Qingshan

Chapter 84 : Chapter 84

Chapter 84: The Archives

In the dim inn room, four corpses lay on the beds, their mutilated faces a grotesque sight.

Chen Ji could not reconcile this scene with the image of the easygoing, slightly foolish Heir.

If someone could maintain a disguise that thorough, what kind of face was hiding underneath?

Chen Ji said quietly to West Wind, "Ask the guests on this floor whether anyone heard fighting or screaming."

"Yes, sir."

West Wind cupped his fist and left, leading agents from door to door.

Shortly, he returned. "Sir, it's odd -- nobody heard a thing. They must have been killed instantly, then had their faces removed afterward? There wouldn't have been time to scream."

Chen Ji didn't answer. He bent over the bodies and examined them closely. Pulling back one dead man's eyelids, he discovered two copper nails driven into each pupil, the surrounding eyeball flooded with crimson.

After a moment, he straightened. "These four had their faces skinned and the nails driven in while they were still alive. They were tortured for some time."

West Wind started. "Skinned alive?"

He reached into his coat and produced a handkerchief, which he handed to Chen Ji. "Sir, wipe the blood off your hands."

Chen Ji wiped his hands and analyzed as he went. "If the faces had been removed after death, there wouldn't be this much bleeding, and the eyes wouldn't be this severely engorged... Strange. If they were tortured alive, how did they make no sound at all?"

In the eerie stillness, the agents' hands tightened on their saber hilts.

Even these men, long accustomed to death, couldn't suppress a creeping unease. The four victims didn't look as though they'd been killed by a human. It was more as if some phantom had snatched their souls away.

One agent murmured, "Back in my hometown, in the mountains, there's something called a face-eating hag. Legend says they eat a dead person's face and then live as that person."

West Wind scoffed. "You're a Secret Spy Division agent, and you're spreading ghost stories? Since when do Ning Dynasty officials fear such filth?"

Someone else whispered, "Could an enforcer have used some kind of spirit to do this?"

West Wind kicked him. "This is obviously the work of a killer cleaning up loose ends."

In this era, most people were superstitious. Anything that defied explanation could be chalked up to gods and ghosts. Even killers without a shred of mercy believed in such things.

Chen Ji said evenly, "It wasn't a spirit. It was a person. My guess is the killer's enforcer path is highly unusual -- it can hold victims immobile while they endure torture without being able to struggle."

What he didn't say was that, based on criminal psychological profiling, the killer had likely suffered similar physical and psychological trauma, which had warped into a compulsion to inflict the same.

Chen Ji looked at West Wind. "Among the enforcer paths catalogued by the Secret Spy Division, which ones could do something like this?"

"Certain fringe practitioners and occult daoists might be capable." West Wind frowned. "Sir, we'd need to consult the archives in the capital. The relevant records require at least Sea Goshawk clearance to access. These types of enforcers tend to be more secretive and rarely cross the authorities. Our official ranks weaken their techniques significantly."

"Oh?" Chen Ji was intrigued.

This was the second time he'd heard this claim.

The first was when Lin Chaoqing had told Jiaotu at Liu Shiyu's residence: "This commander holds the fourth rank of the Great Ning. Don't embarrass yourself with petty tricks."

At the time, Chen Ji hadn't understood enforcers well enough to think much of it.

But now, combined with West Wind's words, he suddenly grasped something: official rank in the Ning Dynasty functioned like an enforcer path in itself. The higher the rank, the less one needed to fear occult techniques.

West Wind looked at Chen Ji. "Sir, what now? The trail's gone cold."

Chen Ji said nothing. Before coming, he'd wanted the trail to go cold. But now that it actually had, he didn't know whether to feel relieved or alarmed.

Should he keep digging, or let it go?

When Chen Ji didn't answer, West Wind pressed again. "Sir?"

Chen Ji turned and walked toward the door. "Take me to the Inner Prison archives. I need to check a case file."

He vaguely recalled that while helping Jiaotu and Yunyang investigate the Liu family, he'd glimpsed a similar method of torture in one of the files. The details were hazy. He needed another look.

Also, he could absorb more ice flow while he was there.

At the door, he added, "Have these four bodies coffined and buried. In strict secrecy -- no word gets out."

...

...

On Luoyi Street in the East Market, a carriage waited silently at the curb. Its tall, muscular horse snorted in the cold, exhaling clouds of white mist like tidal spray.

West Wind stood behind Chen Ji and tied a strip of black cloth over his eyes.

As he secured the blindfold, he explained, "Apologies, sir. The Luocheng Inner Prison was previously compromised, so entry now requires Lord Jinzhu's personal authorization. Everyone else goes in blindfolded."

"Understood." Chen Ji let himself be guided into the carriage. As the wheels began to roll, he asked with his eyes closed, "How long have you served Lord Jinzhu?"

