Unparalleled Evildoer

Chapter 150: A Ghost Case in the Court of Justice

Each of the eleven soldiers was monitored by two people from the Imperial Court and isolated in different locations. They wrote on bamboo slips tremblingly. A chill ran down every soldier's back and cold sweat dripped down their faces. They tried hard to recall what happened last night, for fear of missing out on any details or making a mistake in writing, which would lead to their execution.

After about an incense stick of time, more than a dozen people had finished writing and handed the bamboo slips to Wuzhan and Yao Jia for review one by one. They knelt back in their original places, feeling uneasy and lowering their heads waiting for interrogation.

After Wuzhan finished reading the bamboo slips, he raised his voice to the audience and asked, "Liang Er, when you described the incident, you were resting on the bow deck and saw the group of water ghosts jumping up from the stern. In just a moment, they killed all the soldiers at the stern. You were so frightened by the tragic scene that you fainted. Is that right or not?"

Liang Er was so frightened that he immediately fell to the ground, and said in a trembling voice: "Those water ghosts are all black, with hideous faces and fierce eyes. I am as timid as a mouse and have never encountered such a terrible thing. I am worse than pigs and dogs, and I really deserve to die."

"Chen Cheng, when you described the incident, you were standing guard at the stern. You heard someone screaming at the bow. You turned back and saw more than a dozen evil ghosts with their claws outstretched. They grabbed the soldier's head and twisted it off. You wanted to fight, but you were pushed into the water by the crowded soldiers in front of you. After you found the other people who fell into the water, you climbed back on the boat together. At that time, the deck was covered with blood and broken limbs. The water ghosts had disappeared long ago. You two said that the water ghosts jumped on from the bow first, and the other said that they jumped on from the stern. Your story is contradictory. Who is telling the truth?"

Chen Cheng fell to the ground and shouted, "I told the truth, he lied. The water ghost clearly jumped on from the bow and the sides of the boat. There was no water ghost at the stern. The three of them can testify for me. Please examine it carefully."

Liang Er argued: "You are talking nonsense. You were guarding the stern at the time. I saw you jump into the water from the side of the boat. You..."

With a "bang", Yao Jia slammed the table, interrupting Liang Er's words and shouted angrily: "You bold criminals, do you know the consequences of concealing the truth!" The soldiers kneeling on the ground were immediately frightened and fell to the ground, trembling all over.

Wuzhan heard this and turned his eyes slightly, glancing at Yao Jia's old hands that were still on the table, and continued to ask, "Liang Er, you said earlier that you fainted, and now you said that you saw him jump into the water with your own eyes. Could it be that you could still see others clearly when you fainted?"

Liang Er panicked when he was asked this question, and stammered, "I fainted and woke up immediately, but I saw the terrible situation and I had to pretend to be dead to save my life. I had no choice but to do this. Please forgive me, sir."

Wuzhan asked, "It's okay to pretend to be dead, but it's very difficult to pretend to be dead with your eyes open, and you can see others diving with your own eyes. Are you pretending to be dead?"

"I..., I..., I found him by accident, and..., the villain would play dead with his eyes open."

"When a person encounters danger, the first thing he pays attention to is the danger. How can he pay attention to others? There is only one kind of person who can not pay attention to danger when encountering danger. That is the kind of person who knows what the danger is, how it happens, and how to avoid it. If you don't confess the truth, you will be severely punished."

Liang Er was shaking all over and crying, "My lord, I can see clearly that I can indeed play dead with my eyes open. Please look, my lord..." As he spoke, he rolled his eyes, and with a 'thump' sound, he fell backwards to the ground with his eyes wide open. He did not move for a long time, and everyone was secretly convinced by his expression.

Yao Jia shouted, "Stop pretending and get up!" After that, Liang Er still didn't move. Everyone was puzzled, so Yao Jia continued, "Why don't you get up!" Still no response.

Everyone immediately realized that something was wrong. Yao Jia gave a wink, and the jailer behind him stepped forward and grabbed Liang Er. At this moment, Liang Er's head tilted to the side, and blood flowed from the corner of his mouth. "Ah... he's dead!" The jailer was so scared that he sat down on the ground.

"There is an assassin! Protect him quickly!..." The entire court was in chaos.

"Stand still, or you will be executed on the spot!" Yao Jia shouted angrily. The court suddenly became quiet and no one dared to breathe.

Wuzhan stood up and slowly walked down the steps and came to the corpse. Miaoxin followed closely behind him, never leaving. Wuzhan leaned over and opened Liang Er's jaw. He looked inside his mouth and saw that it was full of blood and his tongue was black and purple. He said in a deep voice, "He committed suicide by taking poison!" Everyone felt relieved after hearing this.

Yao Jia lamented, "As soon as the censor questioned him, he committed suicide. What can we do now?"

Wuzhan sat back in his original position and said calmly, "This poison was hidden in the mouth in advance. As long as you bite it and swallow it, you will die immediately. I think this is all in their plan. If there is any mistake, they will commit suicide. The court officer does not need to worry. At least it proves that this is not the work of a water ghost."

Yao Jia hurriedly shouted, "Quickly check if the others have poison in their mouths!"

Upon hearing this, the jailer stepped forward and carefully checked the mouths of the remaining survivors, but found no foreign objects.

Wuzhan continued to ask: "Du Fang, you are the only survivor in the cabin. You said that when the incident happened, you were resting in the cabin and heard someone screaming outside. You knew something was wrong, so you hid in the grain bag. That's why you were not killed. You saw the water ghost rush into the cabin and kill the rest of the people. Is that true or not?"

