The Song Dynasty was the king for thirteen years before he knew that he was Tianlong.

Chapter 243 Old Case (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

Upon hearing this, the official in charge of the gate looked at the warehouse door and said, "Your Majesty, I do indeed know about this seal."

Zhao Ti said, "How could there be a seal on the government office? How can a family seal its own office? What is the origin of this?"

The official in charge of the cabinet said, "The records show that this seal was issued by the order of Bao Zheng, the Prefect of Kaifeng, before he left office."

Zhao Ti squinted and asked, "What kind of forbidden items are inside that need to be sealed away?"

The official in charge of the case shook his head: "According to the records, this is evidence and case materials from some strange cases that Bao Zheng solved during his tenure. Those cases were quite bizarre back then, and Bao Zheng was afraid of relapses, so he did not destroy them, but sealed them here."

Upon hearing this, Zhao Ti pondered for a moment and said, "Didn't any of the magistrates who took office later ever open it to take a look?"

The official in charge of the cabinet said with a wry smile, "Your Majesty, many of the ministers who came here later also turned around and left as soon as they heard that these were remnants of those strange cases from the Jiayou era."

Zhao Ti said, "So much time has passed, haven't they thought of destroying these?"

The official said, “Your Majesty, during the Jiayou era, the cases solved by Minister Bao, such as the Mud God Murder Case, the Black Basin Case, the Bloodstained Shirt Street Crying Case, the Sound in the Ear, the Ghost Pushing the Millstone, and the Resurrection of a Corpse… are all very strange. The newly arrived minister knows that he is related to these cases and avoids them at all costs, for fear of getting involved.”

Zhao Ti thought about it. These were indeed the strange cases that Bao Zheng had solved, which were rumored to be bizarre and mysterious. Although they were all closed in the end, no one knew how the process was, how Bao Zheng obtained the evidence, or how he found out the truth.

As for what is recorded in the archives, it is nothing more than the steps of initiating a case, providing evidence, solving the case, and closing the case, as well as how many officials and constables died during that time, especially in the case called the Purple Gold Hammer Case, in which a large number of military officers and constables died.

Rumor has it that this case involved a warhammer from the previous dynasty that came to life and killed people. However, the records state that it was the head of the military equipment bureau who committed the crime. He was drunk and used a Tang dynasty hammer to commit the crime. When he was arrested, he was an official and had high martial arts skills. He resisted and killed many officers.

It's understandable that the officials who took office in Kaifeng later didn't want to touch the artifacts left behind by such a murder case. They didn't even want to look at them, and destroying them would only cause more contamination than looking at them, so they simply ignored them.

"Open the door," Zhao Ti said. He wanted to see what was inside. Logically, these things should have been destroyed. Although Bao Zheng had preserved them back then because the case was complicated and he was afraid of relapses, after so many years, there was no point in keeping them.

Upon receiving the order, the yamen runners of Kaifeng Prefecture quickly went to the front and tore off the remaining seals on the door. In addition to the seals, the warehouse door also had a large lock, but it had long been rusted shut, and even if they found the key, they could not open it.

“Your Majesty, this…” Lu Changheng asked from the side.

Zhao Ti glanced back at Tong Guan, who immediately went over and grabbed the lock. With a forceful twist, the spring inside the lock snapped, and the lock was forcibly opened.

He then stepped aside, and the yamen runner pushed open the storeroom door, only to see a cloud of smoke and dust rush out, along with a musty and rotten smell.

The yamen runners hurriedly poured water on both sides of the gate to suppress the dust, and then cleared the middle passage.

Lu Changheng led the way and stepped in first. As soon as he entered, he exclaimed in surprise, "Your Majesty, this...this place really seems to have a guillotine."

"Did you have guillotines?" Zhao Ti nodded. If Bao Zheng did indeed have three guillotines back then, the reason why this matter wasn't recorded in official documents but only circulated among the common people was actually quite simple. When Bao Zheng was distributing grain and inspecting disaster relief in Chenzhou, Emperor Renzong bestowed upon him three imperial guillotines. After returning, Bao Zheng renamed them the "Three Imperial Guillotines" to intimidate the court. Emperor Renzong was not angry upon seeing this; instead, he tacitly approved of it and even personally designated it as such, ordering Bao Zheng to forge and use them.

