readytorunbook Chapter 255 New clues
Chapter 255 New clues
She wanted to instill fear in these people, to make them too afraid to look at her, while she, as a jailer, inspected each cell.
Yan Nanheng hastily changed into a prison guard's uniform and ran over. He checked the few cells that Zhai Yun had missed and found that they were all filled with male prisoners.
The deeper you go into the prison, the fewer prisoners there are. You gradually see female prisoners in the cells, but these women are all disheveled, dirty and messy, and you can't tell what they look like.
Recalling the experiences of the newly arrived concubines of the county magistrate, Zhai Yun roughly understood what these people had gone through and how Lian'er could survive such mental and physical torture.
Lian'er was recorded as being twenty-one years old when she left the palace. Now, sixteen years have passed, and she is looking for a woman around thirty years old. None of the women in these prisons fit the bill.
Zhai Yun searched through the cells one by one until she reached the deepest part of the prison. There she saw a woman with a weathered face and disheveled hair, drawing something on the wall with a stone. She was living alone.
Although her clothes were dirty, they were neat and tidy, without any tears. She was the only female prisoner in the cell who had not been assaulted.
Yan Nanheng also rushed over. He and Zhai Yun noticed at the same time the various symbols drawn on the wall with stones. Some of them were so blurred that they were almost impossible to see, but the marks covered the entire cell and were within her reach.
Yan Nanheng exclaimed in surprise, "This wall isn't entirely covered in her drawings, is it? How long has she been locked up here?"
Zhai Yun scrutinized her closely. Her back was to them, so Zhai Yun couldn't see her face clearly, but she kept talking and making marks of varying depths on the wall as she spoke.
Zhai Yun became curious about this person; in this prison, it seemed that only her imprisonment time was similar to Lian'er's.
"Have you found the key? Open the door!" Zhai Yun asked Yan Nanheng.
Yan Nanheng looked completely innocent. "The key? Where's the key?"
Zhai Yun shifted her gaze from the woman to Yan Nanheng, looking speechless: "The key is with the jailer, didn't you look for it?"
Yan Nanheng had no idea about the intricacies of the world. Upon hearing Zhai Yun say that the key was on the jailer, he immediately turned back to look for it.
Zhai Yun didn't dawdle and went back to search with Yan Nanheng.
"Cough cough!" A coughing sound suddenly rang out from the corner, startling Zhai Yun and Yan Nanheng, who looked in the direction of the sound.
The woman who had just been knocked unconscious by Yan Nanheng woke up again. She was in so much pain that her face turned pale, and when she saw Zhai Yun and Yan Nanheng, her eyes showed fear again.
She quickly thought of a way to survive, and as Zhai Yun and Yan Nanheng surrounded her, she fearfully squeezed out in a hoarse voice, "Are you here to find someone? I can help you!"
Yan Nanheng blurted out excitedly, "How did you know we were looking for someone!"
At this moment, Zhai Yun just wanted to punch Yan Nanheng; he had confessed without being asked!
The girl steadied herself and said weakly, "If it were just a prison break, you would have left long ago. The fact that you've dragged this on only proves that you haven't found the person you were trying to break into the prison!"
Zhai Yun narrowed her eyes and threatened her, "Do you know that people who are too smart don't live long?" They had indeed lingered here for too long.
The girl's kneecap had a hole punched in it, and her kneecap was protruding outwards; she must have been in excruciating pain.
She clenched her fists tightly, watching her blood flow like a river, biting her lip: "I don't want to die, I can't die, my parents are still waiting for me in Ye Family Village! I have to go back!"
It was this obsession that brought her back to her senses. She kept screaming in her heart, "I can't sleep, I can't sleep, if I fall asleep I won't wake up again."
Zhai Yun's eyes narrowed. Ye Family Village—wasn't that Lian'er's village? Zhai Yun looked at the woman, whose face was pale with pain. At this moment, she had no energy to lie.
"I heard there are people in your village who hold positions in the imperial palace?" Zhai Yun's voice softened.
She paused, her pale face showing a hint of doubt, "Yes...yes, but that was a long time ago."
Zhai Yun reached out her hand to Yan Nanheng, who instantly understood what was happening. He placed a bottle of medicine in Zhai Yun's hand, and she slowly squatted down. When her hand touched the woman's wound, she suddenly pulled back.
Zhai Yun coldly reminded him, "Losing too much blood can also lead to death."
Although the woman was frightened, she had no way out at this moment. She stretched her leg forward, which she had been trying to pull back with all her might.
Zhai Yun carefully sprinkled the medicine on her wound, "Continue."
Seeing that she was spared death, the woman relaxed slightly and said, "When I was a child, there was a severe drought in the village one year. To survive, the villagers sold their children for food. One of our children was sold to the palace. Everyone in the village said that she worked in the palace of a nobleman and received a very generous monthly salary."
Upon hearing this, Yan Nanheng eagerly pressed for an answer: "What's the name of that person from your village?"
The woman, whose wounds had been bandaged by a strip of white cloth torn from her tattered clothes by Zhai Yun, flinched upon hearing the man's voice, but mustered her courage to reply, "It seems her name was Ping'er. After entering the palace, the people there gave her a new name, Lian'er."
Zhai Yun had just finished bandaging her wound when she heard this name. Without saying a word, she spoke before Yan Nanheng could, "You entered the palace when you were young. You should be old enough to go home now, right?"
Although she was told that Lian'er was in the prison, Zhai Yun still wanted to know more details after meeting someone from her village, hoping to find Lian'er through her.
"No." She answered decisively, her face showing no sign of lying: "When I was just old enough to remember things, the village was buzzing with rumors that she was an ingrate, that she didn't care about her father, mother, brother and sister, and that she had cut off all contact with her family. Her brother and sister made a scene in the village for a while, but they didn't dare to go to the palace. It took a long time for the matter to calm down."
The woman was just old enough to remember things when Lian'er disappeared. It seemed that the woman didn't know what Lian'er looked like either. Zhai Yun asked with a glimmer of hope, "Then do you know what Lian'er looks like?"
The woman shook her head, then, remembering something, said excitedly, "She has a mole on the back of her neck, right here. It was because of this very noticeable mole that her parents were afraid she wouldn't be able to get married, so they sold her."
As the woman spoke, she revealed her back and pointed to the back of her neck, less than a finger's width from her hairline.
Zhai Yun felt that this clue seemed sufficient, and it was getting late. She asked Yan Nanheng to find the key, as she now only wanted to confirm whether the person she had identified was Lian'er.
As for these women, the only solution Zhai Yun could think of was to give them a drug to fake their deaths. Once those people saw that they were dead, they would throw them into a mass grave.
They still have family members at home, so faking their death is the safest option.
Zhai Yun took out a fake death drug from her pouch and handed it to the woman: "There are seven fake death drugs in here. Wake them all up and give them to the woman."