Scarface Liu brought a pot of food to Jiang Gaoyi's cell.
This was special treatment.
"Here, eat up! If you ever get out, don't say I mistreated you!"
Scarface Liu did his best to force a friendly smile and beckoned to Jiang Gaoyi.
Curled up in a corner, Jiang Gaoyi scurried over to the fragrant meal.
Lord Jiang looked up and saw Scarface Liu's savage grin, and his heart skipped a beat. He looked back down at the food. The pot contained fish and meat, soup and pastries—a lavish meal, even more sumptuous than in previous days. The next second, tears streamed down the old man's face as sorrow overwhelmed him. "Could this be my final meal? I've been wronged! I'm innocent! I want to appeal my case! I want to appeal!"
"Final meal my ass!" Scarface Liu scoffed. "Don't you worry, Lord Gao. The higher-ups have long forgotten you're here. Your head is plenty secure."
"In that case... thank you, Sixth Master." With a complicated expression, Jiang Gaoyi began to eat.
"You should be thanking Master Zheng."
Scarface Liu pointed to Master Zheng in the adjacent cell, then sidled closer, fawningly asking Master Zheng if he required any 'room service'.
Second Lady had just left.
Master Zheng was currently idling.
Hearing Scarface Liu give him this meager credit, Master Zheng simply smiled and didn't capitalize on the moment.
As he ate, Jiang Gaoyi paused, staring blankly at the leftovers on his plate. 'God knows when I'll ever be able to leave this godforsaken place,' he thought.
Scarface Liu's words—"You should be thanking Master Zheng"—echoed in his ears like a persistent spell.
"Marquis, are you asking about 'Baili Village'?"
Jiang Gaoyi's head snapped up. Ignoring his food, he walked to the edge of his cell and, from across the corridor, lowered his voice to question Master Zheng.
Zheng Xiu was slightly taken aback by the question.
A few seconds later, Zheng Xiu slapped his forehead, cursing himself for overlooking the obvious. He then waved to Scarface Liu, who was walking away dejectedly but hadn't actually gone far, glancing back every few steps. "Sixth Brother, be a pal and get some wine!"
"Get wine?"
"Those two jugs from last time—did you drink them?"
"Haven't touched them!"
"You were able to resist?"
"I couldn't! But I didn't dare drink it!" Scarface Liu declared, as if he'd done the right thing.
"Perfect. Bring out the wine! I want to drink and chat with Lord Jiang!"
These days, Scarface Liu was swift and decisive, and he knew better than to ask questions.
In no time, a low table was brought out, complete with sitting cushions.
Jiang Gaoyi watched, dumbfounded, as Scarface Liu unlocked both their cell doors and respectfully invited Master Zheng to come visit him in his own cell. He was completely dazed. 'What has the world come to?'
Two jugs of fine wine and a table of side dishes were laid out.
After three rounds of drinks, with Master Zheng frequently urging him to drink more, Jiang Gaoyi's face was flushed. His opinion of this cunning merchant had improved considerably.
'After all,' he thought, 'General Zheng died in battle for Daqian. The son he raised can't be all that bad.'
"Lord Jiang, that Baili Village... it couldn't possibly be located right within your Yanzhou territory, could it?"
Master Zheng, who had mastered the art of table-side negotiations, seized the opportunity to ask.
"Marquis, what made you decide to ask about that cold case?"
Jiang Gaoyi was unwilling to call Zheng Xiu "Master Zheng" as Old Liu and the others did; he felt the address was too commercial, too undignified. "Marquis," however, was another matter entirely. Zheng Xiu legitimately held the title of Marquis Zhonglie, and there was no shame in cultivating a deep friendship with such a man.
"Cold... case?" Zheng Xiu repeated, stunned.
"The thing is..." Jiang Gaoyi's expression was shifty. He hesitated for a moment, then gritted his teeth and made Zheng Xiu promise never to speak of it to a third party before he finally began to explain what he knew.
The "Baili Village" he knew of was on the border between Yanzhou and Jingzhou, but it fell under Yanzhou's jurisdiction.
Twenty years ago, at the junction of the two provinces, there was a small village called Baili Village.
