Daming: Internship also counts as work experience

Chapter 179 Using 'torture'

Jia Chuan raised an eyebrow and asked, "Who knows that people open and close their eyes using their eyelids?"

Old Zheng was stunned for a moment.

Jia Chuan added, "They probably didn't have enough strength to deal with the body parts and heads. Only the severed heads with open eyes are worth seeing. If these people hadn't been torn apart, I really wouldn't have dared to think about it. It's horrific! These two people's hair is still relatively clean. What about your two?"

"Well, it's clean enough, not like someone who works in the fields."

“Their hands weren’t calloused, and their feet weren’t thick, but in this era, most people walk on two legs. If they can travel, they have carriages or sedan chairs. They’re not so easy to kill, especially four at once. What kind of people don’t need to work too hard to make a living, but have no status or position? No one would report them to the authorities if they died?”

"Um……"

"But where is the primary crime scene? There was no blood splatter in the small house, but the ground was covered in blood... If the killings were committed elsewhere and the bodies were brought here, judging from the distance from the secret passage to the courtyard, a large amount of blood should have remained in the secret passage, not in the small house."

Old Zheng hurriedly said, "Chen Mo and the others must have been very careful going down there. They had plenty of torches, so how could they not have checked the ground? If they had found bloodstains, they would have said so long ago. The fact that they didn't say anything means they didn't see any bloodstains."

Jia Chuan stared blankly at the pieces of corpse pieced together on the straw mat, but his mind was far from idle. Old Zheng didn't dare to disturb him, only examining each tear in the wound. When he saw the neck, he wanted to say something, but then he thought that if he had seen it, Jia Chuan must have seen it too, so he remained silent. Then, mustering his courage, he examined the head, prying open the mouth to look at the teeth. He wanted to estimate the age of the deceased by looking at the teeth. Suddenly! Jia Chuan slapped his thigh and stood up.

Old Zheng felt he almost went with these four. He wanted to curse, but before he could open his mouth, Jia Chuan squatted down again and said in frustration, "If I lead people to investigate along the North Gate now, wouldn't that be like sending them to their deaths? Who can I take with me right now? This murderer is extremely cruel and incredibly strong. Let alone the Embroidered Uniform Guard, even if Gao Yuntian and Chen Mo were still alive, they might not be able to deal with him."

Old Zheng chuckled to himself, then let out a long sigh and asked, "What have you thought of this time? Why do you still want to go and die?"

"They didn't come from the tunnel. The courtyard is very clean, which is not a good habit they usually have. The doors and windows are all closed very well, but there are vultures inside. They are kept by people and released by people. Everything is man-made. Why is the courtyard so clean? Because there is blood on it, and they have to clean it up."

"You mean they carried these body parts...in through the north gate, just like that, so openly..."

"In the dead of night, how could they be so brazen? The fact that the first group could come in through the north gate means they could have been here in the middle of the night or early morning. If I were to go to the north gate right now and crawl on the ground looking for bloodstains... you have to understand, the distance can't be far, otherwise the blood will be gone... no, it doesn't necessarily have to be all human blood, it doesn't have to be all human blood. No matter where it came from, the blood will have been mostly gone... They want to leave a scene that will terrify us, so that after they quickly clean up, they can find a secret door and go down, and then if they are attacked from both sides, they can be killed without any resistance. Didn't they think that if it was too frightening, we wouldn't dare to move?"

Jia Chuan discovered that this was the exact opposite of his previous deduction that the enemy was using terrifying scenes to prevent them from finding the secret passage.

He stood up, walked out of the side room, wearing a mask and blood-stained gloves, with some bloodstains on his body, and began to stroll around the yard.

Apart from Old Zheng, there was soon no one else left breathing in the courtyard.

Old Zheng leaned against the door frame and advised, "I understand what you mean. You want to follow the bloodstains to find where these four people were killed. But you also realized that you're just going to your death. They sent people from afar to kill you, and they failed. They're already upset about it. Now you've delivered yourself to their doorstep. I still have to examine the bodies for you. Let me rest."

Jia Chuan suddenly stopped, turned around and asked Old Zheng, "What kind of person has no status but no calluses on their hands from working?"

Old Zheng thought about it seriously and said, "Scholars from poor families who did not pass the imperial examinations?"

"We must determine the cause of their deaths." Jia Chuan rushed into the side room again.

……

When Lu Baihu came to report on his work, he was still very fearless.

