The low-key prince summons trainees from the Imperial Household Department at the start of the game.

The smell of blood inside the prison was much stronger than outside.

That smell wasn't just a simple metallic rust; it was a mixture of rust, sweat, stale dampness, and the acrid smoke from burning charcoal in a brazier.

There was also something deeper, seeping from the cracks in the bricks, mixed in like an invisible thin layer of oil on the inside of the nasal cavity.

Qin Wu had gotten used to it in less than half a day in the prison, but every time he went out of the interrogation room and came back, he had to hold his breath before he could step over that threshold again.

He personally oversaw the operation.

The officers of the Zhenwu Division were divided into three shifts, working day and night to escort people inside.

In just two days, more than forty people have been arrested and imprisoned.

There was a former official in the Ministry of Works who was in charge of transcribing reports on river works.

The Ministry of Revenue had two chief officials: one in charge of reviewing the military pay for the northern border, and the other in charge of the accounts for the capital's granaries.

An assistant secretary in the Ministry of War was in charge of the archives for the selection and appointment of military officers.

There were also a few who ran teahouses, pawnshops, and security escort agencies in the capital. On the surface, they had no connection with the aristocratic families, but once they were arrested, their confessions were like unraveling silk, stretching out longer and longer.

Even a member of a collateral branch of the Yang family of Hongnong and a steward of the Lu family of Fanyang were directly imprisoned by Qin Wu.

The court and the public were shaken, but no one dared to stop it.

Yesterday afternoon, a vice minister from the Ministry of Justice stood at the entrance of the imperial prison, intending to convey the message that "murder cases should be jointly tried by the Ministry of Justice."

Qin Wu didn't even let him in, only sending a captain outside the prison gate to relay a message: "His Majesty gave the Zhenwu Division three days, not the Ministry of Justice three days."

The vice minister stood at the door for the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea before finally turning around and leaving.

The interrogation room is on the lowest floor, the last one at the end of the corridor.

The door was made of sheet metal wrapped in wood, and when it was pushed open, the hinges made a long, drawn-out groan, as if someone was slowly dragging a wet, heavy thing out from deep inside.

The room was small, and the blue bricks on the four walls had been stained dark brown by years of candlelight. Two kerosene lamps were lit in the corner, their shades covered with a thick layer of black ash, and the light that shone through was dim and viscous.

The iron case was placed in the center, its surface polished to a shine, with several dents on its edges from being struck by hard objects.

Qin Wu sat behind the iron table, wearing only a black military officer's uniform with the cuffs rolled up twice, revealing half of his tangled forearms.

Three things lay before him: a short knife used for interrogation, the blade of which had been sharpened many times, and the iron near the hilt had a dark bluish sheen.

A cup of tea that had long since cooled down, the color of the tea soup as dark as soy sauce, with a thin layer of dust floating on the surface.

A stack of confessions, growing thicker and thicker, with the edges of the pages curled up, and a seal of the Zhenwu Division pressed on top.

Two captains stood on either side, tall and imposing, like two iron pillars welded to the ground.

The brazier behind me was burning fiercely, and the charcoal, after being stirred, emitted large patches of orange-red light. Heat waves rushed out from the rim of the brazier, making the whole room feel stuffy.

Qin Wu was looking at the man hanging opposite him.

The man was in his forties, wearing an indigo cotton robe that was mostly torn apart. The sleeve above his left arm had been ripped off and thrown in the corner, revealing a mark from being branded with a hot iron.

This was just permed; the edges are still red and swollen.

His wrists were chained to the overhead beam, his toes barely touching the ground. He looked like an old door hanging from above, about to fall apart with the slightest sway.

Lu Zhong was the steward of the Lu family's estate in Fanyang. Ostensibly, he managed the rents of three estates outside the city for the Lu family, but in reality, some of the Lu family's secret contacts in the capital were also relayed through him.

When Qin Wu investigated him, he was still in a tavern in the east of the city, negotiating accounts with someone. He was dragged away from the back door by two plainclothes officers, without even finishing the wine in his bowl.

Qin Wu picked up the cup of cold tea, but didn't drink it; he just held it in his hand and slowly turned it around.

The cup spun half a circle between my fingers, and the rim of the cup tapped against the iron table with a very soft, crisp sound.

"Lu Zhong," Qin Wu spoke, his voice low, with a slight hoarseness from a long day of hard labor, "I know what you're thinking."

Lu Zhong lifted his swollen eyelids and stared at him.

His left eye was so swollen that it was only a slit, but the light in his right eye was still there, like a wick that was about to go out stubbornly burning.

