Ba ethnic group's bewitching charm - the executioner

Chapter 41

The man relaxed, carefully examined the room, then stood up and went outside.

Yang Zheng followed silently behind him, staring at his back. Although he didn't know who this person was, having company here was a good thing. Even so, Yang Zheng couldn't truly trust him completely.

The two walked down the circular corridor, one after the other. The man turned around and said, "My name is Ma Nan, what's yours?"

Yang Zheng hesitated for a moment before stating his name.

The man was Ma Nan. He took the pill on the Starry Sky Platform and fell into a deep sleep. His last memory was of someone silently walking up to him, and in the moonlight, a thick shadow slowly enveloping him.

He woke up here. Now, besides wanting to know where he was and what the Ba people wanted to do with him, he was also worried about whether Qin Ge could rescue Chu Yan from that small boat.

He also wanted to know if there was anyone else here besides the person he saw when he woke up—whose name was Yang Zheng. So, the first thing he did after waking up was to check his surroundings.

Yang Zheng naturally knew his intention, but he did not expect that all the tightly closed doors on one side of the circular corridor were now open.

Yang Zheng and Ma Nan were in adjacent rooms. Through the third door, he saw a familiar person.

—Ge Hua, the household registration police officer!

As the two approached the door, the police officer was sitting on the edge of the bed, lost in thought. Suddenly, Ma Nan heard Yang Zheng let out a low growl. Before he could react, Yang Zheng had already swept past him and charged straight at the police officer.

The two people inside the room quickly started fighting.

Ma Nan wanted to intervene and mediate, but both of them looked like they were deeply grieved and hated each other, as if they wanted to tear each other apart. Knowing that he couldn't persuade them, he could only stand by the door and watch.

Yang Zheng had once killed the formidable Wu Luo with his bare hands, but he was no match for the household registration policeman—was the one who killed Wu Luo someone else lurking in his heart? Although the household registration policeman looked thin and somewhat effeminate, he was professionally trained and surprisingly strong. Now, he had Yang Zheng knocked to the ground, straddling him, and relentlessly punching him in the face. All Yang Zheng could do at that moment was to tightly cover his head with his hands and shield his face with his arms.

At this moment, Ma Nan knew that if he didn't stop it, something bad would happen. But just as he was heading this way, another person suddenly rushed out from behind, reaching the two fighting men before him, and grabbing him tightly through the arms of the police officer. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Yang Zheng finally broke free, ignoring his bloodied face, and rushed forward again, but he was also grabbed by Ma Nan who arrived just in time.

Yang Zheng stared at the household registration police officer with hatred in his eyes, as if he wanted to devour him whole.

"No one is allowed to lay a hand on me again, or don't blame me for being impolite!"

The man who spoke was around 40 years old, a burly man with a fierce look on his face; he was clearly not a kind person. He slowly released his grip on the police officer, forcefully shoved him aside, and then stepped forward, standing between the officer and Yang Zheng.

"This matter ends here. No matter how big the grudge is, we'll talk about it after we get out of here. Then, whoever kills whom will be determined by their own abilities," he said. "But here, no one is allowed to lay a hand on anyone. Everyone stay put and behave yourselves."

Yang Zheng let out a sob, and Ma Nan tightened his grip on him.

Yang Zheng had watched helplessly as a household registration policeman, who was tied to a chair, had a black cloth bag put over his head. Under the coercion of the detective, he finally put on the detective's mask, went to another room, picked up a hammer and chisel from the ground, and killed the person in the chair.

However, after killing the person, Yang Zheng did not leave the room immediately as instructed by the executioner. Instead, he tore off his mask and removed the cloth bag from the victim's head.

The person who died was not the household registration police officer, but Luo Bin.

Yang Zheng was stunned. Although he and Luo Bin weren't particularly close, they were still friends. He never expected that Luo Bin would die at his hands. And all of this was clearly orchestrated by the detective. He had incited Yang Zheng's hatred for the household registration officer, then forced him to kill the officer, and finally used a switcheroo to make Yang Zheng kill Luo Bin.

Yang Zheng stood before Luo Bin's corpse for a long time. This was the first time he had killed someone entirely under his own control, and moreover, it was an innocent person he had killed. Although he was furious at the trickery arranged by the executioner, he was not as panicked or fearful as he had imagined.

He was simply furious that the detective had tricked him again, because the person he was supposed to kill was the household registration officer, not Luo Bin.

He slowly left the room and returned to the room he had been in before. He leaned against the wall, sat on the floor, and stared at the television, hoping to see the images again or hear the executioner's voice again.

