The Disciplinary Hall stood against the black rock of the Second Peak. Nine red banners hung still under the roof. Each showed an iron serpent swallowing a pair of scales.
A single block of red river stone stood in the middle of the terrace. Three hundred years of punishments had left its center hollow and almost black. A tenant who held back grain for his family could end up kneeling there. A miner who took spirit gravel without paying the tithe might lose the hand that picked it up. From here the hall could see all the way down to the lower terrace.
Yan Tianheng stopped five paces in front of the block. The guards below were breathing again, though none had stood up. He took the Nine-Ring Spirit-Suppressing Cleaver in both hands.
The blade was four feet long and weighed eighty-four pounds. The nine rings on its back had been cut with the same runes as those on his brother’s cleaver. A Golden Core cultivator could make them ring hard enough to stop qi moving through an opponent’s channels. Even before Yan put his strength into them, Pei Jing recognized the sound.
“Pei of Cloudford,” Yan said. “Nothing came out of that ditch but ore and peasants who couldn’t read the tribute notices.”
