28. Official

The amount of ice flows left over from the years in this inner prison was beyond Chen Ji's imagination... He had not expected that there would be so many ice flows in this inner prison!

He just walked in the corridor of the inner prison, watching the streams of ice flow into his body, and his dantian, which was blocked by four furnace fires, was crumbling.

The gray-white ice flowed like a dragon, roaring in the dim inner prison that no one else could hear, as if the wronged soul trapped in the cage for a long time was unwilling to give up and wanted to devour all the traces.

They are the forces in this mysterious world that are above power and might, but now they are being stripped away bit by bit.

Chen Ji could feel the chill coming from his internal organs, but he didn't dare to behave strangely next to Yun Yang.

However, just as he and Yun Yang passed by a cell, they saw the Bagua diagram engraved on the base of an oil lamp on the wall.

Chen Ji suddenly remembered the Bagua diagrams under the oil residue lamps when he went down the stairs earlier... Each lamp is a prison, and as long as the lamp is not extinguished, the person will not die!

He quickly took off the oil lamp and held it in his palm!

In an instant, the ice flow in Dantian slowly receded like a tide.

Chen Ji panted lightly. Yun Yang turned around in surprise and asked, "What are you doing with this lamp?"

He responded, "This inner prison is too dark. I'm not used to it."

Yunyang sneered, "I didn't expect that someone who dared to bargain with me would actually be afraid of the dark?"

Chen Ji didn't answer. He was just pondering a question: Could it be that after a person dies, the ice flow doesn't dissipate? Judging from the amount of ice flow just now, it must have been accumulating for a long time.

No matter how cruel and ruthless the Secret Service is, it would not kill so many people in such a short period of time.

This is the function of the Bagua formation diagram!

The Internal Minister was worried that he had killed too many people and might be haunted by wronged souls, so he asked someone to use the Bagua formation diagram to detain these souls in the inner prison. This is how so many ice flows accumulated over the years.

Chen Ji took a steady breath and said, "Lord Yunyang, please give me the files. If I want to find clues, I don't necessarily have to look for them in the current case. Perhaps there are still many secrets hidden in past cases."

Yun Yang waved to the spy: "Give it to him!"

When the spies brought the files, they filled more than a dozen large wooden boxes.

Chen Ji picked up a book at random and flipped through it while inspecting the inner prison.

Yun Yang sat at a table drinking tea and waiting, while the spy followed Chen Ji.

Chen Ji walked up to a cell door and asked, "Cell A, No. 27, where was Liu Yaozu, the Tongzhi of Yuzhou, previously imprisoned? Where is he now?"

The spy hesitated for a moment, unsure how to address the masked youth before him. Hesitantly, he whispered, "Sir... if it says in the file that someone was released, they walked out of the prison alive. If it says nothing, they died in there."

Chen Ji was certain that Liu Yaozu had died in prison four years ago.

He walked to another cell door and said, "Cell A, No. 28, was this where Chen Mingzhuo, the head of the Luocheng Carpenters' Ward, was imprisoned?"

"He's dead too."

After that, Chen Ji stopped asking questions and just kept muttering in his heart:

"Cell A, No. 52, Guide Prefecture Magistrate Xu Jiawen, dead."

"Cell No. 1, B: Tian Hailong, Magistrate of Shangcai County, Runing Prefecture, died; Xu Dehong, Magistrate of Shangcai County, died..."

Looking back, one person died in some cells, and several died in others.

The more Chen Ji investigated, the more frightened he became. The file in his hand was like the Book of Life and Death in the Hall of Hell.

He flipped through the files again and found that some gangsters and officials hiding in the city had been imprisoned in this inner prison, but there had never been any ice flow in the cells where these people were held.

He took a deep breath and finally got the pattern of the ice flow.

Those that can produce ice flows after death

There is only one thing in common among these people: they are officials!

…

…

The inner prison buried underground is like a huge cemetery. Countless people have died in this dark place.

This is not the martial arts world, but the place where the martial arts world and the court are buried.

Chen Ji stood in front of the cell, with an open file in his hand and a dark cage in front of him.

It took him about an hour to finally finish reading all the files of cells A and B. The remaining files were C, D, E, J, G, Xin, Ren, and Gui, which he didn't need to read anymore.

Chen Ji even dared to make a bold judgment that the ice flow obtained by Wanxing Garden that night was indeed from Concubine Jing's fetus, and the royal bloodline was superior to others since birth.

At this moment, Chen Ji stood in this depressing inner prison and felt a little absurd.

His own way of cultivation actually stood in opposition to the entire Ning Dynasty. If he wanted to practice, officials and royal bloodlines must die!

The Ning Dynasty held all the power of the dynasty, from the emperor to the petty officials.

And I want to be his enemy?

Yun Yang was right. I really couldn’t let others know what my method of cultivation was... It was indeed very dangerous.

Yun Yang sat at a table, legs crossed, cracking melon seeds. Seeing Chen Ji in the corridor pause to think, he asked, "Have you found a clue?"

Chen Ji came back to his senses after a long period of thinking: "Not yet."

Yun Yang frowned. "I went to pick you up myself, wasting an hour going back and forth, and now I've been waiting for you for another hour, and you say you have no clues?"

Chen Ji came for Bingliu and the files, and now that he has both, he can't just leave.

He thought for a moment and asked, "How did Liu Shiyu die? Did you kill him?"

Yun Yang shook his head: "No, he couldn't bear the torture and hanged himself."

Chen Ji frowned: "Is his body still in the inner prison?"

"Yes, you want to see it?" Yun Yang became interested and threw the melon seeds in his palm on the table: "I'll take you there."

