83. Documents
In the dark inn room, four corpses were placed on the beds. Their deaths were extremely tragic and hideous.
Chen Ji found it hard to connect this scene with the carefree and even somewhat silly prince.
If a person can disguise himself so thoroughly, how terrifying would the face underneath the disguise be?
Chen Ji whispered to Xifeng, "Go ask the residents on the second floor if anyone heard any fighting or wailing."
"yes"
Xifeng clasped his fists and left, leading several secret agents to knock on doors one by one.
After a while, Xifeng returned and whispered, "My lord, it's a bit strange. No one heard any wailing. They must have been killed in an instant and their skin peeled off. That's why they didn't have time to wail."
Chen Ji did not answer, but bent down to carefully examine the body.
He opened the dead man's eyelids and unexpectedly found two copper nails nailed on the dead man's pupils, and the eyeballs next to the copper nails were bright red.
After a moment, he stood up and said, "These four people were skinned alive, hammered with copper nails, and tortured alive for a long time."
Xifeng was startled: "The skin peeled off before death?"
As he spoke, he took out a handkerchief from his bosom and handed it to Chen Ji: "Sir, wipe the blood off your hands!"
Chen Ji wiped his hands and calmly analyzed, "If the skin was peeled off after death, there wouldn't be so much blood on their faces, and their eyeballs wouldn't be so severely congested. It's strange. If they were tortured while still alive, why didn't they make any sound?"
In the eerie silence, the spies tightly grasped the hilts of the knives at their waists.
Even these spies who were used to seeing murder scenes couldn't help but feel nervous and solemn.
These four people did not seem to be killed by humans, but rather had their souls taken away by ghosts.
Someone whispered, "There are face-eating women in the mountains over in my hometown. Legend has it that they like to eat the faces of the dead and pretend to be dead to continue living."
Xifeng sneered and said solemnly, "As a secret agent, you dare to talk about ghosts? How could an official of our Ning Dynasty be afraid of such filthy things?"
Someone murmured quietly: "Could it be that some official drove a ghost to do this?"
Xifeng kicked him and said, "It must be the killer who wanted to silence the witness."
Most people in this era are superstitious, and anything that cannot be explained can be attributed to ghosts and gods.
Even a spy who kills without blinking an eye would believe this kind of thing.
Chen Ji said calmly, "It wasn't a ghost, it was a human! I searched Miaowei Bookstore to read the complete version of Qingshan. I guess the killer's methods are very strange. He can control these people and torture them alive without them being able to struggle."
What he didn't say was that, according to the criminal's psychological profile, the killer must have suffered similar physical and psychological trauma, which is why he had a twisted desire for sadism.
Chen Ji looked at Xifeng and asked, "Who among the officials recorded by the Secret Service can do such a thing?"
"Some unconventional sorcerers might be able to do it!"
Xifeng frowned and said, "Sir, we'll have to check the capital's archives. Only those at least at the Haidongqing level can access the archives. These officials are usually more secretive and rarely oppose the government. We, as officials, will greatly reduce their 'skills.'"
"oh?"
Chen Ji was surprised.
This was the second time he heard this statement.
This time, Lin Chaoqing said to Jiaotu in Liu Shiyu's house, "I am a fourth-rank official in Daning, so please don't embarrass yourself by showing off your little tricks."
That's Chen
Ji didn't know the official well, so he didn't take this remark to heart.
But now, combined with what Xifeng said, he suddenly realized one thing: the official position in the Ning Dynasty itself is a way to become an official. The higher the official position, the less afraid of magic.
Xifeng looked at Chen Ji: "Sir, what should we do now? The clue is broken."
Chen Ji remained silent. Before coming here, he hoped that the clue would be broken, but now that the clue was really broken, he didn't know whether he should be happy or worried.
Should I continue investigating or give up?
Seeing that he did not answer, Xifeng became puzzled and asked again: "Sir?"
Chen Ji turned and walked out of the room: "Take me to the inner prison file library, I want to check a case file!"
He vaguely remembered that when he was helping Jiaotu and Yunyang investigate the Liu family case, he had glanced at similar methods of punishment in the case file, but he couldn't remember it clearly, so he had to take another look.
In addition, he can take away another part of the ice flow.
Before leaving, Chen Ji suddenly added, "Bury these four bodies. Be sure to keep it secret and don't let the news leak out."
On Luoyi Street in the East Market in the dark night, a horse-drawn carriage was quietly parked by the roadside. The tall and strong horses snorted in the cold wind, spewing out white mist like a tide.
Xifeng stood behind Chen Ji and covered his eyes with a black cloth.
As he tied the black cloth, he explained, "Please forgive me, sir. The Luocheng Inner Prison was previously infiltrated. Now, entry and exit qualifications require special approval from Lord Jinzhu. Everyone else entering and leaving must be blindfolded."
"understand!"
Chen Ji was helped into the carriage.
When the wheels started to roll slowly, he closed his eyes and asked, "How long have you been following Master Golden Pig?"
Xifeng recalled: "Seven years!"
Chen Ji said, "You've been following Master Jinzhu for a long time. Do you see Tianma often?"
