none other than Sun Wu, the overseer in charge of all the county's laborers.

"Overseer Sun, why did you come personally? Just now..." Li Shun immediately put on the frightened, bewildered look appropriate for a lowly laborer.

Sun Wu discreetly swept his gaze around the room, then waved a hand and cut off Li Shun's probing. "His Honor already knows about your report. The situation is extremely urgent. To prevent word from leaking and startling the grass to scare the snake, come with me to the county office."

Li Shun's face turned deathly pale. "This..."

Sun Wu tugged his lips into a smile that tried to appear gentle. "Rest assured. Reporting the rebel faction is a great merit in defending the region. Once the rebellion has been put down and the bandits exterminated, you will naturally receive your due rewards. Taking you there now is merely His Honor's prudent way of protecting you."

Li Shun seemed comforted by those righteous words. He nodded tremblingly, dragging his crippled leg as he silently followed Sun Wu.

Not long after the two left, the puppet [Li Shun] hidden within the underground burrow slowly emerged from the shadows.

Its eyes, devoid of any emotional ripple, quietly gazed toward the place where [Cold Mountain Venerable] was truly concealed.

Li Shun followed closely behind Sun Wu, passing through streets and alleys before being led all the way into a secluded side room in the rear hall of the Cold Mountain County office.

When he pushed open the door and entered, Old Feng was already waiting there. He was so anxious that he looked like an ant on a hot pan.

"You two wait here. Without a summons, you are not to take even half a step beyond this door." Sun Wu coldly tossed out those words, then shut the heavy wooden door tight behind him.

"Cripple! You finally made it! Look, I didn't forget you when such towering merit fell from the heavens, did I?" Once the door was shut, Feng Guan immediately leaned closer, lowering his voice with a look of eager self-credit on his face.

Yet he did not see the ecstatic delight he had expected on Li Shun's face, and could not help freezing. "Cripple, why do you look like that?"

Li Shun did not respond. Instead, he stared deeply out the window and abruptly asked, "Old Feng, what time is it now?"

"Probably... around eleven in the morning? What's wrong?" Feng Guan scratched his head, full of suspicion.

Li Shun still did not answer, merely lowering his head in thought.

Elsewhere, after properly detaining Li Shun, Sun Wu did not dare delay for even a moment. In a great hurry, he headed straight for the underground secret prison at the northwest corner of the county office.

The two bodies of Liang Zhou and Sun Bo, long since reduced to bloody mangled flesh, were suspended in midair at the center of a bizarre net of black and red.

Countless blood threads as thin as wandering silk pierced densely into the vital acupoints all over their bodies. Under the pale daylight, one could even clearly see those threads moving and gnawing wildly beneath their skin like living creatures.

As their bodies convulsed like torn sacks struck by lightning, one stiff confession after another, devoid of any inflection, was forcibly squeezed from their throats by the net:

"The Sect Master gave the order... Launch the surprise attack at three in the afternoon. We lurk within the city... and rise in revolt amid the chaos, acting as insiders..."

"Who exactly is your Sect Master?!"

"The legitimate line of Great Xiang... Xiong Jin..."

The two seemed to retain their final trace of clarity. Their faces were twisted beyond human recognition by extreme resistance and agony. Yet the filaments embedded deep in their organs brutally stripped them of control over their bodies, prying out every last secret buried in their hearts.

Standing with their hands clasped behind their backs, a little over ten feet before the torture net, were the absolute rulers of Cold Mountain County—the County Magistrate Fang Xun and the County Commandant Cheng Yishu, who commanded the county's troops.

Without disturbing the two officials' personal interrogation, Sun Wu merely stood silently off to the side with his head bowed, like a shadow that did not breathe.

Only after Liang Zhou and Sun Bo had been thoroughly drained of their last ounce of strength and passed out did County Magistrate Fang Xun slowly pace out from the shadows. Staring at the torture rack, he spoke with an indescribably complicated tone.

