Nine Chapters of Strange Cases

Chapter 120 Inscriptions on the Wall
In the training ground, there were plum blossom stakes that hadn't been removed in time, as well as eighteen kinds of weapons.

"What's going on? Could someone be keeping a private army here?"

Han Ze gripped the doorframe with both hands, craning his neck to look inside. Seeing the training ground, he exclaimed in shock, "I keep a retinue at home, but I don't need such a large area. Could it be remnants of the previous dynasty?!"

Han Ze was chattering away when he suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.

He looked around and, through the dark veil, he could see that everyone present was looking at him.

Zhou Zhaotong and Su Changying had no expression on their faces; such people are often unfathomable.

But the other brothers in the Northern Army had their eyes light up, like wolves spotting a white sheep, their eyes gleaming with the desire to make a name for themselves.

Han Ze shrank back and gave an embarrassed smile. "I was just talking nonsense. I don't have many retainers at home. They were all left by my grandfather, and they're all old and frail. His Majesty knows this, so they're being cared for."

"Aren't the remnants of the previous dynasty also a major concern for His Majesty?"

One of the burly men from the Northern Army stepped forward and patted Han Ze on the shoulder repeatedly. He was as strong as an ox, and Han Ze almost fell to the ground from the pat.

He held on tightly to the door frame to avoid embarrassing himself in public.

"General Su led us to rescue people and made a great contribution yesterday. If we find the lair of the remnants of the previous dynasty today, wouldn't that be another great achievement?"

As he was speaking, he noticed Su Changying looking at him coldly.

"Everyone searched carefully, but no one was caught. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?"

The burly man shuddered, bent down, and retreated back into the group, sweat beading on his forehead.

After Su Changying finished speaking, she didn't bother to look at him. She exchanged a glance with Zhou Zhao, and the two of them walked towards the empty training ground.

"Can you smell it? There's a strong smell of blood."

As Zhou Zhao spoke, he sniffed around the training ground, finally stopping at the northeast corner.

“This training ground isn’t paved with bluestone slabs; it’s made of compacted mud. Don’t you find that strange? The soil in this mountain area is yellow, but the mud in this training ground is red…” Zhou Zhao paused, then continued, “and it even smells of blood.”

Zhou Zhao squatted down, pinched a handful of soil, and smelled it; the stench was overwhelming.

It was as if fresh blood had seeped into the soil over the years, staining this place red.

As Zhou Zhao pondered, he brushed the thin layer of red soil with his hand. Beneath it lay a rusty iron plate, so covered in red rust and filthy that it appeared to blend seamlessly with the training ground at first glance.

“There might be a tunnel down here. Zhou… Zhou Zhao, A Huang, step back and let me handle this.”

Seeing that the two obediently stepped back, Su Changying took a deep breath, stomped his foot on the ground, and the dust on the ground instantly sprang up. He spotted the edge of the iron plate at a glance, flicked his longsword, and with a bang, the iron plate was instantly flipped over, revealing a dark tunnel.

A strong stench of blood wafted over.

As the dust settled, Zhou Zhao looked closely and his pupils contracted sharply. On the wall at the tunnel's exit, there were layers upon layers of bloody handprints, some old and some new. The handprints varied in size; some were already blackened, while others were quite recent.

"The latest handprint is very small, probably from a child of about ten years old. Although the mark is dry, judging from the color, it was probably left last night or this morning. They must have left around this time, am I right, Ah Huang?"

Liu Huang nodded heavily, without saying a word.

The three of them went down the narrow steps, and Su Changying, who was at the front, took out a tinderbox and lit the torches hanging on the wall.

Zhou Zhao's heart skipped a beat as he looked at the bloody handprints that stretched along the wall, and he involuntarily tightened his grip on the Green Fish Dagger.

The three followed the bloody handprint and soon came to a stone wall. Zhou Zhao looked to his right and his expression instantly turned grim. It was a large secret room with ten iron cages against the wall, just like the Imperial Prison of the Court of Justice.

