Daming: Internship also counts as work experience

Chapter 137 Identity
Where does the danger come from? Is it because the old monk in the temple is not to be trifled with? Jia Chuan scratched his head, feeling a bit confused. He stood up, picked up a twig, and started strolling around the courtyard.

Everyone looked up at him.

Jia Chuan took a few deep breaths and changed his perspective to continue his analysis.

Why send two old Taoist priests to test the waters first? Since they were on their own, why freeze them to death as well? All four of them were quite old; in this kind of weather, lying on the ice and snow in the middle of the night, they would soon become delirious. Was it a case of the mantis stalking the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind? Weren't the later people with the same group as the two old Taoist priests? Then how come the three they captured were also dressed as Taoist priests?

Temples that existed in previous dynasties... that was the Yuan dynasty, and then there were Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, Jia Chuan knew that.

The group watched Jia Chuan, when suddenly he turned around, threw away the twig in his mouth, and ran towards the nunnery containing the three seriously injured Taoist priests. Shunzi got up, raised a torch, and chased after him.

Inside the nunnery, Jia Chuan checked each of the three to see if they still had the strength to open their eyes. The village head had brought steamed buns and hot porridge earlier, and Old Zheng had fed them some of it. Now, two of them were unconscious, while the other could at least open his eyes and look at him.

At this moment, Shunzi noticed the torches coming in. Jia Chuan grabbed the man who had opened his eyes and demanded, "Are you a Tatar or a Oirat?!"

The man's pupils contracted slightly, and he looked surprised.

Jia Chuan put the man down and walked out of the nunnery.

"What do you mean? From the Northern Yuan tribe? They're not Han Chinese."

Shunzi had just said something behind Jia Chuan when Jia Chuan suddenly turned around and shouted, "Old Zheng, come and examine the body, no, I mean, check the body! Shunzi, hold the lamp, no, the village chief, find two villagers to help hold the torches."

Old Zheng hurriedly got up, almost falling to the ground. A villager next to him helped him up, and the two walked quickly towards the nunnery.

The nunnery was small. Shunzi and two other villagers were holding torches. Two people were lying on the ground. The one who had just opened his eyes was lifted onto the bed by Jia Chuan and Old Zheng with great effort. Then Jia Chuan began to take off his clothes. The man tried to struggle, but he was too weak to do so. He mumbled something and finally gave up struggling.

"Do you know how people who spend all their time on horseback are different from us?" Jia Chuan asked as he took off his clothes.

Old Zheng's cheeks flushed, his eyes narrowed, his gaze unfocused. He swayed as he thought seriously for a moment, then said, "I've seen them with bowlegs."

"anything else?"

"You must have calluses on your inner thighs, right? And your hands..." Old Zheng looked at his hands: "You must also have calluses on the base of your thumb and forefinger, for holding the reins..."

"They need to exert force to separate the reins for a long time, and their little fingers may become deformed and turned outwards," Jia Chuan added.

"It really is!" Old Zheng lifted the man's hand and looked at it.

Jia Chuan stripped the man naked, and Old Zheng frowned and asked, "What's that smell?"

"The smell of horse sweat, leather, hay, and mutton mixed together—when they attacked Europe, the smell would reach them even before the main force got close..."

"What?"

"It's alright, help me turn him over. It's harder to deal with him when he's alive than when he's dead."

Jia Chuan tried to flip him over, but the man resisted with his last bit of strength.

"How about we kill them first and then turn them over?" Old Zheng asked seriously.

The man's strength immediately dissipated, but the movement aggravated his bones, causing him to grimace and groan in pain; the scene was truly unbearable to watch.

Jia Chuan muttered, "You think I want to touch you without gloves on? Old Zheng, look, his buttocks are muscular and flat, you can see saddle-shaped marks. Press it... that's called hypopigmentation spots. And his coccyx... it should be chronic dermatitis. And look at his lumbar spine... he has a lordosis."

"He has a bright future? Are you trying to read his bones and read his face?"

Jia Chuan turned to Old Zheng and asked, "Those two old Taoist priests who froze to death, they must have had delicate skin and tender flesh, right?"

Old Zheng tilted his head and thought for a moment before asking, "You mean those few were fake Taoists from the Northern Yuan tribe, and the two who froze to death might have been real Taoists?"

"Actually, we could also check their teeth. They habitually bite the reins tightly or clench their teeth to resist the bumps, so their front teeth might have horizontal cracks and wear. Let's wait until they die to check. Shunzi, put some clothes on him, it'll keep him warm."

