Chapter 470: Bandit in Skin

"You should have said so when you were in prison. I could have entrusted Li Zhao to send you some two days ago." Seeing Pei Ye said.

Xie Chuantang paused, still drinking porridge, but raised her eyes to look at him.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, just recognizing you again." Xie Chuantang withdrew her gaze and lowered her head to eat vegetables, vaguely saying, "I feel you're not as handsome, and you seem a bit shorter?"

"..."

Xie Chuantang bit a bun.

"What does a fingernail's worth of handsomeness count as short?"

"Sorry, I've been a catcher for a long time, so I'm sensitive to height and appearance." Xie Chuantang said casually, "If you care, I won't say it."

Seeing Pei Ye rolled his eyes and picked two buns for her.

Just now, he stood at the prosperous street corner, watching the woman walk out of the cold alley somewhat dazed, and only after picking out two small red jade lotus flowers did he complete the recognition with her.

"You saved me? What do you want me to do?" Xie Chuantang asked.

Seeing Pei Ye paused and told her the whole story from beginning to end.

Xie Chuantang slowed down her eating and looked at the table.

"Because you are the only person in the entire Jingzhao Prefecture who investigated the Taiping Cao Gang." Seeing Pei Ye said, "Now it is strictly guarded, but you have already reached its heart."

Xie Chuantang sent the last bun into her mouth in three bites, swallowed it with a big mouthful of water: "Tell me what you know."

"On the surface, we know that the Taiping Cao Gang secretly traffics people illegally. The Carp Pavilion has been sealed, but we can't find the fact that they are doing this on a larger scale." Seeing Pei Ye said, "And this case of Zhang Mingqin pointed us to a line from bottom to top. We know they persecute good families, kill parents, and then send their children to the Huan Pavilion."

"Now we know what to investigate, but how to connect 'persecuting good families' with the entire Taiping Cao Gang, and the undeniable connection between the Huan Pavilion and the Taiping Cao Gang are not yet clear." He said.

Xie Chuantang continued to lower her head to eat buns, and said slowly: "Zhang Mengyuan and his wife died later."

Seeing Pei Ye was stunned: "... What?"

"Zhang Mengyuan and his wife and Zhang Mingqin were indeed not dead at the same time, but Zhang Mengyuan and his wife died after Zhang Mingqin."

Seeing Pei Ye was stunned for a moment.

"Are you saying that after Zhang Mingqin was thrown into the Longshou Canal, Zhang Mengyuan and his wife died?" Seeing Pei Ye frowned tightly, dealing with this information unexpectedly, "How is it possible? Where have they been these few days?"

"I want to know too."

"..."

"I've been thinking about this in prison, thinking about it when I close my eyes and open my eyes." Xie Chuantang looked at the boy opposite, "I found Zhang Mingqin's body first, and then found the scene where she was intercepted and killed—there was no blood there."

Seeing Pei Ye listened intently.

"It didn't even involve much fighting and resistance. Rather than saying it was a robbery, it was more like coercion." Xie Chuantang said in a low voice, "Zhang Mengyuan and his wife were not killed on the spot."

"Zhang Mingqin was abducted on the 18th, and I saw the body on the 22nd. Later, I spent four days finding those four people. When I threw them into prison, they pointed me to the place where Zhang Mengyuan and his wife were thrown."

Xie Chuantang looked at the boy: "You can't see these two bodies now, but I saw them with my own eyes at the time—they definitely hadn't been dead for more than three days."

Seeing Pei Ye looked solemn.

"Since they wanted Zhang Mingqin, why did they imprison the couple for so long?" Xie Chuantang looked at him, "To investigate the secret actions of the Taiping Cao Gang, this is the entrance I provide."

Seeing Pei Ye tapped the table lightly, was silent for a moment, then let out a breath, stood up: "Let's go back to the prefecture first and compare the news with Minister Di."

Jingzhao Prefecture.

The night was deep, approaching dawn, and the candles that had been burning all night were replaced with a new one.

Xie Chuantang simply washed and bathed, put on a neat casual outfit, took out the case files one by one to answer Di Jiu's questions. The file room was like her home at this time, and the details of the whole case and the appearance of the Taiping Cao Gang gradually became clear under the woman's narration.

Finally, she closed the last page and drank a large cup of white water.

Di Jiu nodded slowly with a solemn face, and his gaze moved to Seeing Pei Ye: "Inspector Pei found this catcher in two days, the case is indeed clear."

He looked back at the case file in front of him with a frown: "Or rather, the problem is clear."

"The 'why imprison Zhang Mengyuan and his wife' doubt raised by the two, I actually have the same feeling here." Di Jiu looked at them and said, "For two days, Li Zhao and I searched and visited with the 'Carp Pavilion' as the center, investigated the waiters and singing girls in it, and traced this case down very deeply, but found no signs of abduction."