"You think you have someone backing you?" Qin Wu put down his teacup, interlaced his fingers on the table, and leaned forward slightly. "You think the Lu family will protect you if you stay silent? You're just a steward in charge of the estate. Although you've been relaying messages for the Lu family for so many years, do you really think they'll break ties with the imperial court for you?"

Lu Zhong's lips moved slightly.

He swallowed hard, a dry, rolling sound coming from his throat, and then spoke.

His voice was hoarse and broken, like a leaky bellows: "Qin Wu... your Zhenwu Division is powerful, but you should think about your own future."

Qin Wu was not angry when he heard this; instead, he smiled.

When he smiled, deep lines would appear at the corners of his eyes, but there was no smile in his eyes, only a coldness that had been honed over time: "A way out?"

He stood up, walked around the iron case, and stepped towards Lu Zhong.

The sound of boots stepping on the blue bricks was particularly clear in the cramped interrogation room, like two iron nails taking turns hammering into a wooden board.

He stopped in front of Lu Zhong, no more than an arm's length away. The light from the brazier shone from behind him, casting him as a dark silhouette.

He suddenly raised his hand and splashed the cup of cold tea on Lu Zhong's face.

Tea mixed with fine tea leaves was splashed into Lu Zhong's open eye, then flowed down the sides of his nose, dripping down his chin and into his open collar.

The tea seeped into the open wounds on his skin, and Lu Zhong shuddered in pain. He struggled to break free of the chains, his teeth chattering, but he didn't utter a single cry.

Qin Wu slammed the teacup onto the ground.

With a "bang," the coarse porcelain cup shattered into five pieces on the ground. The shards bounced up and fell back down. One piece grazed Lu Zhong's ankle, leaving a thin white mark on the instep of his foot.

Qin Wu grabbed Lu Zhong by the collar.

The collar of that indigo cotton robe was half-soaked in blood, and when you pulled it up, your fingertips felt wet and slippery.

He pulled Lu Zhong forward a step, the chains straightening and making a taut metallic scraping sound.

"A way out?" He was extremely close to Lu Zhong's face, close enough to see the bloodshot veins in the other's swollen eye. "My way out is the laws of the Great Zhou. Who instigated the people who went to the Su residence that night?"

Lu Zhong was panting heavily, cold sweat mixed with tea dripping from his forehead.

His lips trembled for a long time, as if a sentence was rolling around in his throat, refusing to come out.

Qin Wu didn't urge him, he just held onto his collar and waited.

The charcoal in the brazier popped, sparks flew out and landed on the blue bricks, illuminating the area briefly before going out again.

Lu Zhong closed his right eye briefly, then opened it again.

He forced out a few words through gritted teeth, his voice so low they were almost inaudible: "It's...from the Li family..."

Whose is it?

"The Li family's... secret guard battalion."

When those four words came out of Lu Zhong's mouth, it was like a pebble that had been held in his mouth for a long time finally loosening its jaw, rolling twice on the ground, and stopping in the crack of the blue bricks under Qin Wu's feet.

Qin Wu loosened his collar.

Lu Zhong's body slumped back to its original position like a puppet whose support had been removed. The iron chain above his head swayed slightly, making a very soft tinkling sound.

Qin Wu turned and walked back behind the desk, pulled a tattered cloth from the corner, and slowly wiped the blood and sweat from his hands. His voice was as cold as a blade, without the slightest inflection: "Write it down."

The clerk beside him quickly put pen to paper.

The pen scratched across the paper a few times as it wrote the five characters "Li Family Secret Guard Camp" into the confession.

Once Lu Zhong started talking, he couldn't stop.

His voice went from being intermittent to becoming coherent, from needing to catch his breath for each sentence to being able to say three or four sentences in one breath, as if the shell that had been held up for so long had broken down, and all the things that had accumulated underneath for many years had poured out.

He explained in detail how the Lu family had been responsible for monitoring the movements of several officials from the Six Ministries three days prior, including who entered the Ministry of Works, who left the Ministry of Revenue, and how many hours Su Yuanyi stayed in his study that night.

He then revealed that the Yang family owned a teahouse in Beijing that was used to send messages between their various branches. It was located in the second alley north of Dongsi Archway, with a small storefront and a copper coin painted on the shop sign.

Finally, he even mentioned how much silver a jailer in the Dali Temple received each month, and he even repeated the jailer's words when he received the money, "Don't worry, Master Lu, I'll take care of the people inside," mimicking the jailer's tone.

The same interrogations took place in several other torture chambers.

Every room was lit up, and every room had the clanging of chains and the smell of burning braziers.

