Chapter 402 The Iron Box Buried in the Yard
The rain, a mixture of snow and water, pierced through the dawn light, like countless silver threads sparsely scattered across the sky.
On both sides of Yong'an Street, a layer of ice water accumulated on the glazed tile roofs, which then froze into frost under the cold north wind.
At that time, the delegation from the Northern and Southern Immortal Sects was traveling by imperial carriage from the Great Xia Imperial Palace to Shengjing Immortal Garden.
The restoration of the sacred site of the sages is nearing completion, but the demon race in Yunzhou is becoming increasingly active, even infiltrating Zhongzhou multiple times after the New Year Festival. This inevitably makes the human race feel tense, and they increasingly feel an atmosphere of impending war.
The Central Continent and the Netherworld Continent are different. The Central Continent has ancestral temples of the human race, which carry the fortune and are connected to the Heavenly Dao. They must never fall into the hands of the demon race.
Therefore, in order to prepare for possible wars and to determine how to enter and inspect the connection of destiny after the restoration of the sacred site of the sages, the human race held its first response meeting for several days in the Great Xia Imperial Palace.
At that time, among the immortal sect members who had returned to the Immortal Garden for a temporary rest, Mu Jing, the supervisor of the Immortal Supervision Office, was holding a paper umbrella and walking towards Chunhua Lane, arriving at a house without a courtyard.
It's clear that the courtyard is still under renovation, and there's a deep pit in the middle dug to build a fire channel.
Judging from its depth, this pit is deeper than a normal fire channel.
Just then, Kuang Cheng appeared from the house: "Is the meeting over?"
Mu Qing looked at him after regaining her senses: "It's over, but it didn't go very smoothly."
Why was it unpleasant?
"A dispute has arisen between the Heavenly Academy and the Dao Seeking Sect. It's probably because the Heavenly Academy feels they are not trustworthy and disagrees with their stationing in the core of the Holy Land. I think this is still because of Young Master Ji's matter."
Upon hearing this, Kuang Cheng understood his meaning.
Although Brother Ji ultimately passed away due to problems in his cultivation, it is common knowledge that someone suddenly attacked him during his breakthrough.
Although no one knew the identity of the assassin, the Heavenly Academy noticed that the three sects had sent people on the day of the incident under the pretext of discussing matters concerning the Holy Land, which was a delaying tactic.
Therefore, even without direct evidence, they still believed that the assassin must have been sent by these three immortal sects, and it was not surprising that a conflict would break out.
After Mu Jing finished speaking, she took out a document from her bosom: "I have brought you what you asked me to copy. It contains the records of the tax revenue deposited into the treasury for the four years from the first year of Taichang to the first year of Taiwu."
After regaining his senses, Kuang Cheng cupped his hands in thanks: "Thank you for your help, Brother Mu."
"We're friends, there's no need for thanks. I'm just curious, what do you need these shipping records for?"
“The craftsmen I hired dug up some things while they were repairing the yard.”
"?"
Kuang Cheng glanced around and said softly, "Come in and talk."
Mu Jing noticed his sudden wariness and nodded as she followed him into the house.
The newly built house still had a musty smell, but thankfully the heater was on, so the chill wasn't too noticeable.
However, what is noteworthy is that, in addition to some practical items, there is an iron box covered in mud in the room. The box is not large and was placed next to the stove, with all the corners showing signs of corrosion and rust.
Kuang Cheng's house was destroyed two years ago during the attack on the Heavenly Academy by the demons from the Immortal Realm, and it has not been repaired since because he had no money.
Later, when Qingyun Tianxia was short of food, Ji You made a profit from the aristocratic families by raising the price of grain, and then gave them money to repair the courtyard.
After a year of renovations, the house was finally completed, with only the fire ducts needing to be cleared, the courtyard leveled, and the walls built.
During the Xinyuan period, Shengjing was covered in heavy snow. With the festival approaching, he told the craftsmen to go home for the festival first and resume work after the festival.
On the very first day of construction, they unearthed a box from the location of the fire channel between the kitchen and the main hall.
Kuang Cheng told Mu Jing how he found the box, and Mu Jing's face showed a hint of doubt.
"You didn't bury it?"
"The craftsman said that judging from the degree of corrosion of the box, it should have been buried for about ten years, while this courtyard has only been in my hands for four years."
Mu Jing opened her mouth: "Then it seems that the previous owner buried it?"
Kuang Cheng nodded: "After the new policy began, a large number of corrupt officials in the Ministry of Revenue were investigated and their properties were confiscated. Their fields and houses were then transferred to the public and subsequently given to officials in the Imperial Academy. That's how our houses came about."