"The sixty-seven people saved from the Carp Pavilion seem to have appeared out of thin air, as if they were sent directly from somewhere, rather than a line of lines gathering."

Seeing Pei Ye frowned: "Minister Di, I am a bit stupid—but where is the 'same feeling' in these two things?"

Di Jiu tapped the desk twice: "Because they are phenomena that deviate from the 'crime of human trafficking'."

Xie Chuantang's eyes suddenly sharpened.

"Because I have handled many human trafficking cases and read many of them in the past two days. Human trafficking cases are mainly based on abduction and forcible abduction. The Taiping Cao Gang's focus should be on these people, and they will leave traces with them as the center afterwards. The knights, scholars, and women transported from one place to another are lines that can be traced." Di Jiu leaned on the chair. This official had no cultivation, and the hard work of two days made him hard to hide his fatigue, "But the Carp Pavilion case is not. I didn't find these lines."

But a pair of sharp eyes still looked at the three people listening quietly: "At the same time, the fact that Zhang Mengyuan and his wife died after Zhang Mingqin as mentioned by Inspector Pei; the victims in the testimonies are all long-term residents, while the knights and scholars are mostly lone travelers in the Divine Capital; there is a fact of human trafficking, but no relatives and friends reporting missing persons; in several effective testimonies, it is said that the perpetrators broke in openly, but claimed that the victims were guilty; the Taiping Cao Gang rose to such a scale in just a few years..."

Seeing Pei Ye had been holding on to a line and digging deep. Hearing this, his vision suddenly pulled high, overlooking these unusual things.

"So I think, the Carp Pavilion matter or is not a case of abduction and trafficking... but a by-product of some greater illegality." Di Jiu closed his eyes and said slowly.

Seeing Pei Ye was stunned for a moment. He suddenly remembered Cheng Xiaozhu's timid testimony:

"I don't know, they just broke into our house... said my father had committed some crime, and then they tied us up..."

"They seemed to show my father some waist token, and my father was very afraid... and didn't resist..."

"... What illegality?" He asked.

"It's not a case, but a pattern, a process, covered by a net, because the people they harm are such commoners, so no one can ever break through." Di Jiu said, "This was originally my bold idea, but after Catcher Xie came, I am willing to call it a guess." He raised his head and looked at the two of them, "Cheng Xiaozhu, this girl's testimony, Inspector Pei has also heard it. Now I want the two of you to verify a simple thing—this girl Cheng is polite in speech and delicate in hands. I think she is a person from a wealthy family. Please check what kind of family business they had and how it is handled now."

Seeing Pei Ye was shocked. Di Jiu continued: "This is also one of the two questions I was just thinking about—how much money can human trafficking earn?"

The sky was bright, and Seeing Pei Ye and Xie Chuantang walked silently on the street of Yong'an Ward.

This kind of work was indeed as simple as Minister Di said. Two hours ago, they came to the small courtyard of Ding Yukang according to the instructions, and knocked on the doors of several neighbors.

"Their family... we don't know what happened. They said they were taken away noisily in the middle of the night a while ago. I don't know how they are now."

"Family business? Boss Cheng opened a cloth shop. He was very kind. He often sent us some. The business was booming because he was down-to-earth. Look, this is the house he just bought. Besides this one, I heard there is another one in Yong'an Ward!"

"Where is it? I don't know. I know the cloth shop, it's three streets away with 'Ping'an' hanging... but these days, although it opened again, the boss seems to have changed."

"... Many thanks."

The Ping'an Cloth Shop was indeed very large and booming.

It was a two-story storefront with three doors facing the street. People came and went, and the shop assistants looked skilled and hadn't changed. Seeing Pei Ye and Xie Chuantang walked in plainly and put their waist tokens in front of the shopkeeper: "Excuse me, who is the owner here?"

"Ah, official, it's Boss Qi of the Baiwei Building!"

"Is Boss Qi a member of the Taiping Cao Gang?"

"... Yes, yes, so you know?"

"Don't know." Seeing Pei Ye looked up at the storefront, "How is business recently?"

"It's much better. Now as long as you report the name of Boss Qi, those hooligans don't dare to be shameless, and some... hehe, also less deductions..." The shopkeeper smiled, "What do you want, official?"

"No."

Seeing Pei Ye nodded and walked out.

Cheng Xiaozhu, Hao Xiaofang, Yan Wan, Yu Yueqiu—they checked the family business of all the victims who could still testify in one morning. None of them did not fall into the hands of the Taiping Cao Gang. It was not even necessary to deliberately look for wealth, because as long as you live in the Divine Capital, a house is worth hundreds of taels of silver, which is much easier than trying to find a scholar and then transforming and taming him.

