Chapter 818

The screams of one hundred thousand people were suppressed under the blockade of the heavy armored infantry, but the terror on every face still hung thick.

When Zhang Wenqian ran down from the high platform, his footsteps staggered twice, and he almost fell on the stone steps.

"Zhuguo, are you alright!"

Chen Yan did not look at him.

He lowered his head and looked at the front of his short coat; besides the mud stains from plowing earlier, there were two red spots, the blood mist sprayed from the assassin leader's rib wound landing and leaving a mark.

He rubbed those blood stains with his fingers, rubbing them into a blurry dark red mark.

Then he bent down and picked up the plow handles he had just put down.

Zhang Wenqian's mouth opened.

"Zhuguo?"

Chen Yan gripped the plow handles, walked toward the yellow ox still chewing grass in place, and reached out to pat the ox's neck.

"Giddyup."

The yellow ox stepped forward.

The plowshare dug back into the mud, turning over a third furrow.

The throats of one hundred thousand people were as if gripped by someone, unable to make any sound.

Their Zhuguo had just experienced an assassination.

Three poisoned hidden weapons had almost taken his life.

Now the assassin's corpse was still lying in the mud ten steps away, the livid dead face turned toward the sky, the pungent smell of blood mixed with the fishy smell of mud drifting over.

But their Zhuguo seemed as if nothing had happened, standing barefoot in the field, gripping the plow handles, walking forward step by step, the mud turned up by the plowshare splashing onto his legs, and he didn't even raise an eyelid.

Chu Ci stood behind the crowd, all the hair on his body standing up, a tremor that shot from the soles of his feet to the top of his head causing his knees to bend involuntarily.

He did not kneel.

He was shaken to the point of weak knees by this scene.

Chen Wu's steamed bun had long since fallen somewhere; he kept his mouth open, eyes wide, the voice squeezing out of his throat carrying a trembling, gasping sound.

"My Lord, the Zhuguo... is he human?"

Chu Ci's Adam's apple rolled, his voice hoarse to the extreme.

"He is."

He withdrew his gaze from Chen Yan's back and looked at the commoners beside him who had also been shocked into stupidity.

"He is something more formidable than a human."

Chen Yan finished plowing the last half-ridge.

He handed the plow handles to an old farmer beside him who was already crying tears, scooped a ladle of water from a bucket on the field ridge, and washed the mud off his hands.

Hongye walked over holding his cloak; Chen Yan took the cloak, draped it over his shoulders, fastened the copper button at the collar, and took the horizontal blade and black leather boots from Hongye's hands.

He did not put on his boots in the field, but walked up the stone steps of the high platform barefoot.

The mud left a string of clear footprints on the stone steps.

He walked to the very top of the high platform, facing the one hundred thousand people.

The wind blew, whipping his cloak, the dark gold python patterns flickering in the sunlight.

One hundred thousand pairs of eyes were fixed squarely on him, and no one dared to make a sound.

Chen Yan spoke.

He did not mention the assassination just now; he didn't mention a single word.

His finger pointed toward the turned-up mud at his feet.

"You saw it; I just plowed three furrows."

One hundred thousand people held their breath.

"Someone didn't want me to plow these three furrows."

His finger moved away from the mud and pointed toward the few corpses still lying in the field in the distance.

"Someone sent assassins from the Qi State, wanting to kill me, wanting you to have no land to divide, no taxes exempted, no one to repair the water canal to divert the Heaven Pool water to irrigate your fields."

His voice raised by a level.

"They want you to turn back into the mud beneath the feet of those powerful families in the Qi State, want you to go back to chewing tree bark and eating Guanyin clay, starving to death on the side of the road!"

Sounds began to emerge from the crowd, very low sounds, like magma churning underground.

Chen Yan's finger moved away from the corpses and pointed back to the mud at his feet.

"But I tell you, as long as I stand here for one day, this land—you will farm it!"

The voice smashed onto the heads of one hundred thousand people like a giant iron hammer falling from the sky.

"Whoever wants to kill me, I will kill them; if killing one isn't enough, I will kill ten; if ten isn't enough, I will kill one hundred. Whoever dares to stand in the way of your farming, I will crush them beneath this road!"

The sounds in the crowd were no longer low.

That sound turned from magma into a volcanic eruption, exploding from the front row and spreading outward.

"Farm the land!"

"Kill the thieves!"

"Protect the Zhuguo!"

One hundred thousand voices opened at the same instant, the roar merging into a sound wave sufficient to shake mountains, surging out from the Royal Field, rushing past the city walls of Tongwan City, rushing past the wheat fields on both sides of the main road, rushing into the sky above every corner of Xiazhou.

Chen Yan stood on the high platform, his cloak fluttering in the roar.

His gaze passed over the sea of people shouting frantically and landed on the eastern horizon in the distance.

The direction of the Qi State.

The corner of his mouth tugged, the curve extremely light and faint, vanishing in an instant.

Gao Jiong stood straight below the high platform, hammered his fist against his chest armor, his voice drowned in that mountain-shaking roar.

But his lips were moving, saying three words.

"He has become a god."

At dusk that day, in the deepest part of the dungeon of the Governor's Mansion.

The iron door was pushed open from the outside, the hinges emitting a sharp creak.

Gao Jiong walked in, carrying a leather tool roll, inside which were inserted a dozen iron implements of various sizes, each polished until they gleamed.

The assassin leader was hung from the crossbeam in the center of the dungeon by iron chains, feet three inches off the ground, the mandible having been simply reset after dislocation, but the mouth still unable to close, saliva constantly dripping from the corner of the mouth.

Gao Jiong spread the tool roll on the stone platform in the corner of the dungeon, checking the sharpness of each implement one by one.

He picked up one of them.

"What is your name?"

The assassin leader's eyeballs rolled in the lamplight, and a string of garbled syllables came out of their mouth.

Gao Jiong walked up to them and held the implement before their eyes.

"This thing is called a tongue-pulling hook; you should recognize it."

The assassin leader's body trembled violently on the iron chains.

Gao Jiong put the tongue-pulling hook back and exchanged it for a thinner, longer one.

"This is called a bone-probing needle; it's inserted from under the fingernail, all the way into the bone gap, painful enough to make you wake up screaming from nightmares for the rest of your life."

He squatted down, his line of sight level with the assassin leader.

"The Zhuguo said that the things in your mouth are worth more than your life."

He stood up, holding the tool roll in his hands again.

"You have two choices: the first is to speak for yourself; once you're done, I'll give you a quick death."

He slowly spread the tool roll in his hands, letting the lamplight illuminate the edge of each implement.

"The second is to let me help you speak; after I help, you'll still have to speak, but before you do, you'll have to experience a demonstration of the functions of everything in here."

The assassin leader's teeth were frantically clashing in their mouth, saliva mixed with blood foam dripping from their chin.

They struggled for five breaths.

Then a string of rapid, garbled syllables came out of their throat, the speed so fast as if they were afraid that if they were a breath late, they would be touched by those iron implements.

Gao Jiong turned his head and leaned his ear over.

After listening for two breaths, his eyes narrowed, and the curve of his mouth stretched to a degree that made one's spine chill.

"Zui Chun Ge (Drunken Spring Pavilion)."

He straightened up, rolled up the tool roll, and turned to walk out of the dungeon.

The iron door slammed shut behind him.