Chapter 185

Luo River.

Inside that gloomy, sturdy interrogation room of the Inspection Bureau.

The air was filled with a pungent smell of blood mixed with wound medicine.

Various torture instruments, flashing with a dim light, hung on the walls.

Although the floor had been washed, dark brown blotches still remained.

The sole survivor deliberately left alive from last night's ambush was tightly bound with thick iron chains to the cold stone chair.

He hung his head, his clothes torn all over, his body covered in wounds.

But unsettlingly, he seemed to feel almost no pain or fear.

There was only a deathlike silence.

Qian Gui stood opposite him, his complexion not good.

He had already tried several conventional interrogation methods.

Whipping.

Water torture.

Even branding irons.

But this captive, aside from instinctively twitching a few times when his flesh was injured, remained completely silent.

His gaze was empty, fixed on the ground, as if his soul had already left this body.

"Speak."

Qian Gui's voice echoed in the silent interrogation room, carrying a hint of suppressed irritation.

"Who are you?"

"Where do you come from?"

"Why attack the Thus entries: Thus entries: Anping granary?"

"Who is the master of the Iron Crow Army?"

No response.

Only the iron chains made a faint rubbing sound from the captive's slight breathing.

Qian Gui narrowed his eyes, leaned in closer, and stared fixedly at those empty eyes.

"I know you can hear me."

"You also understand what I mean."

"Your companions are all dead."

"They died worthlessly."

"Don't you want to say something?"

"Even if it's for your own sake?"

The captive's eyeballs moved extremely slowly.

His gaze fell on Qian Gui's face.

That gaze was icy, devoid of any human feeling.

It was like looking at a stone, a piece of wood.

Qian Gui felt a chill creep up his spine.

He had interrogated many people.

Ferocious bandits.

Cunning spies.

Cowards who cling to life and fear death.

But he had never encountered anything like this.

It was as if he faced not a living person, but a puppet driven by some will.

"Is your target only the granary?"

Qian Gui changed his question, trying to find a breakthrough.

"Or the artisans' workshop?"

"Or put another way, is anything that is a core under Defense Envoy Chen's administration on your 'purge' list?"

When the two words 'purge' were spoken.

Qian Gui keenly noticed that the captive's empty gaze flickered, almost imperceptibly.

Extremely subtle.

But it definitely existed.

Qian Gui's heart stirred.

He recalled that the intercepted Iron Crow Army messages had mentioned the 'purge plan' many times.

And also what the envoy had said: 'deviation' and 'node'.

These terms seemed to touch upon some core command of the other side.

He no longer pressed for identity and origin.

Instead, he probed around these keywords.

"The 'purge plan'..."

Qian Gui slowly repeated the term, carefully observing the other's reaction.

"What kind of existence needs to be 'purged'?"

"Like Defense Envoy Chen, someone who lets the people live in peace and contentment?"

Or like Prefect Chai, aiming to pacify Zhongyuan in the north and restore peace, a heroic sovereign?

The prisoner's lips were tightly pressed together.

But Qian Gui noticed that the fingers of his hand, locked in iron chains, twitched slightly.

What is a 'node'?

Qian Gui continued to apply pressure, his tone turning sharp.

Is Chan Prefecture a 'node'?

Is the Battle of Gaoping a 'node'?

What about Chen Bridge?

Or is it also a 'node' that must develop according to your wishes?

When the two words 'Chen Bridge' were spoken.

The prisoner's body suddenly straightened for an instant!

Although he quickly returned to that state of dead silence.

But this momentary reaction did not escape Qian Gui's eyes.

Qian Gui's heart was stirred by tumultuous waves.

Chen Bridge?

That was merely an ordinary relay station beside the Yellow River.

Why would that name provoke such a reaction from him?

Could something major happen there in the future?

And the Iron Crow Army, are they ensuring that certain 'major events' must occur, or must occur along a certain 'trajectory'?

He recalled the prefect saying, 'The trajectory must return to the right course.'

An absurd and chilling speculation surfaced in Qian Gui's mind.

These Iron Crow Army, they seem to be… maintaining a fixed 'history' line?

Anyone or anything deviating from this line would be regarded by them as a 'variable' needing 'cleansing'?

This thought made him shudder.

So…

Qian Gui's voice carried a dryness he himself hadn't noticed.

Your existence…

Is it to ensure that everything unfolds according to a prewritten 'script'?

The appearance of Defense Commissioner Chen, his abilities, all the changes he brought…

Are they all 'mistakes' in your eyes?

Are they 'deviations' that need to be corrected?

This time.

The prisoner gave no further response.

He lowered his head again.

He returned to that utter, despairing silence.

As if that subtle fluctuation had never happened.

But Qian Gui knew he had touched upon some core truth.

Although that truth was utterly bizarre.

He tried again for a long time.

He exhausted every method.

Even having Lei Huo bring those captured deep-blue crystals, swaying them before him.

But the prisoner gave no response at all.

Like a puppet whose strings have been completely cut.

Finally.

Qian Gui left the interrogation room, his heart full of shock and a pile of unsolved mysteries.

He needed to immediately report this conversation and his deductions in full to the Defense Commissioner.

The interrogation room's iron door slammed shut behind him.

Locking that expanse of dead silence and cold once more into darkness.

Only the torchlight flickering on the walls.

Casting light upon the lifeless body on the stone chair.

And…

Beneath his drooping eyelids, in the deepest hollow, a strand almost imperceptible—chaos and confusion after a failed program execution.

He could not understand.

Why the deviation of the 'node' was so enormous.

Why the resistance force against the 'cleansing target' was so far beyond calculation.

The orders he had received.

The 'right course' he believed in.

Seemed to be being torn open a rift by a stubborn and unfamiliar force.

This feeling.

For him, who had nothing left but the instinct to carry out orders.

It is unprecedented.

It is also... deadly.