The arrested scions of noble families were initially incredibly defiant. Some sneered, some feigned ignorance, and some raised their heads and said, "Your Zhenwu Division has no right to interrogate me."

But when the Zhenwu Division men laid out stacks of account books, letters, and coded messages that they had found in their residences, their tough stance crumbled like paper soaked in water.

One of the Yang family's collateral descendants was so frightened that he even told the names of several city guards that his father had bribed, and the names he gave matched three of the names Lu Zhong had given.

Another distant relative of the Chen family even revealed the time and place of the recent "South Village Meetings," and even which gate the carriages entered the capital through and how many times they changed carriages along the way.

He cried as he confessed, his tears wetting the edges of his statement, forcing the clerk to rewrite it on a new sheet of paper.

When the news reached the East Warm Pavilion, Zhou Qian was talking with Grand Commandant Zhou Jing and Left Censor-in-Chief Pei Du.

Three people sat around a small square table with three cups of tea on it, but no one touched them.

Zhao Gao entered from outside, his footsteps extremely light. He stopped beside the imperial desk and presented a stack of copied confessions with both hands.

Zhou Qian took it, but didn't flip through it immediately. He glanced at Zhao Gao first.

Zhao Gao nodded slightly, meaning "Everything is inside".

Zhou Qian then turned to the first page.

He flipped through the pages slowly, reading each page at least once.

Pei Du and Zhou Jing sat opposite each other without saying a word, only watching the pressure of his fingers on the paper as he turned the pages.

When he turned to the third page, Zhou Qian's finger paused briefly on the words "Li Family Secret Guard Camp," but didn't linger for long before continuing to flip through the pages.

When he turned to the last page, he closed the entire stack of confessions, placed it on the corner of the table, picked up the cup of tea in front of him that had gone cold, took a sip, and then put it down.

His face betrayed no emotion.

Pei Du and Zhou Jing both waited, neither of them speaking first.

The water clock in the warm chamber dripped a drop of water, its sound particularly clear in the silence.

Zhou Qian finally spoke, his voice low, carrying a thin layer of calm honed from a sleepless night: "Qin Wu acts faster than I can think of."

He glanced at Zhao Gao, then asked, "Have you implicated anyone falsely?"

"One of them recruited a censor from the Ministry of Works, but after verification, it was found that he was not in the capital at all three days ago, and that his name was temporarily put in by someone."

He paused, then continued, "Commander Qin said he requests His Majesty grant him one more day so he can thoroughly investigate and expose those who have made accusations."

Zhou Qian hummed in agreement.

He thought for a moment, tapping his fingers lightly twice on the table as if weighing the importance of the matter, and then said, "Let him arrest them. It's better to arrest them first and then investigate, than to let even one escape."

He paused, then added, his voice half an octave lower than before, but the underlying tension seemed even stronger, "I hereby convey my decree: the Zhenwu Division can deploy patrol battalions with a gold token. Anyone who dares to break into the imperial prison, rescue prisoners, or burn case files…"

He raised his eyes and looked at Zhao Gao: "Treat this as treason; kill him without exception."

Zhao Gao bowed: "This servant will go and convey the imperial decree immediately."

He took three steps back, turned around and walked out of the East Warm Pavilion, his steps a few paces faster than when he came in.

Only Zhou Qian, Zhou Jing, and Pei Du remained in the warm pavilion.

The water clock dripped again, very softly.

Pei Du picked up the cup of tea in front of him and took a sip.

He couldn't remember when the tea was brewed; it was as cold as well water, but he swallowed it without changing his expression. He put down the teacup and said in a low voice, "Your Majesty, I recognize some of the names on the confession, and some I don't, but I recognize the people behind those names."

He didn't say the words "family of noble families," but Zhou Qian and Zhou Jing both understood.

Zhou Qian remained silent.

He looked at the stack of confessions on the corner of the table, his fingers resting on the cover, his thumb rubbing back and forth along the edge of the paper, then he withdrew his hand and placed it on his lap.

"I know," Zhou Qian said calmly.

For more than a decade, the phrase "kill without mercy" has not been uttered by the emperor in the capital.

The last person to hear those four words was the deputy general who was brought back during the rebellion in the northern border in the fourteenth year of Yonghe.

Now, these four characters are heard again from the direction of Qianyuan Hall, passing through the palace walls, through the streets and alleys, through those tightly closed vermilion gates, and into the halls of every noble family's residence.

When this imperial edict reached the imperial prison, Qin Wu was interrogating the sixth person.

After hearing the captain's message, he made no comment, only nodded, placed the dagger he was holding back on the table, and said to the person opposite him, "Did you hear that? His Majesty said, kill without mercy."

