Imperial City Investigative Department

Chapter 238

Soon the soldiers brought the torches. Wu Chen lay down on the ground, poked the torch in, looked carefully, got up and said, "The bottom is not high, it's a tunnel. I'll make the hole wider and go down first. Those of you who go down later, you have to go down." Be careful not to scratch the edges."

Wu Chen went down first, followed by two generals and several soldiers. When Wu Chen saw Xing Yun drop down a short ladder, he knew that the officials were playing tricks.

Sure enough, Li Heng was the last one to step down on the ladder.

In this team, no one was acquainted with Wu Chen.

Wu Chen pretended not to notice it, and held up a torch to illuminate the surroundings. This secret passage was almost as wide as the one used to see the murals, allowing three people to walk side by side.

Wu Chen pointed to the secret passage facing the river and said:

"There should be an iron gate to walk through here. Outside the iron gate is a closed space. Yuan Tianshi knew this place, so he fought me that day. He jumped into the river and wanted to use this secret passage to leave, but he failed to enter here."

As Wu Chen spoke, holding the torch, he walked a few steps in the direction of his finger. As expected, there was an iron gate at the end of the road.

"The iron gate was not in the water at first, but the darkroom outside the iron gate was destroyed by my strength. Yuan Tianshi had to go ashore again. I don't know if the monster had been in the darkroom all the time. At first I thought it was, but then I knew it wasn't. It should be a woman. The ghost wanted to save Tianshi Yuan, so it summoned that thing out, but I didn't notice it at the time."

After Wu Chen finished speaking as if talking to himself, he turned around and walked to the bottom of the cave, and said to the secret passage in the opposite direction:
"If you don't expect it, there will be many forks in this secret passage, leading to the entrance of the other courtyard, Longgu Mountain, and the col of the thatched house, and there will inevitably be a huge secret room. Watch your feet, the water level here is low , there is water seepage under my feet, but I don’t think there will be any after walking for a while..."

Wu Chen babbled at the front, and Li Heng walked in the middle. No one spoke to anyone along the way, but Wu Chen never stopped talking.

After walking for almost a stick of incense, there was a fork in the road, and the ground was no longer wet, and although it was uneven, it was no longer muddy.

Wu Chen illuminated the ground with a torch and said, "This secret passage has been frequently walked by recently."

No one asked why.

Wu Chen took the initiative to explain:
"The road I walked just now was very muddy. In some places, there was obvious water accumulation. You can clearly see splashes of mud on both sides of the wall. The water should have seeped from the river. Looking at the road under your feet now, there are footprints But there are more than one or two. The place is damp all year round. These footprints are left on the soil with water stains, and they will not disappear quickly, but they can still be recognized. Looking at the road surface, although it is uneven, it is only limited to raised mountains and rocks. Stepping on it is solid, Your Majesty, there are two forked roads, which one do you take?"

Li Heng pondered for a moment.

At this moment, Wu Chen knew what was going on in his mind. After analyzing it, he just wanted to let Li Heng know the difficulty and retreat, but Li Heng didn't look like he was frightened.

Li Heng asked, "Where do these two lead?"

Without thinking about it, Wu Chen pointed to the forked road on the left and said, "This one goes to the front yard." Then he pointed to another road and said, "This one goes to the back yard."

"Which way do you think you should go?" Li Heng asked.

"They should all send someone to take a look."

"If you came down by yourself, which way would you go?"

Wu Chen pointed to the forked road on the right and said, "I will take this way. The road to the front yard can at most tell where the underground passages can reach the front yard, but the end point is just under the dense forest at the gate of the other courtyard. , because there is no way, but the one going to the backyard is different, leaving the other courtyard, the secret passage may have just begun."

"Arrange a few people to take the secret passage on the left, and the rest to go to the right." After Li Heng said, a general lit three soldiers holding torches and walked deep into the forked road on the left.

Wu Chen didn't move. He looked back at Li Heng and said, "Your Majesty, Tianshi Yuan knows this secret passage, at least he knows a few paths in it."

"So what?" Li Heng asked.

"Since I came here, I haven't seen any other ghosts except the female ghost. I don't believe it will be so clean."

"Do you think Yuan Shuchun will imprison the ghosts in the other courtyard, so that he can practice ghosts later?"

"No matter what he wants to do with ghosts, his specialty is harvesting. Maybe he has spells to make ghosts fly away, but after all, harvesting is his main business. I think there must be a place underground that he uses to imprison ghosts."

"Lead the way, there's so much nonsense!"

Wu Chen saw that Li Heng still insisted after talking so much, so he stopped persuading him and continued to go first.

But soon there was another fork in the road, and Li Heng asked Wu Chen to choose which one to take again, and Li Heng followed Wu Chen all the time.

After doing this three times, he encountered a fork in the road again. Wu Chen was in trouble. Before Li Heng could ask him, he explained the difficulty himself:
"These two forked roads obviously go out of the other courtyard. One extends to the mountain, and the other needs to go through the mountain to the side of the mountain. I really can't figure out how long it took to build so many secret passages underground! There must be a huge secret hidden in the secret passage into Longgu Mountain, and this one may not be the only one leading to the side of the mountain, I really don’t know which one to choose.”

"It depends on what you are looking for?" Li Heng reminded.

"I want to find the ghost imprisoned by Tianshi Yuan."

There was a moment of silence in the tunnel.

"Where do you think he will imprison the ghost?" Li Heng asked.

"It depends on how much the female ghost let him know about the secret passage. The female ghost once told me that she didn't want to come to this other courtyard, but Yuan Tianshi insisted on coming. The two of them were already on guard against each other. Let Tianshi Yuan know about this tunnel?"

"But it's just a fork in the road. If Yuan Shuchun knows one thing, he knows everything. How can anyone stop it?"

"Your Majesty's words are wrong. We walked all the way, and I kept looking at the walls on both sides. The fork in the road is on the bright side, but the secret door is not."

"You mean there are articles on these walls?"

Wu Chen shrugged and said:
"I just don't think the female ghost would be so kind as to show the tunnel to Tianshi Yuan. Just looking at the scale of the tunnel, it is not built in recent years. Princess Dachang bought the surrounding tea gardens to cover up the underground tunnel. It is possible to dig a mountain to build a tunnel. It is not an easy task. Not only must there be enough manpower, but also it must be concealed from the detectives of the Investigation Department. After years of careful construction, I am afraid that it may not be able to catch up with Su Chang's progress. When will Su Chang succeed? People know, besides, once His Majesty finds out that there is a change in Longgu Mountain, they will lose all their previous efforts, so I think these secret passages were there when the female ghost was alive, or even earlier. Make a slight change."

"In this way, what Yuan Shuchun can know should be on the bright side. He will not choose an exit to use. There is this fork in the depths of Longgu Mountain. Maybe he can find the ghost he imprisoned."

Wu Chen nodded and asked, "Which way does Your Majesty want to go?"

……

(End of this chapter)