When Liu Chong woke, he found himself locked in a gloomy stone chamber.
The chamber was small, enclosed by thick stone walls, with only a narrow vent overhead admitting a faint sliver of moonlight. His hands were bound behind his back with a silver rope covered in densely packed runes. It gave off faint pulses of spiritual power, sealing his dantian so tightly that he could not muster even a trace of spiritual power.
He struggled a few times, but the rope did not budge. Instead, it tightened around him.
"Don't waste your strength," a voice came from the darkness. "That's a Spirit-Binding Rope, made specifically to seal the dantian. The more you struggle, the tighter it gets."
Liu Chong raised his head and looked toward the voice. Chen Ming sat in a wooden chair in the corner of the chamber, leisurely sipping a cup of hot tea. Wisps of steam curled from the tea, looking distinctly out of place in the cold, dank chamber.
"Chen Ming!" Liu Chong spat the name through gritted teeth, his eyes filled with hatred. "What exactly do you want?"
"I want to know a few things." Chen Ming set down his teacup and leaned forward slightly, his gaze settling on Liu Chong's face. "Tell me everything you know, and I can consider sparing your life."
Liu Chong sneered. "You think I'd believe that?"
"Whether you believe me doesn't matter." Chen Ming's tone remained calm. "What matters is that you have no choice now. Your dantian is sealed, your cultivation locked away. You can't even kill yourself. If you won't talk, I have plenty of ways to loosen your tongue-you may not know this, but I know a thing or two about alchemy, including a few pills that happen to make people 'hold nothing back.'"