Am I the old man who's always by my apprentices' side?

Chapter 179 The Truth
"White servants" refers to yamen servants who are above the local standard and are not on the official list, but can still receive salaries paid from local taxes. It is a legitimate way for local governments to extort money and bribes. As long as it is not too outrageous or enough benefits are paid, the higher-level prefectures will turn a blind eye.

According to everyone's confessions, in addition to smuggling and receiving salaries without working, Magistrate Zhou also engaged in a lot of human trafficking. Most of the slaves were captured from the Great Changhe Kingdom in the south and sold to powerful families as hidden households. Some were strong laborers who were captured by people sent to plunder the Zhou Kingdom and sold to the mines.

After Murong Ruyan couldn't get any more interesting information from the crowd, she ordered everyone except Magistrate Zhou to be brought over, and then had them identify the legendary "Master Dong".

At first, Master Dong refused to confess, but Murong Ruyan sneered and immediately ordered her men, "Chop off his arm first!"

"what--"

With a scream, Master Dong's right arm was chopped off by Hei Shui Changqing's knife. He then casually applied some wound medicine to stop the bleeding and stopped, leaving Master Dong in excruciating pain.

Then, looking at the fearful Master Dong, Murong Ruyan added expressionlessly, "You can hesitate as much as you want. Every time you hesitate, I will have someone chop off one of your limbs. Once all four limbs are chopped off, I will slowly slice off your flesh."

"Don't worry, you won't die. I am a cultivator, which is like an immortal to you. I have plenty of ways to keep you alive. There was Lady Qi in ancient times who was turned into a human pig. I am also very curious about what a human pig looks like."

These words made Master Dong break out in a cold sweat, whether from fear or pain, it was hard to tell.

“Your Highness, since ancient times, people have died for wealth, and birds have died for food. Even the ladies in the palace rely on shady means to beg for food. We are just small fish and shrimp below, fighting with all our might to grab a few bites of food. It is really not worth making Your Highness angry.”

Master Dong was indeed a remarkable man. Although he had lost an arm and was sweating profusely from the pain, he endured it and calmly stated:

“It’s not just Weize Pass that’s involved in smuggling. There are ten passes in the world, and ten passes that are involved in smuggling. Most of the money we small fish and shrimps earn through hard work goes to the higher-ups. The princess’s insistence on arresting us is putting the cart before the horse!”

Because he didn't know how much the princess of Xing Kingdom knew, Master Dong avoided the main points in his speech, only mentioning the matter of smuggling.

Murong Ruyan sighed softly and did not reply. Instead, she instructed Heishui Changqing, "Go, chop off his left leg this time!"

"Yes!"

Hei Shui Changqing responded, then wiped his blood-stained longsword on the cloth wrapped around the arm on the ground. Then, amidst Master Dong's shocked and bewildered cry of "No!", he used his inner energy to sever Master Dong's left leg with a single stroke.

This time, since Hei Shui Changqing had run out of the wound medicine he carried with him, he was about to ask his men for some when Murong Ruyan waved her hand and said, "No need to trouble yourself."

As she spoke, she conjured a piece of rolling, suspended ice shards at her fingertips, then used her spiritual power to manipulate the ice shards to adhere to Master Dong's wound. Immediately afterward, the ice shards froze together, forming an ice shell that froze the warm blood from the wound.

This surgical technique stunned Hei Shui Changqing and also made Master Dong's eyes widen.

"You'd better confess everything: smuggling, buying and selling slaves, robbing merchants, sending your cronies to become bandits in the Zhou Kingdom, and the recent 'Yellow Robe Immortal' incident. You should confess everything, from the most important matters like whose power you've borrowed in the palace to the least important matters like how much salary you've been paid without working over the years."

"This princess doesn't want to waste time asking her master to come out of seclusion and perform the soul-searching technique, but if you refuse to say anything, or if you have a bad memory and forget things, once the soul-searching technique is used, even things you might not remember clearly, like how old you were when you wet your pants, this princess will know everything clearly. "At that time, it won't just be you who dies, your entire family will not escape, not a single one of them will escape, the heinous crime of exterminating three generations, Xiao Kingdom has done it before."

"Moreover, this soul-searching technique is extremely difficult to endure. The person subjected to it has their soul shattered and must suffer excruciating pain. The longer the soul is searched, the longer the pain will last. They cannot die, nor can they stop..."

At this point, Murong Ruyan curled her lips and smiled slightly: "Hehe, this princess has not cultivated for long enough to have seen it before, but I really want to see it."

The name "Soul Searching Technique" is easy to understand. If Master Dong used to be dismissive of the idea of ​​"immortals," Murong Ruyan's ability to conjure ice out of thin air just now made him have no choice but to believe it.

Master Dong gritted his teeth and finally gave up resisting, confessing all his crimes in detail.

The details of the origins of the "Yellow Robe Immortal" have finally come to light.

It turns out that this "Yellow-Robed Immortal," who is actually the weasel demon, had only cultivated supernatural powers a month ago.

At first, it only stole some food in the county and was very afraid of people.

But not long after it discovered that its stinky farts could knock people out, it gradually became bolder and even began to openly steal food.

When the people of the county reported this matter to the county government, Magistrate Zhou did not believe it, but he still ordered his men to set up a trap and successfully captured the weasel demon.

Magistrate Zhou, who originally intended to kill the weasel demon, suddenly had a wicked idea after discovering that the weasel demon could understand human speech and possessed some "abilities"—

For some reason, there have been fewer and fewer merchants coming and going to Weize Pass in the past few months. The business of plundering is not doing well, and most of the money earned from smuggling has to be paid as tribute. Magistrate Zhou is getting anxious and frustrated.

So, through a combination of deception and enticement, he got the weasel demon to work for him, using the title of "Yellow-Robed Immortal" to threaten those around him into handing over "tribute."

Later, the "tribute" he collected could no longer satisfy Magistrate Zhou's appetite, so he simply robbed all the private merchants who came and went, distributed the women he had robbed to several of his subordinates as wives, and gave a portion of the loot to several wealthy local families, thus binding most of the people in the county to his own boat.

Murong Ruyan frowned after hearing this, quite puzzled: "'The Yellow-Robed Immortal's' statement is so foolish. Don't you realize that if things get out of hand, the imperial court will send someone to deal with it?"

Because of blood loss, Master Dong's face had turned deathly pale, and he spoke with some difficulty, replying, "I have tried to persuade him, but he is blinded by greed, and Zhou Wenfang is determined to do his own thing..."

"To be honest, just yesterday when the two immortals came, Zhou Wenfang decided to find a way to trick the weasel into coming and kill it, so that he could pin everything on the weasel..."

"But I never expected that weasel to be so clever. It somehow overheard the whole thing and then ran to the two immortals for help, which is why..."

(End of this chapter)