West Wind thought back. "Seven years."

"That's a long time. Do you see Heavenly Horse often?"

West Wind smiled. "Heavenly Horse is elusive as a dragon. We rarely see him. But every year at the Lantern Festival banquet Lord Jinzhu hosts for his people, Heavenly Horse attends if he's in the capital."

The spacious carriage swayed gently. Cold wind slipped through the gaps in the cotton curtains.

West Wind took out a match, carefully lit a copper hand warmer, and tucked it into Chen Ji's arms. "Sir, warm your hands."

"Thank you." Chen Ji fumbled to take the warmer, then asked, "Have you ever met Bailong?"

West Wind sealed the matchbox. "Even rarer. His movements are extremely secretive. He only appears for the most critical occasions, and always in a mask. Probably only the Inner Minister knows what he looks like."

Chen Ji was quiet for a moment. "What about Sick Tiger?"

West Wind paused. "Nobody's met Sick Tiger. That one's like a phantom -- no presence whatsoever. The only time anyone remembers he exists is when the Inner Minister happens to say, 'Leave this to Sick Tiger.' Otherwise, you'd forget the Secret Spy Division even had such a person."

"He's never appeared? Not once?"

"Not once." West Wind searched his memory carefully. "At least not since I joined. Six years ago, when His Majesty toured the south, every Zodiac stood guard at his side. But Sick Tiger was still nowhere to be seen... He might have been hidden in the crowd, but we'd have no way of knowing."

Chen Ji pressed on. "What kind of tasks does the Inner Minister typically assign to Sick Tiger? Assassinations? Intelligence gathering?"

West Wind gave Chen Ji a curious look. He had a growing sense that Chen Ji was unusually interested in Sick Tiger. "Sir, have you heard the rumors about Sick Tiger stepping down? But that position is far above our reach. Too many contenders. Even with Lord Jinzhu's backing, it wouldn't be enough."

The carriage arrived at the Inner Prison entrance. West Wind hopped out first and helped Chen Ji down the steps.

When the blindfold came off, the octagonal lanterns lining the stone corridor flickered in a sudden draft. The Inner Prison at night was even more oppressive -- like descending into the underworld itself.

"Sir, which files do you want?" West Wind asked.

Chen Ji strained to remember. "Jianing Year Seven. Category A files."

A guard hauled over a large chest. Chen Ji rifled through the pages, scanning ten lines at a glance.

Time passed, but the content he sought didn't appear.

He looked up. "Wrong year. Bring me Jianing Years Eight and Nine, Category A. Help me search. Anything where the victim had objects nailed into their body -- pull it out."

He'd read too many files back then and could only vaguely recall seeing a similar case, without remembering which volume it was in.

A guard looked embarrassed. "Sir, we can't read..."

"Can't read?" Chen Ji blinked.

He knew literacy rates in this era were low, but he hadn't expected Inner Prison guards to be illiterate. The civilian officials monopolized paper, books, and the entire knowledge industry. Ordinary families couldn't even learn to read, let alone sit for the examinations.

West Wind offered, "Sir, I'll help you look."

"Good."

The two sat under the oil lamp, poring over file after file. A guard boiled water and brewed strong tea for them. Their eyes were aching by the time West Wind suddenly spoke. "Sir, is this what you're looking for? Jianing Year Nine -- the Wu Family Massacre in Kaifeng Prefecture!"

Chen Ji took the file. According to the record, twenty-two years ago, a man named Wu Zhuo -- a Silver Bureau supervisor in Kaifeng Prefecture -- had his entire household of seventeen slaughtered in a single night. The file noted that after death, the matriarch's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth had all been nailed with wooden pegs -- the kind used to seal coffins.

More than that, the woman's body had been savagely mutilated below the waist.

Chen Ji read on, then stopped. "The household register lists eighteen members. One survived."

West Wind leaned in. "A Silver Bureau man... That's one of our Ceremonial Directorate's Twenty-Four Offices. Anyone who oversees a Silver Bureau has serious connections upstairs -- it's a lucrative post. But this is strange. The Ceremonial Directorate always protects its own. How did they fail to catch the killer?"

Chen Ji mused, "Perhaps the killer left no trace?"

"Even so, they wouldn't just shelve the case," West Wind explained. "Directorate policy is that even if the killer escapes that year, the file gets reviewed annually to see if it can be linked to other cases. Not catching the killer means never closing the case. But look -- this file's been buried at the bottom of the chest..."

Chen Ji said softly, "Unless the killer is someone very powerful within the Ceremonial Directorate itself."

West Wind froze, and instinctively stepped back from the file.

Chen Ji's thoughts grew tangled. The killer in this twenty-two-year-old case used strikingly similar methods to tonight's murderer. But if the old case's perpetrator was indeed a Ceremonial Directorate insider, why would such a person be helping the Heir silence witnesses?

...