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Chapter 363 Empress Dowager Cixi
It was winter, and the corpses had long since decomposed, so there wasn't much of a stench.

But to be honest, the smell was still disgusting and unpleasant.

Horn stood there in front of the mound of corpses, took out a cigarette from his pocket, and lit it.

His smoking habit wasn't very serious; he usually smoked only two or three cigarettes a day. But he still needed tobacco to get rid of the lingering odor.

Amidst the swirling smoke, the hideous and terrifying skeletons seemed to come alive.

No, it shouldn't be said as if.

If you really think about it, they are alive.

The souls of those from the Exorcising Bureau did not enter the cycle of reincarnation, nor did they travel the path of the underworld. Instead, they were forcibly sealed into their skulls using a secret method. Through those dark eye sockets, Horn could see many things.

Angry roars, painful wails, resentful howls, weak pleas.
But to be honest, he had absolutely no pity for these guys.

"No wonder the Empress Dowager hates you so much. She valued you so much back then, but in the end, every single one of you chose to betray her. You have no one to blame but yourselves for this fate."

Horn took one last deep breath and then exhaled.

After throwing the burnt-out cigarette butt into his eye socket and feeling the sudden outburst of emotions from those spirits, Horn shook his head and turned to walk in the other direction.

From this square, walk west for about three or four hundred steps, and you'll reach his actual workplace.

After shaking his coat to make sure he didn't smell much of smoke, Horn stepped inside.

This is a dungeon.

It's not unusual for the palace to have dungeons; some are used to punish servants, and others to imprison concubines who have made mistakes. But nowadays, these dungeons serve only one purpose.

That was the torture of those prisoners.

When he entered, there was already a colleague inside, who was tending to the charcoal fire. When Horn came in, the colleague looked up and greeted him with a smile.

"Chahara, what brings you here today?"

Horn was stunned for three or four breaths before he understood what the other person was talking about.

This is my own name.

To be honest, because he didn't use this name often, he often felt like a proper Han Chinese.

but.

The root is something that can't be changed.

Horn nodded in response, then spoke to his colleague.

"It's just a routine roll call—speaking of Fa Bao, I remember a few days ago they put that guy in jail, what was he called? The Fathers' Church or something, anyway, a traitor, how's the progress?"

Upon hearing this, his colleague gave a wry smile.

"Stop talking. This guy is incredibly stubborn. The guys in the patrol department tried everything to get him to talk but couldn't get anything out of him. In the end, he was handed over to us, and then..."

This man picked up a branding iron from the charcoal fire, and then, amidst laughter and conversation, casually pressed it onto the naked body of someone next to him, who was stripped down to the ground like a pig.

With a wisp of smoke, a scream that was not human came out. The person was seen arching his body like a shrimp bent to its limit—but bound by several thick hemp ropes, he could only fall back down in despair.

Looking at the trembling human body, which resembled a dying fish, the two seemed to be used to it, and their expressions didn't even change.

"That must be very kind of you. By the way, do you need any help?"

His colleagues immediately burst into laughter.

"If you could, I would be extremely grateful. But you haven't done this kind of work in a long time, are you sure you won't be out of practice and kill this guy?"

Horn smiled and shook his head without answering. He simply walked up to the prisoner and looked at his eyes.

Although it had lost all its vitality after being tormented for so long, and now only knew how to stare blankly at the ceiling, Horn still saw something else in it.

That is belief.

A steadfast and unwavering belief.

Horn immediately laughed too.

However, unlike the cold and ruthless smiles of his colleagues, his smile was very gentle, and there was not even a hint of hostility in it.

"Excuse me, can you hear me?"

However, all he received in response was a mouthful of bloody spittle.

Horn didn't seem to care at all. He wiped the spittle off his face and then spoke.

"Listen, friend, I don't really want to resort to violence, so I'm giving you one last chance. If you can just tell me what we want, I can't guarantee anything else, but at least I'll give you a quick death. What do you say?"

From his perspective, this was already a very sincere, even extremely earnest, request, but the other party only gave him a very mocking look before opening his mouth.

The voice was so weak and hoarse that it was barely audible, but the speaker still managed to utter a sentence with all his might.

That is.

"After all I've endured, do you think I'd still be afraid of you?"

Horn sighed with great regret.

"Since that's the case, there's nothing I can do. I can only hope you can hold on for a while."

After saying this, he nodded to his colleague, then pushed the chair with the prisoner tied to it towards the inner room of the dungeon.

moment.

Screams suddenly sounded.

It's hard to imagine how a dying person could make such a sound—it sounded like a scream that seemed to be shouting out the throat and internal organs at the same time, or like the last breath of a creature struggling in the underworld.

To put it more simply...

That's why the voice doesn't sound human at all.

However, his colleague seemed to be used to it, leaning back in his chair, treating the screams as accompaniment, and even dozing off.

I do not know how long it has been.

Horn came out from there again.

He first washed the blood off his hands in the basin of water next to him, and then spoke calmly.

"He confessed. It's about Dianyanshan in Nanjun. We can send someone over to handle it later."

He still had that same amiable expression, no different from when he greeted his neighbors in the morning.

The colleague immediately burst into laughter.

"He truly lives up to his reputation as one of our department's most outstanding young talents; he always manages to capture his prey with ease—by the way, is that guy still alive?"

Upon hearing this, Horn calmly stepped aside.

The once steadfast and unyielding prisoner has become a piece of flesh.

——In the literal sense.

Looking around, it seemed as if every bone in his body had been smashed to pieces, and he lay there like a pile of mud—but even now, he was still alive. His bloodshot eyes stared at the two people outside the door, and there was no longer any so-called faith or strength in them.

Now, only one meaning remains within it.

