Chapter 1215: Receiving Punishment

This also showed that the general welfare in Jucheng was genuinely poor. So many shops had gone out of business, and some had remained vacant for a long time, with no one taking them over.

Finally, the Soul-Capturing Mirror gave an early warning:

“There's an array ahead, be careful, an array!”

About thirty zhang away stood a three-story shop.

This one had also gone out of business. Its signboard hadn't been taken down yet; it used to be a cloth shop. The ground floor was the retail area, the middle floor's purpose was unclear, and there was an attic at the very top.

From this attic, the view was unobstructed, making it easy to overlook the county yamen.

Inside and outside the shop, it was pitch black. No one had lit a lamp, just like the three empty houses He Lingchuan had visited earlier.

But before He Lingchuan could get close, a large man in black pushed open the door and stepped out of the shop, standing on the street and looking around.

The man's face was expressionless, and his eyes glowed with a faint red light.

He Lingchuan had just jumped into someone else's yard and stood motionless.

After a short while, the man walked back into the cloth shop.

“What kind of creature is that, with such sensitive senses?” He Lingchuan had come disguised as Bo Shan-jun. Not to mention sneaking around at night, even in broad daylight, few people should have been able to detect anything amiss.

He thought for a moment and decided not to approach any further. Instead, he chose to release his eyeball spider—

This little creature could now move according to his will, which was much more convenient than before.

He Lingchuan manipulated the eyeball spider across the street. It hopped into the cloth shop, crawled up the outer wall to a wooden window, and then squeezed inside.

Its body was no larger than a grain of rice, and with the dark sky, it was not easy to notice.

Inside the shop, it was pitch black, but this type of spider had very large eyes with excellent light-gathering ability. It could easily see two constables inside, one standing and one sitting, looking somewhat uneasy.

One of them whispered, “What’s happening at the yamen?”

Staying here, they could also hear sounds coming from the direction of the government office and the prison.

“It seems someone is attacking the prison to free prisoners. The superiors just sent a message asking if the prisoners are still there.”

“Will the Situ family really attack Jucheng?” the questioning constable whispered. “It’s only been peaceful for a few days.”

“Can General Situ really bear to see his son executed and do nothing about it?”

“Who do you think will win?” the first constable muttered.

“That depends on who you’re hoping for,” his companion sneered. “Gaopu is already gone. If your heart is with the Situ family, be careful—”

He raised a finger and pointed towards the attic above, not finishing his sentence, because two muffled groans came from upstairs again, as if someone was screaming but had their mouth gagged, only able to make such sounds.

The floorboards creaked as if being struck, and dust fell.

The two constables shivered, swallowed hard, and fell silent.

The screams from the attic continued, one after another, low and chilling. The two constables sat in the darkness, their hair standing on end from what they heard.

The eyeball spider immediately climbed the ladder to the attic.

The light in the attic was not much better than below. Someone was tied tightly to a chair, with a hemp wad stuffed in their mouth.

Both his hands were tied to the chair's armrests, and the nails on eight of his fingers had been pulled out, leaving eight bloody holes.

The reason for saying eight fingers was because a large man in black stood before him, who had just used scissors to cut off his ring finger.

As for his left pinky finger, it had already been cut off earlier.

These small scissors were probably left behind in the cloth shop, but they were as sharp for cutting fingers as they were for cutting cloth. The man in black deliberately cut the finger in slow motion to inflict more suffering.

Blood gushed out, dripping onto the dusty floor, and then seeping downwards.

The captive was drenched in sweat, his eyes wide with agony, his screams completely muffled by the gag.

He Lingchuan used the eyeball spider's first-person view and immediately recognized this old acquaintance: Situ He, a former student of Lingxu City!

The large man in black waited for him to calm down slightly before pulling out the hemp wad from his mouth. “Don’t be in such a hurry to pass out,” he said, “we have a whole night to enjoy ourselves slowly.”

Situ He gasped for air, his face pale, but glared at him and said, “Ban Jing, you are also from Gaopu, and my father even promoted you. Why do you betray your master and abandon justice!”

Jucheng had been breached several months ago. The defenders here had no other choice and eventually surrendered to the Bixia people.

Surrender or die—Situ He understood that. But as soon as he was transferred to Jucheng, Ban Jing came to torture him.

Why was this happening?

Ban Jing chuckled, his voice cold, and a red glow began to grow in his eyes.

“Ban Jing is my ghost slave avatar, but I can answer your question: Whatever I tell him to do, he does. That’s called a wise man adapting to circumstances. But stubborn people like you will suffer every kind of torment before dying.”

Situ He said bitterly, “You are Ghost King Xuanlu!”

“You destroyed two of my avatars. Did you think I would let you go?”

“Every wrong has its perpetrator, every debt its debtor. You helped the Bixia people poison Gaopu…”

Ghost King Xuanlu interrupted him. “No need for meaningless talk. I’m keeping your tongue so you can persuade Situ Yu to surrender tomorrow. If you obey, you’ll suffer less. But if you insist on being stubborn to the end—”

He chuckled twice. “Your eyeballs are useless anyway; I’ll dig them out for you.”

The pain of his severed finger made cold sweat stream down Situ He’s forehead to his neck, but he still retorted, “Persuade my father to surrender? Ha, ha, just like you persuaded your own father-in-law to surrender back then?”

He also knew about Ghost King Xuanlu’s inglorious past experiences when he was alive.

This single sentence successfully infuriated the Ghost King. A fierce red light blazed in his eyes, and he leaned close to Situ He’s face. “I just love people with such unyielding integrity. They can keep me amused for a long time. The last man who stood defiantly before me, I pulled out all two hundred and six of his bones, one by one. He couldn't endure it later, but begging for mercy was useless. What was left was a mass of unidentifiable soft flesh. I nourished it well with ointment, then sprinkled some honey on it, and threw it into a fire ant nest in the forest.”

He licked his lips, his smile twisted. “Tonight is still very long. You must hold on; don’t disappoint me.”

Situ He’s throat moved twice, and he spat at him with contempt.

Ghost King Xuanlu easily dodged it and put the hemp wad back into his mouth. He then found a spoon from somewhere and used it to pry open his eyelids.

These eyeballs, he would dig out very, very slowly, to make Situ He suffer immensely.

The suffering of living beings was his source of joy.

Seeing this, the eyeball spider sprayed a thin thread and swung forward.

It intended to swing onto Ban Jing’s neck and take a small bite—

Just one small bite would inject the venom.

Madam Zhu's upgraded eyeball spider could secrete a very potent toxin. Anyone bitten would feel the nerves at the wound burning as if submerged in boiling water, scalding hot and unbearably painful.

However, before the eyeball spider could land, Ban Jing sensed its presence and immediately turned around.

A red light flashed in his eyes, and the grain-of-rice-sized creature was reflected in his pupils.

Whose little spy was this?

As soon as it was discovered, the eyeball spider immediately turned and darted backward, its eight legs scrambling, and swiftly scurried towards the wooden window.