Chapter 402: The Iron Box Buried in the Courtyard

The rain mixed with snow water passed through the dawn light, like countless silver fine threads, scattered all over the sky.

On the left and right sides of Yong'an Street, a layer of ice water accumulated on the glazed tile roofs, and then froze into a layer of frost under the cold wind from the north.

At that time, the envoy group from the North and South Xian Sects was taking a chariot, leaving the Great Xia Imperial Palace, and moved into the Shengjing Immortal Garden.

The restoration of the Sages' Holy Land was about to end, but the demon race in Yunzhou was becoming more and more restless, even sneaking into Zhongzhou many times after the New Year festival, which made the human race feel very nervous, increasingly feeling an atmosphere of war approaching.

Zhongzhou and the two states of Youyun were different; there was the human ancestor temple, carrying luck, and the connection with the Heavenly Dao, which was absolutely not allowed to fall into the hands of the demon race.

So in order to deal with the possible war, and how to enter the Sages' Holy Land to check the connection of luck after restoration, the first response meeting of the human race was held in the Great Xia Imperial Palace for several days.

At that time, among the people of the Xian Sect who returned to the Immortal Garden to rest, the Si Xian Jian Inspection Division Tisi Inspector Mu Jing was holding a paper umbrella and walking toward Chunhua Lane, arriving at a house without a courtyard.

It could be seen that this courtyard was still being repaired, and there was a deep pit dug in the middle for the purpose of building a fire path.

It's just that from the depth, this pit was deeper than a normal fire path.

Just at this time, Xiang Kuangcheng appeared from the house: "The meeting is over?"

Inspector Mu Jing looked at him after regaining his senses: "It's over, it's just that it didn't go very happily."

"Why wasn't it happy?"

"The Heavenly Tian Shuyuan and the Asking Dao Sect had a dispute; I think the Heavenly Tian Shuyuan feels they are not trustworthy and did not agree to let them guard the core of the Holy Land. I think this should still be because of Young Master Ji's matter."

Hearing this, Xiang Kuangcheng understood his meaning.

Although Brother Ji finally returned to the Heavenly Dao because of a problem with his cultivation, the fact that someone suddenly assassinated him when he was breaking through the realm was also known to everyone.

Although no one knew the identity of the assassin, the Heavenly Tian Shuyuan noticed that the three sects had specially sent people to come on the day of the incident, using the excuse of discussing the Holy Land matter to delay.

So although there was no direct evidence, they still determined that the person who assassinated him must have been sent by these three great Xian Sects, and it was no wonder that there would be a conflict.

Inspector Mu Jing finished speaking and took out a document from his arms: "I brought you the things you wanted me to transcribe. In the four years from the first year of Taichang to the first year of Taiwu, the time records about the storage of tax offerings are all inside."

Xiang Kuangcheng cupped his hands after regaining his senses: "Thank you, Brother Mu, for your help."

"Friends, no need to say thank you or not; I'm just very curious, what are you doing with these transport records?"

"The craftsmen I hired dug up some things when they were building the courtyard."

"?"

Xiang Kuangcheng looked around and said softly: "Come in and talk."

Inspector Mu Jing nodded and followed him into the house when he saw his expression suddenly alert.

The newly built house still had a smell that hadn't dried, fortunately, a heater was lit, and the cold feeling wasn't very obvious.

However, what was noteworthy was that besides some daily necessities, there was an iron box full of mud in the room, the box was not big, placed beside the heater, and the corners were all traces of corrosion and rust.

Xiang Kuangcheng's house was smashed during the attack on the Heavenly Tian Shuyuan by the demon people in the Dim Illumination Realm two years ago; because he had no money, it had not been repaired.

Later, the Qingyun World lacked grain, and Ji You earned a sum from the noble families by raising grain prices, and then gave him money to repair the courtyard.

And after a year of repairs, the entire house was considered completed, leaving only the dredging of the fire path, the leveling of the courtyard, and the stacking of the courtyard walls.

During the New Year, Shengjing had continuous heavy snow, and the festival was approaching, so he agreed with the craftsmen to let them go home for the festival first, and continue construction after the festival.

And on the first day of construction, they dug up a box from the location of the fire path from the kitchen to the main hall.

Xiang Kuangcheng told Inspector Mu Jing the process of finding the box, and Inspector Mu Jing's face revealed a trace of doubt.

"You didn't bury it?"

"The craftsman said looking at the corrosion degree of the box, it should have been buried for about ten years, and this courtyard has actually only been in my hands for four years."

Inspector Mu Jing opened his mouth: "Then it seems it was buried by the previous owner?"

Xiang Kuangcheng nodded: "After the new policy started, a large number of household officials who embezzled tax offerings were raided, and their fields and houses were confiscated by the public, and later handed down to the officials of the Si Xian Jian; your house and mine were all like this."

"Then whose house is yours?"

"It is a Vice Minister surnamed Wang from the Ministry of Revenue, the official with primary authority over tax transport. This is the residence he uses to keep a mistress."

