Luoyang City, Great Chen Empire. The Ministry of Justice prison.
A gloomy cell seethed with a sinister chill, its air thick with the smell of damp and rot.
Bi Yunfei sat before a charcoal brazier. The fire cast flickering light across his face, making him look as grim and terrifying as a lord of the underworld.
Several iron skewers rested over the brazier, threaded with meat.
Expressionless, Bi Yunfei turned the skewers. Fat dripped into the coals with a sizzling hiss, and the flames flared brightly.
He picked up a half-cooked skewer and chewed slowly. Bloody juices trickled from the corner of his mouth, giving him a gruesome, horrifying appearance.
When he finished, Bi Yunfei extended his crimson tongue to lick the blood from his chin, then leisurely sucked his fingers clean.
"Still refusing to confess?"
Bi Yunfei spoke indifferently, without a trace of emotion in his voice. He rose languidly, then suddenly hurled the iron skewer forward.
"Aaah...!"
A wretched scream rang out. A man was bound to the torture rack ahead, stark naked and covered in mangled flesh. His legs bristled with densely packed iron skewers.
The man was none other than Sui Tang, a Courageous Achievement Commandant of the Principal Seventh Rank.
Watching him writhe like a maggot, his body twisting in agony, Bi Yunfei felt an indescribable thrill well up inside him.
The Cui Family had kept its word and quickly secured him a position in the Ministry of Justice. It had not taken Bi Yunfei long to rise from a lowly Ministry of Justice Registrar to a Ministry of Justice Director.
Calm, decisive, steadfast, and intelligent, he had taken to the Ministry of Justice like a fish to water, effortlessly resolving many difficult cases.
Like an awl piercing through a sack, Bi Yunfei had quickly