That night, Tian An and An Wan simply told each other what had happened to them over the years.
Upon learning that both children were fine and that their father had become a general, An Wan still had a smile on her face even when she fell asleep.
Tian An carefully touched the scar on her face and secretly took medicine from the space and applied it on it. "Don't worry, mother. I will not let it ruin the rest of your life."
After nightfall, Zhao Yiming and his two companions reunited with Chi Wei. After confirming that there was only one person in the farmyard, Zhao Yiming took out the sleeping pills given to him by Tian An from his belt.
In less than a quarter of an hour, the man, who was still wearing old woman's clothes and had an old woman's face, was unconscious.
The four of them had clear division of labor. Chi Wei and Zhao Yiming were responsible for the main room, while Jing Yu and An Yi checked the other rooms.
After a while, An Yi and Jing Yu returned to the main room and shook their heads at Zhao Yiming, indicating that they did not find anything unusual.
Then the only room left was the main hall, and the four of them began to search in it together.
The things in this main room are very simple. There is a shrine on the opposite wall, a square table with two chairs in the middle, and a lot of miscellaneous items placed in the corner of the wall.
Chi Wei was very sure that the sound of heavy objects moving that he heard came from here. Jingyu and An Yi kept knocking on every inch of the floor with their scabbards, trying to find the entrance to the tunnel.
Zhao Yiming carefully checked all the debris and everything he could see in the main room, including a teacup or teapot, in an attempt to find the location of the mechanism.
Chi Wei watched Jingyu and An Yi check the entire floor, then stared at the wall behind the shrine and fell into deep thought.
Seeing this, Zhao Yiming frowned and said, "Do you suspect someone is behind this wall?"
It’s no wonder Zhao Yiming said that. The entrance to the secret passage in the Empress Dowager’s bedroom was located in the wall behind the altar.
"But didn't you say that this wall is close to the mountain?" Jingyu stood up from the ground and looked at Chiwei.
They inspected the mountain and the yard and were certain that the wall and the mountain were tightly connected, with no extra space between them.
At this moment, An Yi reminded the three of a crucial piece of information. "Did you see the carriage they used to kidnap the county lady?"
The three of them were stunned. The yard was so small that it was obvious whether there was a carriage hidden there. They had already searched the surrounding area and couldn't find it.
They had chased the carriage for a long distance with all their might, but there was still no trace of it. But how could such a large carriage just disappear out of thin air?
At this moment, Chi Wei, who had been staring at the wall, seemed to have received some inspiration. He suddenly pointed at the wall and said, "It's confirmed. It's behind this wall."
"But behind this wall is..."
Before Jingyu could even utter the word "mountain", Chi Wei continued, "Yes, there is a mountain behind us, but what if they penetrate the mountain directly?"
Then, he pointed to two barely perceptible cracks in the wall and said, "I suspect the width of this secret passage is the same as the distance from here to here."
Jingyu looked at the area he pointed at and cursed, "It's so wide, even a carriage can fit in!"
After he finished speaking, he was stunned for a moment, then quickly responded, "Could it be that the vanished carriage really went directly into the secret passage?"
Chi Wei nodded, "Should be?"
"What about the mechanism?" Zhao Yiming asked.
Chi Wei raised his finger and pointed at the bamboo incense stick on the right side of the shrine and said, "If nothing unexpected happens, this is it."
It was obvious that the shrine was cleaned frequently. The two bamboo incense sticks on it had been cleaned, but there were the same number of incense sticks in them. The one on the left had a lot of incense ash accumulated on it, while the one on the right had much less. Zhao Yiming walked forward and gently tapped the two incense sticks with his fingers.
Chi Yong's guess was immediately confirmed, because the sound emitted by the incense tube on the left was the crisp sound of an ordinary bamboo tube, while the sound of the one on the right was obviously much duller. Judging from the sound, it was probably wrapped in a layer of bamboo tube skin on the outside, and the inside was actually made of copper.
Although they had determined the location of the mechanism, the four people looked at the bamboo tube, but no one dared to touch it.
There is no other reason. If this is really the place where King Wenxuan kidnapped and hid children for so many years, then there must be someone guarding it.
Without knowing the specific situation inside, if you rashly open the mechanism and disturb the people inside, you may alert the enemy. Forcefully breaking in without being completely sure will also put the hostages in danger.
"Chiyong, continue to stay and observe. Let's retreat first and make long-term plans." Zhao Yiming said decisively.
After the three people withdrew, Zhao Yiming asked An Yi to go back and bring their people back to ambush nearby, waiting for his signal.
He planned to take Jingyu directly over the mountain behind the farm to find out the situation.
According to the current situation, he speculated that there were two possibilities. One was that the place where King Wenxuan hid the people was directly in this mountain, and behind the wall of the shrine was the Tibetans' secret room.
Secondly, there is actually space behind the mountain, they just dug a passage through the mountain.
Comparing the two, Zhao Yiming prefers the second option because building a secret room in the mountain is too huge a project.
If the purpose was just to imprison someone, King Wenxuan wouldn't have to go to so much trouble.
After An Yi left, Zhao Yiming and Jing Yu also set off immediately.
Fortunately, although the mountain behind the farm looks straight and tall, there are a lot of vegetation on it. Both of them are martial artists, so although it is difficult to climb up, there is no problem at least.
However, the visibility was poor at night, and they had to carefully identify the direction and pay attention to their feet, so their speed slowed down a lot.
It was ten in the middle of the night before we reached the halfway point of the mountain. The higher we went, the steeper the mountain became and the less vegetation there was.
Fortunately, Deng Xue and her friends made full preparations when they left the city, and brought the same hiking bag that Tian An had prepared for Tian Mingwu.
Looking at the increasingly shiny mountain, Zhao Yiming stopped for the first time since he climbed up the mountain. He put down the backpack behind him and said, "Let's rest for a quarter of an hour." He took out compressed biscuits and a water bottle.
Jingyu wiped the sweat from his forehead and sat down, breathing heavily.
The two of them ate and drank in silence, trying their best to maintain their strength for the more difficult journey ahead.
A quarter of an hour, not a second more or less. When the time was up, Zhao Yiming packed his things, took out his hiking gloves from his backpack and put them on, put on his hiking bag, stood up and strode towards the straight mountain.
As they got higher, there was no more vegetation nearby for them to use as leverage.
The two could only carefully grab the protruding rocks on the mountain and climb up slowly step by step. There was a cliff below them. If they fell down accidentally, they would be crushed to pieces.
As time passed, the sky gradually brightened. Zhao Yiming grabbed the protruding rocks on the edge of the cliff, pushed hard with his feet, and finally climbed up.
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