My cultivation disguise has been exposed by Xiao Sizi.

"Clang!"

The gates of Chang'an were suddenly slammed shut.

Hundreds of spears were held horizontally, pinning the merchants entering and leaving against the cold, hard blue brick wall. Inside the doorway, only heavy breathing and the restless snorting of horses could be heard.

Mud splattered everywhere on Zhuque Street.

Several fast horses crashed through the puddles, and the cavalrymen, with bright yellow imperial edicts tucked into their backs, roared:

"The Japanese envoy attempted assassination!"

"His Majesty is frightened!"

"Martial law declared throughout the city! Arrest the traitors!"

With a roar like thunder, the dark mass of Imperial Guards surged like a burst dam, flooding into the West Market's various workshops along the main street.

The long street erupted in chaos. Peddler lost his carrying pole, blind fortune teller tore his banner, and everyone ran home for their lives.

"Bang, bang, bang!" The sound of bolts being fastened on the door echoed continuously.

In front of a shop run by a Hu merchant.

"Boom!" The heavy wooden door was kicked apart by military boots, sending splinters flying.

A dozen or so captains of the Hundred Cavalry Guard strode straight toward the backyard.

Inside the woodshed, three Japanese exchange students were huddled in a corner, shivering.

The captain reached out, his five fingers, like iron pincers, gripped one of the men's hair buns tightly, and pulled him back sharply!

The man's scalp was deformed as he was dragged out, his back scraping against the threshold, leaving a long, bleeding gash.

"What the hell are you doing! We are envoys to Tang China, you can't arrest us!"

The Japanese leader, his face covered in dust, gripped the edge of the door frame tightly with both hands, shouting in broken Tang Dynasty Mandarin, his fingernails leaving white marks on the wood.

The captain didn't stop, his right hand still gripping his hair, while his left hand swung out in a wide arc.

"Smack."

A very heavy slap.

The Japanese man suddenly tilted his head to the side, and two bloody front teeth flew out of his mouth and smashed into the stone slab.

The captain released his grip.

The soldier who followed him took off the thick hemp rope from his waist, shook it out, tied a slipknot, and put it directly around the Japanese man's neck. Then he raised his leg and kicked the Japanese man in the back of the knee with his military boot.

The Japanese man fell to his knees with a thud. The soldier grabbed the rope and dragged him out like a dead dog. The rope instantly dug into his flesh, and the man's face turned purple. He desperately pulled at the rope around his neck, making a hissing sound as he tried to breathe.

The massive crackdown swept through the 108 wards of Chang'an, meticulously scouring every inch.

As long as they are registered Japanese, there is no chance of them slipping through the net.

Xingshan Temple.

The wooden fish had just been struck in the dining hall. Several Japanese monks who were staying there for meditation picked up their wooden bowls, still steaming.

The door was violently forced open.

The fierce Imperial Guards rushed in and overturned a heavy, long wooden table with one hand.

The white vegetarian meal was covered in mud.

The soldier stepped forward, grabbed the monk by the collar, and ripped it open with force. The gray robe tore instantly, and strips of cloth flew everywhere.

The soldier raised his knee and slammed it heavily into the monk's stomach.

The monk's stomach churned violently; he bent over in agony, dry heaving up bile.

Two hemp ropes quickly wrapped around his arms, went behind his back, and tightened them tightly, forming a secure crab knot.

On this day, the entire city of Chang'an, even the guard dog kept in the courtyard frequented by the Japanese, was beaten to death with sticks by the patrolling guards and thrown into the swill cart.

In the Ministry of Justice prison, Qin Huaidao stood shirtless on the steps of the main entrance.

He held a long cowhide whip soaked in salt water upside down in his hand, and a squad of Imperial Guards escorted five Japanese men up the steps.

These five men, dressed in the most ordinary coarse cloth of the Tang Dynasty, had their hands bound behind their backs and were tied by a long rope around their necks. They were kneeling in the mud, trembling all over, not daring to lift their heads.

The leading captain stepped forward and clasped his hands in a salute to Qin Huaidao. His jawline was slightly protruding, and his face was tense.

"Reporting to the officer, five suspicious traitors have been apprehended at the West Gate of the East Market. Please examine them."

Qin Huaidao's eyelids drooped as he glanced sideways at the five people.

"What did you do wrong?"

When Qin Huaidao spoke, his throat felt like it was filled with ice shards, and his voice was completely flat.

The captain pointed to the short, bow-legged man on the far left.

"Reporting to the general, this fellow saw our patrol team just now and stepped out of the inn gate with his left foot first."

"His behavior is suspicious; he must be plotting a rebellion!"