"Then whose house do you own?"
"It was the residence of a Vice Minister surnamed Wang in the Ministry of Revenue, who was in charge of taxation and transportation. This was the house he used to keep his mistress."
After Kuang Cheng finished speaking, he took out a package of kraft paper from his lacquered red wooden cabinet: "These are the things in the box, a stack of account books, which are quite strange."
"What's strange about the ledger?"
Mu Jing asked a question, and at the same time reached out to take the brown paper package, took out the account book inside and began to look through it.
After only a few glances, he realized that this was also a transportation record, and the transportation time seemed somewhat familiar. So he picked up the tax transportation record that he had copied down, and the two records were placed together, and a coincidence occurred.
The time of departure and the vehicle number written in the kraft paper package could be found in the corresponding entry record and the same number in the copy of the Great Xia Tax Documents he had copied.
The taxes of the Great Xia were collected by local county-level officials from house to house. Apart from the hidden taxes paid to the local immortal sects, the rest were transported to the Ministry of Revenue for verification and supplementation, and then distributed to the major immortal sects and families.
In other words, this is a portion of the distribution records that are compiled before being deposited into the national treasury.
“They’re just ordinary shipping records,” Mu Jing said, puzzled herself. “Why would you hide such ordinary things, and why not hide them in your own house, but in the outer yard?”
"Is it possible that the record is indeed ordinary, but the thing being transported is not?" Kuang Cheng asked rhetorically.
Mu Jing was slightly taken aback: "What does this mean?"
"What I mean is, maybe what they're bringing isn't food."
"How is this possible?"
“If you don’t believe me, just look at the storage dates,” Kuang Cheng said, taking out the ledger and pointing to the first storage column. “According to the records, these things were stored in February, March, and May. But the autumn harvest hasn’t arrived yet, so where did they get the grain to collect and store?”
Mu Jing frowned instantly, understanding Kuang Cheng's reasoning.
The taxes and tributes of the Great Xia Dynasty were very heavy every year. It was a miracle that the people didn't starve to death. Every year, they had to tighten their belts and wait until the autumn harvest to catch their breath. It was impossible to hand over anything before the autumn harvest.
After thinking for a moment, he raised his eyes and asked, "Then what are they transporting?"
"Look behind you."
"later?"
Mu Jing turned the ledger over and then opened the back.
As my gaze swept across the text, a line of large characters appeared before my eyes.
I am also a parent, and I know I will be punished by God for helping them do such evil deeds. However, I fear that I will die before the divine punishment arrives and I will be silenced. I can only pray that the retribution will befall me and not my children.
Heaven's justice is clear, and good and evil will be rewarded accordingly. May the departed souls rest in peace.
Mu Jing was stunned for a long time, and suddenly felt a little uncomfortable, especially when she saw the sentence "I am also a parent" and "May the departed souls rest in peace".
Kuang Cheng told him to finish reading and then said in a deep voice, "When I read this line, I didn't understand it either, but I always felt that this passage had some hidden meaning. So I pondered the words for a long time and suddenly felt that it was terrifying to think about it carefully."
"Brother Kuang, stop keeping me in suspense. What exactly do you mean by this?"
"child."
"What?"
“I think it’s the children. They use tax revenue and transportation as a cover, but in reality, the transportation is the children. Only in this way can the opening line, ‘I am also a parent,’ be appropriate.”
Upon hearing this, Mu Jing felt a chill run down her spine: "What do they need so many children for? To raise them?"
"Brother Mu, after the ancient families joined forces to commit this calamity, you participated in the interrogation of the Du and Bai families. What do you think they could do with a child?"
Upon hearing this, Mu Jing's thoughts were immediately drawn back to more than a year ago.
When the ancient family's plan failed, countless people were imprisoned in the imperial prison and interrogated every day.
He was temporarily transferred to accompany and record the events, and from that he learned a lot about the ruins that had wreaked havoc on the world. The part that he found most unacceptable was about how to bring out the immortal destiny from the ruins.
"You mean these children are used as containers?"
Mu Jing picked up the ledger again and glanced at it, then immediately waved her hand: "No, this is not right. According to the prisoners' confessions during interrogation, they only understood how to use the children later on, but the earliest entries in this ledger are more than ten years old."
After listening, Kuang Cheng looked at Mu Jing and said, "There is one possibility that I guessed wrong, but there is another possibility that there has always been someone else who knew how to bring out the immortal treasures from the ruins earlier than those ancient families."
"You prefer the latter?"
“It’s not about bias, let me show you something else.”
