During the night and then came the day. On that first day, it rained. Rainwater flowed down the walls, soaking the already fetid prison cell and making it unbearably damp. Near and far, curses, voices, and groans echoed like sounds from a ghostly realm.

The jailers banged on the cell doors, shouting loudly. After a while, they dragged out the most vocal prisoners to be tortured. From time to time, new prisoners were brought in.

The injured man in the cell moaned throughout the afternoon, rolling weakly on the straw, his moans filled with whimpers. Yu Hongzhuo, aching and weak all over, was disturbed by the sounds for a long time. He looked up at the injured man's face, only to see it covered in knife scars, with a section of his nose sliced off. He had probably been brutally tortured by the jailers in the prison. This was a member of the Hungry Ghosts, perhaps once even a member of the Black Flag, but judging from his appearance, Yu Hongzhuo estimated that he was only in his early twenties.

Yu Hongzhuo was not yet twenty. He didn't feel much sympathy for the man's age. He simply stayed silently in the corner, watching the man suffer. The injuries were too severe. The man would die sooner or later. The people in the cell no longer paid attention to him. These remnants of the Black Flag were bound to be executed with Wang Shizong in a few days anyway. It was just a matter of dying sooner or later.

Yu Hongzhuo still couldn't understand how he had been arrested as a remnant of the Black Flag, nor could he understand why the master he had seen on the street hadn't saved him. However, he now knew that in this Jianghu, heroes didn't necessarily act righteously and rescue people in distress.

He thought he was probably going to die.

The young man had lived in this world for less than eighteen years. In the last half year, he had truly tasted too many flavors of life. His entire family had died, he had fought to the death with others, killed people, been cut and wounded, almost starved to death, and now he was locked up and tortured. It had been a bumpy road. If he had been quite sharp at the beginning, he gradually felt a sense of despair in this prison cell.

Because he couldn't think of how to resist for a while, his emotions about resistance faded.

At night, the injured man in the same cell started talking nonsense, muttering mostly incomprehensible things. Late at night, Yu Hongzhuo woke up from a muddled dream and heard the crying: "It hurts... it hurts so much..."

"Dad... Mom..." the injured man cried, "It hurts so much..."

So these remnants of the Black Flag would also cry like this, even crying for their parents.

Yu Hongzhuo thought to himself. The injured man groaned for a long time, his sorrow beyond words. Someone in the opposite cell shouted: "Hey, you... you put him out of his misery! Put him out of his misery..." It was the man across the cell shouting to Yu Hongzhuo. Yu Hongzhuo lay in the darkness, unwilling to move, but tears involuntarily streamed down his face. He couldn't help but think that this man in his twenties was going to die, but he was only in his teens. Why did he have to die here?

After lying like this for a long time, he rolled over and leaned towards the injured man, reaching out to strangle him. Halfway there, he looked at the man's face and body, and heard him cry, "Dad, Mom... Brother... I don't want to die..." Thinking of himself, he couldn't stop crying. The man in the opposite cell was puzzled: "Hey, killing him is helping him!" Yu Hongzhuo finally turned back, hiding in the darkness, and mumbled, "I can't do it."

"You son of a bitch, look at him like this... If I can get out, I'll beat you to death—"

"Come over here and kill me if you have the guts—"

Yu Hongzhuo shouted hysterically.

**************

The sudden outburst of the young man suppressed the anger of the man across the cell. The people in the prison were either about to die or would be executed in a few days. There was a lot of despair. But since Yu Hongzhuo made it clear that he wasn't afraid of death, and the other man couldn't really rush over, there was no point in saying more.

After another day, the injured man was on his last breath, only occasionally saying nonsense. Yu Hongzhuo felt pity and dragged his injured body to get some water for him to drink. Every time, the man seemed to feel better and spoke more clearly. Piecing it together, Yu Hongzhuo knew that he had at least one older brother and parents, but now he didn't know if they were still alive.

In the evening, the two jailers from yesterday came and dragged Yu Hongzhuo out again for another round of torture. During the torture, the head constable said, "We're not afraid to tell you that Master Kuang paid us to take good care of you. Hey, if you have someone on the outside who can show us some respect, the officials can make things easier for you."

Yu Hongzhuo was all alone, with no relatives in the world to turn to. There was still some silver that Mr. Zhao had left behind at the Liang'an Inn, but he had cried last night out of sadness. Faced with these villains, the young man was still stubborn and didn't say anything.

The two constables beat him until he was covered in blood, then threw him back into the cell. Their torture was measured. Although painful, they didn't break any major bones. This was to keep Yu Hongzhuo as conscious as possible so he could suffer more torture. They naturally knew that Yu Hongzhuo had been framed. Since he wasn't a remnant of the Black Flag, he might have some silver or property. They had received money to torture Yu Hongzhuo, but it would be good to make some extra money on top of that.

Thrown back into the cell, Yu Hongzhuo was completely exhausted for a while. He lay on the straw for a long time before he suddenly realized that the heavily injured cellmate beside him was no longer groaning.

He struggled to sit up. The man next to him had his eyes open, as if he was looking at him, but his eyes were mostly white with little black, and his expression was vague. After a long time, he moved slightly and whispered, "Why... why..."

"Jurchens... bad people... dog officials... bandits... bullies... the army... Tian Hu..." The injured man murmured, as if he wanted to curse all the villains in his memory before he died. After a while, he said again, "Dad... Mom... don't eat, don't eat Guanyin clay... we won't give grain to others, we..."

