Chapter 139 The Secret of Nourishing Blood, The Living Hell of the Back Mountain Courtyard

The moonlight shone deathly pale on Zhang Erzhuang's swollen and battered face.

Blood was still trickling from his lips, but his eyes were terrifyingly bright.

Lin Chen closed his five fingers, gripping his wrist bone, his voice lowered so that only the two of them could hear.

"Where is the courtyard? How many children? How many guards?"

An indistinct sound rumbled in Zhang Erzhuang's throat, blood clots blocking his airway.

He turned his head to spit out a mouthful of dark red phlegm before squeezing the words out from between his teeth.

"Northwest of the Wang Family Main Residence, over a mountain ridge, there is a secret passage. If you walk quickly, you can reach it in half an hour."

Zhou Tie gripped his short blade in his hand, his knuckles turning white from the tension.

Shen Yue squatted at the edge of the drainage outlet, her entire body tensed like a bowstring.

The backup rope in Sun Qi's hand slipped two inches, but he grabbed it back in a tight grip.

Zhang Erzhuang's breathing grew increasingly rapid, his chest heaving violently with every word he spoke.

As the night wind blew over the two burn wounds on his shoulders, another layer of bloody fluid seeped out.

"From above ground, it looks like an abandoned hunter's shack."

"There is a cellar beneath the shack."

"Going down thirty stone steps from the cellar leads to the real entrance."

Lin Chen pressed his thumb against the pulse on his wrist, feeling its erratic beating.

"Guards."

"Two at the Early Stage of the Core Formation, collateral descendants of the Wang Family, taking turns on duty."

Zhang Erzhuang swallowed a mouthful of bloody froth, his voice dropping significantly.

"Plus four guards in the Blood Refining Realm."

"There are also traps in the middle of the secret passage. If you step on the wrong spot, the entire section will collapse."

Zhou Tie's teeth ground together, making a harsh sound.

Lin Chen did not look up, his fingers still gripping Zhang Erzhuang's wrist.

"The four children—are they all still alive?"

Zhang Erzhuang's body shuddered when this question was asked.

He pressed the copper button against his chest, tightening his grip a bit more.

"Alive."

He spoke those two words with great difficulty.

"They draw their blood once every seven days."

"Using tubes to drain it from their arms."

"Once drained, they force-feed them medicinal soup to nourish them back."

"Nourishing them until the next seven days, then drawing it again."

Sun Qi's throat bobbed, a corner of the medicinal cloth on his face lifted by the night wind.

Tears welled in Zhang Erzhuang's eyes, but he did not cry, only lowering his voice to the absolute lowest.

"Xiao Yan has been in there the longest."

"Eight years now."

Lin Chen released his fingers from Zhang Erzhuang's wrist, placing his palm against the sheath of the black abyss blade, his fingertips pausing on the old notch for two breaths.

"What do they draw the blood for?"

The corner of Zhang Erzhuang's mouth twitched, and blood beads seeped from the deepest crack again.

"Wang Chongyuan."

"He is practicing a Cultivation Technique that requires the blood of living people."

He paused, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

"When I was delivering food, I heard the guards on duty mention a name."

"The Blood-Devouring Essence Condensation Technique."

Shen Yue rotated her hilt half a turn in her palm, her fingernails digging into the gaps of the leather wrapping.

Lin Chen stood up and transferred Zhang Erzhuang's weight to Sun Qi.

He took a step back, his gaze sweeping across the face of everyone present.

"Retreat first."

The return journey was twice as fast as the journey there.

Zhao Gang's feint attack at the main gate of the Wang Family Outer Residence was wrapped up cleanly and swiftly.

By the time the Wang Family guards chased out, the lanterns of the Patrol Division had already turned into a dark alley three streets away.

Zhao Gang led his men back along the pre-planned route. When they met up with Lin Chen at the base of the back wall of the Northern City Granary, he immediately saw Zhang Erzhuang being supported by Zhou Tie.

He was covered in burns.

Scabs layered over fresh blood.

The front of his grey robe was mostly soaked.

He was so thin he looked like a piece of firewood singed by fire.

Zhao Gang cursed with an incredibly foul word, quickly stripped off his own outer robe, and wrapped it around Zhang Erzhuang's shoulders.

His movements were rough, but he held back his strength, avoiding touching the two charred burn wounds.

"Those beasts of the Wang Family."

His teeth clenched and ground together, his eyes entirely bloodshot.

When Zhang Erzhuang was wrapped in the outer robe, his entire body leaned slightly against Zhao Gang's shoulder.

The skeletal frame that had held out for so long finally let go of a bit of its tension.

The Main Courtyard of the Patrol Division.

