Remarried to a top-tier playboy, her reborn ex-husband is filled with regret.

"Gu Jinghuai".

Xiao Fang called his name in a flat tone, as if he were reciting a name that had nothing to do with him.

The tall man squatted down and looked at Gu Jinghuai's distorted profile as he was pressed to the ground.

After looking at it for a moment, his gaze was as if he were looking at a lifeless, inanimate object.

There was no anger, no hatred, not even disgust in his eyes.

It was an extreme, deep-seated disdain.

It's like a giant looking down at an ant that's been stepped on; he can't even muster the energy to crush it.

"take away."

After Xiao Fang finished speaking, he straightened up, stopped looking at the people on the ground, and turned to give a few instructions to Ming Rui behind him.

Mingrui nodded and led his men into the inner courtyard.

Gu Jinghuai was dragged up from the ground by two guards. His legs were no longer under his control, and the excruciating pain in his knees made every step feel like stepping on a knife's edge.

As he was being dragged out of the mansion, he saw his mother, Madam Su, being carried out from the backyard.

Su's hair was disheveled, and one sleeve of her gorgeous dress was torn; she was struggling desperately.

She shouted, "I am the Marchioness! Who dares to touch me!"

A spoiled brat shoved her, and she stumbled and bumped into the door frame, scraping her forehead and drawing blood down her brow bone.

Gu Jinghuai wanted to call her, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he was roughly pushed onto the prison cart by the people behind him.

Mingrui walked out of the inner courtyard, followed by people carrying two large boxes.

It contains all of the Gu family's secrets, including evidence of their crimes from all angles.

This is what Yun Shuyao told Xiao Fang; she also provided the location and the secret room.

"All female relatives shall be escorted to the Jiaofangsi (a government-run entertainment district)."

Xiao Fang stood in the courtyard, his voice not loud, but every word was as clear as if it had been carved with a knife.

"The male members were imprisoned in the Inspectorate prison to await trial and sentencing."

All servants in the mansion were sold off.

The mansion was seized, and the property confiscated.

He turned around and strode towards the door.

Behind me came the cries of a woman and a child, the muffled groans of a man being pushed down, and the ear-piercing sound of chains dragging across the blue brick floor.

He didn't turn around, but the corners of his mouth gradually curled up.

The Inspectorate, the dungeon.

The prison was built underground and never saw the light of day.

The torches on both sides of the passageway are the only source of light here, and the flickering flames cast distorted shadows on the damp stone walls.

The air was filled with the smell of rust and rotting flesh.

This smell, once it gets on skin and clothes, can never be washed off.

Gu Jinghuai has been hanging by iron chains from the stone wall of the interrogation room for a day and a night.

His prison clothes had long been stripped off, and his bare upper body was covered with dense scars.

There were whip marks, brand marks, and bloody holes left from pliers tearing off the flesh.

He hung his head, his hair plastered to his face, and a dried bloodstain hung from the corner of his mouth.

The whole person was like a piece of rotten meat that had been repeatedly thrown around.

The iron gate was pushed open.

The light from the torches poured in, casting a long shadow on the ground.

Gu Jinghuai did not look up—he did not have the strength to look up, nor did he dare to.

He knew who the person was.

Xiao Fang walked in and sat down behind the interrogation table.

Mingrui brought over a cup of tea, which Xiao Fang took, took a sip slowly, and then gestured with his chin to the side.

An old jailer stepped forward, picked up a bucket of cold water, and poured it over Gu Jinghuai's head.

Gu Jinghuai shuddered, coughed up a mouthful of blood, and slowly raised his head.

He could see clearly the person sitting in front of him.

He wore a bright red robe with a dark black cloak, and his expression was indifferent.

The man held a steaming cup of tea in his hand, as if he were enjoying tea and flowers in his own study.

"Xiao Fang..."

Gu Jinghuai's voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible; his lips moved several times before he managed to squeeze out those two words.

The day and night of interrogation made him fully understand what it meant to be unable to live or die.

Every time he fainted, he would be woken up by being splashed with cold water.

Every time he felt he had reached his limit of pain, Xiao Fang would change the torture device to let him know what it meant to be in even more pain.

At first, he wanted to hold on.

He was the heir of the Marquis of Yong'an, a highly renowned nobleman in the capital. He couldn't possibly lose his integrity in front of a纨绔 (a spoiled, dissolute young man).

But the moment the branding iron touched his skin, all his "integrity" vanished along with the sizzling, burning smell.

His tears and snot gushed out at the same time, covering his face.

His eyes were so wide they almost popped out of their sockets, and the veins on his neck were throbbing.

The screams emanating from its throat sent chills down the spines of even the guards at the end of the passageway.

He cried.

He begged.

He called out for his mother, his father, and any name he could think of.

I'd do anything to spare him even a second of pain.

But Xiao Fang didn't ask anything.

We don't want to interrogate him, and we don't want any confession from him.

Gu Jinghuai didn't know how to stop this devil.

At that moment, Xiao Fang arrived again.

When Gu Jinghuai saw the cup of tea in his hand, he began to tremble uncontrollably.

The chains rattled as he shook them; he was never a man of principle.

Xiao Fang put down his teacup and picked up a small hammer from the rack.

The hammerhead is small, only about the thickness of a thumb, but it feels heavy in your hand.

Xiao Fang walked up to Gu Jinghuai and gestured for the jailer to put him down and take him to the torture bed to tie him up.

A slender, powerful hand grasped Gu Jinghuai's right hand and pressed it onto the torture bed.

Gu Jinghuai's right hand was missing two fingernails, and his fingers were swollen like five purple radishes.

Pressed down on the cold iron bed, Gu Jinghuai began to struggle frantically.

"Let me go—Xiao Fang!"

You'll die a horrible death! You—"

Xiao Fang ignored his curses.

He placed the small hammer against Gu Jinghuai's index finger joint and then struck it hard.

The sound of bones cracking wasn't loud, it was muffled, like crushing a peanut.

Gu Jinghuai's screams nearly lifted the roof off.

Xiao Fang moved the hammer to his middle finger and tapped it again.

This time, Gu Jinghuai couldn't even let out a scream.

He convulsed violently a few times, then collapsed, a foul odor emanating from his crotch.

The jailer then poured another bucket of cold water on him, waking him up.

Xiao Fang patiently smashed all the knuckles on Gu Jinghuai's right hand one by one before putting the hammer down.

Then he picked up a red-hot branding iron.

The branding iron had been burning in the brazier for a long time, its entire body emitting a dark red light.

When it gets close to the skin, you can even hear a faint hissing sound in the air.

He didn't immediately apply the branding iron; instead, he held it up to Gu Jinghuai so that he could see every tiny line on it.

"Gu Jinghuai".

Xiao Fang spoke, his voice so soft that only the two of them could hear it.

"I know everything you did to Shu Yao in your past life."

You made her live like a widow for eighteen years, while you spent her dowry and supported your cousin.

Your mother poisoned her tonic soup, and you watched her take her last breath, forbidding the servants from summoning the royal physician.

You deserve to die! You deserve a terrible death!

The branding iron was pressed against Gu Jinghuai's chest.

Gu Jinghuai let out a bloodcurdling scream, his whole body jerking and trembling violently before he finally lost consciousness.

Xiao Fang threw the branding iron back into the brazier and patted off the non-existent ash from his hands.

With a blank expression, he gave the order to the jailer:

"Wake him up."

Another bucket of cold water, a hellish torment, the cycle continues...