Chapter 1015: Stabbing the Knife into the Wound

"When you reached the end of your road back then and decided to slit your own throat, why couldn't you bring yourself to do it? Why did you hesitate? Were you afraid of death? Or afraid of pain? Or was it simply that you wanted to cling to life?"

Chen Chen Guanlou knew how to stab a knife into another person's wound.

Sprinkling salt, he felt, was too light — not enough to sting the soul. Only a knife could serve as treatment.

The King of Chu's face went deathly pale, his expression one of unbearable agony.

It seemed these words had struck the most unspeakable part of him. His lips moved, yet not a single word came out. He seemed too ashamed to defend himself.

This was nothing — barely the beginning!

Chen Chen Guanlou kept stabbing the knife in. "Since you're so afraid of death, then why did you raise the banner of rebellion back then? You should have known perfectly well — rebellion means either death or the dragon throne. And the odds are heavily stacked toward death! If you're afraid of death, why rebel at all?

Take me, for instance. I'm the sort who shirks the light and dreads the heavy, afraid to shoulder responsibility, and afraid of death too. So I never do anything that makes things hard for myself.

What about you? You're so afraid of death — why did you rebel? Did you eat too much and have nothing better to do, or did someone whisper in your ear, flattering you, until you puffed up with it and believed it yourself?"

His self-awareness was, as expected, crystal clear. A man like him, who shirked the light and dreaded the heavy, could never have pulled off rebellion.

And the King of Chu?

The King of Chu had lived most of his life, yet seemingly never lived a single moment of clarity!

"Why won't you speak? Did I hit the mark? It really was because people flattered you day after day, until you puffed up with it and believed it yourself. You thought the Mandate of Heaven rested on you, that emperors take turns, and today it's my turn?"

Chen Chen Guanlou pressed him with question after question, clearly with no intention of letting him off the hook.

"Stop, stop! You're right — in that one moment, this King was afraid. Originally, this King had believed that winners become kings and losers become bandits, and was not afraid of death. From the very day the banner of rebellion was raised, I had made my peace with dying. Who could have imagined that, when the moment actually came, this King would be afraid!"

The King of Chu once more closed his eyes in agony.

What courage it must take to admit one's own cowardice and fear!

Chen Chen Guanlou was dumbfounded — the man had just admitted to fearing death that easily? This, this, this… how was he supposed to say what came next?

Completely refusing to play by the rules.

No wonder, at the critical moment, he dropped the ball — when he should have died, he couldn't, and in the end he surrendered with hands bound, becoming a laughingstock.

If he had fought to the last and been captured alive, everyone would have called him a worthy man!

But… when it was clearly because he couldn't bring himself to cut his own throat, and in the end chose to surrender with hands bound — that inevitably invited muttering and a few laughs.

All for naught was the King of Chu's lifetime of renown — and in the end, sigh…

More than words could say!

"You… truly fear death?"

The King of Chu closed his eyes and nodded. "Yes, this King fears death!"

"Then do you regret it?" Chen Chen Guanlou was very curious to explore the man's mental journey — far too curious. That King of the Great Ming had faced death without yielding, never once showing fear from beginning to end. Even under lingchi he hadn't made a sound, refusing to let anyone laugh at him.

"Regret? This King regrets it every single day! Along this whole road, this King has thought countless times — might as well just end it. But then I thought again, at this point what's the point of killing myself? It would only make people laugh, especially make the Emperor laugh."

Chen Chen Guanlou hesitated, then had to tell him one cold, hard fact. "Have you ever considered that you'll be sentenced to lingchi? That's far worse than slitting your own throat. When the time comes for lingchi, you'll definitely regret — why, when you were slitting your own throat, couldn't you just bring the blade down, couldn't you be a little more decisive? Lingchi is at minimum five hundred cuts, at most three thousand. Something that could have been settled with a single cut, you had to drag out into three thousand — what for?"

The King of Chu stood rooted to the spot, dumb as a wooden chicken.

"Lingchi? Lingchi? He would lingchi me? On what grounds? I am of the imperial clan, I am a descendant of the ancestors, I am—"

"Never mind which ancestor passed it down — you're not the Emperor anyway. Does the Emperor need a reason to kill you? Even if he needed one, isn't 'rebellion' reason enough?"

"Impossible! Absolutely not! This King will not accept lingchi! If he dares to lingchi this King, even in death this King will not let him off — even dead, I will haunt him day and night."

The King of Chu was, after all, still a man of fear — he feared even death itself, let alone lingchi!

The moment he heard the two words "lingchi," his whole body trembled, his flesh and soul alike crying out in anguish.

He did not want lingchi.

He could not bear lingchi!

If it was going to be lingchi, better to die now! Smash his head against something and be done with it.

"Don't you dare think about smashing your head against something now!" Chen Chen Guanlou, like a tapeworm in his belly, read his expression and guessed his thought in one glance. "Orders from above — no matter what, you must be kept alive until the autumn sacrifice to Heaven! So go ahead and ram the wall if you like — there will definitely be a way to bring you back anyway.

I won't hide it from you — the physicians in the Heaven Prison are even better than the Imperial Doctors by a good margin. Figure it out for yourself. If one attempt doesn't kill you, there won't be a second chance to ram the wall.

To stop you ramming the wall, we can only use drugs to keep you lying on the bedboard day after day, unable to move — eating, drinking, pissing, shitting, all of it on that board. If you can stand it, I have no objection. It's just a matter of arranging a few more servants to clean up after you, to keep you from getting bedsores. And even if you do get bedsores, it doesn't matter — as long as you don't die, as long as you can hold on until autumn. Are you sure you want to spend your final days half-alive, like a useless wreck?"

"I…"

The King of Chu was suddenly afraid!

He could not bear it!

He was a man with too many failings — afraid of death, afraid of pain, afraid of becoming a useless wreck. The moment he imagined himself living in a pile of shit and piss, he couldn't stop the nausea and the urge to retch.

He squatted down, braced himself against the wall, and dry-heaved.

The mere imagined picture was enough to make his whole body recoil.

"Your Highness, you've lived in the lap of luxury for decades — sigh, don't toy with your own life. You're not a commoner with a worthless life that can go any which way. You can't do it — you're too particular! How about this — don't hurt yourself, don't die, and I'll guarantee you good food and drink."

"Good food and drink, raised fat and white like Bai Bai, and then off to lingchi?" the King of Chu retorted, his expression wretched.

"You're going to die sooner or later. Before you die, eating well and drinking well does no harm. Really, I'm not lying to you. I've seen too many death-row prisoners — I know what I'm talking about. Listen to me."

"How can you be sure I'll be lingchi'd? Did you hear some news?"

"You know the King of Cheng, right?"

The King of Chu didn't quite follow, but nodded anyway. "This King met him once in his early years. This King truly never imagined he would raise a rebellion, only to die so soon. I heard it was poisoning?"

"He did indeed die of poisoning. But do you know what happened to him after death?"

"What?" the King of Chu asked casually, not taking it to heart.

Chen Chen Guanlou sighed, seeming somewhat reluctant. In the end, he said coldly: "After the King of Cheng died, his corpse was dragged to the Heaven Prison. Guess what — lingchi! That's right, the palace ordered the corpse to be lingchi'd. Three thousand cuts, three full days, two executioners — by the end they collapsed from exhaustion!"

"You… absolutely impossible! Stop talking nonsense!"

Chen Chen Guanlou gave a contemptuous snort and stabbed the knife in once more. "Something like that couldn't be made up even if you tried. Besides — I personally oversaw the execution. How could it be fake?"