Three Kingdoms: I am not Liu Bian

Chapter 180: Where there is only blood, there is no honey!

Liu Bian didn't know whether Yuan Shu was truly insane or feigning madness. Perhaps he was just pretending to be crazy in front of everyone to provoke and humiliate him.

However, Liu Bian had to admit that Yuan Shu had achieved his goal; he had successfully angered him.

"Open the prison!"

Liu Bian sneered and ordered Guo Tu to open Yuan Shu's prison cell.

"Your Highness, this official is insane. What if he offends the Crown Prince..."

Guo Tu did not intend to persuade the Crown Prince not to bother with the dead man; he was simply worried that Yuan Shu might go mad and attack the Crown Prince once the prison doors were opened.

He couldn't bear even the slightest risk.

But the prince's sinister gaze made Guo Tu tremble, and the words he was about to say were swallowed back down with the saliva he had just swallowed.

Guo Tu immediately rebuked the jailer beside him, saying, "Open the cell door!"

As soon as the prison door opened, several guards from the Crown Prince's residence rushed into the cell and subdued Yuan Shu, giving him no chance to attack the Crown Prince. Xu Chu then escorted the Crown Prince inside.

Seeing that Yuan Shu was about to continue his insults, Xu Chu was also furious. Without the Crown Prince's orders, he grabbed Yuan Shu by the neck, handed the ring-pommel sword to a guard of the Crown Prince's residence, and slammed the scabbard down on Yuan Shu's mouth.

"You bastard, how dare you utter such foul language!"

With his immense strength, Xu Chu swung his sword down, instantly knocking out several teeth, blood splattering onto the cold ground along with the broken teeth.

Xu Chu, however, was still not satisfied. He didn't stop until he had knocked out all of Yuan Shu's teeth. He spat a mouthful of phlegm onto Yuan Shu's bloodied face and said viciously, "You dog, there's only blood, no honey!"

Liu Bian glanced at Xu Chu, his gaze falling on the bloodstains on the scabbard, but he did not blame Xu Chu.

Xu Chu understood that the Crown Prince would not punish him, but even if the Crown Prince did punish him, he would not hesitate to take action.

Insulting His Highness the Crown Prince and uttering such foul language to the Empress—the Crown Prince's kindness goes without saying, and the Empress is virtuous and kind, often summoning his elderly father and mother. He absolutely cannot tolerate such foul language!

However, although Xu Chu's actions were quite satisfying, they were not enough to completely vent Liu Bian's anger. He looked at the guards of the Crown Prince's Palace who were holding Yuan Shu down and said coldly, "Press this man down on the ground, hold down his limbs and head, and pull his tongue out for me!"

Liu Bian drew his sword and watched as Yuan Shu struggled wildly, his tongue lolling out as he whimpered and glared at him with venom.

Perhaps fearing that Yuan Shu might break free in his frenzy, Xu Chu stomped heavily on Yuan Shu's back, while Liu Bian slowly squatted down and chopped Yuan Shu's tongue with his sword.

The screams echoed in the prison, but Liu Bian did not cut off his tongue at the root; he only chopped off a small piece.

"I know you want to die, but you haven't considered the consequences of angering me. You will suffer a fate worse than death."

Before the words were even finished, another sword struck, and seven or eight more swords fell in quick succession. Yuan Shu's tongue was reduced to less than half its original length. His shrill screams echoed through the prison, causing everyone to look on in horror. No one had ever imagined that this kind and righteous Crown Prince would have such a side to him.

Even Guo Tu, who prided himself on being a cruel official, was somewhat afraid, glancing at the Crown Prince and wondering who the real cruel official was.

Of course, the most terrified was the guard from the Crown Prince's residence who was pulling Yuan Shu's tongue, fearing that the Crown Prince might accidentally cut off his hand in a fit of anger.

Although the Crown Prince's actions were somewhat cruel, everyone present could understand them.

If Yuan Shu dared to use such foul language against their mothers, they would certainly not hesitate to make Yuan Shu understand what it means to wish he were dead.

Hey, as for vigilante justice?

Guo Tu stated what constitutes the abuse of vigilante justice and what human rights traitors who plot rebellion have.
Speaking up for these traitors who plotted rebellion, are you perhaps their accomplice?

Fortunately, the Crown Prince was still rational and worried about accidentally injuring the guard in the Crown Prince's residence, so he ordered him to use a knife to cut off the rest of Yuan Shu's tongue by the root.

"Give him the best medicine, and have at least two people watch over him every twelve hours. Also, let the doctors in the prison work hard these days, give them some rewards and let them stay in the government office. We must not let Yuan Shu die. I do not want to let him go so easily."

Empress He gave Liu Bian ample maternal love. Whether out of filial piety or out of his feelings for Empress He as his mother, he would not let Yuan Shu off so easily.

Perhaps Yuan Shu provoked him to seek death, wanting a quick and painless end to avoid imprisonment and the fate of being torn apart by chariots as ordered by Liu Bian. But he failed to consider that Liu Bian was not only not in a hurry to kill him, but was actually preparing to thoroughly torture him.

