After a long while, he closed his eyes, waving his arm.

The corner of Zhou Zishu’s lips raised into a smile, “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

He looked like he had come across the funniest tale, sickly pale complexion flushing faintly. With great delight, he turned to Duan Pengju, putting the nails into the latter’s palms, “Do it.”

Duan Pengju hesitated for a while, then bit his lips, raising the vaguely crimson object and nailing it into his lord’s body. After years of witnessing, he knew this process would bring great pain, to the point that even the strongest man would cower and scream; but Zhou Zishu only trembled a little, his body still stiff straight. There was no screaming, only occasional inaudible groans.

And even those groans seemed to contain joy.

Duan Pengju thought his lord must have gone mad.

Zhou Zishu stayed still for a long time, then turned to He Lianyi with his head down, his face as white as paper.

The strength in his body was slowly diminishing, the numbness creeping in. His last words were, “Your Majesty must take care.”

Without waiting for an answer from He Lianyi, he walked out of the study, all the baggage over the years now light as feather. His silhouette seemed to flash for a moment, and he vanished without a trace.

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Footnotes

1 The original text is a burned out incense, a common time measurement in ancient China.

2 内力 (nèilì) The cultivated energy inside a martial artist’s body.

3 Eight Extraordinary Meridians: read here.

Arc One. Freely Travelling the World with Wine Abundance

Chapter 2. Chance Encounter

There was a secret about the Nails that no one knew but Zhou Zishu, and from then on this secret might as well be buried with him and a rare few — if all seven had been nailed in at the same time while the person was unwell, even someone with profound strength like Zhou Zishu would only have had one mere breath left to depart from the palace; worse, he would probably become a lifeless lump of flesh before he could even cross the gate.

But if you did one every three months, letting the body adapt to the nails until you couldn’t tell them apart on your body — even though death would still be inevitable in three years and there would be an excruciating eighteen months of pain — you would retain at least half of your core strength and could still behave like a completely normal person.

The method was said to drive people crazy with agony; but Zhou Zishu merrily found out that the rumor was unfounded after all. Not only was he still sane, he also felt like there was no other time in his life that he was this happy and at peace.