The person opposite him was a distant relative of the Li family who ran a security escort agency in the capital.

Upon hearing this, his face turned pale, and he couldn't utter a single word of his previous stubbornness.

At the same time, Zhou Xing, who was in the side hall, also received the news.

The message was delivered in the same way as last time, still by the same eunuch from the Directorate of Ceremonial.

Granny Liu went out to answer the call, and when she returned, she had a thin piece of paper pulled from an envelope.

The paper contained few words, written with lead ink, the handwriting fine and hurried, as if the messenger had been writing it in his palm as he walked: "The Li family's secret guards have been recruited, the Yang family's teahouse has been sealed, the Lu family's estate manager has confessed, and there are over forty confessions. The Zhenwu Division can deploy the patrol battalion. His Majesty's decree: kill without mercy."

Zhou Xingzheng was having breakfast.

In front of me was a bowl of plain porridge, a plate of pickled cucumbers, and a sliced ​​hard-boiled egg.

He held the bowl of porridge in his hand, his gaze lingering on the piece of paper for a long while.

Then he folded the note and placed it next to the white piece on the corner of the table. He picked up a piece of pickled cucumber with his chopsticks, put it into the porridge, stirred it, lowered his head, took a sip, and swallowed it.

"Qin Wu's sword," he said softly, his voice neither loud nor soft, as if talking to the bowl of porridge in front of him, "Father has kept it hidden for so many years, and it has finally been unsheathed."

Granny Liu stood to the side, adding porridge to his bowl.

She was a little hard of hearing, and only caught the words "sword" and "drawn from its sheath" from the sentence. Thinking His Highness was referring to the cold and windy weather, she casually replied, "It is cold, Your Highness, please have a bowl of hot porridge to warm yourself up."

Zhou Xing looked down at the bowl of porridge that Liu Mama had filled to the brim, didn't explain, just nodded and took another sip.

After finishing his porridge, he put down the bowl, wiped his hands with a handkerchief, and then stood up and walked to the window.

It started snowing again outside. The fine snowflakes were swept by the wind and fell obliquely, hitting the window paper with a very slight rustling sound, like a group of tiny insects crawling along the window paper outside.

He looked at the snowflakes and mentally listed out everything he could see right now.

Members of the Li, Lu, Yang, and Chen families were all imprisoned.

The confessions have revealed the secret agents in the secret guard camp, the messenger teahouse, and the farm.

The Zhenwu Division was given the authority to deploy the patrol battalions, and the Emperor's decree was "kill them without mercy."

What will these aristocratic families do next?

They were pleading for leniency, using their connections within the palace to send messages and ask for a reprieve.

Is it a counterattack, to silence or send away those key figures while Qin Wu is still verifying their testimonies?

Or should we make a tough decision, abandon a few side branches to preserve the core, shift all the blame onto those who have already been arrested, and let the main branch extricate itself cleanly?

He can't think of everything yet.

There are too many paths to take, and every single one is being trodden upon. Countless eyes are watching from the shadows, waiting to see which one will crack first.

But he knew one thing: no matter what they chose, the winds of change in the capital would shift after tonight.

Once those confessions are filed, they can never be retrieved.

Qin Wu might actually be able to uncover quite a bit of information within three days.

Because once a person is imprisoned, the dignity of a noble young master cannot last long in the face of red-hot branding irons and all-night interrogations.

It's already quite tough that a steward of the estate could hold out until midnight before speaking.

Those offspring of collateral branches who drink tea and pass on messages in teahouses often don't even last an hour.

The black prison door of the Zhenwu Division has always been the place in the capital that is most adept at getting people to talk.

Zhou Xing stood by the window, watching the snow outside fall heavier and heavier.

The snowflakes gradually turned into snowflakes, falling one by one, covering the thin layer of snow on the windowsill with a new layer.

He reached out and drew a line on the windowpane. The warmth of his fingertips left a fleeting, transparent mark on the glass, which was then covered by new snow.

"Granny Liu," he suddenly said, without turning around.

"This old servant is here."

"I've finished that bowl of porridge, could you please have half a bowl more?"

Granny Liu responded and went to the table to add porridge to his bowl.

As she added more porridge, she glanced at the folded note on the corner of the table, but didn't touch it. She simply picked up the bowl and gently placed it back in front of Zhou Xing.

Zhou Xing turned around, walked back to the table, sat down, picked up the half-bowl of porridge, and slowly took a sip.

The porridge was still piping hot, and the steam warmed his face.

The snow outside the window fell even harder, covering the entire outline of the side hall in a thick layer of white, like a chessboard covered up, with the pieces underneath, waiting to be turned over one by one.