Chapter 84 Documents
In the dark inn room, four corpses were placed on the beds. Their deaths were extremely tragic and hideous.

It was difficult for Chen Ji to connect the scene before him with the carefree and even a little 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 came back and whispered, "My lord, it's a bit strange. No one heard any wailing. They must have been killed in an instant and their skins were peeled off? So 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 and hammered with copper nails before they died. They were 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."

While wiping his hands, Chen Ji 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 alive, why didn't they make any sound?"

In the eerie silence, the spies held the knife handles at their waists tightly.

Even these spies who were used to seeing murder scenes couldn't help but feel nervous and solemn. These four people didn't look like they were killed by humans, but more like their souls were taken away by ghosts.

Someone whispered, "There are face-eating women in the mountains of 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 can officials of my Ning Dynasty be afraid of such filthy things!"

Someone whispered, "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 they attribute all unclear things to ghosts and gods. Even spies who kill without blinking an eye would believe in this kind of thing.

Chen Ji said calmly, "It wasn't a ghost, it was a human. I guess the killer's methods are very strange, and he can control these people to suffer punishment alive without being able to struggle."

What he didn't say was that, according to the criminal's psychological profile, the killer should have suffered similar physical and psychological trauma, which gave rise to his twisted desire for sadism.

Chen Ji looked at Xifeng and asked, "Who among the officials recorded by the Secret Service can do this?"

"Some unorthodox sorcerers may be able to do it." Xifeng frowned and said, "Sir, we have to check the case files in the capital, and we can only see it in the case files area that can be entered by those at least at the level of Hai Dongqing. This kind of officials are usually more secretive and rarely go against the government. We are officials, so their 'spells' will be greatly reduced."

"Oh?" Chen Ji was surprised.

This was the second time he heard this statement.

The last time, Lin Chaoqing said to Jiaotu in Liu Shiyu's house, "I am a fourth-rank official in Daning, so don't bring shame to others with your trivial tricks."

At that time, Chen Ji didn't know the officials, so he didn't take them seriously.

But now, combined with what Xifeng said, he suddenly realized one thing: the official position in the Ning Dynasty itself is like 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 file."

He vaguely remembered that when he helped Jiaotu and Yunyang investigate the Liu family case, he had glanced at similar punishment methods in the files, but he couldn't remember them 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 City in the dark night, a horse-drawn carriage was quietly parked on the side of the road. 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.

While tying the black cloth, he explained, "Please forgive me, sir. Because the inner prison of Luocheng was previously infiltrated, the qualifications to enter and leave the inner prison now require special approval from sir Jinzhu. The rest of the people entering and leaving must be blindfolded."

"I understand." Chen Ji was helped into the carriage. When the wheels slowly rolled, he closed his eyes and asked, "How long have you followed Master Jinzhu?" Xifeng recalled, "Seven years."

Chen Ji said, "You have been following Master Jinzhu for a long time. Do you see Tianma often?"

Xifeng smiled and said, "Lord Tianma is a mysterious figure that is hard to spot. It is difficult for us to see him. However, every year during the Lantern Festival, Lord Jinzhu will attend the banquet to reward his subordinates. As long as he is in the capital, he will come to participate."

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."

"Thank you," Chen Ji fumbled to take the copper hand warmer and asked, "Have you seen a white dragon?"

As Xifeng closed the fire stick, 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: "No one has ever seen Binghu. This gentleman seems to have no sense of existence, like a ghost. Only when the Minister of Internal Affairs occasionally says, 'Leave this matter to Binghu,' will everyone remember that there is such a person in the Secret Service."

"Never appeared?!"

"Never appeared," Xifeng recalled carefully, "At least I haven't seen him since I joined the Secret Service. Six years ago, when His Majesty was on a southern tour, all the zodiac signs were guarding on both sides, but there was still no sign of the sick tiger... He might be hiding in the crowd, but we don't know."

Chen Ji asked: "What does the Minister usually ask Binghu to do? Is it assassination or gathering intelligence?"

Xifeng looked at Chen Ji in surprise. He always felt that Chen Ji seemed to be 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 the help of Lord Jinzhu, it won't work."

The carriage arrived in front of the gate of the inner prison. Xifeng jumped out first and helped Chen Ji walk into the narrow downward stairs of the inner prison.

After removing the blindfold, the flames of the Bagua array lamps on the walls on both sides of the stone path shook. The inner prison became even more gloomy at night, as if one was walking into hell.

"Sir, which files do you want to see?" Xifeng asked.

Chen Ji tried hard to recall the files he had read before: "The seventh year of Jianing, File No. A."

When the jailer brought a large box, he quickly flipped through every page of the file, scanning through it at a glance.

Time passed by, but he still didn't find what he wanted.

Chen Ji raised his head and said, "No, bring me the A-type files from the eighth and ninth years of Jianing. You can also help me find the files. If there are any objects nailed to the bodies of the dead, find them all and give them to me."

He had read too many files before and only vaguely remembered that there were similar cases, but he couldn't quite remember which file they were in.

However, a 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 this era, but he did not expect that the jailers of the Secret Service were also illiterate. Civil officials monopolized the paper and book industries and knowledge, so ordinary people could not even find a way to learn to read, let alone participate in the imperial examinations.

Xifeng said, "Sir, I will help you find it."

"Row."

The two of them sat in front of the oil lamp and looked through the files. The jailer boiled water and made strong tea for them. When their eyes were sore, Xifeng suddenly said, "Sir, is this what you are looking for? In the ninth year of Jianing, the Wu family in Kaifeng Prefecture was exterminated!"

Chen Ji took the file and saw that it recorded a case in which 22 years ago, Wu Zhuo, a supervisor of the Kaifeng Silver Mine, and his family of 17 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 18 people, and one survived."

Xifeng came over to look at them: "The silver field... these are people from the twenty-four offices of our Silijian. The officials who can supervise the silver field have powerful backgrounds and must have someone above them. It's a lucrative position. But it's a bit strange that our Silijian has always protected its own people. When one of their own was killed, they didn't catch the murderer?"

Chen Ji thought thoughtfully: "Maybe the murderer didn't leave any clues?"

"Then we won't leave the files alone," Xifeng explained, "The rule of our Silijian is that even if the murderer is not caught that year, we will review the files every year to see if they can be combined with other cases. We will not stop until the murderer is caught. But you see, my lord, these files are all in the bottom of the box..."

Chen Ji said softly: "Unless the murderer is some big shot 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 similar methods to the killer tonight. But if the murderer was really a big shot in the Imperial Household Department, why would the other party help the prince to kill people to silence them?
……

There will be another chapter later

(End of this chapter)