Related Cases (10)
Related Novels (4)
Related Chapters (5)
The Pardon That Never Came
Words: 3026 · Source Novel:: The Executioner's Lure
On the night of their planned escape, Yu Sheng receives a warning that Cao Hong has obtained a promise of amnesty from Cao Cao himself, planning to spirit his useful assassin north. Man Chong confronts Yu Sheng inside the inn, the mask of “Zhao Qian” finally dissolved. In a raw exchange, Yu Sheng admits every murder but insists that he saw beauty in Man Chong's lies and chose to let himself be caught. Man Chong orders the arrest, kissing Yu Sheng on the lips before the soldiers enter, promising a quick death. He then rides through the night to the county office, personally fast-tracking the beheading before the imperial pardon can arrive, watching his lover die under the executioner's blade at dawn.
The First Incision
Words: 1526 · Source Novel:: Hua Tuo’s Last Post
Held in a smart-glass cell, Leon learns the first task: break into a biotech firm and steal a brain-computer interface prototype codenamed “Cao Cao.” He must use his ancestral acupuncture knowledge to bypass biometric locks. Under the captor’s remote surveillance, every heartbeat is monitored. Inside the lab, he confronts a sedated security guard and must decide whether to apply a paralytic needle tip—a test that transforms him from victim to weapon.
The First Hour of Collapse
Words: 3238 · Source Novel:: Blood Debts Inherited
The blood madness erupts into full societal collapse during a military campaign. Cao Cao's army disintegrates not from battle, but from soldiers turning on each other as moral reasoning vanishes. Law dissolves in a single afternoon. Yang Pei, now infected for years, becomes the first warlord of the new order—establishing his rule on a single principle: the strong decide who lives. He returns to Changshe and crucifies dissenters along the county walls. His son, now grown, serves as his enforcer, executing without hesitation, fully embracing the family's inheritance. Cao Lian, hunting them, realizes the horror: the Yangs aren't madmen. They're the first to fully adapt. In a world without law, their family's capacity for cruelty isn't a disease—it's an evolutionary advantage.
The Substitute Initiative
Words: 3218 · Source Novel:: Hair for a Head
Xu Xin investigates and discovers the “Dai Shou” program, a controversial scheme that grants sentence reductions to inmates who volunteer for pharmaceutical trials. Warden Cao Zhi, a magnetic figure with a ritualistically shaved head, publicly cites the historical Cao Cao as inspiration—arguing that like cutting one’s hair, offering one’s body to science is a noble substitution for punishment. In a carefully staged interview, he claims the program embodies both mercy and progress. But Xu Xin notices a chilling pattern: every volunteer in the advanced neurostimulant trial has died before their scheduled release, their deaths neatly classified as natural causes.
The Executioner's Blood
Words: 3147 · Source Novel:: Blood Debts Inherited
Yang Pei, magistrate of Changshe, executes Cao Hong's tax-evading retainer with ceremonial precision. Unknown to all, a strange fever has begun spreading from the corpse—a disease that erodes not flesh, but moral restraint. Yang Pei's young son witnesses the beheading and feels an inexplicable thrill. As Cao Cao promotes Yang Pei for his iron-handed justice, the magistrate's wife notices her husband's eyes have changed. That night, Yang Pei dreams of executing everyone who ever defied him. He wakes smiling. The first rule of the coming darkness has already infected its first host: law is merely permission to kill given form.