It was home to a total of twenty-six families. The Northern Barbarian Chaos had raged for a full five years, leaving the nation in a state of depression. The common people suffered, and bandits rose up everywhere, forming gangs to prey on others.
Then, one night, Baili Village was massacred. All twenty-six households, a total of forty-nine villagers, were slaughtered. Not a single soul was left alive.
Now, the Baili Village Ruins are nothing more than crumbling walls and lonely graves in a forgotten wasteland.
If Jiang Gaoyi hadn't been an official in Yanzhou for several decades and personally handled the case of this village massacre, he might not have remembered it at all.
"Twenty years ago? Twenty years ago? Twenty years ago?"
Zheng Xiu slapped his thigh.
He carefully asked for confirmation: was this Baili Village located in a small grove, with steep mountains to one side and a straight main road nearby?
Upon receiving Jiang Gaoyi's confirmation, Zheng Xiu's face remained impassive as he once again urged him to drink.
"But why must this incident not be mentioned to any third party?"
Master Zheng asked again.
Once he started talking, Jiang Gaoyi held nothing back. He explained that a village massacre wasn't particularly unusual in an era when bandits were rampant. The strange part was what happened after. The case should have been handled and filed by the local Government Office, but shortly after the incident, the Minister of the Ministry of Justice himself rode from the Imperial City, traveling nonstop through the night. He arrived in Yanzhou, confiscated the case file, closed the case with incredible speed, and even issued a gag order.
Master Zheng's expression turned strange. "Are you talking about the previous Minister of the Ministry of Justice, Lord Qu Bugui? The one who was later said to have died from an illness at home?"
"The very same. Qu Bugui, Lord Qu."
So Qu Bugui had gone, and true to his name, never returned.
Jiang Gaoyi wondered aloud why Zheng Xiu was asking about this cold case. Zheng Xiu casually lied that someone who wanted to do business with him had claimed to be from Baili Village. The man seemed shady, so Zheng Xiu sent someone to investigate. Jiang Gaoyi nodded in understanding. The reason was perfectly logical. Since Baili Village no longer existed, it must have all been a misunderstanding.
Five rounds of drinks later.
This was the happiest day Jiang Gaoyi had experienced in his three months of imprisonment. Spirits high, he reminisced about the dark times when bandits were rampant. He went on to say that if General Zheng hadn't fought his way to the Northern Border, plunging deep into enemy territory and striking terror into their hearts, the five-year-long Northern Barbarian Chaos might not have finally concluded twenty years ago. Only after that external threat was pacified could the realm know the peace it did today.
Jiang Gaoyi's words were filled with admiration for General Zheng.
Ever since he was young, Zheng Xiu had heard countless people sing his father's praises.
But many of the tales were exaggerated.
According to legend, General Zheng had led an army of ten thousand men, charging through the enemy lines and fighting all the way to the capital of the Northern Barbarians. In the end, all ten thousand soldiers and General Zheng himself perished in battle. Only the army's strategist, who had not been on the field, survived.
When the strategist later returned to the Court, he claimed that General Zheng had suddenly manifested Divine Power. He said the flesh, blood, and bones of the ten thousand soldiers had formed a suit of armor around the general, that blood-red clouds roiled in the sky, and that the sheer aura of blood had converged into a river that poured down from Heaven, crushing the enemy's city... Sounds utterly absurd, doesn't it?
Yes, utterly absurd.
The entire world thought it was absurd.
The surviving strategist had perhaps been traumatized. After returning to court, he became delirious, spouting gibberish. He grew depressed and withdrawn, and before long, he starved himself to death.
However, the fact remained that after General Zheng's death, the Northern Barbarians surrendered, and the war came to a close. That was a true battle record. As for the strategist's account, most people dismissed it as either gross exaggeration or the ravings of a madman.
After his death, Father Zheng was posthumously granted the title of Marquis Zhonglie. The Emperor bestowed a plaque, which now hangs in the main hall of the Zheng Residence.
At first, Little Zheng Xiu believed it.
After his past-life memories' Awakening, he declared that his luck had finally turned, that his cheat ability had finally arrived. He then proceeded to dig three feet deep throughout the Zheng Residence, hoping to find some Cultivation Technique Manuals.