Yun Yang led Chen Ji deeper into the inner prison. They went down several stairs and passed through several floors before reaching the deepest part. Chen Ji could even hear the sound of a flowing underground river.

"Look, it's inside. There's only one body, Liu Shiyu," Yun Yang walked in holding a torch.

Liu Shiyu was about thirty years old, thin, with fair skin, a pale face, a sticking out tongue, and incontinence.

This is a typical sign of death by hanging, nothing unusual.

When Chen Ji saw the corpse, he held his breath and felt uncomfortable.

Yun Yang joked, "I thought you were truly omnipotent. How come you can't even look at a corpse?"

Chen Ji calmed down and said, "Lord Yunyang, being able to look at the corpse of one's own kind without any emotion is not something to brag about... Liu Shiyu did not commit suicide, he was murdered to silence him."

Yunyang shook his head. "You're wrong this time. I've killed many people, so I have more experience in this matter. All the signs of his death are consistent with hanging. I've hanged many people, and they always have pale faces, sticking out their tongues, and incontinence. I'm sure of that. You might be wondering if he was strangled to death before being hanged. No, the face of a strangled person is crimson purple, and I'm familiar with that."

"In theory, what Lord Yunyang said is correct," Chen Ji nodded.

"Huh?" Yun Yang was puzzled.

Chen Ji said: "But these can be forged."

The cause of death by hanging was that the carotid artery was blocked and the brain was deprived of oxygen.

Because the carotid artery is blocked instantly, the veins can still work temporarily, so people who die by hanging will have a pale face, while people who are strangled will have a crimson purple face.

The person who killed Liu Shiyu to silence him must have known the reason.

The theory is that the fake death by hanging was fabricated: the tongue can be strangled out, acupuncture can cause incontinence, and precise strangulation of the sinus artery can cause paleness of the face.

The other party was a killer who professionally faked suicides, but he missed only one detail: his feet.

Chen Ji explained, "When someone hangs themselves, their toes hang down, almost perpendicular to the ground. Rigor mortis sets in after two hours, and even after they're lowered, the toes remain in that position. But look at Liu Shiyu. Before he was strangled, his legs kicked vigorously from struggling, and his feet were fixed in different directions."

After hearing this, Yun Yang looked thoughtful. "Is that so?... Let's go back to the A floor, bring a condemned prisoner over, and give it a try. We'll know for sure!"

Chen Ji and others returned to the upper level, and he watched two spies dragging a death row prisoner over.

The prisoner had wet his pants before he even hanged himself.

Yun Yang sat at the table, cracking melon seeds while sarcastically saying, "This is the civil servant of my Ning Dynasty. They appear strong and unyielding on the surface, but in reality they are vulnerable."

Chen Ji hesitated and said, "Master Yunyang, what is his crime?"

"He collaborated with the enemy and betrayed his country, secretly forging household registration and travel books for Jing Dynasty spies." Yun Yang turned to the spies and said, "Hang him on the roof. I want to observe him!"

Chen Ji wanted to say something, but finally chose to keep his mouth shut.

The next moment, the spies put a rope around the prisoner's neck and hung him from the ceiling, kicking the stool away from under his feet.

In just a few seconds, the death row prisoner was completely motionless.

Everyone just waited like this, with the corpse hanging in front of them, but Yunyang drank tea and ate melon seeds as if nothing had happened, as if the person hanging was not a person, but a pig.

Chen Ji just focused on flipping through the files to pass the time.

Two hours later, the spy took the body down from the roof, and just as Chen Ji had said, the toes were stretched straight.

Yunyang clapped his hands in admiration, "Before, we just hung people up, but never took them down. I didn't even notice this detail!"

Chen Ji said calmly, "Someone wants to kill and silence the witness, which means there is someone more powerful behind Liu Shiyu. There are more than one person in the Liu family colluding with the enemy. Liu Mingxian, the second wife, and Liu Mingde, the first wife, are both suspects."

Yun Yang frowned. "Liu Gun will be returning to Luocheng in a few days. If I go and provoke the Minister of Personnel without any evidence, won't I be asking for trouble? You're not trying to trick me into jumping into a fire pit, are you?"

Inside the room, Chen Ji held onto the oil-slag lamp, the flame flickering in his eyes. "How could that be? I was counting on Lord Yunyang to promote me. But Lord Yunyang also mentioned before the dangers that Jingchao spies pose to the frontline soldiers. Why is he playing it safe now?"

Yun Yang sighed, "Every failure teaches you a lesson. All I knew before was killing people. I've only held the position of the Twelve Zodiac Signs for only six months now. It would be such a shame if I lost it... The officialdom is not easy."

Chen Ji looked at the other party and asked sincerely, "Master Yunyang, you and Master Jiaotu are good at killing people. The Minister of Internal Affairs is extremely smart. Why would he send you to do something you are not good at?"

Yun Yang was puzzled: "Yeah... Could it be that the Internal Minister hopes to use our murderous nature to destroy the Liu family? The Internal Minister sent us here to kill people, so what should I do..."

He subconsciously picked up the teapot and wanted to pour a cup of tea for Chen Ji, but then he thought, no, he had only poured tea for the internal minister before!

He put the teapot back on the table. "But even if we know someone murdered Liu Shiyu to silence him, it's hard to find evidence against the Liu family. How should I continue my investigation?"

Chen Ji shook his head. "There are too few clues at the moment, and I don't have any good suggestions. But, Master Yunyang, don't you think Old Master Liu's death is too strange? As soon as he died, you were immediately put on the defensive. My master was invited to diagnose a disease, but the carriage he was riding in broke down halfway, and he didn't even see Old Master Liu."

A flash of lightning flashed through Yunyang's mind: "Old Master Liu may not be dead!"