The pitch-black space created an illusion of stretching infinitely.

The scholar vaguely knew the space wasn't that wide, but it didn't matter.

He couldn't move anyway.

[Hello there.]

A voice suddenly echoed in the darkness.

There couldn't possibly be anyone here.

However, the scholar tried to answer. He wasn't in his right mind.

His rationality was lost.

Maintaining a faint consciousness was all he could do.

"Cough, cough."

He wanted to ask who it was. But that was physically impossible. There was no way he could answer.

The scholar gave a bitter smile.

[It's alright. I can hear your voice.]

'How?'

The scholar tried to make sounds, but his tongue, now only a stump, regrettably couldn't produce intelligible language.

Only painful, incomprehensible noises leaked out.

[Oh my, no need to force yourself to make sounds. I've been watching since they pulled out your tongue.]

He didn't question how his thoughts were being read.

He was too broken to think that way. Both mentally and physically.

[Hmm, it was quite a gruesome sight to witness. The red-hot pincers pulled your tongue right out. You screamed before passing out.]

Despite these words, the mysterious voice remained light and cheerful.

It wasn't taking pleasure in the scholar's pain.

It seemed to be just their natural way of speaking.

'I can't, I can't see.'

The scholar tried looking around toward the voice's direction, then realized he couldn't see.

In fact, he had probably realized this several times before.

And probably forgotten it just as many times.

Though he was in a deep cave, there was enough light coming in. However...

[Have you forgotten? Your eyes, once full of mysterious energy, were pierced by heated iron skewers.]

'Was that... what happened?'

The scholar tried to raise his hand to feel his eyes.

But he had no fingers.

His left hand was even missing up to the wrist.

Puzzled, he asked the voice.

'Have you seen where my hands went?'

The voice answered with its usual dignified but cheerful resonance.

[Your delicate fingers, unused to harsh work, were snipped away by scissors. Don't worry. They used red-hot scissors for your sake.]

He couldn't understand what there was not to worry about.

'Thank you for answering.'

The scholar tried to stand up unsteadily.

But he had no legs.

Painfully tilting his head, the scholar asked the voice.

'Perhaps, what took my legs?'

[Your slender legs were taken by a chopping block. Let me tell you, since you don't remember - they methodically cut from your toes, one by one. Three days to cut to the ankles. Ten days to the knees. Fifteen days to the thighs.]

'Is that so?'

The scholar tried to recall his past memories, feeling his head splitting with pain.

Fortunately, he could faintly revive some memories.

'...I think I remember. Then, do you know what happened to my family?'

[Oh my. You were too busy being tortured to hear about your family. Come to think of it, you've been in this prison for quite a while.]

Now that he thought about it, he seemed to vaguely recall being imprisoned for a very long time.

As the scholar was quietly tracing his thoughts, the voice continued.

[Your eldest sister died after being beaten by her husband until her beautiful face was pulverized.]

'What...?!'

The scholar was shocked.

'Though my brother-in-law was known for his fierce temper, he was the head of a family renowned for its righteousness. How could such a man beat his wife to death so brutally?'

The voice clicked its tongue.

[How foolish. If you, the family's eldest son, didn't know, who else would know about your family's affairs?]

The scholar hastily asked.

'Then, what about my second sister? What happened to her?'

[She was raped by bandits and bit off her tongue to end her life.]

'What are you saying?'

The scholar couldn't understand.

'My second sister was one of the top two sword masters of the latter period. How could someone like her fall victim to mere bandits?'

[How foolish. What use were her martial arts skills and cultivated sword technique when her dantian had been disabled long ago?]

The scholar shook his head violently again.

'Besides, my family? Even if my second sister lost her inner power, there's no way the family wouldn't have protected her.'

He struggled to grasp his emerging memories.

'My family was the greatest clan in all of Central Plains, with none daring to compare. How could the second daughter of such a family fall victim to mere bandits?'

The voice remained unmoved.

[How foolish. Did you not know even that? Your family was destroyed long ago - what family was left to protect her?]

'...Family extinction?'

What did that mean? The scholar tried to hold his head as dizziness overcame him.