How can there be such an easy business in the world?

And what do they rely on, what do they dare to be so rampant?

Such behavior exceeded the boy's consciousness. Now he knew what the tip of the iceberg was. Along the way, he only provided silence.

"Then, plus what Li Zhao and I found, the case is clear." Di Jiu took the results they fed back, as expected, "Nine years ago, the law enforcement space of the Jingzhao Prefecture and the two counties of Chang'an and Wannian was squeezed. Replacing them were the Jin Wu Guard patrol envoys. I have felt that a large number of cases in the Jingzhao Prefecture are missing these days. Many cases I traced to the end were handled by the Jin Wu Guards. The security needs of the Divine Capital will not be less, so the responsibility can only be transferred to other government offices."

"The Taiping Cao Gang and the Jin Wu Guards are bright and dark. The Jin Wu Guards are the backing, and the Taiping Cao Gang is the murderer. They look for wealthy families without support in the ward, fabricate charges, record their family property, and scholars and knights living alone in the Divine Capital who are slightly wealthy are also framed and persecuted." Di Jiu said, "After that, they are killed, sold, or exiled. The whole family is confiscated, and naturally there is no complaint. But those who are not convinced, the three ways of appealing to the Jingzhao Prefecture, the Jin Wu Guards, and the Ministry of Justice are easily covered up."

Seeing Pei Ye was silent for a long time: "... I still find it hard to believe."

"The Divine Capital has both civilized and barbaric sides at the same time, and each side is the extreme of the world." This cold-faced Vice Minister wrote the case file with a pen, "In other places, you have to be careful when breaking the law, because you don't know when there will be 'officials coming to investigate' on your head. But not in the Divine Capital. If you master the extreme of a certain power, you cover a certain sky and can really do whatever you want."

"..."

"But at least we can see this cloud covering the sky now." Di Jiu put down his pen, raised his eyes to look at the three people in the room, "Very good, Seeing Pei Ye, I put my official hat in the Supreme Court not to break a case, but to clear the poison and silt of the entire Divine Capital. This case is our day of breaking the clouds."

"... How to break it?"

"Evidence."

"Where is the evidence?"

"Just the people obtained from the Carp Pavilion should have nearly a hundred family members. With such a large-scale fabrication of charges and framing of good people, they must have a private prison. This private prison is not supervised by the government office and is controlled by the Taiping Cao Gang, and it cannot be destroyed or hidden."

"Is there really such a private prison?"

"The records found by Li Zhao this morning—nine years ago, the Jin Wu Guards proposed to set up a temporary 'Winter Prison' outside the Southern Office because the lawbreakers caught in the Divine Capital were difficult to place, and the Southern Office approved it quickly." Di Jiu said, "This process is not very noticeable, and no one knows where this 'Winter Prison' was set up. Nine years later, there is no trace of it."

"... How do we find it?"

"I will find it." Di Jiu said calmly, "Tracing the filth of these government offices is what Li Zhao and I are good at."

"Three days." He looked at Seeing Pei Ye, "This matter is secret. Within three days, I will take out the location of this prison, report it to the imperial court, and ask the Forbidden Army to seal it."

This was the conversation that just happened in the prefecture office. Now Seeing Pei Ye and Xie Chuantang stopped, and the street of Yong'an Ward indeed did not look so wealthy. In front of them was Ding Yukang's small courtyard, and everything was the same as the day they left.

"Old Ding told me that day: 'This skin and this sword of yours were given by others, and you still want to take them back to investigate them?'" Xie Chuantang said, "I thought it made sense, so the things I did after closing the case were all in casual clothes."

"No need now," Seeing Pei Ye said, "what we are serving is the public order."

"Yes, so thank you. Without you, I wouldn't be able to investigate this case." Xie Chuantang took the two stacks of yellow paper bought on the street, put them in a bowl and lit them, and the flying ashes and flames surged into the sky.

Seeing Pei Ye looked at this scene quietly, and also handed in his own stack: "... When I first came to the Divine Capital, I understood a truth: power plus evidence is a threat, but I never thought about it the other way around—since there is no threat, why not do whatever you want."

"Then you haven't been in the Divine Capital for long."

"Yes."

Xie Chuantang looked up at the flying smoke gradually dissipating, and whispered: "There are still three days left, Old Ding, the former Jingzhao Prefecture can come back." ===== CHAPTER 471 =====

Xie Chuantang looked up at the dissipating smoke and whispered with pursed lips: "Three more days, Old Ding, the Jingzhao Prefecture of the past will be able to return."