He had no idea how he fell asleep, which must have been due to that strange fragrance.

Now, he was being held by Ma Nan, but he was still unwilling to give up. At the same time, he wondered why he could kill that strong and strange man with his bare hands, but couldn't beat the seemingly effeminate police officer.

The burly man's gaze swept over the three people before he said in a deep voice, "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

Ma Nan released Yang Zheng and was about to say something when a scream suddenly rang out from outside.

At this moment, Yang Zheng and the household registration police officer's expressions changed, because they had both recognized that it was a woman's voice, and that woman was the one they were eager to see.

— Yangmei (Chinese bayberry).

Yang Zheng and the police officer, no longer concerned with their fight, actually ran side by side outside, still glaring at each other like two angry lions. Ma Nan and the burly man followed behind.

I walked along the corridor past two doors, both of which were open. As I passed by, I could see that there was no one inside.

By the third door stood two people, a man and a woman. The woman was Yang Mei, who had screamed; her face was deathly pale, as if she had suffered some kind of shock, and her body was still trembling slightly. Beside her stood a man, in his thirties, wearing a suit and tie, looking like a businessman. He stared blankly into the doorway, his face filled with panic, as if there was something inside that terrified him. Hearing footsteps, both of them turned their heads simultaneously.

Upon seeing Yang Zheng and the police officer running ahead, Yang Mei was first stunned, then covered her face and wept. She turned to leave, but Yang Zheng grabbed her arm. Yang Mei leaned on Yang Zheng's shoulder and sobbed. Yang Zheng held her shoulder tenderly, his heart aching. He knew that if it weren't for him, Yang Mei wouldn't have been involved and wouldn't have suffered so much. His gaze then fell on the police officer standing to the side. The officer was unusually stiff, staring blankly at Yang Mei in Yang Zheng's arms, like a wounded wild animal, his eyes filled with resentment.

Ma Nan and the burly man rushed to the door. The businessman stepped aside so they could both see inside. The room was no different from the others, except that there was a chair in the middle with a man sitting on it, his head drooping, his limbs outstretched, and his chest covered in crimson.

Without a doubt, that man must already be dead.

Ma Nan was about to go inside to check when the burly man with the menacing face stepped inside first. The two approached the body. The burly man first checked the man's breath in the chair, then shook his head at Ma Nan, indicating that the man was dead. Ma Nan went forward, untied the ropes binding the body, and laid him flat on the ground. At this point, both men realized the cause of death.

His throat had been slashed, and blood was slowly seeping out.

The deceased was a middle-aged man who had clearly been frightened before his death; his facial features were distorted and deformed. Ma Nan noticed something unusual on his forehead, so he parted his hair and saw a pattern drawn in blue ink slightly below his right temple—it was none other than the chrysanthemum and flame design.

Upon closer inspection, Ma Nan immediately realized that the pattern was not drawn on, but rather pricked on with a needle.

“Tattoo his face!” Ma Nan blurted out.

Tattooing the face was one of the five punishments in the Zhou Dynasty. The procedure involved tattooing characters on the face of the criminal and then applying ink or other pigment to make it a permanent mark. Compared to the other four punishments—nose amputation, castration, foot amputation, and execution—tattooing the face was clearly the lightest, but it could cause immense psychological damage.

By this point, Ma Nan had witnessed the Ba people using four ancient forms of execution: beheading, disembowelment, strangulation, and facial tattooing. Facial tattooing was not a capital offense, but the Ba people clearly didn't care, executing the person after tattooing them. It's unclear whether the person being killed had some extraordinary quality.

At this moment, Yang Zheng and the household registration police officer outside also entered the room. Yang Mei hid behind Yang Zheng, not daring to look at the corpse on the ground. Although the household registration police officer was a policeman, he seemed to have never seen a corpse before. After glancing at it twice, he rushed out of the room, squatted down, and kept dry heaving.

Yang Zheng knew, of course, how this man had died, but he didn't know who had killed him. But one thing was certain: the murderer was definitely here. The murderer—Yang Zheng sighed inwardly. He too had killed Luo Bin under duress from the executioner. So, was the person who killed this man also in the same situation as him when they committed the murder?

Everyone left the room where the person had died and went out into the corridor. Now, there were six people in total: Ma Nan, Yang Zheng, Yang Mei, the police officer in charge of household registration, the man with the burly face, and the businessman.

“Let’s look around again and see if there’s anyone else here,” Ma Nan said.