But he had no hands.

'Though I was merely a scholar who found joy in reading books locked away in my study, I had brothers who spread their brilliant intellect and martial prowess throughout the continent. And they were surrounded by prestigious warriors like folding screens - how could this have happened?'

[How frustrating, truly frustrating. How can you pretend not to know what happened after you, the eldest son, left to become a son-in-law in another family?]

The voice harshly pressed the scholar.

[Do you truly not know that those brothers you praised fought each other for the position of family head?]

'I didn't know. I knew nothing at all.'

The scholar shook his head violently.

[Really? Did you really not know?]

The voice asked the scholar back in a meaningful tone.

The scholar couldn't understand.

He was just an ordinary scholar.

His only pastime was reading books day after day in his small room.

Occasionally tending to the garden, painting pictures, and playing instruments were his only pleasures.

[Really?]

The voice asked again, clearly disagreeing with the scholar's thoughts.

'...Of course.'

He couldn't understand why someone who lived such a virtuous life would be imprisoned in such a place.

Moreover, such torture?

He had lived embracing peace as his virtue.

[Could someone of your genius truly not have known what was happening in the family while you were there, and what would happen after you left? And could you really not have known what the final outcome would be?]

The voice was now openly mocking the scholar.

The scholar pleaded his innocence.

'Truly, I didn't know. Really. How could a mere commoner like me know such things?'

Something seemed about to surface in his mind, but wouldn't come forth.

Who was he?

How had he lived?

There were memories flitting by dimly, but they were like illusions that vanished when the scholar tried to grasp them.

His brain, already invaded by death to the marrow, no longer worked as brilliantly as before.

[Is that so?]

The voice grew low and cold.

As if seeing through all the scholar's lies, as if examining his entire life in detail, the voice persistently cornered him.

[Is that truly so? You, who could see a thousand li without thousand-li eyes, who could foresee a thousand days without supernatural powers. Did you really not know?]

'I didn't know. I didn't know. I tell you I didn't know!'

The scholar was confused.

How could any person possibly do such things?

To know everything happening in the world while sitting in one place.

Wasn't it an absurd ability?

It would require the extraordinary intelligence of a once-in-a-millennium genius.

The voice spoke softly once more.

[Weren't you that person?]

'That's impossible. Are you perhaps confusing me with someone like Zi Zhang or Chang Qing?'

Zi Zhang and Chang Qing were the courtesy names of Sima Qian and Sun Wu.

[Zi Zhang and Chang Qing?]

The voice laughed heartily.

[Don't you know that compared to you, Sima Qian and Sun Wu were merely a historian and a military strategist?]

The scholar felt his mind grow distant at those words.

Sima Qian was the author of the Records of the Grand Historian, revered as the 'Father of History' in the Central Plains.

Sun Wu dominated the Spring and Autumn period, defeating the powerful Chu state and elevating military strategy to a new level.

Perhaps it was because he hadn't conversed in so long.

'You rate me, a mere commoner, higher than such great figures?'

The scholar's mind was slowly becoming clearer.

[Let me ask you.]

With each exchange, bit by bit.

[When did you help your mother organize and condense hundreds of medical texts into twenty-five volumes?]

The scholar calmly recalled.

'...That was when I was four years old.'

[When did you petition the Emperor with written words, leading to the promulgation of new farming methods?]

'That was when I was five years old.'

[When did you read the heavens and observe the weather to predict a great drought, arranging grain storage for relief efforts that saved millions from starvation?]

'That was when I was six years old.'

As the conversation continued, the scholar's vague memories began to resurface, becoming clearer with each passing moment.

After some time, the voice asked again.

[Do you remember now?]

The scholar acknowledged.

'Yes.'

In fact,

He had known everything.

After leaving his original family to become a son-in-law elsewhere, he had never paid attention to news from his family.

But he had known everything as clearly as looking at his palm.

Common people knew there would be infighting but didn't know the outcome.

But he had known everything.

Everything. Every detail.

Without missing a single thing.

That everyone would meet a miserable end.

That the once great and powerful family would collapse.

He knew it all, but,

He had left it all alone.