The lingering flames of the methane fire crackled softly across the boiling peat, casting flickering orange light against the gnarled cypress trunks.
Ye Chen’s iron grip remained clamped around Scar-Face Wu’s throat, his fingers pressing into the man’s windpipe just enough to allow ragged, whistling gasps of air to pass.
Wu hung suspended three feet above the smoking mud, his charred boots dangling uselessly as his bloodshot eyes bulged in absolute terror.
"I will ask you only once, Wu," Ye Chen said, his voice flat, low, and stripped of all anger. "Who receives the confirmation of my death in the Southern Swamps?"
"I... I talk, I talk!" Wu sputtered, thick drops of bloody saliva flying from his blistered lips. "Please, don't drop me in the boiling mud! It was not an ordinary merchant