"I thought that after being exiled to Cold Mountain County, I would never again have a chance to return to the Sacred Capital in this lifetime. Who could have imagined that Heaven would forcibly stuff such towering merit into this county's arms at such a time!"

"The remnant bloodline of Great Xiang, hehehe..." Fang Xun softly savored those words, his laughter carrying a greed that chilled one to the bone.

Seeing this, County Commandant Cheng Yishu immediately stepped forward and cupped his hands in flattery. "Your Honor possesses the bearing of a hidden dragon. How could a barbaric wasteland like this possibly trap you? Now that the rebel faction is about to meet its end, Your Honor's ascent through the blue clouds is just around the corner!"

Fang Xun did not become carried away by the flattery. Turning around, he asked with a half-smile, "Yishu, do you know what reward the laws of my Great Qian grant for capturing alive a direct descendant of an old kingdom's legitimate line?"

Cheng Yishu's breath quickened slightly. Suppressing the burning excitement in his heart, he replied, "In response to Your Honor, according to the Great Gan Code, capturing an old kingdom's royal family member alive earns a reward of a thousand gold, along with... the eleventh-rank noble title, Lesser Minister!"

Even Cheng Yishu, who had always prided himself on his composure, could not stop a flush from rising to his cheeks as he uttered the words "Lesser Minister."

"The title of Lesser Minister carries an estate of three hundred households. It is the true starting point of Great Qian nobility. Even without holding an official post, one need not bow upon meeting a commandery governor." Fang Xun's cold voice contained hidden yearning. "Among Great Qian's twenty ranks of nobility, who knew how many people struggled their entire lives only to remain below the tenth rank. Such towering merit..."

Fang Xun's tone abruptly shifted, his gaze pinning Cheng Yishu's face like a blade. "How could you and I possibly swallow it all by ourselves!"

As if struck by lightning, Cheng Yishu raised his head in stunned disbelief. "Your Honor means..."

"Failing to report rebels is punishable by execution according to the law. But if we report them..." Fang Xun sneered. "That Xiong Jin is already an expert in the Profound Insight Realm. With only the few hundred Black-Armored Army soldiers in Cold Mountain County, what are we supposed to use to capture him? Will you go, or will I?"

"If he escapes, who among us can bear the capital crime of dereliction of duty—'failing to take precautions and allowing bandits to plague the people'?"

The fervor in Cheng Yishu's heart was instantly doused by a basin of ice water. Cold sweat streamed down his forehead, and his voice began to tremble. "Then... then in Your Honor's opinion, should we quickly report this and request that the Commandery Governor send troops to reinforce us at once?"

"We must report it. But... whom we report it to, and how we report it, requires considerable finesse." Fang Xun unhurriedly smoothed his sleeves. "Cold Mountain Commandery Governor Yin Fengshuo has never gotten along with this county. If this memorial is submitted according to procedure and lands on his desk, I fear little of this unprecedented merit will end up in our hands."

"Then... then what should we do?" Cheng Yishu was completely thrown into disarray, at a loss.

Fang Xun smiled faintly without answering. "Rest assured. I have a foolproof plan."

After a pause, he added with meaningful admonishment, "Yishu, you have ability. But in Great Qian's officialdom, ability alone is far from enough. Sometimes, you must watch more, think more, and act less."

Cheng Yishu seemed to grasp something. Frightened and reverent, he deeply lowered his head. "This subordinate is dull-witted. Thank you, Your Honor, for pointing out the way through the maze."

Their conversation temporarily concluded, Fang Xun finally turned his gaze toward Sun Wu, who stood to one side like a clay statue or carved wooden figure.

"Your Honor, the two laborers who reported the matter have already been brought to a side room within the office and placed under strict guard. As for the next step..." Sun Wu immediately bowed and stepped forward, asking quietly for instructions.

"Sun Wu, what do you think of those two?" Fang Xun's expression revealed neither joy nor anger.

