Daming: Internship also counts as work experience

Chapter 44 The whole story
Xie Dali moved slightly, and immediately hissed in pain. He then replied with a trembling voice, "I don't know why the inspector did this. I'm just a clerk, so I can only follow his orders."

"You told those people that you were left behind by the inspector, so they didn't kill you?"

Xie Dali quickly said, "No, I ate dinner that night and went to sleep. When I woke up, I found... they were all dead."

Xu Gong snorted coldly and asked, "You mean, the people here know you're one of them without you having to tell them?"

"You'll have to ask the inspector about that. I don't know how he explained it to them."

Jia Chuan nodded, and Xu Gong asked with a smile, "Do you still agree with what he said?"

"Yes, the inspector loves him the most. He loves that he doesn't wash his feet for a year, loves that he poops as much as he eats, loves that he farts while working, and is afraid that if he dies, he won't be able to smell that stench anymore."

Xu Gong couldn't help but burst out laughing twice.

When Xie Dali saw that there was no humility or fear in Jia Chuan's attitude towards the official, he couldn't help but start to panic. At this time, he finally remembered that someone had just left, and the person who came back was Jia Chuan, and it didn't seem like he was escorted here.

According to Xie Dali's idea, after he talked nonsense like this, the interrogators would definitely interrogate Dong Shuben and Jia Chuan. As long as one of them confessed under torture, his first step would be considered a success.

And if these two people were eventually forced to confess... Xie Dali felt that this was very likely, and he would have a chance of survival.

He knew very well what the Jinyiwei people behaved like on a daily basis. There was no need for any actual evidence. It just depended on whether they wanted to use torture.

But the atmosphere in the torture room didn't seem to be developing in the direction he expected.

"Let's torture him. Only when this kind of person suffers some physical pain will he know what the mouth is for." Xu Gong slowly put away his smile, his face becoming more gloomy.

Xu Gong felt insulted when a deputy official of the Pacification Division was sent away with such words.

Jia Chuan stood up, looked at Xie Dali with disdain and said:

"It's hard to believe you've pretended to be honest for three years, but in reality, your heart is as black as charcoal! Over forty vengeful spirits are waiting for you, perhaps even more. Your hands must have been stained with blood before you even arrived at the Inspection Office. So if you were indifferent to that night, why did you sneak into the Huangluling Inspection Office three years ago? What did your master want? If the Crown Prince hadn't taken the detour to Huangluling this time, would you have taken action? Ultimately, your end is death, because what you thought you would gain doesn't even exist, so how could you possibly get it?"

Xie Dali looked at Xu Gong in horror, his face distorted as he shouted, "Torture him! Torture him! He will definitely confess the truth..."

Xu Gong waved his hand, and Xie Dali was lifted onto a nearby wooden bed. Before the chains could completely lock his limbs, he shouted again, "I'll tell you! I'll tell you everything!"

But Xu Gong did not order him to stop, and Xie Dali's screams like a pig being slaughtered resounded throughout the county government office. But this time, Jia Chuan did not leave.

When Xie Dali was thrown to the ground again, Xu Gong said only one sentence: "Tell the truth. If you have any evil thoughts again, I will continue to torture you!"

Xie Dali no longer dared to talk nonsense and betrayed his master in detail.

……

Four years ago, Zhu Di planned to build several more inspection offices around the capital. When Prince of Zhao Zhu Gaosui learned about it, he called his personal guard Zhao Li to explain his intentions.

Zhu Gaosui sensed something about Zhu Di's move. The newly established Inspection Office must have been established to safeguard the transfer of imperial power. If so, how could Prince of Han, Zhu Gaoxu, not have noticed? As long as he understood, Zhu Gaoxu would have made arrangements in advance. Prince Zhao felt that he only needed to arrange the right people and wait for that day.

So, Zhao Li, also known as Xie Dali, entered the Huangluling Inspection Office.

For more than three years, both the King of Han and the King of Zhao had other actions, but none of them involved the Inspection Office. Zhao Li thus silently endured in the Inspection Office for more than three years.

It was not until that night at the Earth God Temple that Prince Zhao's men arrived, but they came a little late. By then, Jia Chuan and his men had already left with Zhu Zhanji. However, Prince Zhao wanted to reap the benefits from his own efforts. What he wanted most was to see Zhu Zhanji and Zhu Gaoxu fighting to the point of mutual destruction. He had followed his second brother for all these years and had seen clearly that his second brother was nothing but a fool, and a reckless and arrogant fool at that.

According to Zhao Li's account, the King of Han liked to call his younger brother, the King of Zhao, for everything he did. Therefore, the King of Zhao would know in advance about any arrangements made by the King of Han. Moreover, the people in the King of Han's mansion and the King of Zhao's mansion knew each other, and some had even cooperated with each other. This gave Zhao Li the opportunity to massacre the Inspection Office later and successfully leave the people in the King of Han's mansion alive.

