Chapter 123: The Tragedy of the Inner Guards (Part II)

Chu Prefecture, Huaiyin Commandery.

The residence of Li Rui, Duke of Chu, was haunted. The disturbances in both the outer courtyards and inner chambers left the household restless day and night. Taoist priests were summoned to set up altars and perform rites, but to no avail; the ghostly wails persisted, will-o'-the-wisps flickered incessantly, and spectral figures continued to drift through the halls.

A steward suggested inviting Buddhist monks to hold a grand water-and-land ritual, hoping it might suppress the evil spirits and restore peace. Although Li Rui did not adopt the suggestion, he rewarded the steward with a lavish seafood banquet, praising him for his attentiveness and concern. The steward bowed in gratitude, and his entire family partook of the expensive delicacies. Shortly after, the entire family died, bleeding from all seven orifices.

Li Rui, naturally unwilling to remain in a haunted mansion, requisitioned a compound in Shanyang County. He forced the local gentry to provide innocent young women to serve his daily needs, living in dissolute comfort while abandoning his own wives, concubines, and children to their fate at the estate. One night, after a round of depraved indulgence, he lay panting on his couch, allowing his concubines and maids to wipe him clean. He muttered cold, venomous curses: "Do not blame me for being heartless. It is your own fault for being lowly, worthless wretches without a shred of discernment. Those filthy, bald-headed monks are only fit for collecting corpses and chanting prayers for the dead; they have no place in the affairs of the noble bloodline of my Imperial House. Hmph."

He lay flat on his back, his bloated face twisted with malice and resentment. One of the women, perhaps through a moment of carelessness, tugged at his pubic hair, causing him pain. Enraged, he kicked her off the bed and beat her mercilessly. By the time he had vented his fury and felt satisfied, the woman had already ceased to breathe.

High upon the roof, three figures clad in black stood in silence. The one in the center, tall and composed, was Quan Ce. A subtle smirk touched his lips. Such a man, devoid of humanity and worse than a beast, deserved to die a dozen times over; his lineage surely had nothing to do with it. To his left, the slender-framed Lady Green Snake leaned closer, the boundless killing intent in her eyes undisguised. Had the commander not been present to restrain her, she would have long since executed him herself. To his right stood the burly Ao Han. His expression remained unmoving as he whispered, "Commander, I choose the second option."

Quan Ce nodded slightly. "Go. His karmic retribution has arrived."

Within the Duke of Chu’s residence, Li Rui’s family of over a dozen members—excluding his legal wife and legitimate daughter, who had been pushed into a small, isolated courtyard—all fell ill within a single day. Despite medical intervention, the illness showed no signs of abating. Following the order of their age, every other day at the hour of the Horse (noon), one would die suddenly and without fail.

Li Rui was gripped by terror. He met privately with his most capable servants, subordinates, and cronies to discuss countermeasures. From the second day onward, his henchmen also fell victim to the mysterious illness. On that same alternating schedule, at the stroke of noon, they began to drop dead in shocking succession.

Within a hundred-li radius, the legend of the Duke of Chu being hunted by vengeful spirits spread like wildfire. People avoided him like a plague. The vast estate was soon deserted by all its servants. Li Rui himself was driven to madness, left without food or shelter. Wherever he went, his presence cleared the streets; people would not even dare to speak to him, and even a fleeting glance would drive them to bathe thoroughly upon returning home and offer incense money to temples, hoping to perform a good deed and beg the heavens for mercy.

Li Rui wandered aimlessly until he vanished. Fearing the fallout, local officials reported the matter to the imperial court. After a widespread search, his remains were finally discovered in a forest. He had starved to death. His body was incomplete, and the owls nesting in the nearby cliffs had grown noticeably plump.

Li Rui’s fate achieved the intended effect of "killing the chicken to scare the monkeys." This had been Quan Ce’s original goal—if these people could learn to behave, he would have fewer sins on his own conscience. Seeing the Li clan nobles shaken to their cores, those who had previously refused to associate with Buddhism changed their minds and flocked to the temples; the more timid ones even shaved their heads to become monks.

Yet, there were still diehards who remained unmoved, persisting in their old ways. Li Xun, the Duke of He, was one such man. Upon hearing of Li Rui’s death, he wrote letters to several ministers in the capital, denouncing Empress Wu for poisoning the Li imperial relatives and rallying nobles in the Huai Nan circuit to expose her.

