When the poison master woke up and found that his hands and feet were bound, he immediately understood his situation.
"Feng shui takes turns, right?" He smiled bitterly. Since he had no eyes, he had no idea whether Zhou Shi was beside him, so it was more like he was talking to himself.
"I am interrogating you on behalf of the Jiangdu Yamen." Zhao Xuan returned to the tiger bench with a whip, "Did you start the fire in the city? What is your purpose? Do you have any accomplices?"
The poison master lowered his head and said to the air in front of him: "Now that I'm here, you will only get the answer you want."
"That's true, but the process always has to go through. Zhou Shi, give him a few bricks to help him wake up a little bit."
Zhou Shi responded positively and came to the tiger bench with bricks in his arms.
"It's a pity that we have to change people here." The poison master smiled slightly and said.
Before Zhou Shi could understand what he meant, Zhao Xuan rushed towards the poison master and tried to open his mouth.
"There's something in his mouth! Spit it out!"
It was too late. The Poison Master's slightly raised lips wriggled a few times, and his body became stiff and limp as if he had received an electric shock, and then he lost his life.
He has hidden poison in his mouth long ago, and if he is captured, he will take the poison and commit suicide!
Zhou Shi secretly scolded himself for being careless, not checking his mouth carefully, and not expecting him to be so cruel!
"Master Zhao, please step aside!" Zhou Shi took out the iron abacus and planned to use the spirit summoning algorithm to summon the ghost of the poison master.
Using methods in front of official personnel is a taboo in the outer sect. It will cause endless troubles and consume precious merits, but he can't care about that much at the moment. The information from the poison master's mouth is very important!
"Don't waste your efforts."
A low, gentle voice sounded in the execution room. The two of them raised their heads at the same time and discovered that the source of the voice was actually the corpse of the poison master!
But the poison master is undoubtedly dead, and his mouth cannot be seen opening or closing. This sound is...
"I speak to you through the sound transmission Gu planted in his body." The voice continued, "His ghost is in my hands. No matter what secret method you use to summon souls, you can confirm this."
As he said. Zhou Shi dialed back and forth on the iron abacus, but no ghost of the poison master showed up. The spirit summoning algorithm failed!
"Who are you?" Zhao Xuan asked in a deep voice.
"No comment. I want to speak to someone from Jiangdu Yamen."
"I am."
"Very good. I'm here to declare a challenge."
There was dead silence in the torture chamber.
"War letter? What do you want to do?" Zhao Xuan broke the silence and asked.
"On New Year's Eve this year, I will take action to take away three million souls of Jiangdu."
Three million, this is the population of Jiangdu City.
"You want to massacre the city?" Zhao Xuan asked.
"You can understand it this way. In short, when the first sun of the New Year illuminates Jiangdu City, it will be reduced to a dead city." The voice did not change the tone at all, as if it was just stating the facts, "There is still half a month until New Year's Eve.
You can take any action to stop me, write to the court, ask for help, relocate the people, whatever you want. But these three million souls will eventually fall into my hands."
Zhao Xuan silently lit the charcoal basin next to her, and the flame licked the soldering iron.
At this time, Zhou Shi, who had been silent all this time, spoke up: "What do you want three million souls for?"
"Are you from the underworld? Since you are a member of the underworld, you should know that the dead are far more valuable than the living."
Zhou Shi's brain was racing. What was the other party hinting at? He wanted to use his soul to... borrow Yin soldiers? Or other Yin gate magic?
"Is there an alternative? For example, the souls of three million livestock?"
Zhao Xuan's eyes fell on Zhou Shi, as if questioning this crazy question.
The other side of the sound transmission Gu was also silent for a moment, and said: "There is no point in negotiating terms. I will definitely take the three million souls in my bag."
His answer at least rules out some possibilities.
"You want to imitate An Rudao?" Zhou Shi threw a big bait.
Sure enough, the other party was silent again. When the voice sounded again, there was a hint of smile in the originally emotionless voice.
"You know more than I think. No, that's not my purpose."