I have nine cruel tortures to make you wish you were dead, nine of them!
No, there are far more than nine in my mind!
Castration, amputation, needle insertion, caning (through the mouth or cloaca), combing, playing the pipa, and water torture—all these could inflict extreme pain without causing death, while mitigating the severity of the punishment.

In other words, if cruel punishments such as slow slicing were carried out in public during this era, it would provoke opposition from court officials and scholars, and the person would be considered a tyrant like Jie, Zhou, or Qin Shi Huang. Otherwise, Liu Bian would really want Yuan Shu to experience the feeling of being torn to pieces.

After leaving Yuan Shu's prison, Liu Bian passed through Yuan Ji's prison.

Although all three were charged with treason, Guo Tu would not imprison them nearby; their cells were far apart.

Yuan Ji was in much better condition than Yuan Shu. He lay on the dirty, smelly straw, his chest rising and falling with his breath, and slept peacefully.

Liu Bian, of course, would not let Yuan Ji sleep peacefully. He ordered the jailers to bang on the bars of the cell door with sticks. The loud banging was annoying, and Yuan Ji was forcibly woken up from his sleep. With sleepy eyes, he met Liu Bian's cold gaze.

“He was sleeping soundly.” Liu Bian did not speak to Yuan Ji, but looked into his calm eyes and said, “When he fell asleep, I would knock on the railing every two quarters of an hour to wake him up, so that he would be awake for a couple of quarters of an hour before letting him fall asleep again.”

Given such torment, Yuan Ji should not have survived more than seven days.

But it didn't matter, since he couldn't have lived for more than seven days anyway. Four days later, the Yuan family of Runan officially won the "Three Clans Elimination Game".

However, while the court nominally ordered the extermination of Yuan Wei and his clan, it did not actually carry out the order completely.

The Zhou rites defined the three clans as father, son, and grandson, but the Han dynasty's policy of exterminating the three clans was actually implemented according to the father's clan, mother's clan, and wife's clan.

However, the relationships between powerful families in the Later Han Dynasty were very complex. For example, Yuan Kui's wife was the daughter of the great Confucian scholar Ma Rong. Although Ma Rong had passed away, he was the teacher of Zheng Xuan, Lu Zhi and others. Ma Ridi was also Ma Rong's nephew. The Ma family of Fufeng had long since sided with him. It would be inappropriate to implicate the Ma family of Fufeng.

The situation was similar for maternal clans. The marriages of the Yuan family of Runan also involved many important officials in the court. Therefore, officials who were not part of the Crown Prince's faction would not be included in the list of those implicated unless they were confirmed to have colluded with Yuan Kui in a rebellion or had committed extremely serious crimes of corruption and embezzlement.

However, the entire Yuan clan of Runan was basically exterminated, with only a very few Yuan women, such as Yang Biao's wife, who married out of the clan and had children, surviving.

As for whether this action will cause resentment, rebellion, or extermination of three generations, do you think this is a joke?
It is only because His Highness the Crown Prince is merciful that he has not implicated so many others.

Liu Bian slowly passed Yuan Ji's cell, completely ignoring Yuan Ji's curses, and followed Guo Tu's lead to Yuan Kui's cell.

Yuan Wei's condition was far worse than Yuan Ji's. Stripped of his fine clothes, he was left with only a gray linen garment covering his hunched body. He huddled in a corner, leaning against the damp, cold stone wall, listening intently as water droplets seeped from the wall dripped down the cracks and formed winding puddles on the blue brick floor.

Yuan Wei cherished the sound of the dripping water, for it was one of the few sounds he could hear in this dark and gloomy prison. Counting the number of times the water dripped each day was the only thing he did to pass the time.

Even though her cloudy eyes caught a glimpse of Liu Bian's figure, they quickly turned their gaze back to the water droplets falling into the shallow puddle.

"Pity."

Liu Bian did not order Yuan Kui to be tortured as he had with Yuan Ji and Yuan Shu; instead, he turned and walked away.

Yuan Wei's eyes were lifeless, filled only with regret.

The greatest sorrow is a dead heart. Yuan Wei's heart was already dead, and no matter how much you torment him, it would be meaningless.

Of course, he didn't think Yuan Wei's regret was about plotting a rebellion. He guessed that the old scoundrel either regretted not eliminating him during the palace coup or regretted that his rebellion plan was not thorough enough and ultimately failed.

Torturing Yuan Wei was meaningless; it was simply because Liu Bian believed that torturing a heartbroken person could not bring him any emotional value.

Furthermore, as the head of the Yuan clan of Runan and the main culprit in the rebellion, Yuan Wei had to be executed by dismemberment on the execution ground as a warning to others.

Given Yuan Wei's current physical condition, even the slightest form of torture could kill him.

Just as he was about to leave the Tingwei Prison, Liu Bian stood in the scorching sunlight, turned around and stared intently at the dark passage that seemed to devour light, and waved for Guo Tu to come closer.

"When the execution is carried out, let this old scoundrel be the last to die."

For Yuan Kui, the head of the Yuan clan of Runan, watching his clansmen die one by one before his eyes until he was the only one left in the entire clan was probably the cruelest punishment.

(3030 words)
(End of this chapter)