Chapter 122: The West Wind Rages

Xu Zhong felt a restless urge stirring within him.

The emissaries of Fengdu walked the mortal realm, harvesting the souls of the departed. Behind Old Li, in the phantasm of Fengdu that trailed him, a long bridge stretched across the heavens, its length unknown. It was crowded with soul-reaping envoys. Like a scroll being slowly unfurled, more and more envoys appeared. They sat cross-legged, continuously casting their soul-binding chains from the illusory realm of Fengdu to snare the wandering spirits of the living world, dragging them back into the abyss. As for more powerful entities, they were detained by the Day and Night Wandering Gods.

"I clearly saw many Day and Night Wandering Gods walking in the city earlier," Xu Zhong muttered, his voice filled with suspicion. "Why then do those soul-reaping envoys need to rely on agents to detain souls?"

Curiosity gnawed at him. He peered into the distance, but alas, as Old Li’s figure moved away, the vision of Fengdu grew ethereal, and the sound of the copper gong faded into the distance. He had no choice but to suppress his curiosity, replacing one wonder with another.

"I wonder how Su Jie is doing?"

Su Jie had been taken to the end of the dungeon and forced onto a torture rack. The rack, capable of shifting up, down, left, and right, held his limbs splayed in a "great" shape, secured tightly by chains manifested from various formations. These chains burrowed into his limbs, sealing his body and locking his Dantian and Niwan palace. At this moment, Su Jie was no more than an ordinary man. Yet, his spirit remained resilient, and he looked around with unabashed curiosity.

"Since when does forging 'travel passes' require such brutal interrogation?" he asked with a mournful face, watching the jailer busy at work.

The jailer flipped the torture rack, leaving Su Jie hanging head-down, feet-up. His blood rushed toward his head. Because a Qi practitioner’s metabolism surpassed that of an ordinary person, their blood flow was significantly faster. At first, he could endure it, but as time dragged on, the congestion in his skull became agonizing for his now-mortal constitution. Once the jailer finished, he left to summon a man known as "Old Xing."

Hanging upside down, Su Jie stared into the dim, lightless exit of the dungeon, feeling a sense of growing unease. "When did things become so serious?" he muttered to himself. The wait was a torment—a silent pressure, an intangible fear.

Finally, Old Xing arrived. He was as thin as a monkey, his eyes sharper and narrower than a falcon’s. He wore coarse black linen robes, with a small wooden box visible beneath his sleeve. Beside him stood the jailer—a man of medium height, gaunt, cross-eyed, and hook-nosed, possessing a truly hideous appearance.

"Uncomfortable, are you?" Old Xing glanced at Su Jie, a flash of coldness in his sharp eyes, before speaking calmly. "This is merely the simplest method of interrogation."

The "method" he referred to was likely just being hung upside down on the rack. Su Jie felt dizzy and lightheaded. His eyes throbbed with heat and congestion, as if soaked in warm water. They felt bloated, pressing against their sockets as if they might burst at any moment.

"You are still young and have a chance. Tell us everything you know, and you won't have to suffer physical pain. Otherwise, I fear a young man like you won't be able to withstand my instruments." His voice was sharp, like metal scraping against metal, with a raspy edge.

"Tell you what?" Su Jie blurted out, completely bewildered. Since the jailers had thrown him in here, they hadn't asked him a single question.

Old Xing’s sudden demand left him confused.

"It seems you prefer the hard way over the easy way," Old Xing chuckled sinisterly. "You look so delicate; I wonder how long you can hold out."

He walked over to Su Jie, sat down, and placed the small wooden box on his lap. Opening it revealed a collection of bizarre and cruel torture devices.

"You’re in for a treat," the jailer said, stepping forward to flip Su Jie upright. He patted Su Jie’s shoulder and gestured to Old Xing. "Old Xing is the master of interrogation in Jiankang City. The number of torture devices he has invented is countless. Under his hand, no matter how tough a man is, he won't last three days."

Old Xing took out several silver needles, their tips gleaming with a chilling light, along with several small porcelain vials.

"This is called the Soul-Dissolving Needle," the jailer introduced, familiar with Old Xing’s tools. "Just one prick in your temple will lock your soul and heighten your senses. I guarantee you’ll be begging for death..."

Under the lamplight, the needles shimmered with a cold, eerie glow. Su Jie’s soul felt an extreme, biting chill.

"Now, you still have a chance. Just tell us what you know."

"Tell you what?" Su Jie swallowed hard. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"Tell us, who are your accomplices?"

"I have no accomplices!"

"You think you could pull off such a major crime without accomplices? Do you think such a clumsy lie can fool me?" Old Xing’s face twisted as if he had been mocked. "Since you refuse to cooperate, don't blame me for being ruthless."

He gripped the Soul-Dissolving Needle, its edge sharpening, and plunged it into Su Jie. A cold, numbing sensation surged from his tailbone to his skull, making his body shudder. Old Xing gripped the needles, patted Su Jie’s face, and then, with both hands, drove them into both of his temples simultaneously.