After saying this, Jia Chuan walked out of the nunnery and took a deep breath at the door.

Old Zheng came out and whispered in Jia Chuan's ear, "What did that person in your dream tell you?"

Jia Chuan sighed, nodded, and sat back down by the fire.

He suddenly had a flash of inspiration and remembered a case he had handled in his previous life involving a headless male corpse. They couldn't find the head or the source of the body. The forensic doctor determined through the autopsy that the deceased had been riding a horse for many years, which narrowed down the search area. It still took three months to confirm the source of the body.

He recalled that he had gone to the autopsy room to check all the features against what was written in the forensic report, but at that time the forensic report also said "wear and tear of the ischial tuberosity" and "lordosis of the third lumbar vertebra", which he could not confirm at the moment.

Why did I suddenly remember that? How did I remember it so clearly?

Jia Chuan looked up at the starry sky. Was he under the same starry sky? Why were some things he thought he had long forgotten suddenly flashing through his mind? He almost thought he was a person from this dynasty...

"Do you really need to go to all this trouble? He just mumbled a bunch of things in his panic, which already proves he's not..."

"Can you get those two who froze to death to say a few words so I can hear them?" Jia Chuan interrupted Old Zheng.

At this moment, the village chief also sat down and asked curiously, "Aren't those three people in the house Han Chinese?"

Jia Chuan looked up at the village head across from him and asked, "Is your family originally from this village?" The village head paused for a moment and said, "No, actually not. I heard my grandfather say that our ancestors fled from the west during a famine."

"This village... surely it didn't have this many households even back then?"

"Of course, when I was little... in the fourteenth or fifteenth year of the Hongwu reign, I was only five or six years old. I can remember things from that time. It seems like around that time the village started to grow. My grandfather became the village head, then my father, and then it was me..."

Do you remember which families lived before yours?

The village chief blinked blankly and asked, "Looking for the old villagers from before?"

Jia Chuan suddenly fell silent. He suddenly realized a very serious problem: if he told Zhu Zhanji the truth, given the Zhu family's temperament, what would happen to this village...? Would Zhu Zhanji care who came first and who came later?
Jia Chuan stood up again. He needed to figure out how to explain this, otherwise, it would mean hundreds of lives!

The earliest monk to arrive was most likely someone from Beijing, which was then called Yuan Dadu. It is unknown whether he was a Mongol or a Han Chinese, but he was definitely a very wealthy man, perhaps even holding a very high official position, and had his own loyal servants.

It is unknown why he sought refuge here. To avoid being caught in a massacre, he and his family must have hidden separately.

The old man came to this village... At that time, there were probably a few scattered houses around, or it was just a desolate wilderness. He set his sights on this small mountain, built this dilapidated temple, buried the gold and silver, and left the silver for the people living in the temple in a drawer. Perhaps he felt that he wouldn't have to wait too long before he could see the light of day again and reunite with his family. So, in order to avoid suspicion, the people who followed him temporarily became villagers at the foot of the mountain.

Why isn't the vegetable garden inside the temple? People from the foot of the mountain will naturally send it to us. This tradition has been passed down to this day. Not to mention food, even firewood, water, and daily necessities are bought by people from the foot of the mountain.

But when this person passed away, he didn't live to see the day he wanted. He could only pass the torch to the next person to continue waiting. So the temple always had only one or two people. The apprentices the village chief mentioned were probably the descendants of the first person who came and hid elsewhere... Gradually, fewer and fewer people knew what the people on the mountain were waiting for and what secrets were hidden in the temple.

The villagers only remember to deliver food and help fetch water and chop firewood. The village chief's family was not that person's servant, so they did not have the habit of delivering things up the mountain. However, some families still do it, which must be an ancestral tradition.

The things hidden in the cellar were still coveted by some. How did they determine that it was this small temple? Jia Chuan subconsciously looked at the nunnery. There were three survivors inside. He had thought of sending them back to the yamen to find a doctor to treat them, but today was New Year's Day. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, not to mention that there would be few people in the yamen, the three of them would probably die on the way to the county yamen before they even reached it.

They were injured by Gao Yuntian's iron ruler, and with Dong Yuanyuan's attack, these three people would have at least multiple fractures. If any of them pierced their lungs, even Hua Tuo would be useless.

Therefore, Jia Chuan thought that he should leave it still for now, just like the apprentice in the manor in Le'an who was hit by Dong Yuanyuan. If he left it there, he might still live, but if he was to be tossed around all the way, he would surely die.

But what should we do now? If we keep them alive, how many of these seemingly tough people can keep their secrets after being tortured? What if they confess something...?

