>He was the commander of the Jinyi Guards, and the emperor tacitly allowed him to kill all the dignitaries in the capital.
>Seven years ago, he slaughtered the entire Xie family, but missed his nine-year-old legitimate daughter who was hiding at the bottom of the well.
>Now that the girl has returned with evidence of her family's destruction, he suddenly feels something strange when he grabs her neck.
>The fingertips touched the mark on her collarbone - it was actually the same mark as the enemy who sold him to the secret guard camp when he was young.
>"This jade cicada is the evidence that your father forced my mother to swallow."
>The girl placed a bloody jade cicada in his palm, and the image of his mother being pinned in the snow flashed through his mind.
> "Pei Jin, every household you kill is an evil ghost who was involved in selling children back then."
>His hand holding the knife shook for the first time in thirty years.
---
"You have been slaughtering for half your life, treating human lives as nothing, and treating laws as nothing."
"The blood on your hands is deeper than the moat."
"You are the emperor's most obedient and sharpest knife."
"You are the living Yama that everyone fears like a tiger."
Intention: to do good