Xie Linyuan carried the Nine-Turn Golden Wheel and stepped out of the main hall, his feet leaving two cracks in the bluestone bricks outside the door.
Gu Moran's eyelids twitched slightly in the main room.
In his field of vision, a semi-transparent geomantic map unfolded out of thin air, and hundreds of red dots lit up densely in the Tanba Mountain forest three miles outside the manor.
Each red dot was topped with the blood-red words "Malice Value: Extremely High," and they were closing in on the backyard of the manor under the cover of nighttime mountain fog, their route pointing directly at the wooden cage where Shuangxi, Zhou Yanru, and Takaichi Nanako were imprisoned.
Gu Moran stood up from the soft couch, casually grabbed the cloak draped over the side of the couch, and threw it onto Gu Moli's open collar:
"Wrap your clothes up tighter; a night fog has risen outside, be careful not to get cold."
Gu Moli clutched her cloak to her chest, pulled her bare, white feet back under her skirt, and snorted.
I think my brother is afraid that others will see it.
Gu Moran didn't respond to her words. He stepped down from the hall, reached out and patted the hilt of the sword in Kim Seon-a's arms, his fingertips brushing against her shoulder, which was wrapped in bandages under her white silk dress.
Kim Seon-a's body went limp on one side, her ears flushed red, and she lowered her head to lean against his palm. Her collarbone, slightly open at the neckline, was dazzlingly white in the candlelight.
" Tuoba Mang!"
Gu Moran shouted towards the door.
Tuoba Mang, who was squatting under the eaves gnawing on a roasted lamb leg, threw the bone on the ground, wiped his greasy hands on his breastplate, and strode across the threshold.
"Your Highness, what is it?"
"Go to the backyard and drag that wooden cage containing the imperial envoy and the Wa princess to the front yard next to the open-air hot spring."
Gu Moran walked to the door and looked at the steaming sulfur hot spring pool in the courtyard.
"Have someone go to the warehouse and bring ten baskets of quicklime and ten baskets of sulfur blocks, then pour them all into the hot water pool."
Tuoba Mang grinned, turned around, and led a dozen or so personal guards to the backyard.
In less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, ten baskets of quicklime and sulfur blocks were poured into the open-air hot spring pool.
The once clear pool water began to churn and bubble, billowing thick, pungent white smoke into the sky, and scalding hot alkaline water splashed onto the bluestone slabs beside the pool, making a hissing sound.
Immediately afterwards, the sound of chains scraping the ground came from the backyard.
Tuoba Mang dragged the thick iron chain, which was as thick as a bowl, to the edge of the pond, and slammed it heavily onto the ground.
Zhou Yanru, Shuangxi, and Takaichi Nanako rolled around in the cage.
Zhou Yanru's official robes, already blackened by the mercury fumes, now slammed against Shuangxi's smooth, fat flesh;
With her jaw dislocated, Takaichi Nanako was only covered by a tattered thin gauze, large patches of her snow-white skin rubbing against the fishy-smelling wooden railing as she whimpered in pain.
Gu Moran had three armchairs brought over from the corridor, and sat down in the middle.
Kim Seon-a stood close to his left, while Gu Moli, wrapped in a cloak, sat on a low stool to his right.
Gu Moran took an orange from the fruit plate, peeled off two segments, put them in her mouth, and gestured with her chin towards Tuoba Mang:
"Use an iron hook to attach the top ring of the cage and hoist it directly above the hot spring pool."
Tuoba Mang responded, hung the iron chain on the pulley of the beam above the hot spring, and pulled with both hands, raising the wooden cage three feet off the ground, just above the boiling lime and sulfur water.
The scalding hot, toxic steam shot upwards, causing the three people in the cage to have tears and snot streaming down their faces, and their feet to shrink back against the wooden bars as the heat burned them.
"Your Highness! Spare me, Your Highness!"
Zhou Yanru clung to the wooden railing with both hands, his crotch still stained with yellow urine from earlier in the day, and his voice was hoarse.
"I have already confessed at Iwami Silver Mine, and the three million taels of silver have all gone to Your Highness. Why do you still want to boil me in this water?"
Gu Moran threw the orange peel into the pool water, watching it crumble into black residue from the strong alkali, and then slowly began to speak:
"I will not cook you. The Iwami Silver Mine has been lost, and Emperor Takaichi in Heian-kyō is getting restless."
"I just received word that the Ise Grand Shrine has dispatched one hundred assassins, who have already infiltrated the manor and come specifically to silence the three of you."
Zhou Yanru's breath hitched for a second, his eyes bulging as he turned to look at the dark courtyard walls all around.
"I've worked hard leading troops into battle; I don't need to take a knife for you traitors."
Gu Moran leaned back in his chair, reached out and grasped Kim Seon-a's soft hand hanging by her side, kneading her warm fingertips.
"So I've left you here as live targets for the assassins of the Divine Palace."
Of course, I am a kind-hearted man, and there is a house in the backyard with three layers of wrought iron plates.
It's impervious to swords and spears, but the place is small, only big enough to hold one person.
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the three people in the cage:
"Of the three of you, whoever can produce a sum of money more substantial than Iwami Silver Mine's three million taels to buy his life, I will drag him out right now and stuff him into the iron house;"
The remaining two will wait in this cage to be shot into pincushions by blowguns, or to fall into the limewater below and be boiled into bone broth.
Upon hearing this, Takaichi Nanako, inside the wooden cage, shook her head frantically, making indistinct "woo-woo" sounds, and kicked Zhou Yanru's buttocks with her bare feet, signaling him not to speak.
Zhou Yanru didn't care about her at all. Terrified, he shrank back and hid behind Shuangxi, using Shuangxi's fat body to block the view of the courtyard wall, trembling as he shouted:
"Your Highness, I am merely a Vice Minister of the Ministry of War. Everything I know is written in the contract. There is really nothing else I can say!"
Shuangxi! Eunuch Shuangxi is the Deputy Chief Eunuch of the Imperial Household Department; he must know a big secret!
Shuangxi had his mouth stuffed with Tuoba Mang's smelly handkerchief for half the morning, and his chin had just been put back in place, leaving his cheeks swollen.
During the day, at the entrance of Silver Valley, Zhou Yanru tried to hide under his crotch to avoid the poisonous smoke, and even broke two of his toes.
Seeing Zhou Yanru using him as a human shield again, Shuangxi's triangular eyes widened, his chest heaved violently, and he roared in his lisping, hoarse voice:
" Zhou Yanru, you bastard!"
They crawled between their ancestors' legs in broad daylight and now they want to use their ancestors as shields!
Your Highness, don't listen to his nonsense!
The old man's left official boot had a hidden compartment, inside which was a secret letter and a contact tag given to him by his master in the capital!
He kept it a secret and didn't pay!
Zhou Yanru's face turned deathly pale. He lunged forward, grabbed Shuangxi by the neck, and slapped Shuangxi's swollen face hard across the cheek.
"You damned castrated dog! I'll tear your mouth apart!"
"We'll gouge your eyes out first!"
Shuangxi screamed and scratched Zhou Yanru's face with her ten long fingernails, instantly leaving five bloody marks.
Two imperial envoys from the Great Yan Dynasty huddled together in a suspended wooden cage filled with salted fish, slapping each other and biting each other wildly, making the cage creak and rattle. Boiling lime water splashed up from below, scalding the two men and causing them to scream like pigs being slaughtered.
Takaichi Nanako was so anxious that tears streamed down her face, and she kicked Zhou Yanru hard in the lower back.
"So noisy!"
Tuoba Mang picked up a large iron hammer and slammed it down on the iron ring at the top of the wooden cage.