Chapter 28: The Official

The ice floes accumulated over the years in this inner prison were far beyond Chen Ji’s imagination. He hadn't expected there to be so many inside.

He walked along the corridor of the inner prison, watching one ice floe after another merge into his body. The four furnace fire lamps sealing his Dantian shook, on the verge of flickering out.

The grey-white ice floes were like flood dragons, emitting roars that others couldn’t hear in this dim inner prison. They were like wronged souls trapped in cages for a long time, unwilling in their hearts, wanting to swallow Chen Ji whole.

They were forces in this mysterious world, powerful enough to override authority, yet now they were being little by little deprived.

Chen Ji could feel the cold air seeping from his internal organs, but by Yun Yang’s side, he didn’t dare show any signs of discomfort.

However, just as he and Yun Yang passed a prison cell, they saw an Eight Trigrams array diagram yin-engraved on the base of an oil lamp on the wall.

Chen Ji suddenly remembered the oil residue lamps under the Eight Trigrams array diagrams when they went down the stairs earlier. One lamp was one prison; as long as the lamp wasn't extinguished, the person wasn't extinguished!

He quickly took down the oil lamp and held it in his hand.

In an instant, the ice floes in his Dantian receded like a tide.

Chen Ji panted lightly. Yun Yang turned back in surprise, "Why are you taking this lamp?"

He replied, "This inner prison is too dim. I'm not quite used to it."

Yun Yang sneered, "I didn't expect that someone who dares to bargain with me would actually be afraid of the dark."

Chen Ji didn’t answer. He was only thinking about a question: Could it be that after a person dies, the ice floes don’t dissipate? Judging by the quantity of ice floes just now, they had definitely accumulated for a long time.

Even if the Secret Spy Department was heartless and cruel, they wouldn't have killed so many people in such a short period.

It was the effect of the Eight Trigrams array diagrams!

The Inner Minister was probably worried about killing too many people and possibly being entangled by wronged souls, so he had people use the Eight Trigrams array diagrams to detain all these souls in the inner prison. This was how so many ice floes had been accumulated over the years.

Chen Ji regulated his breathing. "Lord Yun Yang, please let me see the archives. To find clues, it’s not necessary to look only at the current case. Perhaps many secrets are still hidden in past cases."

Yun Yang beckoned to the secret spies, "Give them to him!"

When the secret spies carried the archives over, there were surprisingly more than ten large wooden boxes.

Chen Ji casually took one from inside, flipping through it while patrolling the inner prison.

Yun Yang sat by a table, drinking tea and waiting. The secret spies followed behind Chen Ji.

Chen Ji walked to the front of a prison door and asked, "Prison cell ‘Jia’ number twenty-seven, previously imprisoned Liu Yaozu, the Assistant Magistrate of Yu state? Where is he now?"

The secret spy hesitated, unsure how to address the masked youth in front of him. He paused for a moment, then said in a low voice, "This... Lord, if the archives say 'released', then they left the inner prison alive. If nothing is written, then they died inside."

Chen Ji confirmed that Liu Yaozu had died in the inner prison four years ago.

He walked to another prison door. "Prison cell ‘Jia’ number twenty-eight, imprisoned Chen Mingzhuo, the Master Craftsman of Luo city?"

"Also dead."

Afterward, Chen Ji stopped asking and only silently recited in his heart:

"Prison cell ‘Jia’ number fifty-two, Xu Jiawen, Prefect of Gui De prefecture, dead."

"Prison cell ‘Yi’ number one, Tian Hailong, Magistrate of Shang Cai county in Ru Ning prefecture, dead; Xu Dehong, Vice Magistrate of Shang Cai county, dead..."

Carefully counting, some prison cells had one person die, others several.

The more Chen Ji checked, the more shocked he became. The archives in his hand were like the Book of Life and Death in the Hall of Yan Wang.

He flipped through the archives again. This inner prison had also imprisoned some people from the Jianghu, and some hidden officials in the marketplace. But the prison cells where these people were located did not have ice floes surging.

He took a deep breath and finally understood the rule of the ice floes.

The only commonality among the people who could produce ice floes after death was that they were officials!

...

...

The inner prison, buried underground, was like a huge grave field. Who knows how many people had died in this dark, sunless place.

This was not Jianghu, but the place to bury both Jianghu and the court.

Chen Ji stood in front of the prison cell, the open archives in his hand, the dim prison cage before him.

He spent about an hour finally going through all the archives for the ‘Jia’ and ‘Yi’ character prison cells. There were still ‘Bing’, ‘Ding’, ‘Wu’, ‘Ji’, ‘Geng’, ‘Xin’, ‘Ren’, and ‘Gui’ left to see, but there was no need to see them anymore.

Chen Ji even dared to boldly judge that the ice floes obtained that night in the Late Star Garden indeed came from the Quiet Consort's fetus. The imperial family bloodline was born superior to others.

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

His own path of cultivation actually stood on the opposite side of the entire Ning dynasty. To cultivate, officials and the imperial family bloodline had to die!

From the Emperor to the minor officials, the Ning dynasty controlled all the power of this dynasty.

And he was to be its enemy?

Yun Yang was not wrong. He indeed couldn’t let others know what his cultivation path was. It was indeed very dangerous.

Yun Yang sat at a table, legs crossed, cracking melon seeds. Seeing Chen Ji stop and think in the corridor, he asked, "Found any clues?"

Chen Ji returned from his deep thought. "Not yet."

Yun Yang frowned. "I personally went to pick you up, wasting an hour round trip. Now I’ve waited another hour for you, and the result is no clues?"

Chen Ji had come for the ice floes and the archives. He had obtained both, but he couldn’t just leave like this.

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

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

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

"Yes, do you want to see?" Yun Yang became interested and threw the melon seeds from his hand onto the table. "I'll take you."