Kuang Cheng put down both ledgers and then took out a small booklet from the bottom of the jujube-red wooden cabinet.
Mu Jing took the booklet and looked at it. She found that it contained nicknames and dates.
"What's this?"
“There are three orphanages for the disabled in and around Shengjing. This is a list of all the missing children compiled by those orphanages, along with the dates of their disappearances. The dates of their disappearances almost match the dates recorded in this ledger.”
Mu Jing looked up at him after hearing this: "How did you get this?"
Kuang Cheng sat back down on the stool: "After the Qiling incident, a group of refugees came to Shengjing. One of the children had seen a group of infants brought out of the ruins. One of them was a child who had disappeared from the orphanage in the north of the city and was used as a container."
The ancient family, having joined forces to commit this calamity, confessed to using children as vessels for their own purposes.
But the fact that children regularly disappear has existed for much longer than those ancient families have reported.
Kuang Cheng was unaware of this at first, since he had not participated in the interrogation and had not actually seen the captured people; much of the information came from Ji Yousheng's previous account.
But it wasn't until this ledger appeared that he realized there might be more darkness behind darkness.
After a long silence, Mu Jing looked up at him and asked, "What do you want me to do by telling me all this?"
“If my guess is true, then Vice Minister Wang’s use of the tax revenue to transport these children will surely deliver them to the people who want them. You are in the Censorate and have access to more case files than I do. I want you to help me find out who it is.”
“Kuang Cheng, you are just a mortal, and I am only a half-baked cultivator. If everything is really as you guessed, then it’s a huge problem. What can we do even if we find out? It’s all over now, let bygones be bygones.”
Upon hearing this, Kuang Cheng fell silent.
Yes, the ancient family has been brought to justice, the evildoers' goals have all failed, the dead children cannot be brought back to life, what can be done by further investigation?
But for Kuang Cheng, now that he knew about this matter, he would feel uneasy if he didn't investigate further.
Seeing her friend remain silent, Mu Jing couldn't help but purse her lips: "How about this, I can help you investigate, but even if you find out something, you must not act rashly. Remember, Young Master Ji is no longer here, there's nothing you can do."
Kuang Cheng nodded after hearing this: "Okay, I'll listen to you."
"But let me make this clear from the start: whether they find out or not, I'll still have to treat you to a meal."
"That's natural."
Upon hearing the reply, Mu Jing glanced at the account book on the table again before getting up and leaving the courtyard.
Where should I begin my search?
Walking down the cold, long street, the supervisor of the Imperial Observatory began to ponder.
If these children were transported through tax collection, would they then be sent out again through tax collection?
Thinking of this, Mu Jing paused briefly on the street before turning around and heading to the Sixianjian, intending to first check the outgoing records to see if she could find anything.
"Young Master Kuang."
Is Young Master Kuang home?
"?"
In the courtyard-less house, Kuang Cheng had just carefully put away the case files when he heard a shout coming from outside.
He paused for a moment, then stepped out the door and saw that the person who came was a shop assistant wearing a robe embroidered with the words "Wu Lu" (meaning "No Worries") on it.
"It's Wang Jiu. What's wrong?"
Wang Jiu stopped and cupped his hands in greeting: "Young master, we have found that mistress. She is still alive and is living in Wannian County, west of the city, at her uncle's house."
In fact, after Kuang Cheng saw the account book in the iron box he dug out of the courtyard, he not only asked Mu Jing to check the tax records of the Great Xia, but also asked Wulu Trading Company to keep an eye on the mistress of Minister Wang.
In his view, since Vice Minister Wang buried the box next to the fire channel, he must have hoped that someone would discover it.
After all, if buried elsewhere, it might not be dug up for a hundred years, but the fire channels in Shengjing City need to be dug up and cleaned every few years.
Kuang Cheng felt that since Vice Minister Wang had such thoughts, his mistress might know more.
However, Qingyun is a vast place, and it is not easy to find an unknown mortal woman. Kuang Cheng did not have high expectations, but he did not expect to receive the news so quickly.
"They actually found her! Where is she now?"
"It's quite a coincidence. Back then, during the Great Xia Dynasty's purge of officials, the main targets were the families of corrupt officials. This mistress wasn't on the list. Later, when she saw things weren't going well, she ran away. But the world was too chaotic, and she didn't dare to go far. So she's been living at her uncle's house in Wannian County ever since."
As Wang Jiu spoke, he took out a work contract from his sleeve: "This concubine's uncle signed a work contract with our Fengzhou branch last year, and he is quite familiar with one of our employees in Wannian County."
