Before the voice of Han Zhi had even faded, the third jujube-wood staff, reeking of brine, smashed into Liang Huaiji’s lower back. A guttural rattling burst from the teenager's mouth, which was forced open by the wooden cudgel.
The blood-groove at the tip of the staff embedded itself into the boy's lumbar vertebrae. As the bailiff yanked the staff back, it dragged out a strip of glistening white spinal cord, trailing slender threads of blood in the sunlight.
"The tenth stroke!" The bailiff's chant was cut short by the sound of cracking bone. Liang Huaiji’s right scapula had already collapsed by over an inch, and the exposed bone fragments pushed the remnants of his scholarly robe out of his body, fluttering like a tattered flag with the rhythm of the beatings.
Chapter 404