The heavy rain hit the charred ruins of the altar, splashing pieces of smelly mud.
The torches had long been extinguished, leaving only ashes huddled in the rain, like countless pairs of eyes that refused to close.
Su Wanjin had an iron chain pierced through her shoulder blades and nailed to the stone pillar in the center of the altar. Her red wedding dress had long been dyed dark brown, and the soaked fabric was close to her skin, with blood oozing from every inch.
It was the dress she wore for her sixteenth-year-old coming-of-age ceremony—it was worn by a girl from the southern Xinjiang shaman tribe when she first discovered her Gu vein, symbolizing the awakening of her bloodline and inheriting her ancestral precepts.
Now, this red dress has become "evidence of evil". The imperial envoy personally draped it on her body and read out her charges in public: to use witchcraft to confuse the court, collude with foreign enemies, and massacre border residents.
And the real butcher is standing in the rain.
Cui Yanzhou was dressed in a green shirt, holding an imperial edict in his hand, and his voice was as pitiful as chanting a sutra: "You have gone against the will of heaven and will bring disaster to your descendants. Now you are punishing your clan as a warning to others." He raised his hand to wipe away the rainwater that splashed on his face, his movements were gentle and graceful, as if he just came to bury an old friend.