Du Fang replied in a trembling voice: "Yes... yes!"

Wuzhan said in a deep voice: "Don't be nervous, carefully recall the appearance of those water ghosts, what kind of clothes they were wearing, and what actions were used to kill them."

"Yes... the water ghosts were extremely swift, with claws as sharp as knives. They broke their necks or ripped out their hearts in a moment. They were extremely horrible. Their faces were all white, as if covered with a layer of powder. The clothes they wore... were tattered and smelled fishy." "Very good, keep talking!"

"Oh, I seem to have heard the flute..."

At this point, there was a slight sound on the beams, like wind blowing over the eaves. Miao Xin noticed it immediately, flipped his hand and slashed out a blue light, intercepting the cyclone that was shooting towards Wu Yu. With a "pop", it exploded in the air in the court. At the same time, Du Fang fell to the ground, and his words stopped immediately.

Miao Xin shouted, "There is an assassin on the roof, I'll chase him!" The beautiful figure suddenly flew up, like Chang'e flying to the moon, 'bang...', she broke a hole in the glazed tiles on the roof, leaped out, landed on the roof ridge, and quickly glanced around in the moonlight.

Suddenly, a black shadow flashed and disappeared on the roof of the third house in the southeast direction. It must be the assassin without a doubt. Miaoxin stepped on it with both feet without cracking a single tile. Her body was as fast as a flying swallow, and she rushed towards the black shadow quickly. When she met a gap in the houses, she stepped lightly in the air and a light blue lotus appeared, like a string of lanterns hanging in the air, shining brightly and ephemeral.

The black shadow moved as fast as the wind, appearing and disappearing on the mountains and houses, moving left and right. Miao Xin Yu Qi chased it relentlessly, chasing it for a mile away, but always maintaining a distance of a hundred feet.

When Miaoxin saw that the black shadow was about to cross the Weishui River, she suddenly felt that it was not safe to leave Wuzhan alone in the Supreme Court. If there were still such a master who took advantage of the chaos to assassinate her, she would regret it for the rest of her life. She quickly turned around and ran back like lightning, even faster than the speed of chasing the assassin.

……

"Catch the assassin!..." There was chaos in the court below. Several guards rushed out of the house and searched the roof. Guards in the Court of Justice heard the shouting and came over from various courtyards. The lights were on, and they searched everywhere, shouting and making a lot of noise.

The jailers and guards in the court held weapons and surrounded Yao Jia, Wuzhan and others, concentrating on being on guard all around. The few survivors lay on the ground, covering their heads, terrified. Some of them even wet their pants without knowing when.

Wuzhan knew that the assassin had thrown two invisible hidden weapons at the same time, one at him and the other at Du Fang. After Miaoxin noticed this, he could only protect him in a hurry and had no chance to intercept the hidden weapon shot at Du Fang.

Only Wuzhan was exceptionally calm. He came to the corpse again and searched for the wound. He soon found a needle hole on the top of the head and said in a deep voice, "The method used to kill Jiang Xin and Dong Zhong is the same. This person's cultivation is not simple."

Yao Jia said angrily, "How dare you assassinate me in the court of the Supreme Court in front of everyone? This is too arrogant! Come on, search the whole city and arrest all the suspicious people for questioning."

Wuzhan said: "This is useless. How can someone with such cultivation level find out? It will only bring trouble to yourself."

"If we don't search, will we let the assassin go unpunished?"

"Your Excellency, the Supreme Court Justice should think like this. They only killed people to silence them when they had no other choice. How could they be free and unfettered? We were originally still wondering if it was the work of the dead or evil spirits. Now at least we can rule that out. Shouldn't we feel more at ease?"

Upon hearing this, Yao Jia stroked his beard and suddenly laughed, "Your Excellency the Censor, it really makes sense, but what should we do next? Two important people have been silenced. If we don't find the culprit as soon as possible, how will we explain to His Majesty?"

"Although the person was silenced, haven't all the statements that should be made been recorded? Now it is basically confirmed that there are at least two people in their gang. One is the assassin who just escaped and can release invisible poison needles, and the other can control zombies with the sound of the flute. They robbed ten boxes of jewelry. Isn't this a confession?"

At this time, Miao Xin flew back from outside the hall, panting slightly. Seeing Wuzhan was safe, she felt relieved and said, "Sir, the assassin was too fast. Miao Xin couldn't catch up with him even after chasing him to Weishui. I was worried about your safety, so I didn't continue chasing him."

Wuzhan smiled and said, "In fact, you should have thought about my safety from the beginning. You only came to your senses after chasing me for so far, and you also broke a hole in the roof. It's really not worth it."

"My Lord, I know I was wrong. I will compensate for the tiles on the roof!" Miaoxin said ashamedly.

"This little loss is nothing. How can we ask Miss Miao to compensate for it? Miss Miao took action at the critical moment and protected the Lord Censor. We are grateful to her enough. What's more, this action was to catch the assassin. Lord Censor, your request to Miss Miao is too harsh!" Yao Jia said with a smile.

Wuzhan said, "Since there are experts in cultivation involved, we should ask His Majesty to send more experts in the court to help investigate. This will make it easier to investigate the case. What do you think, Lord Tingwei?"

After thinking for a moment, Yao Jia sighed and said, "This is the only way. I will go to the palace tomorrow to ask for instructions from His Majesty."

(End of this chapter)