The time it took an incense stick to burn passed.
As the sealing light faded, Liu Youfang appeared once more, his entire body soaked in blood and battered beyond human semblance.
His eyes had rolled back and his breathing was faint. He had actually passed out.
Gu Chenfeng flicked a pill into his mouth.
A moment later.
"Hah...!"
Liu Youfang slowly came to. At the sight of Gu Chenfeng's smiling young face, he shuddered, extreme terror showing in his eyes.
"City Lord, spare... spare my life. I'll tell you anything you want to know. Please, don't torture me anymore."
Seeing the fear and despair in Liu Youfang's eyes, Gu Chenfeng knew the time was ripe.
He casually sat in the Grand Tutor's Chair at the head of the hall, crossed one leg, and spoke languidly.
"Fine. Since I'm so softhearted, I'll give you one chance.
"But if you conceal even the slightest thing, you won't die, hehe... though you certainly won't want to live either."
At these words, Liu Youfang shuddered violently, a chill drilling straight into his marrow.
"I'll talk... I'll talk..."
Gu Chenfeng asked his questions again.
"Who laid today's trap, and what was your purpose?"
Liu Youfang answered without the slightest hesitation, "I conspired with the three sects to take your life, my lord, so we could continue controlling Black Iron City and the businesses inside and outside its walls."
"The three sects?" Gu Chenfeng raised an eyebrow.
Before he could press further, Liu Youfang poured out the origins of the three sects like beans spilling from a bamboo tube.
The three sects were called the Azure Wolf Sect, Profound Yin Valley, and Iron Halberd Gate.
They were three cultivation sects entrenched in the Southwestern Borderlands of the Feather Transformation Marquisate.
But though these three forces called