Xifeng smiled and said, "Lord Tianma is like a dragon that can only be seen from head to tail, so it's hard for us to see him. But every year during the Lantern Festival, Lord Jinzhu will attend the banquet he hosts to reward his subordinates, and he will attend whenever he is in the capital."
The spacious carriage was swaying, and cold wind blew in from time to time through the gaps in the cotton curtains.
Xifeng took out a fire stick from the carriage, carefully lit a copper hand warmer, and stuffed it into Chen Ji's arms: "Sir, warm your hands."
"Thanks!"
Chen Ji fumbled around and found the copper hand warmer. He then asked, "Have you seen a white dragon?"
As Xifeng closed the Fire Cun Strip, he said, "Lord Bailong is seen less often. His whereabouts are very mysterious, and he can only be seen on very important occasions. Lord Bailong also wears a mask when he appears. I'm afraid only the Minister of Internal Affairs knows what he looks like."
Chen Ji was silent for a moment: "What about the sick tiger?"
Xifeng was stunned for a moment. "I've never met Binghu before. He's like a ghost, with no sense of presence. Only when the Minister of Internal Affairs occasionally says, 'Leave it to Binghu now,' do people remember that there's such a person in the Secret Service."
“Never appeared?”
“It has never appeared…”
Xifeng recollected carefully, "At least, I haven't seen him since I joined the Secret Service. Six years ago, when His Majesty embarked on his southern tour, all the zodiac animals stood guard, but there was still no sign of the sick tiger. Perhaps he was hiding in the crowd, but we didn't know."
Chen Ji asked, "What does the Minister usually ask Binghu to do? Is it assassination or gathering intelligence?"
Xifeng was surprised
Glancing at Chen Ji, he felt that Chen Ji seemed particularly interested in Binghu. "Sir, have you also heard that Lord Binghu is going to abdicate? But this position is too far away from us, and there are too many people vying for it. Even with Lord Jinzhu's help, it won't work."
The carriage arrived in front of the inner prison gate. Xifeng jumped out first and helped Chen Ji walk into the narrow downward stairs of the inner prison.
After removing the black cloth covering his eyes, the flames of the Bagua array lamps on the walls on both sides of the stone path began to flicker.
The inner prison is even more gloomy at night, as if you are walking into hell.
"Sir, which files would you like to see?"
Zephyr asked.
Chen Ji tried hard to recall the case file he had read: "Case No. A of the seventh year of Jianing."
When the jailer brought a large box, he quickly flipped through every page of the file, scanning through it at a glance.
Time passes by every second.
Chen Ji looked up and said, "No, bring me the A-type files from the eighth and ninth years of the Jianing reign. You should also help me find any files that show anything nailed to the deceased. Find them all and give them to me."
He had read too many files before and only vaguely remembered that there was a similar case, but he couldn't remember which file it was in.
However, one jailer said in embarrassment: "Sir, we can't read."
"Can't read?"
Chen Ji was stunned.
He knew that the literacy rate was low in that era, but he didn't expect that the jailers in the Secret Service were also illiterate.
Civil servants monopolize the paper and book industries and monopolize knowledge.
Ordinary people might not even be able to find a way to learn to read, let alone take the imperial examinations.
Xifeng said, "Sir, I will help you find it."
"OK!"
The two men sat together before the oil lamp, looking through the files. The jailer boiled water and brewed strong tea for them. When their eyes grew sore, Xifeng suddenly said, "Sir, is this what you're looking for? The case of the Wu family extermination in Kaifeng Prefecture in the ninth year of Jianing."
Chen Ji opened the file and found that it recorded a case twelve years ago in which Wu Zhuo, a supervisor of the Kaifeng Silver Mine, and his family of seventeen were killed overnight. In the case, after the death of the mistress of the Wu family, wooden nails were nailed into her mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. These wooden nails were the kind used to seal coffins in coffin shops.
Not only that, the mistress of the Wu family was also brutally cut off her genitals.
He looked at it carefully, but suddenly felt something was wrong: "The file records that the Wu family should have eighteen people registered, and there is still one survivor."
Xifeng came over to look at it. "The silver market... this is our search. Miaowei Bookstore to read the complete version of Qingshan. They're from the twenty-four yamen of the Silijian. The officials who can supervise the silver market have powerful backgrounds and must have connections from above. It's a lucrative position. But it's a bit strange. Our Silijian has always protected its own people. One of their own was killed, but they didn't catch the murderer?"
Chen Ji pondered: "Maybe the murderer didn't leave any clues:?"
"Then the files won't be left alone."
Xifeng explained, "The rule of our Imperial Household Department is that even if the murderer isn't caught that year, we'll review the case file every year to see if it can be combined with other cases. We won't stop until the murderer is caught. But you see, sir, these files are all in the bottom of the box..."
Chen Ji said softly, "Unless the murderer is some important figure in the Imperial Household Department."
Xifeng was startled and subconsciously took a step back, moving a little further away from the file.
Chen Ji was a little confused. The murderer in this case used methods very similar to those of tonight's killer.
But if the murderer was really a big shot in the Imperial Household Department, why would he help the prince to kill and silence the witnesses?
End of this chapter.
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