"When big brother defeats the Jurchens... defeats the Jurchens..."

"Why are our own people fighting each other... fighting the Jurchens..."

The mumbling was sometimes loud and sometimes soft, sometimes with crying. Yu Hongzhuo was in terrible pain, but he listened indifferently. The man in the opposite cell reached out and said, "Put him out of his misery, put him out of his misery, I beg you, I owe you a favor..."

Yu Hongzhuo stared blankly without moving. The man said it several times, his voice getting louder, "I'm begging you! Do you know? Do you know? This man's brother joined the army to fight the Jurchens and died. His family was originally wealthy, but they opened their granaries to give food to the people during the famine. Later, they were attacked by bandits. They gave away so much food that they had nothing to eat themselves. His parents died from eating Guanyin clay! Just lift your hand, please give him a quick death—"

Yu Hongzhuo wanted to reach out, but he didn't know why, he couldn't lift his hand. After a moment, he opened his mouth and made a hoarse, ugly sound: "Haha, you guys are miserable, who hasn't seen worse? You guys are miserable, what about the people you killed? Many people didn't provoke you cough cough cough cough... the people of Ze Prefecture—"

He choked on a word. The man across the cell was stunned, then roared, "What are you saying? Have you ever seen people starve to death alive!"

"I almost starved to death cough cough—"

"Have you seen what it's like when thousands or tens of thousands of people have nothing to eat!? They just wanted to go south—"

"You killed people even though they wanted to go south—"

"Then... what else could we do? People were starving to death—"

The two sides shouted a few sentences. Yu Hongzhuo just argued, "...If Ze Prefecture is in chaos, who will the people of Ze Prefecture blame?"

"...If we were outside, I would kill you!"

"Haha, come on!"

"Damn you! You'll have a bad death—"

Amid Yu Hongzhuo's dry laughter, curses rang out around him. After a moment, the jailers came to suppress them. Yu Hongzhuo wiped the tears from his face in the dim light. Those tears fell into his wounds, and it hurt so much. Those weren't the words he really wanted to say, but in such a desperate environment, the malice in his heart couldn't be suppressed. After saying them, he felt like he was a truly evil person.

His memories became hazy. His body couldn't handle the excitement. After venting, sleepiness came like a tide. There was everything in the nightmare. He could also see his parents in fragments, his mother who had gone mad after being violated, and his father who had been humiliated and killed. He vaguely saw his family of three when he was young. Sometimes his memories shattered. He saw his parents eating Guanyin clay and dying in hunger. His mother fed him porridge, saying as she fed him, "Eat quickly, eat quickly, Mom isn't hungry, I'm so full..." His mother's stomach bulged slightly, but in the dream, the terrible clarity made him realize that her belly was full of mud. He wanted to shout, but he couldn't. Little Yu Hongzhuo happily drank the porridge.

What kind of world is like this dream? In the fragments of the dream, he also dreamed of those who had been good to him. Several older siblings killed each other in the dream, blood everywhere. The figures of Mr. and Mrs. Zhao flashed by. In the daze, a feeling of warmth rose up. He opened his eyes, not knowing if he was in a dream or reality. It was still the hazy, dim light. He didn't feel as much pain. He vaguely felt like he was wrapped in bandages.

They can't all die before the execution...

It seemed like those words were being said. Yu Hongzhuo tilted his head slightly and vaguely felt like he was in a nightmare.

—At the end of the prison cell, a figure sat on the ground. He didn't look like anyone he had seen in the prison. He even looked a bit like Mr. Zhao. He was wearing a long robe, with a small box beside him. He sat there, quietly holding the hand of the seriously injured young man.

The young man on the verge of death was whispering something in the dim light. Yu Hongzhuo subconsciously wanted to listen, but he couldn't hear clearly. Then Mr. Zhao also said something. Yu Hongzhuo's consciousness was sometimes clear and sometimes fading away. He didn't know when the voices stopped. Mr. Zhao pressed the injured man and got up to leave. The injured man also fell silent forever, far away from the unspeakable pain...

The prison cell was noisy for a while, then quieted down again. Yu Hongzhuo couldn't fully wake up and finally fell back into a deep sleep. Some words that he seemed to hear and not hear floated up and sank down in the darkness. When he woke up, they had almost completely sunk into the depths of his consciousness, and he couldn't remember them clearly.

—You are like your brother, a respectable and great person...

—I am honored to have existed in this world with people like you.

**************

At the gate of the Ze Prefecture prison, Ning Yi opened his hands and, like the other doctors, was searched by the jailers again. Some of the jailers who passed by looked at the scene with suspicion, not understanding why the superiors had suddenly had the whim to organize doctors to treat the seriously injured prisoners in the prison.

When he walked onto the street, it was the darkest moment of the night. It was the end of June, and there was no moon in the sky. After a moment, a figure quietly approached and walked alongside him on the street: "Do you think this place is like Hangzhou?"

"You think any chaotic place is like Hangzhou." Ning Yi laughed. The woman next to him, named Liu Xigua, turned slightly. Her smile was clear, like her eyes, still pure and firm even after experiencing so many things.

They walked on the streets in the dark night. The patrolling watchmen and soldiers passed by without noticing them. Even in such a night, in a city where the lights were still faint, there were still various forces and intentions stirring, people making their own layouts, trying to meet and collide. In this seemingly peaceful and eerie silence, the time for contact was about to be pushed forward.

The light of dawn, the fiery day, was about to replace the night...