Xiang Kuangcheng finished speaking and took out a cowhide paper bag from his lacquer-red wooden cabinet: "This is the thing in the box, a stack of account books, very strange."

"What's strange about the account books?"

Inspector Mu Jing questioned, and at the same time reached out to take the cowhide paper bag, took out the account books inside, and began to flip through them.

After looking at it for only a few glances, he discovered that this was also a transport record, and the transport time seemed a bit familiar, so he picked up the tax offering transport record he had transcribed, placed the two records together, and the coincidence happened.

The storage time and vehicle number written in the cowhide paper bag could be found in the storage records of the Great Xia tax offerings he had transcribed, as well as the same number records.

The tax offerings of Great Xia were collected by local county-level government offices from door to door; except for the part of dark taxes handed over to local Xian Sects, the rest would be uniformly transported to the Ministry of Revenue, cleared and supplemented by the Ministry of Revenue, and then transported to major Xian Sects and noble families.

In other words, this was a part of the sub-transport record summarized before the national treasury.

"These are all ordinary transport records," Inspector Mu Jing said, feeling confused himself, "Why hide such ordinary things, and not hide them in his own home, but hide them in the courtyard of his mistress?"

"Is it possible that the records are indeed ordinary, but the things transported are not ordinary?" Xiang Kuangcheng asked back.

Inspector Mu Jing was stunned: "What does this mean?"

"I mean, maybe what they transported was not grain."

"How is this possible?"

"If you don't believe it, look at this storage time," Xiang Kuangcheng took the account book and pointed to the storage column at the beginning, "According to the account records, the storage time of these things is February, March, and May, but the autumn harvest hasn't arrived yet, where did the grain come from for them to collect and store?"

Inspector Mu Jing instantly wrinkled his brows, understanding the reason for Xiang Kuangcheng's inference.

The tax offering quota of Great Xia every year was very heavy, and it was a mercy of heaven that the people didn't starve to death; every year they tightened their belts, and they could only breathe a sigh of relief until the autumn harvest; before the autumn harvest, it was impossible to take things out to hand in.

After pondering for a while, he raised his eyes: "Then what did they transport?"

"Look further back."

"Further back?"

Inspector Mu Jing turned the account book over, then opened the back.

As his gaze swept over it, a line of large characters appeared before his eyes.

I am also a parent, helping them do such evil things, knowing that I will definitely be punished by heaven, but I am afraid that the punishment of heaven has not arrived, and I have been killed to silence me; I only pray that heaven will give all the retribution to me, and do not implicate my children.

The Heavenly Principles are clear, good and evil are rewarded, may the dead souls rest in peace.

Inspector Mu Jing was stunned for a long time, suddenly feeling a bit disgusted, especially when seeing the sentence "I am also a parent" and the sentence "may the dead souls rest in peace."

Xiang Kuangcheng saw him finish reading and said in a deep voice: "I didn't understand when I saw this line of words, but I always felt that this passage was pointing to something, so I pondered the characters for a long time, and suddenly felt it was terrifying to think about."

"Brother Kuang, don't sell the secret, what exactly does this refer to?"

"Children."

"What?"

"I think it's children; they used tax offering transport as a cover, but in reality, what they transported were children; only in this way can the opening sentence 'I am also a parent' be considered appropriate."

Hearing this, Inspector Mu Jing's scalp felt numb for a moment: "What do they want so many children for? To raise them?"

"Brother Mu, after the thousand-year noble families joined forces to cause disaster, you participated in the interrogation of the Du family and the Bai family; what do you think they need children for?"

Hearing this, Inspector Mu Jing's thoughts were instantly pulled to more than a year ago.

At that time, the thousand-year noble families' plot failed, countless people were thrown into the Heavenly Prison, and they were interrogated all day long.

He was temporarily transferred to accompany the records, knowing many ruins about how they caused chaos in the world, among which the part about how to bring out the immortal fate of the ruins was the most unacceptable to him.

"You mean these children are used as containers?"

Inspector Mu Jing picked up the account book again and looked at it, then immediately waved his hand: "No, this is not right; according to the confessions of those criminals during the interrogation, they only understood how to use children in the later period, but this account book has records from more than ten years ago."

Xiang Kuangcheng looked at Inspector Mu Jing after hearing this: "One possibility is that I guessed wrong, but there is another possibility, which is that there have always been other people who knew how to bring out the immortal fate of the ruins earlier than those thousand-year noble families."

"You are more inclined to the latter?"

"It's not inclined, I'll show you something else."

Xiang Kuangcheng put down the two account books, then took out a small booklet from the bottom layer of the jujube-red wooden cabinet.

Inspector Mu Jing took the small booklet and looked at it, discovering that what was written on it were some milk names, followed by some dates.

"What is this?"

"There are three orphanages in Shengjing and its surroundings, this is the list of all missing children and the time of disappearance organized by those orphanages, which almost matches the time nodes of the storage in this account book." ===== CHAPTER 403 =====