"In response to Your Honor. Feng Guan and Li Shun have clean origins and clear backgrounds. Both have served as laborers in Cold Mountain County for more than thirty years, and no irregularities have ever appeared in their annual assessments. This subordinate believes that it is precisely because they have remained here for so long and thoroughly integrated into the life of hard labor that they are more perceptive than ordinary people, allowing them to notice the abnormalities of Liang Zhou and the others..." Sun Wu carefully weighed each word as he offered his judgment.

Fang Xun nodded slightly, though his tone remained as casual as ever. "Even so, it is best to be cautious. Go interrogate them thoroughly once more. If they truly have nothing suspicious about them, and can endure it... they will not be denied their share when merits are rewarded later." Fang Xun spoke lightly.

Sun Wu felt a sudden chill run down his spine and hesitated. "Your Honor... these laborers already have depleted blood and withered vitality. If the hidden punishments of this prison are applied..."

Fang Xun did not even spare him another glance, walking directly toward the prison exit and leaving behind only a cold, bone-piercing sentence. "If they cannot endure it, then their fate was simply poor."

"Yes!" Sun Wu's heart went cold. He did not dare utter another word and accepted the order before leaving.

They were merely two lowly ants who could be crushed to death at any time. Fang Xun had never taken them to heart.

Leaving the secret prison, he returned directly to the study in the county office's rear residence. He cleansed his face, washed his hands, and adjusted his robes and cap, every movement meticulous and flawless.

Then he took a stick of completely pitch-black incense from a hidden compartment and solemnly lit it.

Wreaths of incense smoke drifted upward, gathering in midair without dispersing like a shimmering water mirror.

The room remained deathly silent for a long while. At last, a somewhat aged yet imposing voice slowly emerged from the water mirror.

"Is that Shensi..."

Hearing that voice, Fang Xun immediately swept aside the hem of his official robe, dropped to both knees, and performed the most solemn of bows. "Your student Fang Xun pays respects to his benefactor and teacher."

"Ever since you were sent down to that bitterly cold place, Cold Mountain, you have not contacted this old man for quite some years. Burning incense today—have you suffered some grievance?" The voice on the other side carried the kindness and composure of one long accustomed to high station.

Fang Xun pressed his forehead to the ground, his voice mournful yet excited. "This student was foolish and implicated my teacher's good name. I had no face to see Teacher again. But... today, a heaven-collapsing upheaval has occurred in Cold Mountain County. Even if it costs this student ten thousand deaths, I dare not conceal it!"

"This student has just obtained certain intelligence that at three this afternoon, Xiong Jin, a remnant of Great Xiang's old royal family, will lead men in a surprise attack on the Cold Mountain County office!"

"Oh?" At last, the voice beyond the water mirror showed a ripple of emotion.

"Cripple, why is your complexion getting worse and worse? Are you feeling unwell somewhere?"

In the side room, Feng Guan watched Li Shun pace restlessly back and forth like a trapped beast ever since entering. At last, he could not hold back from asking.

Li Shun's face was as dark as water. He did not answer.

Suddenly, his ears twitched as he heard a faint formation of orderly, heavy footsteps outside the door.

His expression changed sharply as his thoughts raced.

He swiftly took out a stalk of Cold Mountain Grass and swallowed it whole.

Then Li Shun abruptly spun around and grabbed Feng Guan by the collar. He forcibly stuffed another stalk of Cold Mountain Grass into the other man's mouth, leaned close to his ear, and whispered fiercely, "Old Feng, endure it, and endless wealth and honor await you. If you cannot endure it..."

"Then we will meet again in the next life!"

"Remember, tell the whole truth!"

Before his words had faded—

With a thunderous bang, the heavy wooden door of the side room was kicked open by an enormous force.

Sun Wu stood expressionlessly outside the door. Behind him followed five or six prison guards, fierce as wolves and tigers, their bodies brimming with Killing Intent.

He looked down at the two men inside and coldly waved a hand, uttering three words without the slightest warmth:

"Take them away!"