The Azure Mountain

Chapter 84: Case Archives

In the dim inn room, four corpses were laid out on the beds. Their deaths were gruesome — grotesquely horrifying.

Chen Ji found it almost impossible to connect the scene before him with the Prince Heir — that carefree, somewhat bumbling young man.

If someone could disguise themselves this thoroughly, how terrifying would the face beneath that mask be?

Chen Ji said quietly to Xi Feng: "Go ask the second-floor guests whether anyone heard sounds of fighting or screaming."

"Yes, sir."

Xi Feng cupped his fist and departed, leading several agents to knock on doors one by one.

Shortly after, he returned and whispered: "Sir, it's strange. No one heard any screams. Were they killed instantly and then had their faces peeled off? Is that why there was no time to cry out?"

Chen Ji didn't answer. He was bent over, closely examining the bodies. When he peeled back one of the dead men's eyelids, he discovered something alarming — two copper nails had been driven into each victim's pupils, the surrounding eyeballs drenched in crimson blood.

After a moment, he stood: "These four were flayed and nailed while alive. They were tortured extensively before death."

Xi Feng froze: "The faces were removed while they were alive?"As he spoke, he pulled a handkerchief from inside his coat and offered it to Chen Ji: "Sir — wipe the blood off your hands."

Chen Ji wiped his hands while analyzing calmly: "If the skin had been removed postmortem, there wouldn't be this much blood on the faces, and the eyes wouldn't show this degree of hemorrhaging... Strange — if they were tortured while alive, why couldn't they make a single sound?"

In the eerie silence, the agents gripped their saber hilts tightly.

Even these men, accustomed to scenes of slaughter, couldn't help feeling unnerved. The four victims didn't look like they'd been killed by a human — more like a ghost had stolen their very souls.

One agent murmured: "Back in my hometown, in the mountains, there's a 'face-eating hag.' Legend says they like to eat the dead people's faces and then impersonate them and keep living."

Xi Feng snorted coldly: "You're a Secret Spy Division agent and you're spreading ghost stories? How would a Ning Dynasty official fear such filth?!"

Someone whispered: "Maybe some practitioner commanded a ghost to do it?"

Xi Feng kicked him: "Obviously the killer did it to silence witnesses! Nothing supernatural about it!"

In this era, most people were superstitious. Anything that couldn't be explained was attributed to gods or ghosts — even hardened, kill-without-blinking agents believed such things.

Chen Ji said evenly: "It wasn't a ghost. It was a human. I believe the killer practices some bizarre cultivation path that allows them to immobilize victims — keeping them alive and conscious through the torture, but unable to struggle or scream."

What he left unsaid was that based on criminal psychological profiling, the killer had likely suffered similar physical and psychological trauma themselves — which had given rise to this twisted desire to torment.

Chen Ji looked at Xi Feng: "Among the cultivation paths the Secret Spy Division has on file, which practitioners could do something like this?"

"Certain unorthodox sorcerers, perhaps," Xi Feng said, frowning. "Sir, we'd need to check the case archives in the capital. And it would have to be the restricted section — Gyrfalcon clearance or above. These kinds of practitioners tend to stay deeply hidden and rarely clash with the government. Our official status makes their 'spells' significantly less effective against us."

"Oh?" Chen Ji was surprised.

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

The first time was at Liu Shiyu's residence, when Lin Chaoqing had told Jiao Tu: "I hold a Great Ning fourth-rank official appointment. Don't embarrass yourself by trotting out petty sorcery."

At the time, Chen Ji hadn't understood practitioners and hadn't paid the remark much mind.

But now, combining it with Xi Feng's words, he suddenly realized something: Ning Dynasty official rank itself functioned like a kind of cultivation path. The higher the rank, the less one needed to fear mystical arts.

Xi Feng looked at Chen Ji: "Sir, what do we do now? The trail has gone cold."

Chen Ji remained silent. Before coming here, he'd actually hoped the trail would go cold. But now that it truly had, he wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or worried.

Should he keep investigating, or abandon the pursuit?

Seeing his silence, Xi Feng grew puzzled and pressed: "Sir?"

Chen Ji turned and walked toward the door: "Take me to the Inner Prison's case archives. I need to look up a file."

He vaguely recalled that when he'd helped Jiao Tu and Yun Yang investigate the Liu family case, he'd glimpsed a similar method of punishment in one of the files — but the memory was hazy. He needed to see it again.

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

At the door, Chen Ji added: "Have these four bodies placed in coffins and buried. Make sure it's done in absolute secrecy. Not a word gets out."

......

......

Under the night sky, on Luoyi Street in the Eastern Market, a carriage sat quietly by the roadside. Its tall, powerful horse snorted in the cold wind, billowing white mist like tides.

Xi Feng stood behind Chen Ji and tied a black cloth over his eyes.

As he secured the blindfold, he explained: "Apologies, sir. The Luo City Inner Prison was previously infiltrated, so now entry and exit require special authorization from Honorable Jin Zhu. Everyone else must be blindfolded going in and out."

"Understood." With assistance, Chen Ji climbed into the carriage. As the wheels began to turn, he asked with his eyes closed: "How long have you served under Honorable Jin Zhu?"