Qin Huaidao smirked coldly.

He suddenly jerked his wrist.

"Snapped!"

The whip cracked in mid-air with a crisp snap, its tip sweeping across the stone lion base beside the steps, leaving a white mark.

"Left foot first?" Qin Huaidao withdrew the whip and clapped it twice in his palm.

"They harbored resentment and wanted to find an opportunity to offend the Emperor's carriage and be arrested."

The captain immediately pointed to several other people kneeling on the ground, trembling like leaves.

"Those who were watching from the sidelines, breathing rapidly and looking resentful, must be accomplices!"

"Undoubtedly accomplices, shut them all down." Qin Huaidao waved his hand and turned around.

The jailers behind him immediately rushed up, grabbed the rope, and dragged him toward the gate of the Ministry of Justice.

The five Japanese men struggled desperately, shouting incoherently in a foreign language. The jailer drew his sheathed sword and slammed the hilt down on the back of their heads.

After a dull thud, the struggling stopped.

People were dragged down the steps like sacks into the dark gate, leaving five parallel mud tracks on the ground.

Unfounded accusations rained down upon them.

No confession, no physical evidence. If you're from that island, even breathing too fast in the street is a capital offense.

Evening, death row cell of the Ministry of Justice.

This place could originally only hold a few hundred people at most. Now, the earthen dungeons, wooden dungeons, and water dungeons are all crammed full, and even the passageways are filled with people, leaving no room to put your feet down.

Humans are squeezed into the narrow passageway.

Because these Japanese were short, the jailers simply lifted the top of the wooden cage and, like stuffing salted fish into a basket, crammed four or five people onto a small wooden cage that could only hold two people, before pressing the top down with an iron lock.

Inside, people cannot turn around or sit down; they can only twist their limbs and squeeze against each other.

In the damp, moldy air, the stench of excrement and urine fermented rapidly, mixed with the smell of rotting straw and a strong stench of blood.

In the darkness, the heavy clanging of chains, faint cries, and indistinct pleas for mercy mingled together into a nauseating poison, seeping out through the cracks in the wall.

The deepest torture chamber in the prison.

The brazier in the corner was burning brightly. The charcoal crackled, and blue flames licked at the dozen or so long iron nails and several triangular branding irons in the brazier.

The edges of the iron block had been burned to a translucent dark red, radiating intense heat.

Qin Huaidao moved a folding stool and sat about ten feet away from the brazier.

He held a sharp carving knife in his hand and a tender cucumber with its blossoms and thorns in his left.

The blade brushed against the cucumber peel, and with a gentle slice, the thin, emerald-green skin curled up and fell onto the floor tiles stained with dark red blood.

"Click."

Qin Huaidao took a bite of cucumber, the crisp chewing sound echoing back and forth in the empty torture chamber.

Two Japanese monks were hanging in mid-air.

His wrists were locked with iron rings, and a rough iron chain passed through pulleys on the roof beam, suspending him up so that his toes were half an inch off the ground.

"His Majesty issued a decree last night." Qin Huaidao finished chewing the cucumber in his mouth, swallowed it, and his Adam's apple bobbed.

"Don't let them die too easily. We need to collect some interest first."

He raised the half-cucumber in his hand and pointed at the two people in mid-air.

"Bring out all the most valuable tools the Ministry of Justice has hidden away. Let them see the world, so they won't go back saying the Tang Dynasty is impolite."

The old jailer standing to the side grinned. The firelight illuminated the wrinkles on his face and his set of yellowed, broken teeth.

He turned around, walked to the wall, and reached into a row of torture instruments to remove a "bone-pulling comb" with finely barbed iron teeth. It was made of pure iron, with extremely sharp teeth that gleamed with a cold, eerie blue light.

The old jailer walked up to the monk on the left.

There were no questions asked, no prelude whatsoever.

He ripped off the strip of cloth covering the monk's lower body. (Right)

He gripped the comb handle tightly, pressing the barbed iron teeth deep into the monk's thigh flesh. He pressed down with his wrist and pulled sharply downwards.

"ah--!"

A scream instantly rang out in the torture chamber, the sharp, rusty iron nails scraping against the bronze mirror, causing the flames in the brazier to flicker.

The iron teeth plowed through the flesh, bringing out several long strips of flesh covered in yellow fat. The blood instantly stained the monk's legs, dripping onto the stone slab below.

Finger clamps, finger pinchers, red-hot branding irons, and skinning knives.

All the methods used in the Tang Dynasty law to deal with the most heinous criminals were applied to this group of people.

Intelligence obtained without interrogation is purely one-sided destruction.