In an instant, agony flooded his brain. He let out a silent, pained scream as the veins across his body bulged and burst. The pain was not just physical; it was spiritual. Both his flesh and his soul transmitted this marrow-deep agony. Su Jie’s eyes widened, the blood vessels within them bursting and bleeding, staining the faces of Old Xing and the jailer in a crimson haze.

"I truly have no accomplices. Making 'travel passes' is a craft, not a conspiracy," Su Jie gritted his teeth, holding his breath.

Then, a needle was driven into his philtrum. Instantly, it felt as if his entire body had been torn into thousands of pieces—the sensation of tearing, the excruciating pain, left him drifting between life and death.

"No accomplices? You can forge and sell 'travel passes' without accomplices?" Old Xing said calmly, driving all the Soul-Dissolving Needles into Su Jie’s flesh. "No accomplices, and you could organize an attempt on the life of the Sovereign?"

He picked up another needle and drove it into Su Jie’s Dantian point. In that moment, the thousands of torn pieces of his flesh felt as if they were being picked up and stitched back together with clumsy, tight, and jagged stitches... Su Jie could take no more and fainted instantly.

Watching the unconscious Su Jie, Old Xing packed away his tools and said with interest, "A tough man, indeed. His bones are truly hard. But the most interesting part of interrogation is encountering such stubborn ones."

Su Jie was eventually thrown back into his cell. The dungeon, carved out from underground tunnels, had no sunlight, moonlight, or starlight—only the flickering, dim yellow light of torches. It was isolated from spiritual energy, preventing him from drawing any from the outside. Su Jie’s cell was a solitary one; he lay on a mattress made of weeds, with waste accumulating beneath him, draining out through a hole, yet the stench remained foul. In the darker corners of the cell, rats scurried and cockroaches swarmed.

Su Jie awoke from his agony, gasping for breath. The pain had not ceased with the end of the torture; instead, it continued to prick at his nerves, leaving him in wretched misery. He clutched at the weeds, groaning softly.

Just then, a vast and ethereal voice drifted from the neighboring cell.

"The Yin and the Yang, different names but the same essence, meeting above and below; the meridians interconnecting, like a ring without an end..."

"The gathering of all Yang is in the face, while the Yin begins in the arms... The head, face, and body are linked by bone and sinew, with blood and Qi united as one... The twelve meridians and three hundred and sixty vessels all carry blood and Qi upward to the face and into the orifices. The essence of Yang Qi rises to the eyes to form sight. The diverted Qi flows to the ears to provide hearing..."

This was a chant for circulating Qi, but unlike the cultivation methods of the Qi practitioners. Qi practitioners cultivated a single "breath," but this circulation technique cultivated blood and Qi. It described blood and Qi as the creation of the Yin and Yang energies within the human body, flowing through the twelve meridians and three hundred and sixty vessels. The circulation diagram taught Su Jie how to fully release the Yin and Yang energies within his blood through control. The power of blood and Qi was the same as the "Qi" of the practitioners, sharing the same origin, only one sought outward while the other sought truth within.

Su Jie looked inward, deducing the positions of his twelve meridians and three hundred and sixty vessels, and combined them with the circulation chant.

"Qi is spirit, Qi is emptiness. The lower guards the form, the upper guards the spirit. Spiritual and mysterious, the mechanism signals movement. The movement of the mechanism does not depart from emptiness; this emptiness is not ordinary emptiness, but the emptiness that is not empty..."

Perhaps he was truly gifted, for in that instant, he achieved enlightenment. A power blending Yin and Yang energies erupted from his blood. This force allowed him to suppress the seal within his body, leaking a corner of his hidden potential.

"I never expected that I, Xifeng Lie, would find a successor in my final years."

Su Jie followed the voice. His blood and Qi strengthened his body, sharpening his vision so that even in the darkness, he could see everything clearly. In the cell next to his, an old man sat, on the verge of death. His eyes had been gouged out, leaving only two black, hollow sockets. His body was withered, skin and bone as if his life essence had been drained, leaning helplessly against the wall. Yet, Su Jie sensed a formidable power of blood and Qi within that frail frame.

"Thank you, Senior, for the teaching!" Su Jie called out softly.

But the old man did not respond. His soul was scattered and yet not, in a state between life and death.

At that moment, Su Jie suddenly felt that something was wrong with the entire dungeon. He looked outward, and in his vision, a massive, rising sun appeared. Beside that sun was a moon. As his gaze narrowed, a face slowly emerged. Behind it followed the entirety of Fengdu.

His arrival stirred the old man named Xifeng Lie.

"Xifeng Lie, your lifespan is at an end. It is time to move on." Old Li reached out, holding the entirety of Fengdu in his palm.

"My fate is determined by me, not by the heavens!" Xifeng Lie roared, and all the blood and Qi in his body seemed to return. Between heaven and earth, the power of blood and Qi gathered endlessly, pouring into his body. He imprinted his own blood and Qi into the heavens and earth. Blood rushed through his vessels like a surging river.

He took a step forward and threw a punch.

In an instant, the entire dungeon collapsed!