Xi Feng thought back: "Seven years."

Chen Ji made a sound of acknowledgment: "That's a long time. Do you see Tian Ma often?"

Xi Feng smiled: "Lord Tian Ma is like a dragon that shows its head but hides its tail — rarely seen. But every year at the Lantern Festival, when Honorable Jin Zhu throws a banquet for his subordinates, Tian Ma attends if he's in the capital."

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

Xi Feng took out a fire-lighting strip inside the carriage and carefully lit a copper hand warmer, which he tucked into Chen Ji's arms: "Sir — warm your hands."

"Thank you." Chen Ji fumbled to accept the warmer, then asked: "Have you ever seen Bai Long?"

Xi Feng struck a match and replied: "Lord Bai Long is seen even less. His movements are extremely secretive — he only appears on extraordinarily important occasions. When he does appear, he wears a mask. Probably only the Inner Chancellor knows what he looks like."

Chen Ji was quiet for a moment: "And Bing Hu?"

Xi Feng paused: "No one's ever seen Bing Hu. That lord is like a ghost — no presence whatsoever. The only time anyone remembers he exists is when the Inner Chancellor occasionally says 'Leave this matter to Bing Hu.' Then everyone suddenly recalls there is such a figure in the Secret Spy Division."

"Never appeared?!"

"Never," Xi Feng recalled carefully. "At least not since I joined the Secret Spy Division. Six years ago, when His Majesty made his southern inspection tour, every Zodiac flanked the procession — but Bing Hu was still nowhere to be seen... Maybe he was hiding in the crowd, but we wouldn't know."

Chen Ji pressed: "What kind of tasks does the Inner Chancellor typically assign to Bing Hu? Assassinations? Intelligence gathering?"

Xi Feng shot Chen Ji a curious look. He had the distinct feeling Chen Ji was unusually interested in Bing Hu: "Sir, have you also heard the rumors about Lord Bing Hu stepping down? But that position is too far above us, and there are far too many people vying for it. Even with Honorable Jin Zhu's help, it would be out of reach."

The carriage arrived at the Inner Prison entrance. Xi Feng jumped down first and helped Chen Ji descend the narrow downward staircase into the prison.

When the blindfold was removed, the flames in the bagua-pattern lamps along the stone corridor walls flickered and wavered. The Inner Prison at night was even more forbidding — like descending into the underworld itself.

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

Chen Ji strained to recall the documents he'd previously reviewed: "Jianing Year Seven, Category A files."

When the jailer brought out a large crate, Chen Ji rifled through page after page — skimming ten lines at a glance.

Time ticked by, but the content he was looking for never appeared.

Chen Ji looked up: "No — bring the Category A files for Jianing Years Eight and Nine. You all search too. Anything where the victim had objects driven into their body — pull it for me."

He'd read so many files before that he only vaguely remembered a similar case. He couldn't quite recall which volume it had been in.

But a jailer looked conflicted: "Sir, we can't read..."

"You can't read?" Chen Ji was caught off guard.

He knew literacy rates were low in this era, but he hadn't expected even Secret Spy Division jailers to be illiterate. The civil officials monopolized paper, books, and the production of knowledge. Let alone sitting for the imperial examinations — ordinary folk could barely find a way to learn their characters.

Xi Feng said: "Sir, I'll help you search."

"Good."

The two of them sat before an oil lamp, poring over file after file. The jailer boiled water and brewed strong tea. They read until their eyes burned — and then Xi Feng suddenly spoke: "Sir — is this what you're looking for? Jianing Year Nine, the Kaifeng Prefecture Wu family massacre!"

Chen Ji took the file. It described a case from twenty-two years ago: Wu Zhuo, the overseer of the Kaifeng Prefecture silver works, and his entire family of seventeen had been slaughtered in a single night. In the file, the Wu family matriarch's mouth, nose, eyes, and ears had all been nailed shut with wooden nails — the kind used by coffin-makers to seal burial vessels.

Moreover, the matriarch had been brutally mutilated.

He read through the details, then suddenly noticed a discrepancy: "The household register lists eighteen members of the Wu family. One survived."

Xi Feng leaned over to look: "Silver works... This victim was one of our Directorate of Ceremonial's Twenty-Four Bureaus. Anyone who oversees the silver works has to have connections at the very top. It's a lucrative posting. But this is odd — the Directorate of Ceremonial is notoriously protective of its own. Their man was murdered, yet the killer was never caught?"

Chen Ji mused: "Perhaps the killer left no evidence?"

"Even so, the file wouldn't just be shelved and forgotten," Xi Feng explained. "The Directorate of Ceremonial's rule is that even if the killer isn't caught in the year of the crime, the file is re-examined every year to see if it can be linked to other cases. They never give up until the killer is found. But look, sir — this file was buried at the very bottom of the crate..."

Chen Ji said quietly: "Unless the killer is a powerful figure within the Directorate of Ceremonial itself."

Xi Feng stiffened. He instinctively shifted a step back, putting more distance between himself and the file.

Chen Ji was confused. The methods used in that old massacre were strikingly similar to tonight's killer. But if the murderer truly was a high-ranking figure in the Directorate of Ceremonial — why would such a person help the Prince Heir silence witnesses?