Zhou Tie brought Zhang Erzhuang into the East Wing of the Side Courtyard, on the same floor as Zhou Huaiyi and Luo Qing, with two night-watch brothers added at the door.

The Archives Room was brightly lit.

Liu Buyu sat behind the desk, the inkstick resting beside the inkstone, the brush in his hand suspended in mid-air.

When Lin Chen pushed the door open and entered, Liu Buyu glanced at his expression, pressed the inkstick back onto the inkstone, and began to grind.

"Speak."

Lin Chen sat down behind the desk and repeated every single word Zhang Erzhuang had confessed, exactly as it was told.

Liu Buyu's brush met the paper, his handwriting neat, lining up row after row.

When he wrote about drawing blood once every seven days, the tip of his brush paused on the paper, and a spot of ink bloomed outward.

He did not wipe it or stop, moving the brush tip directly to the next line to continue writing.

When he wrote the five characters for the Blood-Devouring Essence Condensation Technique, the muscles in his wrist tensed for a split second before relaxing.

After finishing the last line, he placed the brush back onto the rack and looked up at Lin Chen.

"What should I label this?"

"'Testimony of a living witness, to be verified upon rescue.'"

Liu Buyu wrote these eight characters in the upper right corner of the supplementary case file page, dotting a red mark next to them with cinnabar to indicate an urgent pending matter.

He sealed the supplementary page, placed it in the innermost layer of the document box, and locked the copper clasp tight.

"Inspector, once the fact that Wang Chongyuan uses living people to practice cultivation is confirmed..."

Lin Chen tapped his finger on the desk.

"Once confirmed, he will no longer be an aristocratic Clan Chief."

"He will be an evil cultivator."

Liu Buyu pushed the document box to the corner of the desk, pressing his palm against its lid.

"Once the words 'evil cultivator' are written into the case files, the Governors Mansion will have a reason to mobilize the City Defense Battalion to surround the Wang Family Main Residence."

Lin Chen did not reply, his gaze landing on the horizon outside the window, which was just beginning to turn white.

Deep in his mind, the familiar notification sound rang out in the silence.

"[Daily Settlement: 200 points for basic patrol, 600 points for case progression, totaling 800 points.]"

"[Current accumulated available points: 13,000 points.]"

Lin Chen closed his eyes, sinking his consciousness into his Dantian.

He channeled 1,000 points into his Golden Core.

The luster on the surface of the core thickened by another layer, and the feeling of fullness as his True Qi flowed through his Meridians was even stronger than last night.

The riverbeds were widened by ten percent.

He opened his eyes, his palm resting on the blade of the black abyss blade across his knees.

A metallic chill traveled up through his fingertips.

The last hour before dawn.

Zhou Tie, Shen Yue, and Sun Qi were called into the Archives Room, and the door was bolted from the inside.

Lin Chen spread the map of the northern district of the Wang Family Outer Residence on the desk, then took out a blank sheet of paper from the side and laid it flat.

"Bring Zhang Erzhuang over."

Zhou Tie went out and supported Zhang Erzhuang inside.

The burns on Zhang Erzhuang's shoulders had already been treated and wrapped in white cloth. The swelling on his face had subsided slightly, but his eyes were even brighter than they had been in the dungeon.

Lin Chen handed a charcoal pencil to him.

"Draw it all out—the entrance to the secret passage, the locations of the traps, and the structure of the stone chamber."

Zhang Erzhuang took the charcoal pencil, his fingers trembling.

When the tip of the pencil touched the paper, it drew a crooked line.

He grit his teeth, pressed down on his wrist with his other hand, and put pencil to paper again.

His first stroke was the outline of the hunter's shack, square and neat, with a downward-pointing arrow marked beneath it.

The second stroke was the stone steps.

He wrote the number thirty next to it.

The third stroke was the path of the secret passage, curving twice, with three crosses drawn in the middle.

"These three spots are the traps."

His charcoal pencil pointed at the first cross.

"The fourth and seventh floor tiles cannot be stepped on at the same time."

"If you step on them, stones will fall from above."

The pencil tip moved to the second cross.

"There are hidden holes in the wall here."

"When passing through, you must stick to the left wall."

"Within three feet to the right, it is entirely within the range of crossbow bolts."

The third cross.

"An iron portcullis."

"The gate can be lowered from the Main Residence side."

"Once the portcullis falls, the entire path is cut off."

Shen Yue stared at the position of the iron portcullis, measuring the distance on the map with her fingers.

"How far is it from the hunter's shack entrance to the iron portcullis?"

"If you walk quickly, it takes the time of a single stick of incense."

Shen Yue looked up at Lin Chen.

"The secret passage can also be accessed from inside the Wang Family Main Residence."