Some things, if only heard of but never seen, will diminish one's imagination. Besides, the Embroidered Uniform Guards kept their mouths shut about what they saw in the hut yesterday. Commander Lu didn't even have a chance to hear about it. He only saw a few guards from the Prince's Mansion discussing where to rest, looking bewildered.

Lu Baihu stopped to listen to the demands of these people, and his opinion of the bravery of the guards of the Prince's Mansion was greatly diminished. They were so frightened by just an autopsy?

Commander Lu ordered his men to take the men to another courtyard to rest temporarily, while he himself strode into the courtyard and headed straight for the side room.

Jia Chuan and Old Zheng were each holding a severed head, carefully examining the wounds at the broken necks. Lu Baihu rushed to the door of the side room, then nailed there, and then fell straight backward. He didn't feel any pain, but he vaguely heard someone say, "Even the only one who was still usable has fallen."

Lu Baihu was very pleased. He felt that at least in Jia Chuan's heart, he was a useful person, which meant that the jewelry he had secretly hidden was not a problem. Lu Baihu was in a very peaceful coma.

……

Jia Chuan was in a real bind. He had some leads and wanted to investigate further, but he didn't have a single useful tool at hand. Even if he did have one or two, he wouldn't dare to act rashly. Without Dong Yuanyuan and Gao Yunduo working together, he might still need Han Guang, that person with a somewhat schizophrenic personality. Who could subdue him? With Gao Yuantian's iron ruler and Chen Mo's embroidered spring knife?

Jia Chuan had absolutely no confidence.

He and Old Zheng carefully examined the victims' throats. The tools in Old Zheng's toolbox that had never been used before came in handy this time. They finally confirmed that all four victims had been strangled to death first, with their hyoid bones mostly comminuted fractured, and then torn into pieces.

Moreover, the head wasn't twisted off, or rather, the person tried to twist it off but failed.

Jia Chuan found thumbprints on the foreheads of all four heads, meaning that the person's hands were not strangely large, and therefore their height was not strangely tall either.

Jia Chuan breathed a sigh of relief. If this person was more than two meters tall, even if Gao Yuntian jumped up, he wouldn't be able to hit his head. Dong Yuanyuan's collision with him would probably be ineffective, not to mention Chen Mo's role.

The four heads had been cut off, and the cuts were very neat. Jia Chuan had seen it yesterday, otherwise the four heads wouldn't have been able to stand so steadily against the wall. He just hadn't had time to take a closer look yesterday.

When the cause of death was being investigated, these wounds gave Jia Chuan some clues. With such neatness, what kind of tool could have been used? And this also proved once again that the person was not a normal person. If he had a tool that could cut off a head, even if it was just a knife, why would he need to use it?

What good are ideas? Right now, Jia Chuan dares not leave the herb-gathering bureau. He hurriedly left the side room and went straight to the courtyard where the first group of people were being held.

……

Jia Chuan was against the use of torture, or at least he couldn't stand it. He always felt that investigations required evidence, and that once people got used to torture, it would be difficult to uncover the truth.

But today, he had no choice but to resort to torture. There was no one left; no one could help him find evidence. He didn't want to risk his own people's lives to verify his deductions, so he could only let these people suffer.

The first group of people who arrived last night were not very skilled in martial arts, so Gao Yunduo did not use any force against them. However, they all had sword wounds. Jia Chuan had interrogated them last night, and at that time he wanted to know if they were the ones who transported the corpses.

Throughout the interrogation, the results were obtained without the use of torture: the living and the dead were all transported in and out by them, and the body parts were transported there in bags that had been prepared beforehand; they had no idea where the bags came from.

Several people carried bags containing dismembered bodies, several others carried wooden planks, and still others carried several bags of pig's blood. They went to the small hut and put the bags inside. Their job was to clean up the bloodstains in the yard and along the way, and then they left through the north gate.

The bodies were not placed there by them.

Who went to the hut to dispose of the body parts afterward? They don't know.

Where did the living people come from? They didn't know either. When they took over, those people were very obedient. Since there weren't many of them at once and they were very obedient, they were easy to manage. However, they couldn't talk to each other. The living people could also go through the north gate, and someone would meet them when they went down the tunnel to the small house. After that, they would return the way they came.

Jia Chuan asked them where they received the living people from. They didn't answer. He asked them where they were from, but they still didn't answer. Jia Chuan then asked them where their headquarters in Kaifeng was. They still didn't answer. By then, Jia Chuan was exhausted and didn't press them any further.

Right now, Jia Chuan chose a person whose injuries were neither too serious nor too minor, and tried to lift him up, but he couldn't. It was Old Zheng who arrived who helped, and the two of them carried the person out of the courtyard.