As this man had no other black marks on his record and no ghosts knocking at his door, Quan Ce simply had men knock on his door instead. He ordered Ao Han to reveal his identity, present the evidence, and arrest the man in broad daylight.

The evidence presented was a sanitized version; the letters coordinating with the nobles of the Huai Nan circuit were burned by Quan Ce’s own hand. Of the letters to the ministers in the capital, only those written by treacherous opportunists were kept. When Quan Ce destroyed the evidence in front of Ao Han and Lady Green Snake, he made no attempt to hide his intentions. "Even if we must kill, we must do so with a clear conscience. We are born human; even as we walk in darkness, our hearts must face the light. Achieving the objective is enough; to kill without limit is to cease being human."

"Commander, are you not afraid we might report you?" Ao Han asked, his aged eyes narrowed.

Quan Ce smiled leisurely. He had killed everyone who needed to be killed, and the loyalty Empress Wu demanded had been delivered. Who else was there to fear? "The Plum Blossom Inner Guard recognizes only the death penalty and the living penalty. It is I who decides which sentence is passed." With a flick of his hand, the black paper ash scattered into the wind.

"I think I finally understand why so many people were willing to die when the Commander was released from prison," Ao Han said, his tone cryptic.

Quan Ce ignored him and strode away. His blood-red cloak fluttered, brushing against the white birch trees. Under the cold moonlight, he looked like a banished immortal. Lady Green Snake cast a cold glance at Ao Han before quickly following him.

Upon returning to the capital, Quan Ce brought with him not only Li Xun but also two grand envoys of the Six Paths, Di Renjie and Doulu Qinwang. They were charged with the crime of illegally releasing prisoners—a charge neither too light nor too heavy, designed to pull them out of the chaotic quagmire of the Six Paths envoys. As he traveled slowly, the Eastern Capital of Luoyang was already holding its breath.

The Plum Blossom Inner Guard had openly arrested a Li clan relative and two high-ranking officials. Those with keen eyes understood that Li Rui’s death was also the work of the Inner Guard. Such methods were unheard of and utterly ruthless. When the news reached the Eastern Capital, Li Rui’s elder brother, Li Zheng, Prince of Yanning, knocked on the palace gates in the middle of the night to plead guilty. Empress Wu issued an edict of reprimand but imposed no further punishment.

Aside from the Li clan, the Lijing Gate and the Censorate were also deeply shaken. These two factions had long ruled the court and the capital, but they were now repeatedly hitting walls. Hou Sizi of the Lijing Gate had been indecisive at a critical moment and twice had prisoners snatched from under his nose by the Plum Blossom Inner Guard, resulting in a severe blow to his reputation. Lai Junchen of the Censorate was never indecisive, but three of his subordinates had been captured by the Inner Guard, their fates unknown.

Never having suffered such a loss since entering officialdom, Lai Junchen immediately sought an audience with Empress Wu. He wept and filed a harsh impeachment. Empress Wu offered gentle words of comfort and promised a thorough investigation, though it ultimately came to nothing. Shortly after, the three censors were publicly executed by waist-chopping.

Lai Junchen was overcome with terror, finally sensing that the atmosphere in the Eastern Capital had turned cold and ghastly. Even for a cruel official who specialized in manufacturing terror, the midnight hours were now difficult to endure.

As autumn arrived in the seventh month, the rising wind brought with it a sense of melancholy and an ominous chill. At Heming Gorge, the Black Widow looked at the growing pile of incriminating evidence on her desk. The rest were merely incidental, but the files on Su Yuanli were the most numerous and thickest, followed closely by those on Quan Ce.

"If you do not break your word, I shall regard you as my commander. But if you do..." Behind her black veil, a pair of eyes shone with the sharpness of nails.

A figure flashed into the room. "Wu Yanxiu bribed the Luoyang prefectural office. The tenant farmers who caused the trouble all died in prison."

The Black Widow frowned deeply. She had been ordered to cause trouble for Wu Yanxiu and had arranged for a destitute tenant farmer to die by crashing his head against a pillar in front of him, intending for the farmer’s family to file a lawsuit to entangle him for a time. She had not expected him to be so ruthless, cutting the Gordian knot with such speed.

"Shall I arrange for others to stir up trouble?"

"No need." The Black Widow had no desire to let more people die in vain. She let out a cold snort. "He has plenty of servants in his household. Find someone handsome to seduce him and infect him with some foul disease."