"If we fight our way in from the direction of the hunter's shack, and they lower the portcullis and send reinforcements from the Main Residence, we will be trapped in the middle."

Zhang Erzhuang nodded, heavily drawing a circle around the location of the iron portcullis with his charcoal pencil.

"It only takes the time of a stick of incense to lower the portcullis from the Main Residence side."

"Someone is guarding the gatehouse."

Lin Chen's gaze lingered on the drawing for five breaths.

His fingertip slid from the hunter's shack entrance along the path of the secret passage all the way to the mark of the iron portcullis.

"Sun Qi."

Sun Qi stepped forward half a pace.

"Can you slip into the middle section of the secret passage before dawn and jam the iron portcullis from the outside?"

Sun Qi stared at the three crosses on the drawing for a moment, his lips twitching slightly.

"If Zhang Erzhuang tells me the sequence to disarm the traps, I can."

Lin Chen turned to look at Zhang Erzhuang.

Zhang Erzhuang put down the charcoal pencil, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, and kept his voice low.

"I have been inside three times."

"Each time was to deliver food."

"I am familiar with the path through the traps."

His gaze landed on the position of the iron portcullis.

"There are slots on both sides of the portcullis."

"If we wedge iron wedges into them, we can jam it."

"No matter how they try to release it from the Main Residence side, it won't fall."

Sun Qi fished two iron nails as thick as fingers from his shirt and weighed them in his palm.

"Are these enough?"

Zhang Erzhuang took a look and shook his head.

"Not enough."

"The slots are as wide as a fist. We need solid iron rods."

"At least as long as a forearm."

Zhou Tie unfastened the spearhead portion of his broken spear from his waist.

It was made of iron and about the length of a forearm.

He slapped it onto the table.

"What about this?"

Zhang Erzhuang stared at the broken spearhead for two breaths and nodded.

Lin Chen laid out the deployment plan step by step.

"Sun Qi will take one man and go ahead tonight."

"Enter the secret passage from the direction of the hunter's shack, bypass the three traps, and jam the iron portcullis at its location."

Sun Qi nodded.

"Zhou Tie, Shen Yue, and I will storm in from the front of the hunter's shack."

"Our target is the underground stone chamber."

"Subdue the guards and evacuate the people."

Zhou Tie sheathed his short blade back into his boot, then picked up a spare iron spear from the corner and shouldered it.

"Zhao Gang."

Zhao Gang answered from outside and pushed the door open to enter.

"Take your men and set up an ambush around the outer perimeter of the mountain ridge."

"Intercept and kill any member of the Wang Family escaping from the surface."

Zhao Gang's scabbard bumped against his waist, and a grin spread across his face.

"Understood."

Lin Chen gathered the map from the table, folded it, and tucked it into his sleeve.

"The time of action: tomorrow night at the hour of the rat."

The crowd dispersed.

Only Lin Chen was left in the Archives Room.

The morning light squeezed through the crack in the top of the wall, forming a thin line that fell on the floor tile right in front of the tips of his boots.

His hand rested on the sheath of the black abyss blade, his fingertips tracing the old notch back and forth twice.

Eight years.

A child locked underground for eight years, having their blood drawn once every seven days.

A dull thud came from the direction of the side courtyard.

Heavy, like a fist slamming against a wooden board.

Immediately after came Zhou Tie's low voice; it was impossible to make out the words, but his tone was comforting.

Lin Chen did not go over.

He only tightened his fingers on the scabbard slightly, his knuckles turning pale.

On the desk in the Archives Room, next to the sealed supplementary case file page that Liu Buyu had left, a narrow strip of paper had appeared at some point.

The paper had been slipped through the gap in the window, its edges damp with dew.

The handwriting was slanted and the ink was faint, written in Escort Officer Lu Qingshan's customary style.

Lin Chen unfolded the strip of paper.

There was only a single line of writing on it.

"There are more than just four children under the courtyard; there are also three mummified corpses—the waste products of Wang Chongyuan's failed cultivation."

Lin Chen's fingertips paused on the words 'waste products' for three breaths.

He pinched a deep crease into the edge of the paper strip.

He folded the paper strip and stuffed it into the lowest layer of the document box, stacking it together with the supplementary case file page.

The morning light outside the window brightened by another inch, shining on the inkstone on the desk.

The surface of the ink reflected a small patch of the sky.

Lin Chen stood up, hanging the black abyss blade back at his waist.

He took two steps toward the side courtyard, then stopped.

He turned his head to look at the document box on the desk, his gaze as deep as a dried-up well.

Three mummified corpses.

Waste products of failed cultivation.

Tomorrow night at the hour of the rat, he would personally smash open the door to that underground stone chamber.