Jia Chuan began to try to recall history. He had just mentioned the Tatars and the Oirats. This was not something Jia Chuan remembered, but something he had heard Chen Mo and Gao Yuntian talk about when they were chatting in Le'an.

After the Yuan Dynasty was overthrown by the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Shun of Yuan fled back to the northern grasslands and established the Northern Yuan regime. In the early days, it had some prestige, but later it declined. The Northern Yuan split into several tribes, among which the Tatar tribe claimed to be descendants of the Golden Family, while the Oirat gradually grew stronger and became the main force that could compete with the Tatar tribe.

Zhu Di launched five Northern Expeditions, mainly targeting the Tatar and Oirat tribes, fighting the Tatars in the early stages and the Oirat in the later stages.

The Oirat... Jia Chuan found a piece of information related to this name deep in his memory, it seemed that the 'God of War' Zhu Qizhen had traveled to that place...

If the contents of the cellar are related to the Northern Yuan, then they must be; otherwise, these people wouldn't have come looking for them. How much gold and silver is in the cellar? Could it help unify any tribe?

If it were merely the property of a large minority family during the Yuan Dynasty, and their descendants have now found some clues and tracked it down, then that's understandable.

It doesn't belong to the country; it belongs to an individual.

It's absolutely personal property. Even if it were state property, now that the Northern Yuan has split up like this, whose property is it? Of course, it belongs to the Ming Dynasty government!

Xian County is currently within Ming Dynasty territory. What can they do now that they've found this place? Perhaps due to differences in accent or lifestyle, they brought in two Taoist priests from the Central Plains. How did they agree to this arrangement? Or how did they threaten the two priests? Jia Chuan couldn't deduce the answer, but he was certain that there was no trust between them. That's why the priests tried so hard to attract the villagers' attention, but they still couldn't leave in time and were left behind.

The four men may not have died that night, but that's not important. Jia Chuan shook his head. What's important is that those people found out about the cellar, yet they still froze to death.

For these people living in the border region, they must have experience with freezing to death; it couldn't have been an accident... Jia Chuan took a deep breath. There was no need to wait for the court to determine whether it was intentional or accidental, so there was no point in pondering it. He reminded himself to think things through clearly to avoid implicating the entire village.

He couldn't bring Zhao Guang down with a single sentence, but every word he uttered concerning the case... he feared that what he said unintentionally might be taken to heart by the listener, and that a single careless word could cost the lives of the entire village.

Jia Chuan returned to the campfire and reminded himself that he needed to deduce the whole case before he could know which angle to approach it from, so that he could fully report the case and protect the villagers. He must not be influenced by this in the early stages and avoid any possibilities.

Jia Chuan took a deep breath, his mind returning to the case. As he warmed himself by the fire, he wondered why those people would throw the deceased into the dry well.

They must have known they had to start with the cellar, and they couldn't wait any longer. They needed these four men to make room for them... They weren't even willing to kill them themselves, but with these four dead, they would have the opportunity to do earthwork in the small temple.

Obviously not, otherwise they wouldn't have been so careful and meticulous. The deaths of the four people were used to stop the villagers from going up the mountain. The bundle placed on the platform was to shut up those who were the first to go up the mountain and found the temple empty. What they wanted was to work quietly at night...

Why didn't those four people run away? They probably couldn't escape. In other words, with these outsiders watching the village, they really weren't afraid of the cold.

However, if the villagers could keep a close eye on the small temple, the old Taoist felt that they wouldn't dare to do anything for the time being. In other words, the old Taoist probably knew that once the two of them entered the small temple, they wouldn't survive no matter what the outcome was; at least he knew there was this risk.

……

Jia Chuan was able to guess who the people in the nunnery might be because he had previously asked them some trivial questions, which took him a lot of time, but the three of them remained silent and didn't utter a single word. This was unusual in his past experiences. Unless they didn't want to know anything, they could at least have sworn a few curses.

At first, Jia Chuan thought these three men were like assassins, so he didn't think much of it. But then he thought of the Yuan Dynasty and realized that these three men might speak foreign languages ​​and have accents in their Chinese, the kind that others could easily recognize as soon as they opened their mouths.

The three wanted to hold off Gao Yuntian and Gao Yunduo so that one of them could escape first. Jia Chuan had previously thought it might be because this person had the best kung fu and could take the gold back. Now it seemed that it was probably because this person had the best Chinese. As long as no one caught up with them, they could take the gold back.

If that's the case, then there's nothing to think about when we go back.

(End of this chapter)