After Transmigration: Building a Kingdom in Turbulent Times-Chapter 975 - 960: Ruthless and Merciless

The trusted aides lowered their heads in shame and reported, "Three rounds of torture have been used, but they still refuse to speak."

Zhao Hanzhang instructed them to be lowered slightly, so that their toes just touched the ground but they couldn’t fully stand. This caused them to sway a bit, and they eventually relied on their bound arms for balance.

Standing straight, Zhao Hanzhang was only slightly shorter than them, but with their heads lowered, they appeared even smaller than Zhao Hanzhang.

She took the whip from the trusted aide, lifted one of their chins to scrutinize them, then after a moment stepped back and looked them up and down with a slight smile. "You’re lucky my favored general, Yuan Li, is not in the Northern Lands right now, or he could have given you a proper welcome. But you’re also unlucky to have provoked me when I have little patience."

"Refuse to speak? What does it matter?" Zhao Hanzhang tilted her head and said, "Go find someone who is good at sketching portraits, and draw their faces for me. Search in Jiangdong, the Central Plains, and Jiangnan. Once they are found, I’ll let your entire clan reunite with you, how about that?" 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

The two of them trembled slightly, but neither spoke.

Zhao Hanzhang stepped back a few steps and sat on a chair brought by a trusted aide, asking, "Has the person been found?"

The aide quietly acknowledged and left, soon returning with a hunched, gloomy-faced man, who bowed and said, "This is the county’s executioner."

Zhao Hanzhang nodded and said to him, "Pick one and execute them by slow slicing."

The executioner was stunned and hurriedly knelt, saying, "My lord, I must report, I only know how to behead, strangle, and quarter; I don’t know slow slicing."

"It’s alright," Zhao Hanzhang said, "Start from the arm. Do you know how to fillet a fish? I don’t need you to actually reach a thousand cuts before he dies. Cut the slices as fine as you can. Once finished with the arm, move to the chest, thighs, and legs. There’s plenty of meat there, just be careful not to let him die too quickly."

After speaking, Zhao Hanzhang looked up at the two hanging individuals with a smile and said, "Perhaps halfway through, he’ll be willing to confess?"

The two turned pale, still unable to believe that Zhao Hanzhang, known for her benevolence, would do such a thing.

But Zhao Hanzhang waved a hand, and immediately someone brought two wooden boards, set them up, and took the men down. They stripped them and tied them to the boards, causing the two to struggle violently, shouting loudly, "Zhao Hanzhang, Zhao Hanzhang, you are so cruel and inhuman, your reign will not last! If this gets out, you will be reviled! Release me, release me, I am of noble family, how dare you treat me like this!"

Zhao Hanzhang turned a deaf ear, seeing the executioner’s legs trembling and not daring to step forward, so she went to the torture instruments, chose a sharp little knife, and handed it to him with a smile, "Go on, if you can slice ten pieces of flesh without him dying, I’ll give you a bushel of wheat. For every additional ten slices, I’ll give you another bushel, until he dies or confesses."

Upon hearing this, the executioner was no longer afraid, his eyes gleaming, and he immediately took the small knife.

He was from Wuyi County and had been hungry for a long time. Five people in his family had already starved to death. Now only a grandson and a granddaughter were left, and they were about to starve to death too. Food, food...

Although the County Magistrate provided relief through work, it was still difficult for him to support three people alone. His family of three was on the verge of starving to death at any moment.

As long as he was given food, not to mention slice a human, he would dare to slice ghosts or gods!

The executioner stepped forward, looked around, and chose the bigger and fatter one on the left. When the latter saw the executioner coming towards him, he screamed in terror, struggling desperately, trying to escape.

But he was bound with ropes and could not move, only able to scream futilely.

The executioner frowned, finding him too noisy, but seeing that Zhao Hanzhang had no intention of stopping him, he could only withstand the noise, walked up, and pressed down his continuously trembling hand, "Don’t struggle. If you struggle like this, the blood will flow faster, and you’ll die sooner."

He felt a cold hand touch his arm, making him tremble all over, and he screamed in terror.

Seeing he couldn’t persuade him, the executioner sighed, pressed down on his arm, and the small knife gently cut down along the arm, slicing off a piece of flesh.

It seemed quite smooth, but the executioner knew that the knife was not very sharp and was momentarily stuck, so the sliced meat was a bit large.

The pain took a moment to reach his nerves, and he saw the executioner slap a piece of meat onto the wooden board with a crack, easily visible with just a turn of his head.

His eyes widened instantly and he twitched a few times in terror before his head lolled to one side and he fainted.

The executioner widened his eyes, quickly checked his breathing, and, after finding him alive, sighed with relief. Without waiting for Zhao Hanzhang to speak, he stabbed the knife hard into his sole, waking the man up, saying, "You must not die or faint. You need to earn me at least three bushels of grain, three bushels..."

The other person was so scared that he wet himself, and a foul stench spread out.

Zhao Hanzhang saw it, then said to the executioner, "Continue. If we don’t get a confession tonight, both of them must be sliced. Even with your poor skill, you should manage a hundred cuts on one person, right?"

As she spoke, the trusted aides found a portrait artist, and Zhao Hanzhang instructed them to draw, "Draw quickly, for there’s a difference between the dead and the living. If they die later, it won’t look good."

The two agreed. They were clerks from the logistics department who had been following Fan Ying and Zhao Hanzhang and had never seen her like this, so their hands holding the pens trembled a bit.

The executioner pressed down on the person and continued to slice, this time slicing off eight pieces in a row, nearly earning a bushel of grain. The person lying on the wooden bed felt him pressing towards his chest and immediately screamed in terror, "I confess, I confess. My name is Shi Bai, I’m a Taiyuan person. I was ordered to stop you from returning to Yu State, preferably to incite rebellion in the Northern Lands, delaying—delaying your steps."

The executioner pressed on his chest, his eyes somewhat fierce, "Let me slice one more, let me slice one more..."

With that, he was about to slice again, but Shi Bai, lying on the board, screamed in horror. Zhao Hanzhang got up and grabbed the executioner’s hand with a light smile, "Why rush? There’s still another one next to you. I’ll count it all, this one’s confessed, slice the other, we’ll eventually make up ten pieces of meat."

The executioner’s eyes lit up, and he finally let go of his fixation on slicing the piece of meat from Shi Bai’s chest.

Zhao Hanzhang leaned down and asked Shi Bai, "Whose orders were you following?"

Shi Bai shivered but didn’t speak.

Zhao Hanzhang turned her head to the executioner and said, "Go on."

Shi Bai clenched his eyes shut and shouted, "Wang Han. I was sent by the Xuzhou Governor Wang Han."

"Wang Han?" Zhao Hanzhang chuckled lightly and asked, "Wang Han’s orders, or Wang Dun’s?"

Shi Bai shivered along his spine and insisted, "Wang Han, we all directly follow Wang Han’s orders."

Zhao Hanzhang turned her head towards the neighboring board and asked softly, "Is that so?"

Though her tone remained gentle, the person on the board shuddered violently and nodded repeatedly, "Yes, yes."