Yin Pobai and Chong Yingbiao carried the bronze pillar into the hall. At one glance, Marquis Li broke out in a cold sweat.
He had heard that King Zhou had dismantled a pillar beside the Wine Pool to roast meat, named it Pao Luo, and declared that anyone who violated the law by practicing human burial sacrifice would be placed upon it.
Imagining the scene of Pao Luo, Marquis Li shuddered. By the time he stopped shuddering, Chong Yingbiao had already tied him up. His technique was remarkably practiced-a habitual offender.
The Feudal Lords and ministers had no time to intervene. None of them had expected King Zhou to act so decisively.
Marquis Li watched helplessly as both ends of the bronze pillar were coated in grease and firewood was lit beneath it.
He could not help imagining what would follow: walking along the scorching bronze pillar with nowhere to set his feet, losing his footing and falling into the burning coals. In moments, the smoke would clear, his bones would vanish, and everything would become ash.
Marquis Li looked toward Ji Chang, and his resolve hardened again. Even under torture, I will never yield!
How could someone so cruel and heartless deserve to be called a king?
Better to use my death to prove King Zhou's cruelty. Once this benighted, lawless ruler murders a loyal minister, an enlightened lord like the Marquis of the West can seize the opportunity to rise against him.
Just then, several Royal Guards pushed carts into the hall and soon covered the bronze pillar with slices of fresh meat.
Flames licked and smoke wreathed the beef and mutton, a painstaking feast at Feizhu Rock.
The smell of meat drifted over. Marquis Li sniffed, but instead of the scorching heat he had imagined, he found