But just because Emperor Renzong could tolerate this doesn't mean other emperors could, or that the entire court could.

Bao Zheng himself was aware of this matter, so when he was transferred to Lifeng Prefecture, he sealed it up directly instead of recording it in the court archives. This was either because Emperor Renzong ordered that it not be written down, or because Emperor Yingzong had it completely erased. After all, the existence of such a document would cause some loss of face for the emperor, court officials, and scholars.

At this moment, Zhao Ti walked in and saw three items placed in front of the storeroom. Each item was about half a zhang long. They should have been covered with oilcloth, but now they were all uncovered, gleaming with a dark light.

As expected, there were three guillotines. Even after decades, their ferocity was still evident. Zhao Ti gestured to Tong Guan, who walked over, grasped the hilt, and pulled it up. The blades were cold and dark, whether from bloodstains or their original color was unknown.

Zhao Ti nodded, and Tong Guan put it down. Then he walked inside and saw many items arranged in categories behind the three guillotines.

These items were arranged in a very orderly manner and labeled with paper tags. Among them was a black earthenware basin labeled "Black Basin Case Item".

This case is widely circulated among the people and is very strange. It tells the story of a businessman who was caught in a heavy rain on his way back to his hometown. He stayed overnight at someone's house, but the couple who stayed there saw his money, got him drunk, killed him, and burned his body to ashes and made a black basin out of mud.

Years later, an old man went to the couple's house to collect a debt. Before leaving, he took a black basin from the yard as interest when the couple wasn't looking. On his way back, he heard the basin crying out for justice. The old man was so frightened that he hurriedly took the basin to Kaifeng Prefecture to appeal for justice.

However, the wronged spirit was blocked outside the door. Bao Zheng initially thought the old man was senile, but after learning the reason, he wrote the character "令" (order) and pasted it on the door, allowing the wronged spirit to enter and recount what had happened in detail. Then he arrested the couple and used a trick to make them confess.

Zhao Ti examined the black basin for a moment, then looked at the other objects, all items from the case from years ago. One particular item, a purple-gold hammer, caught his eye. This was the so-called "hammer spirit," a style from the Tang Dynasty, not an ordinary hammer, but rather a palace hammer or something similar.
The hammer was golden-purple in color, and its material was unknown. It faintly shimmered with a gloomy and dim light, which made people feel a sense of oppression.

The Zijin Hammer case resulted in over a hundred deaths and injuries. The head of the military equipment bureau would go out to kill people on rainy nights after drinking, without an umbrella or raincoat.

During this period, this hammer was often used to kill women. Although Tokyo did not have a curfew, there were still few pedestrians on rainy nights. Brothels and similar establishments were different, especially the second Sweetwater Lane south of Xiangguo Temple, which had many brothels.

The official in charge killed dozens of people in various places, causing an uproar in Tokyo. Bao Zheng meticulously investigated and finally found the case at the Military Equipment Bureau. Unexpectedly, the official in charge suddenly attacked, resisting arrest with a hammer, resulting in heavy casualties among the military patrol officers.

Finally, the military patrol officers of the Three Guards, Four Attendants and Five Tigers of Tokyo City led a few men to attack the commander and killed him. However, most of the Three Guards, Four Attendants and Five Tigers died, and the left and right military patrol officers also perished.

However, the popular folk tale tells a different story. It says that the hammer came to life and that the one who killed people on the rainy night was not the head of the military equipment bureau, but the Purple Gold Hammer that grew a head, arms, and legs and went out to kill people. In the end, the head of the bureau was only controlled by the hammer and that's why he resisted arrest.

However, both the official records and folk tales only mention that it was a large hammer from the Tang Dynasty, without specifying its origin or how the head of the military equipment bureau obtained it.

Zhao Ti pondered this for a moment, then reached out to grab the purple-gold hammer.

(End of this chapter)