Upon hearing this, Kuang Cheng turned and went into the house, quickly grabbing his winter coat: "Come on, prepare a carriage for me, let's go to Wannian County."
"Now?"
"There is no time to lose."
Wang Jiu nodded after hearing this, and then immediately jogged after him.
The two turned onto the long street and arrived at the Spring Breeze Inn, where they hired a carriage.
Just as he got into the car, Kuang Cheng suddenly remembered something and turned to look at Wang Jiu: "It will take me at least three days to go back and forth. Could you please pass on a message to the Wood Ti Division of the Sixian Bureau and tell them that I have something to do and we will meet in three days?"
After hearing this, Wang Jiu cupped his hands and said, "I will remember this."
Mu Jing stayed in the Imperial Sacrificial Office for a long time, going through almost all the records related to taxation, but she did not find anything.
This is normal, because just by looking at the transportation records, no one can tell what was actually transported.
When he came out of the Imperial Observatory, Wang Jiu had been waiting there for a long time. Kuang Cheng's words about meeting in three days had also reached his ears.
Mu Jing nodded after hearing this, saw Wang Jiu off, and then fell into thought again.
If it can't be found in the records, then where should we look for it?
He turned to look at the city wall bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun, and after thinking for a while, he suddenly remembered someone.
"Brother Liu, Brother Wei, it's been a long time. How have you been?"
"Hahaha, Muti, I didn't expect that after so long without contact, we two brothers would have the honor of drinking with you today."
As night fell and the lights of Taiping Tower came on, two burly men met with Mu Jing, cupping their hands in greeting and smiling.
These two men were old acquaintances of Mu Jing's elder brother. They had both served as city guards in Shengjing City, and according to the time recorded in the ledger, they were still in office at that time.
After the taxes were collected, they still had to pass through the city gates before being sent to the immortal families.
Unable to find any useful clues at the Imperial Observatory, he turned to the city guards.
In his view, if the carts carrying the tax money were not loaded with grain, these people would definitely notice something, even if they only had a slight suspicion, which would at least verify whether Kuang Cheng's conjecture was right or wrong.
More importantly, if those children were not sent away during the tax transport, but at some other time, then only the city guards would know.
However, Mu Jing wasn't stupid, so she didn't say it directly. Instead, she subtly inquired whether anyone had used tax revenue for other purposes over the years.
"Others? Brother Mu, do you have some way to make a fortune?"
"There is indeed some trick to it, but it's just an idea for now."
After hearing this, Wei San shook his head: "Brother, it's normal for you to do some business while working at the Imperial Observatory, but it's best not to touch anything related to taxes."
Mu Jing reached out and filled Wei San's wine glass: "Why do you say that, Brother Wei San?"
"Taxes are a major issue that the whole world is concerned about. Some people who engage in underhanded dealings are only suited to working in the shadows. If they get involved in taxes, they will be exposed immediately. The risk is even higher than if you were smuggling yourself. Why bother?"
“But I’ve heard that someone did this ten years ago, and they weren’t just transporting grain.”
After hearing this, Liu Da leaned forward slightly: "You've been scammed, haven't you?"
Mu Jing was slightly taken aback: "Really? What he said made a lot of sense to me."
"Brother, you might not know this since you weren't in the city garrison. Back then, the officials from the pro-immortal faction and His Majesty's faction fought fiercely. They kept a close eye on each other. They would tamper with the tax collection, but would they dare to do anything during transportation? That would be suicide!"
Is it that serious?
Liu Da and Wei San exchanged a glance and then lowered their voices: "I don't know what you're trying to smuggle, but your friend definitely wasn't telling the truth. He's definitely not a government official."
Mu Jing frowned: "But I checked with the Imperial Observatory, and the items he mentioned do indeed have records of being put into storage."
"There are records of them being stored in the warehouse? Then I can guarantee that unless it's a tax, it's definitely still in the palace. Not even half of it can be transported out, let alone a whole cartload."
"?"
In the dead of night, on a street where the cold wind howls.
Mu Jing walked down the empty street after leaving Taipinglou, her eyes filled with doubt.
According to Liu Da and Wei San, if the items were smuggled in secret, they were either transported out through other means or remained in the palace.
If they really did go through other means, then it would be very difficult to investigate. As for keeping them in the palace, that's unlikely, isn't it? What would the palace need so many children for?
Forget it, I'll ask around again tomorrow and see if I can find any clues.
Mu Jing composed himself and strode toward his house, but he stopped abruptly after taking only a few steps.
Two figures clad in iron armor emerged from the shadows ahead.
(End of this chapter)
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