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Chapter 351 He's been dead for a long time
Upon seeing the appearance of those people, Zhu Yu knew they had been dead for some time. His professional instincts kicked in instantly, and he was about to step forward to check on them when Lu Qing pulled him back before he could take a step: "Talismans."

He simply called out the talisman's name, and the talisman immediately understood and went to check it out before turning back to nod at them: "No problem."

Zhu Yu stepped forward and asked Fu Lu to bring the torch closer.

The man chained to the wall in front of her was tall and thin, with his hands bound above his head. His wide sleeves had slipped down and bunched up at his elbows, and his exposed arms, even in the warm light of the torch, still had a chilling, terrifying grayish-white color.

Zhu Yu carefully lifted the person's head so that she could see the person's face clearly.

His face was extremely thin, with a mole on his sunken cheek and a lifeless, withered goatee on his chin.

Upon seeing this person's facial features, Zhu Yu's heart sank. He sighed softly and turned to look at Lu Qing.

Lu Qing had now clearly seen the deceased's appearance, which did not surprise him, but he still couldn't help but frown.

"How did this person die? How long has he been dead?" he asked Zhu Yu in a low voice.

Zhu Yu carefully pried open the dead man's eyelids with his hands. His pupils had long since dilated, and his eyeballs had become cloudy and even somewhat shriveled. There was no fresh or stale blood in his lower eyelids either; they were just a pale white.

She pinched the person's skin with her fingers again. Whether it was the cheeks, neck, or arms, the skin appeared exceptionally loose. With a simple pinch, she could easily pick up a layer of dry, shriveled skin, like a scale standing up.

"He died from excessive blood loss, and it wasn't all at once. He must have been through several days of torture, completely draining his life force before he died." Zhu Yu squatted down, lifted the dead man's trouser leg, and looked at the bloodstains that had appeared on his calf. Pressing them with his fingers didn't make them spread or fade. "This man has been dead for at least five days. Because he was in such a cool and dry dungeon, and because his blood and water had almost all been drained, he hasn't decomposed."

She stood up and pulled down both of the deceased's sleeves to make his arms more clearly visible to the three people.

On the inside of those two arms, there was almost no intact skin left; the wounds were so numerous that it was impossible to count them all.

The wounds didn't look deep or long. Some were almost healed, while others still had slightly curled edges, making them look like they were cut just before death.

Upon closer inspection, it's not hard to see that the older knife wounds are relatively shallow, while the later cuts are all much deeper.

It is estimated that later on, this poor tax collector had very little blood left to squeeze, so they had to cut deeper to squeeze out a pitiful amount of blood.

In this place, it was inconvenient for Zhu Yu to conduct a large-scale autopsy. They didn't even know what else was in this dungeon, so she could only reach out and touch the person's abdomen.

Even through the clothes, she could clearly feel the man's bony sternum and sunken, flat stomach.

Zhu Yu couldn't help but sigh, then continued examining the other corpses. He found that their conditions were almost identical to the first tax collector's, the only difference being the time of their deaths. Without exception, these people had been imprisoned here starving, their wounds constantly being cut open and drained of blood; their deaths were extremely painful and gruesome. "Who could be so cruel as to torture them like this, not even letting them die a quick death?" Zhu Yu asked softly. "What is this blood for? Why can't it all be drained at once, but rather slowly, like a 'slow, steady stream'?"

Fu Lu bent down and shone the torch around the ground. He shook his head at Lu Qing and Zhu Yu: "There are no traces of blood on the ground. Judging from this situation... the blood that was drained from these people has been taken away and used for something else."

"Let's go and see what's going on inside." Lu Qing nodded slightly with a solemn expression, signaling Fu Lu to carry the torch and walk forward. He himself remained at the back, placing Zhu Yu between the two in case of any unexpected situations.

The three of them carefully made their way forward through the low tunnel. The underground tunnel was winding and twisting. If there hadn't been only one path with no forks, Zhu Yu would have worried that he might have lost his way and not be able to find his way back.

They walked for an unknown distance, and after several turns, they saw a relatively open space ahead. The closer they got to that area, the stronger the faint fishy smell in the air became.

That wasn't the usual fishy smell; it was the unique bloody odor that came from blood itself.

The corpses had been almost completely drained of blood before they died, so even when Zhu Yu got close enough to examine them, he didn't find the smell particularly pungent. Instead, he now realized that this was probably the source of the faint bloody smell he had been smelling all along the way.

The three of them walked to the end of the straight road, where the open space was much more spacious than the dungeon they had just been in.

Fu Lu used his torch to look around and found a wooden frame in the middle of the open space with a huge wooden box on top.

In terms of size alone, this wooden box wasn't particularly eye-catching. After all, Zhu Yu grew up in the Shuo Prince's Mansion, and his father, Zhu Cheng, had many boxes that were much larger than this, which he used to store weapons.

However, unlike the others, this large wooden box was black, completely black, and even the gaps in the middle of the box were carefully nailed with black suede nails, which drooped down and completely covered the gaps.

This is……

Zhu Yu looked at the things in front of him with some doubt, wondering what could be inside the box.

Fu Lu had clearly followed Lu Qing more in the past, and was now much more experienced. He went around to the back of the large wooden box: "Master, Second Master, please step aside a little, I need to open this box."

Lu Qing pulled Zhu Yu to a safer spot and nodded to Fu Lu. Fu Lu then used all his strength to lift the lid of the wooden box from behind.

The lid of the wooden crate was very heavy. As it was slowly opened a crack, an even stronger stench of blood rushed out, instantly filling the entire open space.

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