Nether Prison Heart Interrogation

The sounds of shouting and killing in the distance gradually faded, and a fish-belly pallor appeared on the horizon.

Qin Fei understood that he had survived another border raid.

Thanks to the Flame Martial Envoy, this had been his easiest one yet.

Next, he would have another three peaceful months to develop his strength.

If he made good use of them, his strength would surely improve considerably.

For now, though, he first had to decide what to do with the woman.

Qin Fei shut the courtyard gate tight and hung up a sign declining visitors, then went to the secret chamber where the woman was being held.

The woman was bound securely, the tight ropes pressing against her figure and accentuating its curves.

Her otherwise ordinary face had gained a touch of allure.

Qin Fei paid it no mind. He checked her belongings and found nothing but a Storage Bag.

Inside the Storage Bag were only a few dozen pieces of Spirit Essence and nothing to reveal her identity.

In Qin Fei's view, the woman was no easy opponent, having evaded capture despite being wanted by the Lin Household for so long.

He had no time to waste on her, so he would have to resort to extraordinary measures.

After pondering for a while, Qin Fei left the secret chamber.

An unknown amount of time passed before the woman's eyelashes fluttered and she slowly opened her eyes.

She found herself in a dim room. At the far end stood a rectangular table, behind which sat a black-and-red puppet.

She could never forget that puppet, even in her dreams. It was the very one that had slaughtered its way through everything that day.

On either side of the puppet stood a row of Puppet Soldiers holding court staves, imposing without showing anger.

This was a room resembling a courtroom, with its court made up entirely of puppets.

The more the woman looked, the more unsettling she found it. She tried to escape, only to discover that her body was bound tightly to a chair, leaving her unable to get free.

The Spirit-Binding Rope could restrain Spiritual Power.

"Is anyone there?"

"Senior, please let me out. I will be sure to reward you generously."

"Hey! Is anyone there?"

Many more days passed. No matter how the woman called out, she received no answer.

The puppets in the room remained motionless, staring straight at her as though she were already dead.

There were no Grain Avoidance Pills, no food, not even a drop of water.

The woman's condition worsened. Her lips cracked, her eyes sank deeper into their sockets, and her body was nearly at the point of collapse. None of her former allure remained.

She understood that she was going to die.

She would die without knowing why, or even who had killed her.

"Was it the young man who stood on the roof that day?"

"Forget it. It doesn't matter anymore."

On the verge of death, she even began to hallucinate for a time.

She dimly saw the puppets on either side seem to move.

Their court staves struck the floor with a bang, bang, and deep, forceful voices issued from their mouths.

"Might and majesty-"

The secret chamber had been silent all along. The sudden sound made the woman shudder from head to toe.

She regained some of her senses, only to see two exceedingly strange-looking puppets, one an ox and the other a horse, walking toward her.

"Worldly tales say that when a person is about to die, the Underworld Bureau sends the Ox-Head and Horse-Face to claim their soul. I never imagined that, after devoting myself to the path of puppetry, even at death puppets would come to claim my life."

The woman muttered the words instinctively, only to find that her throat was so dry and hoarse she could barely speak.

Wisps of white mist rose in the secret chamber, and the scene around her began to grow hazy.

The puppet at the far end raised the judge's brush in its hand and suddenly let out a stern shout:

"Who stands before this court? State your name!"

The woman was shaken to her core and dared not hide it.

"Yunxiu."

Her hoarse voice rang out, lending the scene an added touch of eeriness.

"Your origins."

When asked about her origins, the woman visibly hesitated, a trace of struggle appearing on her face.

What she did not see was that behind her, a faintly glowing talisman was rapidly being consumed.

Had anyone knowledgeable been present, they would have recognized it as a first-tier talisman, the Truth-Telling Talisman.

The Truth-Telling Talisman had always been considered a bit of a chicken rib in the marketplace, solely because whether it worked generally depended on a person's mental state.

Generally speaking, a normal person could not possibly be influenced by this talisman.

However, if the person's mental will had dwindled to almost nothing, using it then might produce a remarkable effect.

Those words were not an arrow shot without a target; Old Zhang himself had said them when Qin Fei consulted him.

Given Old Zhang's attainments as a First-Tier Talisman Master, his judgment naturally had some merit.

Seeing the woman's will resist the talisman, Qin Fei moved his fingers slightly, and the puppets on either side began striking their court staves again.

Amid that grim, murderous sound, the woman's last line of defense crumbled bit by bit.

"Your origins!"

"The Thousand Mechanisms Sect."

Hearing the name, Qin Fei felt a flicker of confusion. He had never heard of it before.

"Where did the puppets you controlled come from?"

"I bought them on the market and modified them."

At that, Qin Fei was certain that the woman was indeed the one who had made high-quality imitations of his puppet.

"Why can you control so many second-tier puppets?"

"The Thousand Mechanisms Sect's inherited cultivation method can enhance a cultivator's Divine Sense."

The Thousand Mechanisms Sect again.

Qin Fei silently committed the name to memory and controlled the puppet in the hall to continue questioning her:

"Where is the Thousand Mechanisms Sect?"

"It was destroyed long ago."

"Then why does the Lin Household want you?"

"They want the Thousand Mechanisms Sect's inherited cultivation method."

"Recite the cultivation method from memory."

"Divine..."

The moment that single word left her mouth, a brilliant golden light suddenly burst from all around Yunxiu, and the Truth-Telling Talisman stuck to her back instantly caught fire.

In the blink of an eye, it burned to ashes.

"You tricked me! This isn't the land of the dead!"

Yunxiu came back to her senses, and upon realizing she had been deceived, began struggling fiercely.

But already drained of strength, she had no way to free herself from the Spirit-Binding Rope.

Qin Fei shook his head inwardly. The interrogation had failed just short of success, but he showed little regret.

That golden light had clearly been a defensive restriction on the soul. It seemed he could not obtain the Heavenly Secrets Sect's inheritance through questioning alone.

Even if Yunxiu herself wanted to tell him, the golden light would probably stop her.

After thinking it over, Qin Fei did not show himself, but sent a puppet to bring her food.

Since Yunxiu could not move, the puppet fed the food into her mouth itself.

But Yunxiu was still angry at having been deceived and would rather die than eat.

Finally, the Flame Martial Envoy sitting at the judge's table came before her and spoke in a human voice:

"The Thousand Mechanisms Sect has been destroyed. If I'm not mistaken, you must be its inheritor. Now you're being offered a chance to live, but you refuse it. Do you want the Thousand Mechanisms Sect's inheritance to be lost completely?"

Hearing this, Yunxiu froze for a moment.

When the puppet fed her again, she finally began eating in great mouthfuls.

Seeing this, Qin Fei quietly left the secret chamber.

He had indeed been somewhat tempted by the Thousand Mechanisms Sect's inheritance, but now that things had come to this, he could only let it go.

Qin Fei had always been easygoing, and he soon stopped thinking about it.

He returned to the secret chamber and resumed making puppets.

After his accumulation over this period, the Heavenly Craft Creation Pavilion was about to upgrade again.

He was quite eager to see what new blueprint it would unlock this time.

Meanwhile, there had also been some progress with the matter of Tiezhu and the others that Old Zhang had mentioned last time.

The group had returned to Shangyu Market from the Azure Wood Palace and finally finished the matters at hand, so they had arranged to meet.

Qin Fei had not seen them for a long time either, and he looked forward to the gathering.

He also wanted to learn what the outside world was really like.

The date they had agreed on was tomorrow.