This plan was made by Zhao Li and the people from Prince Zhao's Mansion that night at the Earth God Temple after Zhu Zhanji and his companions left.

That is to say, during the more than ten days that Zhu Zhanji was on his way back to Beijing, King Han was not fighting alone. He also arranged a position for King Zhao, but King Zhao was watching silently. He did not want Zhu Zhanji to die on the road. If he died, his second brother had to accompany him. But at this time, the two princes were in their fiefdoms. The entire operation depended on the front-line employees to make their own decisions, and the orders issued by the two princes were not the same.

What King Zhao hoped to see was his eldest nephew return to the capital seriously injured, and in a rage, he killed his second brother, and then died after his treatment was ineffective...

Zhao Li followed Prince of Zhao Zhu Gaosui for many years and lived a life of arrogance in the capital. It was only after he went to Huangluling that Zhu Gaosui was driven to his fiefdom Zhangde.

Zhu Gaosui was the youngest son of Zhu Di and Empress Xu. He was doted on by his parents since childhood, which led to his arrogant behavior when he grew up, and the same was true for the people who served him. Zhao Li had endured three years of survival in the wilderness and was already tired of it. He looked down on these country people around him and hated them to the extreme. In order to avoid doing anything excessive, he tried not to speak, pretended to be honest, and stayed away from these people.

So the little bit of humanity that Jia Chuan thought of did not exist at all in Zhao Li. Not only did he lure people to kill him, he also killed several people with his own hands. Those people were the ones who had played jokes on him in the past, and he remembered them all in his mind.

That night, it rained heavily. Zhao Li used the knockout drug he had prepared in advance to knock most of the people unconscious. More than forty people went to bed early. When the people from Prince Zhao's palace arrived, Zhao Li first opened the door of the armory and took bows and arrows for a few people with good archery skills. He then arranged a few people on several mountain roads, and then took the rest of the people to drag people out from house to house. However, some of the more than forty people were still resistant to the drug, some had eaten less, and some were woken by the heavy rain...

Thus, a massacre began.

In Zhao Li's words: They could have died quietly, but they woke up instead.

Jia Chuan had tried his best to restrain himself, but he still rushed forward uncontrollably, punching and kicking. He still couldn't accept the hatred in his heart. He snatched the whip from the Jinyiwei standing beside him and hit Zhao Li fiercely like a madman. He didn't stop until Xu Gong hugged him.

Jia Chuan threw away the whip in his hand, broke free from Xu Gong's arms, rushed to Zhao Li, and picked him up:
"I don't like them either. They're stupid, they bully the weak and fear the strong, they're lazy and gluttonous, and they don't care about hygiene, but they're real people! Little Radish's mother only has him as her son, and the loud-voiced child is only five years old. Xu Youcai's mother lies on her bed, married a mute wife, and they don't have any children yet! The whole family lives on his little money. Old Wu said he's saved enough money to marry a wife, and he's going home to get married after the New Year..."

Jia Chuan couldn't continue. He gasped for breath, his eyes blazing as he stared at Zhao Li. "Who do you think you are? You're just a dog by King Zhao's side! They have a lot of problems, but they are flesh and blood, they are human beings! Do you have any family?"

Zhao Li's pupils grew larger.

Jia Chuan smiled: "I will take good care of them."

Zhao Li pleaded, "I, I was just following orders. It was me, it was me who asked to use the knockout drug..." "Without the knockout drug, could you have killed more than forty of them?"

Zhao Li was shaking violently. He wanted to defend himself, but except when facing King Zhao, he had never needed to defend himself. Now that he suddenly needed this skill, he didn't have it.

"The King of Zhao's men came to bolster the King of Han's reputation. They learned from you that the Emperor's injuries were not serious. It was you who came up with the idea to kill everyone in the Inspection Office to incriminate the King of Han! It was you, it had to be your idea. You feel you've suffered too much injustice over the past three years, but these injustices were inflicted by the King of Zhao, yet you're taking it out on them!"

Jia Chuan couldn't see his own face at this moment. His face was distorted and looked extremely creepy under the dim candlelight in the torture room.

Zhao Li still had no power to defend himself, because what Jia Chuan said was the truth. He hated the people around him. He had been pretending and enduring for three years. Killing one is killing, killing them all is killing, so he might as well kill them all!
"One of the people sent by King Zhao died, right?"

Zhao Li nodded subconsciously.

"You're just leaving it there like this, aren't you afraid that we'll recognize it?"

Zhao Li was stunned for a moment before answering, "Since it's a melee, there are bound to be casualties. One death... is normal."

“But we’ll take a head count.”

