Chapter 160: Who is the person in the prison?

Su Zhenzhen explained with a cold face, "I guess the birthplaces of these twelve people can form a formation on the map of the Jiang Dynasty."

"What kind of formation?" Hensheng recalled the hometowns mentioned by the twelve ghosts and mentally mapped them onto the map of Jiang Dynasty. He realized that it really did seem like a formation.

"The Zodiac Fortune-Turning Array." Su Zhenzhen's heart inexplicably raced, and she cursed under her breath several times.

I should have known better than to be lazy back then. I thought that formations and such things wouldn't be useful when catching ghosts, so I just glanced at them.

Who knew that ghosts couldn't actually create formations, but humans could use ghosts to create them.

Su Zhenzhen could only remember that the Zodiac Fortune-Changing Array was used to change people's fate; she couldn't recall anything else.

Why does it feel like there's a pair of hands pushing all of this forward?

Su Zhenzhen quickly went through what had happened in her mind.

Many refugees from the south fled to the foot of Yangcheng due to a locust plague, and then he and Hensheng went south to provide disaster relief.

First, there was the completely dilapidated northern Sichuan city, then there was that ancient painting, and the magistrate of the southern Sichuan city, Yunzhou, who had his own unique style...

Su Zhenzhen suddenly shouted, "Hensheng, have you noticed that we haven't encountered any refugees heading north along our journey south? So how did those refugees from Yangcheng end up in Yangcheng?"

Hensheng immediately realized that the disaster victims had traveled north and still had food in Fenglin County, Danfeng City, Chuannan City, and even Chuanbei City. Although it was not enough to support their long-term survival, it was enough to solve their immediate needs.

Why didn't we see any refugees in these cities?

The Jiang Dynasty's imperial power had waned, and every city was xenophobic. They might give refugees some food, but they would never treat them equally. If there were refugees in these cities, they would certainly be dressed in rags.

There's no reason why refugees wouldn't stay in these cities; the journey north is long and arduous, and countless people die along the way.

Hensheng and Su Zhenzhen exchanged a glance, and simultaneously uttered that name.

"Song Anbang".

"I knew it! That bastard vanished like he disappeared after Yangcheng!" Su Zhenzhen said through gritted teeth. If Song Anbang were here, he would definitely beat him so badly that even his own parents wouldn't recognize him.

"He is just a commoner, yet he has managed to lie low among so many 'big shots' in the capital for so many years. He must have something to offer. It wouldn't be difficult for him to manipulate the refugees to head straight to Yangcheng."

Hensheng's expression was grave. "But we can't ignore the locust plague in the south."

There is indeed a locust plague in the south, and if left unchecked, these refugees are very likely to turn into a rebel army.

Although there are no external enemies at present, the Jiang Dynasty, which is in a precarious state, simply cannot withstand another internal strife.

Su Zhenzhen was certain that Song Anbang did not have the ability to cause a locust plague, but he made perfect use of it.

The current luck-changing array is most likely targeted at Hensheng.

"This Song Anbang is everywhere. If he hadn't opened the gates of the capital, the Hu and Xu families wouldn't have ended up like that. Now that he can't use the emperor to command the princes, he's thinking of taking away your fortune."

While Su Zhenzhen was verbally cursing Song Anbang, her mind was racing, trying to figure out what the grievances of these twelve ghosts were.

Seeing Su Zhenzhen's furrowed brows, Hensheng reached out to smooth the wrinkles between her eyebrows.

"Zhenzhen, now that we've guessed Song Anbang's plan, things haven't gotten to the worst point yet. Is this formation easy to break?"

It wasn't a question of whether it could be solved; in Hensheng's mind, such matters of ghosts and spirits were no challenge for Su Zhenzhen.

“As long as we send these twelve ghosts to be reincarnated, everything will be fine, but they are burdened with karma, and we don’t know what this karma is.” Su Zhenzhen scratched her hair in frustration.

These twelve ghosts, though incomplete, were able to speak of their origins because people never forget the path they came from until death. These things are engraved deep within the soul. Forgetting the path makes it easy to be misled by illusions of the afterlife during the reincarnation process, leading one astray into the River of Oblivion or into the animal realm.

Hensheng proposed a solution that was hardly a solution: "The grievances of the world cannot escape the cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death. Why don't we try to answer them one by one and see if they were killed by someone, or if their children were disobedient and disheartening, or if they were bedridden for a long time and never saw a filial son?"

This was like finding a needle in a haystack, but there was no other way. Su Zhenzhen asked Hensheng to experiment, while she opened the Path of Reincarnation and placed it under these ghosts. As long as the causal threads on these ghosts were untied, they would automatically fall into the Path of Reincarnation.

Suddenly, something flashed through Su Zhenzhen's mind. Upon closer inspection, she realized that although the twelve ghosts each had their own dilapidated appearance, they had no causal threads on their bodies.

"Hensheng, wait a moment."

Hensheng was asking one of the ghosts if he was wronged because his unfilial children and grandchildren had driven him out of the house when he heard Su Zhenzhen's voice and immediately turned around and came to her side.

"Zhenzhen, what's wrong?"

"Look at them, can you see a very faint red line?"

Hensheng stared wide-eyed, then rubbed his eyes. "No."

Hensheng suddenly remembered that there were scattered red lights on General Huo's body. He originally thought they were formed from the killing intent around him. Could those be the causal threads?

"These twelve ghosts have no causal threads on them?"

Su Zhenzhen nodded with a grim expression, "Although the causal lines on the wronged souls are very shallow, they can still be seen if you look closely. If you can't see any causal lines on them at all, there are only two possibilities."

"What two possibilities?" Hensheng asked.

"Either they don't have causal lines at all, or too much time has passed and the causal lines have been eroded and become invisible."

Su Zhenzhen looked at the unfathomable depths of the Path of Reincarnation, her voice turning cold. "And these twelve ghosts can't enter the Path of Reincarnation. The Path of Reincarnation can't be wrong, so it can only be the second possibility. That is to say, these people have been dead for a long time. I was wrong before. This formation isn't targeting you. It's because someone used the Zodiac Fortune-Changing Formation decades ago to change their luck. Song Anbang probably knew about this, which is why he tricked us into going south. Maybe the magistrate of Fenglin County also had a deal with him."

The county jail has a luck-changing array, which the county magistrate most likely doesn't know about, otherwise he would have used it himself. There are many people in the common folk who are blessed with both fortune and longevity.

Judging from the rice shop owner's demeanor, he seemed unaware of Hensheng's true identity, so it's highly likely that Song Anbang used him to lock Hensheng up.

Thinking of this, Su Zhenzhen felt another wave of annoyance. She had forgotten about the time-limited nature of the luck-changing array and wondered if it was still useful now.

Just as Su Zhenzhen was pondering who the fortune-changing array was meant for, voices came from deep within the prison cell.

"After watching you two young people study and discuss this, I've finally gotten to the point."

Su Zhenzhen was shocked and immediately took the flashlight from Hensheng and shone it towards the source of the sound.

They were careless; they originally thought there were no other living people in the cell besides them.

No, that doesn't seem to qualify as "human" either.