These Japanese people usually acted kind, gentle, respectful, and frugal in the Tang Dynasty, but now that they've entered this hell on earth, their inherent despicable nature has been completely exposed.

They cried out, begging for mercy in incomprehensible gibberish. They even began loudly denouncing non-existent accomplices in an attempt to avoid a lash or a branding iron cast.

"Stop hitting me! I'll tell you! I have accomplices in the East Market!"

The monk, whose calf flesh had been scraped away by the bone-pulling comb, writhed wildly, his face covered in tears and snot, and yellow urine dripping from his crotch.

He frantically tried to implicate people in broken Mandarin, naming dozens of Western Region merchants and Silla people doing business in Chang'an, and even the shopkeeper of the shop where he had bought cakes the day before.

The old jailer ignored him. The iron comb in his hand dug into the flesh of his other leg again. With a "crack," the barb scraped against the white shinbone.

Qin Huaidao sat in the torture chamber all night.

Cucumber peels and stems lay scattered at his feet. His ears were ringing from the screams.

The sky outside the window began to turn gray.

Qin Huaidao stood up, dusted off his clothes, and threw the knife on the table.

"Alright." He looked at the several lumps of rotten flesh hanging in mid-air, tortured beyond recognition, and said.

The old jailer stopped what he was doing, the branding iron left the skin, and a pungent white smoke rose from the iron.

"Be careful not to kill him." Qin Huaidao stepped over the pool of blood on the ground and walked out. "Tomorrow we still have to send him to the execution ground for the people to watch."

On the morning of the third day, at the vegetable market entrance of West Market in Chang'an.

The number of people who came to watch the spectacle today was more than ten times that of usual.

The windows on the second floor of the bookstores, teahouses, and inns lining both sides of the street were all bursting with people.

People were climbing all over the walls of the distant archway, and even onlookers were squatting on the branches of the surrounding trees.

"I heard that the Japanese are trying to assassinate the Emperor?" An old farmer carrying a vegetable basket put down his basket, spat heavily into his palm, and cursed angrily.

"What an ignorant fool! What a waste of our Great Tang's white rice."

"A treacherous barbarian."

Beside him stood a scholar in a blue robe, his knuckles white and his face flushed, clutching a folding fan.

"After a few days of plenty, they've forgotten who they are! They deserve to be torn to pieces!"

"The prison van has arrived—"

"All bystanders, stand back!"

The roar of the Imperial Guard captain drowned out the clamor of tens of thousands of people.

At the end of the long street, dozens of flatbed prison carts slowly drove by. Their wheels were not covered with iron plates and rolled directly on the dry, cracked stone road, making a dull, grating creaking sound.

The people being transported in the truck no longer looked like living people.

They were all bloody gourds, their skin torn and flesh ripped open, their limbs bent backwards, tortured by instruments of torture.

They were too exhausted to even scream, and piled up like bundles of slaughtered pigs, letting out a few weak grunts as the carriage jolted along.

The jailers stepped forward and, like butchers dismembering meat, grabbed them by the hair, dragged them off the cart, and threw them in front of the execution platform.

Stacks upon stacks, rows upon rows, left thick streaks of blood on the bluestone slabs.

On the execution platform.

Cheng Yaojin, dressed in a loose, bright red official robe, sat on a grand master's chair.

Cheng Yaojin suddenly stood up.

"The time has come."

Cheng Yaojin took a deep breath, his chest bulging, and his voice boomed like a clap of thunder in the air, making the wooden pillars of the execution platform vibrate.

"Execute!"

The executioner roared, tightened his waist and abdomen, and with a gust of wind, brought the heavy executioner's blade down with a whistling sound.

"Pfft!"

"Pfft! Pfft!"

Dozens of heads with short tufts of hair were instantly detached from their necks and fell to the ground like ripe watermelons.

"Well done!"

Copper coins, rotten vegetable leaves, rotten eggs, and clumps of mud rained down on the execution ground, striking the headless corpses that were still convulsing.

One batch was killed, and another batch was immediately brought in.

The executioner's arm went numb from swinging, and the blade struck his neck bone, creating a gash.

The hanger-on immediately handed over a new one, replacing the old one.

This devastating massacre lasted for three days and three nights.

The sewers in the low-lying area of ​​Caishikou were completely clogged with dark red blood and soaked, swollen bits of meat.

The pungent, almost overwhelming smell of blood drifted several miles away on the early spring south wind.

Even the fiercest stray dogs in the West Market of Chang'an City, upon smelling this scent, all tucked their tails between their legs and shrank into the depths of the alley, not daring to utter a single bark.