Zhao Li's eyes were full of confusion, as if he didn't understand what Jia Chuan was saying.

Jia Chuan laughed self-deprecatingly, pushed Zhao Li hard, stood up straight and said, "I overestimated you, but, they are people from the Zhao Palace, don't you even think about burying them?"

Zhao Li was covered in wounds. After being pushed by Jia Chuan, he fell heavily to the ground. The pain on his body was unbearable. He couldn't help but grit his teeth and groaned a few times. Hearing Jia Chuan's question, he felt it was an opportunity to defend himself, so he gritted his teeth and replied, "Why bury them? I know you feel sorry for Xiaoluobo and the others, but everyone is born with a different destiny. If I died there, no one would bury me."

Xu Gong then interjected, "Jia Chuan has buried all the people from the Inspection Office."

Zhao Li looked up at Jia Chuan in surprise.

Jia Chuan's emotions calmed down a bit, and he asked again, "Do you know all the people that the King of Han sent to kill the Crown Prince?"

"Almost." Zhao Li lowered his head.

"Why leave one alive?"

"Since we haven't found the badge, someone has to claim they are from the Prince of Han's Palace to prove they are real. They are loyal to the Prince of Han and won't admit it even if they are captured..."

Jia Chuan looked up at the roof, sighed, and asked, "What if we find the badge?"

"Of course, no one will be left behind."

"Didn't you ever think to ask who had the badge? Didn't you ever think about whether the dead people had badges? Didn't you participate when they were searching their pockets?"

Zhao Li was stunned, as if recalling something, before he said, "I asked, and they said they showed the badge to the Inspection Office, but then they started fighting again, and no one knew who had the badge... I didn't see them take out the badge."

Jia Chuan knew who the two 'they' were talking about. He shook his head helplessly and asked, "The one who survived, stabbed himself, right?"

Zhao Li blurted out in surprise: "How do you know?"

"This man saw his comrades all killed by you, and yet he is still willing to help you put on this show? Aren't you afraid that he will say he is the King of Zhao's man?"

"The King of Han always brings the King of Zhao with him when he does things. We just say it's the King of Han's order, and he'll obey and be grateful. We didn't kill the others in front of him... But if they had all stayed, after we left, they'd have discussed it and someone would have noticed something was wrong..."

"So, you only left one person behind, and you kept him company until we were almost back before letting him take action. This was to give him no time to think... I actually didn't notice that the bodies had been moved."

"You did, you discovered the cause of that man's death, and then realized that it wasn't the King of Han who came to silence him?"

Zhao Li asked softly. He had always thought his plan was flawless: the King of Han had sent his men to silence them. He hated the Inspector General for saving the Crown Prince, so he killed them all. During the scuffle between the Inspector General and the King of Han's men, they also killed the few who remained alive. Only one person, who was not seriously injured, survived...

What this person says after being captured will definitely be used as the most favorable testimony. The reason why this person agreed is, on the one hand, because he can survive, and on the other hand, they all know that the King of Han intends to rebel. Zhao Li only said that the King of Han wanted to force the prince to take action, so that the King of Han had an excuse to raise an army, just like Emperor Taizong did back then.

Jia Chuan looked indifferently at Zhao Li, who was curled up on the ground, expectantly waiting for an answer. He snorted and asked, "Will the King of Han go to the Inspection Office to silence him?"

Zhao Li was stunned. Was it wrong from the beginning?

Jia Chuan frowned and looked at Xu Gong in confusion, asking, "With your brain, you're still thinking about rebellion?"

Xu Gong shrugged and said nothing. He didn't know whose brain Jia Chuan was referring to.

At this moment, Jia Chuan felt like he had punched cotton hard. History books describe Zhu Zhanji as a wise ruler, but this was probably due to the contrast with his peers, right?

Jia Chuan knew there was no need to ask any more questions, but he still reluctantly asked one last question: "You guys thought that making this as big a fuss as possible, thinking that it was the King of Han who sent people to silence you, but I don't understand. Those bandits came and killed all your people. Kill them, kill them, why throw them into the same corpse pit? Don't you advocate killing without burying?"

"It wasn't me who wanted to bury it. It was those bandits. They said we couldn't leave any traces and asked me to dig a hole. How could I dig such a big hole by myself? I thought of the previous hole. I put a lot of effort into that hole..."

Jia Chuan didn't want to listen any more. He clasped his fists and said to Xu Gong, "Don't blame me, big brother. I feel a little...uncomfortable. I want to go back and rest first."

Xu Gong understood and patted Jia Chuan, wanting to say something to comfort him, but he didn't know what to say for a moment.

When Jia Chuan reached the door, he suddenly remembered something and turned around to ask, "Old Dong hid some banknotes and silver. How do you know where they are?"

(End of this chapter)