"Your Majesty is wise."
Zhao Delu prostrated himself on the floor and caught sight of half a wheat husk lodged in the hornless-dragon pattern on the sole of Emperor Chen's cloud-patterned boot. It had become stuck there when the emperor personally plowed the fields earlier that day.
"Lord Bi feels he failed in his duties... he has requested permission to go to the Vertical Sword Sect... Your Majesty... should this servant send someone..."
"No need... you may withdraw." Emperor Chen's brows drew together slightly. His fingers tapped the imperial desk, his thoughts inscrutable, while lamplight cast shifting shadows across his imposing face.
Zhao Delu inwardly breathed a sigh of relief and tiptoed out.
Emperor Chen stared at the glowing blossom bursting from the wick of the Coiled Dragon Lamp, and his lips curled into a cold smile...
Deep into the still night, Luoyang City lay peaceful. An occasional bark sounded from the streets. Moonlight gleamed coldly on the stone paving outside the Ministry of Justice, illuminating the towering silhouettes of two stone lions with bulging, furious eyes and making them look all the more ferocious.
Behind the Ministry of Justice's dark main hall, just beyond a wall, a black drainage channel burbled along. Water flowed out of the underground Water Prison and straight into the moat outside the city.
The filthy, putrid water flowed quietly, its surface covered with rotting weeds, excrement, dead chickens and dogs, and even human corpses. Some prisoners in the Ministry of Justice's jail could not survive their torture. If no family came to claim their bodies, the bailiffs seldom bothered with the trouble and simply tossed them into the channel.
At a bend thick with vegetation, the water suddenly churned. The back of a floating corpse abruptly arched upward, its soaked clothes clinging to its