Chapter 268

He Lingchuan walked to the front of that row of bungalows. This place was originally a post station; the front guest rooms and courtyard were affected by the war, but the row of stables in the back was largely intact, with only one on the side burned down. Now the prisoners were sitting in rows there, their hands tied behind their backs against the wall; anyone who dared to move would have to suffer the consequences.

There were over a hundred people here, all dejected.

The small leaders and minor generals were detained separately in the two stables next door.

He Lingchuan checked the stables one by one and soon discovered that the red light was actually emanating from one of the prisoners.

Strictly speaking, it was overflowing from his waist.

He immediately became interested, beckoned for the soldier guarding the prisoners to come closer: "When was this person detained?"

"Just now." The soldier replied, "He was sneaking around in the city, not knowing what he wanted to do, and we searched him out."

"Oh?" He Lingchuan wondered, "The Xunzhou mobile cavalry has all retreated, and he still doesn't run? Have you searched and interrogated him?"

"Not yet, the lords haven't found the time." The leaders were all busy; where would they find time to interrogate an inconspicuous minion? But He Lingchuan was very free. "Then I'll do it."

"Ah?" The soldier was stunned, "Bu-but..."

"You don't know who I am?"

"Know, know!" Even if they didn't know before, after the big battle tonight, He Lingchuan was familiar with half the army, "You are the eldest young master He!"

"I'm interrogating a prisoner that no one else has time to bother with; what's the problem?"

That, of course, was no problem.

At He Lingchuan's signal, Shan Youjun and Jiao Tai stepped forward and picked the prisoner he had chosen out of the pile.

The man dodged backward: "What are you doing!"

He was thin and small; how could he resist two big men? He was lifted out like a chick.

He Lingchuan noticed that as soon as Shan Youjun and the other walked toward this man, the red light at his waist disappeared. He had been sitting curled up and hunched over, with his hands tucked at his waist.

So, it was still controllable? The remaining bungalows after the battle were too few, and each had its use; He Lingchuan could only occupy a tent again, drive out the original owner, and throw the prisoner inside.

Rock Wolf moved to the door out of habit, lay down there, and no strangers were allowed near.

Shan Youjun found two chairs and brought them in, letting the eldest young master He sit on one and stuffing the prisoner into the other.

He Lingchuan didn't intend to beat around the bush: "What's the deal with the red light on you?"

The man looked blank: "What red light?"

He Lingchuan did it himself, pulled open his waist to take a look—nothing—and then stripped off his outermost light armor.

Still nothing.

Then he stripped off two more layers.

The man's face turned white, his eyes shifting uncertainly.

Watching He Lingchuan undress the prisoner, Shan Youjun and Jiao Tai looked at each other, their gazes strange. They had been by the eldest young master's side for nearly a month; how did they not know he had this hobby? This prisoner had no looks, no physique; why did the eldest young master take a fancy to him? Oh my, what if the eldest young master starts eating the grass by the nest in the future? Should they submit or not?

The two looked at each other in silence, their hearts full of complex thoughts.

Fortunately, at this moment, He Lingchuan tore open the prisoner's undergarment with a "chua" sound, and something fell to the ground with a "thud."

It seemed to be a copper short staff.

He Lingchuan picked it up and took a look; this short staff was too miniature, just a bit longer than his middle finger, and about as thick as a flute. The top of the staff was carved with a monster head of unknown breed, looking like a bat and a pig, with a sharp mouth, short nose, small ears, and fine teeth.

The short staff was engraved with countless patterns, looking like designs and like characters, but He Lingchuan couldn't understand them.

This wasn't even the ancient Immortal language.

But their arrangement was uniform, neat, and fit a certain pattern, possessing a solemn and grave beauty. He Lingchuan stroked these patterns, a strange thought in his mind:

Is this some kind of magic array?

Besides this, an oval-shaped gemstone was embedded in the staff body, as big as a quail egg.

What color was it? Hard to say, because in He Lingchuan's view, there was actually red substance swirling inside the gemstone, like liquid and like gas, or rather, transforming back and forth between these two states.

They occupied three-quarters of the entire gemstone's volume, meaning it was about to be filled.

Recalling the red light he saw outside the temporary prison earlier, He Lingchuan's heart stirred, and he turned his head to ask Shan Youjun: "Did you see this gemstone?"

Shan Youjun nodded.

"What color?"

"Dark red." Shan Youjun felt that the proprietor's behavior over the past half hour was a bit abnormal.

But in He Lingchuan's view, it was clearly a blood-like bright red. "Look carefully, can you see the flowing color inside the gemstone?"

Shan Youjun's expression became even blanker, but the prisoner's face changed drastically.

Sure enough, others couldn't see it again.

He Lingchuan smiled at the prisoner: "It seems you have something to say, hmm?"

"No, nothing."

"You can also see the anomaly inside the gemstone, right?" he asked the prisoner, "What exactly is this thing used for?"

The prisoner stammered: "What anomaly? This is a toy I bought from a peddler."

He Lingchuan played with this short staff, finding no other mechanisms; the whole staff seemed to be cast as one piece, without even a fitting interface.

The craftsmanship level was very high. A peddler would sell this? Heh.