Yun Yang led Chen Ji towards the depths of the inner prison. They actually descended several more stairs, passed through several layers, and only then reached the deepest part. Chen Ji could even hear the sound of the underground river flowing.

"Here, just inside, there's only Liu Shi Yu's body," Yun Yang walked in, holding a torch.

Liu Shi Yu was about thirty years old, slender, with fair skin, a deathly pale face, a protruding tongue, and had lost control of his bowels and urine.

These were the typical signs of death by hanging; there were no abnormalities.

Chen Ji saw the body, held his breath, and felt uncomfortable in his heart.

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

Chen Ji calmed down. "Lord Yun Yang, being able to indifferently examine the corpse of your own kind is not something worth boasting about... Liu Shi Yu didn't commit suicide; he was killed to silence him."

Yun Yang shook his head. "This time you're wrong. I've killed a lot of people, so I have more experience in this matter. All his death signs are those of hanging: I've helped many people hang. Those who are hanged have deathly pale faces, protruding tongues, and lose control of their bowels and urine. This point is not wrong. You might think, was he strangled then hung up? No, those who are strangled have purplish-red faces. I'm also familiar with this."

"Theoretically, Lord Yun Yang is not wrong," Chen Ji nodded.

"Hmm?" Yun Yang was puzzled.

Chen Ji said, "But all of these can be faked."

The cause of death by hanging is blockage of the neck artery, leading to lack of oxygen in the brain and death.

Due to the instantaneous blockage of the neck artery, the veins can still work temporarily, so people who die by hanging have deathly pale faces, while those who are strangled have purplish-red faces.

The person who killed Liu Shi Yu to silence him must have known the principle behind this, so they faked the illusion of death by hanging: the tongue can be pulled out, acupuncture can induce loss of bowel and urine control, and precisely strangling the carotid sinus can lead to a deathly pale face.

The other side was a professional killer who specialized in faking suicides, but they only missed one detail: the feet.

Chen Ji explained, "When someone is hanged, their toes droop, almost perpendicular to the ground. Corpse stiffness will appear within two hours, and even if they are taken down, it will still be maintained. But look at Liu Shi Yu, his legs struggled and kicked forcefully before he was strangled, and his feet are fixed in different directions."

After listening, Yun Yang showed a thoughtful expression. "Is that how it is... Let's go back to the 'Jia' character layer, get a death row prisoner over, and try it to see!"

Chen Ji and the others returned to the upper layer. He saw two secret spies dragging a death row prisoner over.

The death row prisoner had already wet his pants even before being hanged.

Yun Yang sat by the table, cracking melon seeds and mocking, "These are the civil officials of my Ning dynasty. On the surface, they look iron-boned, but they can't withstand a single blow."

Chen Ji hesitated. "Lord Yun Yang, what was his crime?"

"Treason and betrayal. He privately forged household registration and travel documents for Jing dynasty spies," Yun Yang turned to the secret spies and said, "Hang him on the ceiling, I want to observe!"

Chen Ji wanted to say something, but finally chose to remain silent.

The next moment, the secret spies used a rope to loop around the death row prisoner’s neck and hung him from the ceiling, kicking away the stool under his feet.

In a short few seconds, the death row prisoner became completely still.

Everyone just waited like this, the body suspended in front of them. Yun Yang, however, drank tea and cracked melon seeds as if nothing were happening, as if it wasn't a person hanging but a pig.

Chen Ji only focused on flipping through the archives, using this to pass the time.

Two hours later, the secret spies took the body down from the ceiling. Indeed, as Chen Ji had said, the toes were straight.

Yun Yang clapped and praised, "Before, I only hung people up, but I never took them down. I actually didn't notice this detail!"

Chen Ji calmly said, "Someone wants to kill to silence, which means there's a bigger fish behind Liu Shi Yu. The Liu family isn't only involved in treason; both the second branch Liu Mingxian and the main branch Liu Mingde are under suspicion."

Yun Yang frowned. "Liu Gun will return to Luo city in a few days. I have no evidence at this time. To provoke the Secretary of the Ministry of Personnel, wouldn't that be causing trouble for myself? You're not trying to trick me into jumping into a fire pit, are you?"

In the room, Chen Ji held the oil residue lamp, the fire light flickering in his eyes. "How could I? I still rely on Lord Yun Yang to promote me. Just now, Lord Yun Yang also talked about the harm Jing dynasty spies cause to frontline warriors. Why are you being so self-protective now?"

Yun Yang sighed. "You always have to learn from your mistakes. Before, I only knew how to kill. I've only had the Twelve Zodiac positions for half a year. It would be a pity if I lost it... Officialdom is not easy."

Chen Ji looked at the other man and asked sincerely, "Lord Yun Yang, your and Lord Jiao Tu's expertise is killing. Lord Inner Minister is extremely clever. Why would he send you to do things you're not skilled at?"

Yun Yang was puzzled. "Yes... Could it be that the Inner Minister originally hoped to use our killing nature to kill the Liu family? The Inner Minister sent us to kill people, so how should I..."

He subconsciously picked up the teapot wanting to pour a cup of tea for Chen Ji, but on second thought, no, he only poured tea for the Inner Minister before!

He put the teapot back on the table. "But now, even knowing that someone killed Liu Shi Yu to silence him, it's still hard to get a handle on the Liu family. How should I continue the investigation?"

Chen Ji shook his head. "There are too few clues at present, and I have no good suggestions either. It's just, Lord Yun Yang, don't you feel that old master Liu's death is too suspicious? As soon as he died, you all immediately fell into a passive position. My master was invited to diagnose him, but his carriage broke down on the way and he didn't even see old master Liu."

A thought flashed through Yun Yang’s mind like thunder. "Old master Liu might not be dead!"