Of course, he found nothing.
Only then did Little Zheng Xiu give up on the idea of a heaven-sent power-up.
...
The wine from Zheng's Winery was the real deal—made with genuine ingredients, double-distilled using traditional methods, high-proof, and never watered down. With two jugs in his belly, Jiang Gaoyi had his first pleasant dream since his imprisonment, muttering softly in the corner as he slept.
"Get him a clean, warm blanket. You can collect your payment tomorrow—one hundred taels."
Zheng Xiu instructed the Prison Guard, who promptly carried out the order. The master returned to his own cell, lay back in his Grandmaster's Chair, and closed his eyes in deep thought.
At some point, this humble prison had started to give Tycoon Zheng a sense of security, making him reluctant to leave.
The mystery of Baili Village's origins was now basically solved.
Baili Village. A massacre, twenty years ago.
A small village that existed twenty years ago, on the border of Yanzhou and Jingzhou.
No wonder he couldn't find any record of it.
Setting aside the suspicious circumstances surrounding the massacre, what Zheng Xiu was pondering now was why the [Prisoner] Path had sent him back twenty years into a phantom past.
Was it just to survive until dawn?
Or was it to have him return to the "past" in this manner to reinvestigate, to find the true culprit, to bring justice to those twenty-six families, and to right a wrong in the eyes of Heaven and Earth?
'Imperial Sword Guard Wang Cangyun…'
'Being hunted…'
'That young boy…'
'Wait a minute.'
Suddenly, as Master Zheng factored "the massacre from twenty years ago" into his thoughts, the tangled threads began to straighten. He peeled back the layers one by one. A terrifying idea took root in his mind: 'I've never even heard of Daqian having an 'Imperial Sword Guard' post. Just how long ago was that position active?'
'If he really was an Imperial Sword Guard Commander, he must have been a trusted confidant of the old Emperor.'
'Twenty years ago is a vague timeframe. A margin of error of three to five months wouldn't be surprising at all.'
'If it happened to be during that period when the Old Wei Emperor was away from the Imperial City…'
The various clues were starting to connect.
'That little brat he was with... couldn't be an illegitimate son or something, could he?'
As Zheng Xiu mulled over the "illegitimate son" theory, the more plausible it seemed.
A heavy pressure suddenly weighed on his chest, followed by a throbbing pain. His heart began to pound wildly, THUMP-THUMP-THUMP, as if a living creature was about to burst forth.
At the same time.
A sharp pain shot through Zheng Xiu's neck, and two bruises materialized from thin air, forming a ring around it.
'Something's happened in the Ghostly Realm!'
He had been idling all night, his mind consumed by the Baili Village massacre. He had almost forgotten.
He blinked, and his consciousness sank into the Ghostly Realm, reconnecting with his Incarnation.
Zheng Xiu opened his eyes.
The pungent stench of blood filled the air.
In the darkness, he saw a figure even taller than [Zheng Shan] that had somehow entered the house.
HUFF...
The tall figure's back was hunched, its head already scraping against the roof beams.
Its posture was that of a predatory, humanoid beast, spine bent as if ready to pounce!
"It" was gripping [Zheng Shan]'s neck with one enormous hand, hoisting him into the air.
In the darkness,
Zheng Xiu, in the agony of suffocation, could just barely make out "its" eyes.
It was a pair of blood-red eyes, round and huge, like two lanterns glowing in the dark, or two crimson whirlpools threatening to suck in Zheng Xiu's very consciousness.
Tyranny, savagery, murderous intent, chaos, Madness…
In that moment, many adjectives flashed through Zheng Xiu's mind, but he ultimately settled on a single word: apathy.
For some reason, he thought of the look in Little Feng Bei's eyes.
A look that seemed utterly out of place with everyone else in Baili Village.
[You are tainted by 'Madness'.]
[Passive Will check initiated.]
The Dice floated out on its own and rolled.
[Eight.]
[Less than ten. Resistance failed.]
[Will -1.]
"HEH HEH HEH..."
A strange laugh escaped from the beast-like figure's mouth.
CRACK!
[Your neck has been snapped.]
[Dead.]