He also knows An Rudao... So, his purpose is not to collect the souls as Yin soldiers. After all, the number of three million Yin soldiers is too terrifying...
"I've almost finished what I want to say. Please don't panic and prepare well for New Year's Eve. We will arrive as promised."
"Slow down!" Zhou Shi shouted, "Do you know that Lu Yan is in Jiangdu? If you want to destroy the city, he will not sit idly by and watch!"
The other party smiled and said: "That's just me luring you into taking the bait and using his name. Lu Yan's true identity is not here. Even if..."
He seemed to want to say, "Even if Lu Yan is in Jiangdu, the situation cannot be changed," but he swallowed this sentence hard.
"In short, he can't help you."
Zhao Xuan's face turned crimson from the charcoal fire. She picked up the red-hot soldering iron and said, "How about leaving a name?"
The person on the other side pondered for a while and said, "No comment."
"Okay, no comment, sir. You seem to think that Jiangdu is yours, but the fact is..." The soldering iron in Zhao Xuan's hand moved closer to the poison master's body, "This will be your burial place."
Place."
"I'll wait and see. See you on New Year's Eve."
As he spoke, the branding iron was already attached to the poison master's face, and the skin and flesh quickly curled and scorched under the high temperature, leaving a black mark.
Except for the sizzling sound of barbecue, there was no sound in the basement. No matter who was on the other side of the sound Gu, he had achieved his goal.
Zhao Xuan threw the soldering iron back into the charcoal basin and asked, "What do you think?"
"A little confused."
Indeed, the airtight torture chamber was filled with the disgusting smell of barbecue.
"It doesn't matter, I don't plan to eat him."
"No matter what the other party wants to do, he is serious. The corpse hiding case in Yichunyuan was also his, or rather their handiwork."
"Obviously." Zhao Xuan glanced at Zhou Shi, "You know far more about them than I do. An Rudao and Lu Yan, I have never heard of these two names."
"Well, let's call them two legends on our road." Zhou Shi pretended to be nonchalant and said, pretending that he was covering up something and letting Zhao Xuan realize that it was a pretense.
If nothing else happens, Zhao Xuan will investigate these two names by herself, which is exactly what Zhou Shi wants.
"What about you, what countermeasures do you have?" He asked Zhao Xuan in turn.
Apparently Zhao Xuan is also thinking about this matter. "I'm afraid it's unrealistic to write to the court. New Year's Eve is only half a month away, and there's no time to go back and forth to the capital. Relocating people is even more impossible. Jiangdu is the largest city on both sides of the river, with a population greater than that of the capital."
If there are too many, where will these three million people move to..."
"They want to do things on New Year's Eve, can you arrange this?" Zhou Shi suggested, "I think the reason why they chose New Year's Eve is because there are people coming and going on the street that day, and a thunderbolt can blow up a whole area.
.If we keep everyone behind closed doors..."
"That's impossible." Zhao Xuan interrupted him, "I just received the news that Wu Zhaokun's trusted Jiangdu prefect is on his way, and he will arrive on New Year's Eve. When a new official takes office, there will inevitably be lanterns, festoons, gongs and drums -
—I guess he chose this day to take office just for this reason."
"Can you reason with him?"
"I'm afraid not. After all, it's impossible for you and me to prove that a major case of annihilation of the city will really happen on New Year's Eve."
Zhao Xuan hit the nail on the head, and it is probably because the other party saw this clearly that he chose to use the Poison Master to convey the letter of challenge.
They were the only two people who heard the declaration of war. How to convince others?
"Anyway, we can't sit still and wait for death. At least I can still control the government officials in Jiangdu City, and I can make some arrangements." Zhao Xuan said and was about to leave.
"Wait for me." Zhou Shi also hurriedly followed. He didn't want to be in the same room with the poison master's body.
"What should you do? Is the poison he poisoned still on you?" Zhao Xuan asked as she opened the door.
Zhou Shi smiled bitterly and said: "I will solve it myself. Now, we can only hope for ourselves."