That is: "I only wish for a quick death."

His colleague looked at the thing and rubbed his teeth in disbelief. He turned to Horn and asked.

"Now that we have the intelligence, what should we do with this thing?" Horn's answer was quite casual.

“It doesn’t matter. I gave him a chance before. Now you can use him to intimidate the rebels, bury him in the ground as fertilizer, or even throw him into a mound of Jingguan to keep those evil-suppressing officials company.”

His colleague shook his head.

"Okay, so what are you planning to do next?"

"Why don't you go home and catch up on some sleep? After all, this place is a cramped spot, and staying here too long isn't good for your health."

But just as the two were chatting, there was a sudden knock on the dungeon door.

The two of them looked up at the same time and said the same thing.

"Who?"

A moment later, a hoarse voice, sounding like that of a eunuch, came from outside.

Is Horn there?

"I'm here, what's wrong?"

"The Empress Dowager has issued an imperial decree summoning you to an audience."

After saying this, the voice immediately fell silent. The thing outside the door seemed not to wait for a reply and left on its own—however, neither Horn nor his colleagues heard a single footstep from beginning to end.

His colleague remained silent for a while, then laughed.

"The Empress Dowager has summoned you! This is an extremely joyous occasion. She hasn't received any guests for quite some time. You are truly favored by the Empress Dowager. Congratulations!"

However, although he said "congratulations," his smile looked quite unpleasant.

Clearly, there was no intention of congratulations in it.

Horn didn't reply, but simply cupped his hands in greeting and walked out of the dungeon.

Outside, the winter wind swept over him again, making him shiver involuntarily.

Finally, he lit another cigarette and gave a wry smile.

Now it seems that the Qing Dynasty, like this winter, has finally come to an end.

So, faced with this collapsing edifice, what can one do?
He was received in the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

Of course, under normal circumstances, for a foreign official like him to have an audience with the emperor, the formalities and etiquette alone would take one or two hours, but now...
There are hardly any living people left in the entire palace, so who would bother with all this nonsense?

As for the guards at the palace gate, they were still loyal and dutiful—if you ignored the strange proliferation on their bodies—and after a quick search, they let Horn in directly.

The palace still boasts its magnificent golden splendor, but the courtiers who once divided the palace on both sides are no longer there. The dragon throne is still placed at the far end, but the person sitting on it is no longer the emperor.

Rather, it was the true ruler of the Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi.

Although there was no one supervising him, Horn still performed the proper etiquette with utmost respect, then knelt on the ground, lowered his voice, and asked softly.

"May I ask what Your Majesty the Empress Dowager has summoned me for?"

A curtain covered the front of the dragon throne; although it wasn't thick, only a blurry figure could be vaguely discerned.

A moment later, an even more indistinct voice came from within.

"Rise. I've come to you today simply to ask how the task I entrusted to you last time is going."

Horn answered with his head down.

"Your Majesty, the pursuit of those rebels continues steadily, and the Shadow Guards' widespread assassinations are ongoing, though the results are not yet significant, but if..."

However, the person behind the curtain suddenly interrupted him.

"My dear, I've been having a lot of dreams lately."

"."

Horn wasn't afraid to accept, but the other party just kept talking to himself.

"Perhaps it's because I'm getting old, but my dreams are getting longer and longer. In a hazy dream, I seemed to dream of that person again, of him leading the entire Zhenxie Division, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's troops, and those fooled lowly people, attempting to overthrow my Qing Dynasty."

Upon hearing this, Horn finally couldn't help but speak up.

"But Your Majesty, you slaughtered that person and the entire Zhenxie Division, and you even used the entire Taiping Heavenly Kingdom as the cornerstone of your rule."

But before he could finish speaking, he was interrupted again.

"But it wasn't completely dealt with, not at all. Although I've reduced him to ashes, I can still sense that he lingers here, like an invisible ghost, slowly eroding the foundation of the dynasty."

"—And, most importantly, his successor has also arrived."

Horn suddenly looked up.

"what?"

The one on the dragon throne didn't seem to care about his rudeness, but instead continued speaking as if he were lost in his own world.

"Although it is only a faint glimmer of light, I can already sense that another chosen one has descended upon this world. But unlike last time, although I have sealed off the entire country and revived the ancestral magic, there are not many people who obey my orders now. In fact, I cannot even be sure whether they can be trusted."

"—Chahara."

"The slave is here."

"You are one of the few truly loyal people. I am giving you my greatest support right now. I wonder if you can help me and our Great Qing Dynasty to get rid of this being?"

For someone of her status, this was already an extreme condescension.

But Horn remained silent.

He knew the current situation of the Qing Dynasty and even the whole of Beijing. He also knew that much of the military power was no longer in the hands of the Empress Dowager. Although the entire empire still obeyed her orders as usual, the slightest spark could cause the whole thing to collapse.

However, after a long silence, Horn still lowered his head and answered.

"Your servant obeys the decree."

The person behind the curtain remained silent, and the vast Golden Palace fell into complete silence—no words, no sound, and even the figure seemed to have vanished.

Horn knelt on the ground and waited for a long time before finally kowtowing.

"If Your Majesty has no further instructions, this servant will take his leave."

As Horn stepped out of the palace gates, he suddenly felt a chill.

Looking up, I realized that snow had started falling from the sky sometime earlier.

He reached out, trying to catch the fluttering snowflakes, but then shook his head.

Then, they left.

Inside the palace.

After an unknown amount of time, another voice rang out.

However, unlike the aged female voice from before, this voice was androgynous, sounding like a robust middle-aged man, yet also like a young child.

"Don't worry, this is my Great Qing Dynasty."

"It is a legacy entrusted to us by our ancestors."

"It won't end."

"It will never end."

(End of this chapter)