In the center of the iron cage was an open space marked with a circle.

The entire underground area reeked of a nauseating stench and a fishy smell. The cage doors were all open, stained with blood, and upon closer inspection, bits of flesh and blood were still clinging to the iron doors.

"Someone is using the method of raising Gu poison to raise assassins," Zhou Zhao said in a low voice. She looked at Su Changying, who was standing in the center of the circle, without saying a word.

Zhou Zhao walked over and gently hooked his little finger with Su Changying's. Su Changying felt a tickle in his palm and looked down his arm to see Zhou Zhao's little finger hooked with his.

In that instant, it was as if many fragmented images flooded into his mind.

But upon closer inspection, the images were not clearly visible.

He felt that Zhou Zhao had hooked his little finger with hers in the past.

As Su Changying pondered this, his breathing became heavier. He pursed his lips and looked at Zhou Zhaotong and Liu Huang. He wondered if he had also been imprisoned in such a place during the time he lost his memory, and trained to be a spy.

The three of them grew up together, and even without saying a word, they understood each other perfectly.

Zhou Zhao smiled at Su Changying and said, "Let's look for any clues. What Han Ze said before was wrong. It's possible to raise assassins, but it's impossible to raise a private army."

“To maintain an army, you need provisions, weapons, and armor. Just the food and clothing alone require an astonishing amount. It’s impossible for anyone to maintain an army in Chang’an without being discovered. Even if they hid well before, if they withdrew last night, they couldn’t have escaped the eyes of the Northern Army brothers on patrol.”

When night fell, the markets and wards of Chang'an closed and a curfew was enforced. Small squads of the Northern Army patrolled the streets.

Let alone a large army, Zhou Zhao and Su Changying left the Court of Justice last night, and the Northern Army discovered them.

As she spoke, her eyes swept over the cages, and suddenly her gaze settled on the seventh cage.

Zhou Zhao stepped inside and stood directly in front of the stone wall. She used her foot to push aside the dirty straw spread on the ground, squatted down, and used a torch to illuminate the base of the wall.

"Someone carved words here, and then someone crossed them out..."

Among a jumble of lines, there are deeper scratches that are clearly not meaningless.

Zhou Zhao thought for a moment, then closed her eyes and placed her fingers on the line, carefully searching for the special ones among the lines, and then began to write them in the correct stroke order.

She squatted there, carefully writing each stroke, until her eyes welled up with tears.

"Sister Zhao, why haven't you come out yet? Is there a problem?"

Upon hearing this, Zhou Zhao stood up, kicked the pile of weeds back to its original position.

The moment she stepped out of the cage, a squad of Northern Army soldiers walked in from outside. The two leading them were the taciturn Zhu Li and the boisterous Han Ze.

"There's even a dungeon here!"

Han Ze exclaimed in surprise. He had already taken off the black veil on his face and was using it as a handkerchief to cover his mouth and nose.

Zhu Li frowned and cupped his hands in greeting to Su Changying. "Reporting to the captain, we have searched the entire manor but found no suspicious persons or anything unusual. Everyone should have already fled."

Su Changying nodded slightly. "Take the brothers and search the mountain. Ask the brothers from last night if they have found any suspicious signs."

Zhu Li and Han Ze simultaneously cupped their hands and shouted, "Yes!"

Once they left, only Zhou Zhao and the other two remained in the cellar.

"Ah Zhao, what words are carved there?" Liu Huang's voice trembled slightly.

He couldn't see what words were hidden beneath the scratches, but he could see the movements of Zhou Zhao's hands.

"It's the character '昭' (Zhao). The first one is a complete '昭', carved very neatly; then it starts to lose parts, and the characters become messy, the carver must have been injured; in the end, only one stroke remains... The carver forgot, and only carved the first stroke of the character '昭'..."

Upon hearing this, Su Changying's pupils suddenly contracted.

He clenched his fist and looked at the seventh cell.

"I've walked along the Dongshui River countless times, but I never expected to find you here."