The Imperial Guards who had just escorted Commander Lu back to rest happened to pass by this place. Jia Chuan ordered them to take the man to the courtyard where the corpses were being pieced together, and he and Old Zheng followed behind.

The Imperial Guards led the man into the courtyard, and Jia Chuan instructed them to put him down and wait at the courtyard gate.

Jia Chuan squatted down, looked into the man's terrified eyes, and said, "There's more to come. If you promise to answer whatever I ask, you won't have to go in and suffer. If..."

The man nodded quickly.

"Where do you live in Kaifeng? Is there someone with superhuman strength in your household? Who is in charge of you?" The man quickly shook his head again.

Jia Chuan asked, "Is it that you don't know, or that you dare not say?"

The man was visibly frightened and flustered, his eyes darting around, and he stammered out three words: "I don't know."

Jia Chuan said gently, "Once you're inside, if anything reminds you, tell me immediately, and I'll bring you out."

After saying that, Jia Chuan glanced at Old Zheng.

Old Zheng went in first, then came out and, together with Jia Chuan, helped the man into the side room.

Jia Chuan had considered that the man might struggle, but considering that the man was injured, and that he and Old Zheng were holding him down at the same time, plus that some people are unable to control their legs when they see a horrific scene and at most faint, Jia Chuan felt that it was safe to proceed.

Little did they know that the most challenging part, testing their mental fortitude, hadn't even begun. They had only just entered the side room and seen what was on the ground when the man began to struggle. With that kind of strength, Jia Chuan and Old Zheng were no match for him. In the blink of an eye, the man had already run into the courtyard and was rushing towards the gate.

Jia Chuan grinned and shouted for the Imperial Guards at the courtyard gate to stop the man, but Jia Chuan underestimated the strength of the terrified man. The Imperial Guards couldn't stop him and could only chase after him.

Jia Chuan plopped down on the steps, panting heavily, and said to Old Zheng, "I told you I couldn't do anything without you guys, right? Look, I just wanted to get some information out of you, and I couldn't even keep one person here."

"Isn't what you're saying obvious? The reason why the head, arms, and legs look different is because they have different uses. Right now, they can't be moved. If you can't move... it won't have much of an impact. But if you can't use your brain, then we might as well go back to Dongzhao County. I'll save my breath and can barely support you."

"Let's go, let's find someone else to try. We can't all have that much strength, can we?"

"Isn't that obvious? If you didn't have the strength, would you be assigned to this kind of job?"

"Yes, what kind of jobs in the canal transport industry require a lot of strength?"

"There's no need to work on the canal; everyone who makes a living through manual labor has some strength."

……

The injured man hadn't run far before he was caught by the Imperial Guards and dragged back to the courtyard.

After all that commotion, the man collapsed weakly in the courtyard.

Jia Chuan sighed and walked over, squatted down and said, "You only saw body parts in the room. These body parts were all brought by you. There were also heads, and the eyes of every head were open. Do you know why?"

The man was so frightened that all he could do was kick his legs.

Where are you staying in Kaifeng?

“One, one courtyard.”

"You can't tell me the exact location?"

"Yes, in the alley diagonally opposite the west corner gate of the Grass and Tree Garden."

"Is the entire alley occupied by your people?"

"It should be... right? We, we just stay in our own yard."

"Those living people were all brought to that alley beforehand. You led them through the garden, past the north gate, and down the secret passage?"

"Yes."

"Is there one of your men who possesses immense strength?"

"Yes, it was very, very scary. We were all beaten by him."

"Fight? Why fight?"

"Only those who survive can come to Kaifeng."

"How much silver would it cost to buy your lives?" Jia Chuan asked, squinting.

"Five taels of silver, for a year. If you are still alive after a year, you can go home."

"A year, it should be almost up, right?"

"Yes."

"Where do you come from?"

“They come from all over, mostly near Yangzhou.”

What do you do for a living?

"boat tracker."

"Are they all boat trackers?"

"No, there are also porters, beggars..."

Who brought you here?

"The person looking for me is called Liu Er. He's going to Kaifeng to cause trouble."

"Who's the boss?"

"That's what everyone calls him, we don't know his real name."

"Were there still many people in the alley when you came out?"

"I don't know, and I'm not allowed to ask."

……

After Jia Chuan finished the interrogation, he immediately ordered the Imperial Guards to take the Prince's guards and, led by this man, surround the entire alley, but not to let them enter.

In fact, Lu Baihu had also found out about this alley, but unfortunately he hadn't had a chance to tell anyone yet.

(End of this chapter)