Afterward, he pressed that gemstone.

The monster's eyes at the head of the staff lit up, suddenly opening its mouth in a roar toward the sky, and the patterns on the staff body actually began to move along the staff like snakes.

When He Lingchuan grasped this short staff, he felt as if something was gathering from all directions.

In just a few blinks of an eye, one after another, red lights descended from the sky and were cast into the monster's mouth.

In other words, it wasn't roaring, but absorbing and gathering.

He Lingchuan finally understood where the red light he saw outside came from.

But he still didn't understand how these lights were formed, even feeling that they seemed to be projected by the beast's eyes, and then cast into the monster's mouth.

He reached out and shook it; the red light passed through his palm as if it were nothing.

The patterns on the staff body also got busy, traveling from the monster's mouth to the ruby, each pattern flashing with red light.

But when they traveled out of the ruby again, they returned to their normal state.

Repeating like this.

He Lingchuan understood after watching a few times: the red light absorbed by the beast's mouth was transported by these patterns to the ruby to be stored.

Then the red substance inside the ruby was formed by the compression and gathering of these external red lights?

Hmm, getting more and more bizarre.

The prisoner looked at him with unstoppable surprise, because He Lingchuan's expression already explained everything: he completely understood how this short staff operated.

How is this possible! Only they, the acolytes who had "opened their heavenly eyes" through special means, could see the Nightmare Qi! "If you still want to hide it, you'll face severe torture." This was the ultimatum.

The prisoner was dumbfounded.

Shan Youjun stepped forward: "Proprietor, let me do it."

"Hmm, I'll leave it to you." He Lingchuan crossed his arms and stepped back two paces, "Interrogate well; maybe there will be other gains."

Shan Youjun and Jiao Tai stepped forward and started punching.

They were very experienced, standing only at the prisoner's side, so when a punch hit the opponent's abdomen, the vomit and blood sprayed from the prisoner's mouth wouldn't splash onto them.

The prisoner was beaten until he howled, and after being hit a few more times on the face, his cheeks immediately swelled up, his eyes squeezed into a single slit.

But he gritted his teeth and just wouldn't confess.

Shan Youjun called for a bucket of clear water and a cloth, soaking it in the bucket. Then he grabbed the prisoner's chair back and flipped it over, making him head-down and feet-up, and covered his face with the wet cloth.

The wet cloth could suffocate people, and Shan Youjun even scooped a ladle of water and slowly poured it over his mouth and nose.

The man made "woo-woo" sounds, struggling like a fish on a chopping block.

In fact, he was now more miserable than a fish out of water.

He Lingchuan knew this was "waterboarding"; it looked bloodless and woundless, but in reality, the person being tortured experienced the double enjoyment of suffocation + drowning, and their physical and psychological limits would be repeatedly trampled.

As long as the torturer controlled the rhythm—fast, slow, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, neither fast nor slow—the prisoner's pain would multiply.

He Xiao watched for a dozen breaths, and a commotion sounded outside, as if a large troop had arrived.

What happened? He strode out of the tent to look, and sure enough, a troop entered the military camp from the front gate, numbering about six hundred people, with cavalry, infantry, over a hundred carriages, and even laborers whose clothing and appearance were obvious at a glance.

But they were dejected, many with blood on their clothes and wounds on their bodies, looking weak and exhausted; once they entered the camp, they sat down, almost unable to move.

He Lingchuan's heart sank.

This troop had separated from them two days ago, taking the Baiting Town-Songhua Plain route, numbering nearly a thousand, even more than He Chunhua's troop. After the battle of Xinhuang ended, He Chunhua also sent people to Baiting Town to inquire about safety, but this troop arrived first.

And they were in the standard package of having lost a battle.

The soldiers in the military camp put down their work and watched them silently.

The leading general, Wu Shaoyi, dismounted and saw He Lingchuan, his face ashamed: "Eldest young master, we were ambushed in Baiting Town! I only brought back these few carriages."

He still staggered when dismounting and was supported by He Lingchuan; he saw his pale face and the wound on his shoulder, with fresh blood soaking his entire sleeve.

At this time, the east was slightly bright, and He Lingchuan exhaled a cold breath in the early spring of the north: "Xinhuang was also attacked."

The news brought by Wu Shaoyi was truly the worst of the night.

Baili Qing, the ghost ape, Dong Rui escaping, the Xinhuang military camp in a mess, He Chunhua's subordinates suffering losses... all these messages were not as shocking as this last one.

￥￥￥￥￥

Wu Shaoyi hurried to see He Chunhua, who, although his face was solemn, first found a military physician to treat his wounds.

The conversation between the two took place during the treatment.

The defensive strength of Baiting Town was more sufficient than Xinhuang, and Wu Shaoyi and another general in charge of provisions, Zhou Hongyue, also placed the focus of defense on the Jutang Pass, which they would pass through a day later; after entering Baiting Town, they ordered a rest on the spot. Both were cautious and didn't go to the town to stroll, but lived in civilian houses requisitioned by the troop; as a result, Wu Shaoyi drank too much water and went out to use the latrine temporarily, and before he could shake himself clean, he was flipped to the ground by the blast wave of the explosion.

Asking for monthly tickets~

(End of chapter)