Chapter 225

Chapter 225

Riding in a Cultural Preservation Bureau vehicle, Qin Ying returned to the road leading up to Qingzhai Village and thought of the car she had rented.

It had been completely wrecked. She was definitely going to have to pay for it.

She immediately turned to Deputy Director Chen. “Director Chen, the people of Qingzhai Village totaled my rental car. Can I get reimbursed?”

Deputy Director Chen was as straightforward as ever. “Write up a report later and hand it to Wu Qian.”

Before opening the door and getting out, Qin Ying thought for a moment and asked, “If I can get Level 8 Clearance, does that mean I get to be an institute director?”

Deputy Director Chen laughed. “You’ve got some ambition.”

“We’ll talk after everything’s been verified. Wu Qian is still lying in the hospital.”

Still, he let one piece of information slip. “There’s been one incident after another here in Yunlan.”

“And then there’s this place.”

He raised a hand and pointed at the mountains surrounding Qingzhai Village. “The higher-ups are paying close attention.”

“The Third Cultural Heritage Preservation Institute will probably be reorganized.”

Qin Ying paused, then touched Di Shang, which was pressed snugly against her wrist.

If the Third Cultural Heritage Preservation Institute was truly reorganized, she would have to be even more careful in the future.

Lost in thought, she shut the car door.

Qingzhai Village had probably never been this lively since the day it was founded.

Vehicles were parked all along the mountainside.

Just as Qin Ying and the others arrived, several police cars drove past.

Once the joint interrogations were over, ringleaders such as Zhang Yubo were certain to receive heavy sentences.

The others, who knew little about what was really going on and had merely followed the crowd in making trouble, wouldn’t get off lightly either. They had just been hauled away in police cars.

Deputy Director Chen said, “If we keep going from Qingzhai Village into the mountains, we’ll reach the old residence.”

It was the cover that the people from Italy and Shiye had built over the laboratory.

The old residence was hidden deep in the mountains, directly above the Qingzhai Tunnel.

Since the Qingzhai Tunnel had collapsed, they had no choice but to take a detour.

The mountain paths were difficult to traverse. Qin Ying and the others walked for most of the day before finally spotting the old residence concealed among the mountains.

Still physically weak, Qin Ying was drenched in sweat from the trek.

The moment she rounded the woods, however, she froze in shock.

They had been too busy fleeing during the explosion the previous night to grasp its true scale.

Now that she could see it clearly, half the mountaintop looked as if some colossal beast had taken a bite out of it.

Countless rocks and trees had collapsed. Everywhere she looked, bare rock strata and exposed tree roots met her eyes.

The air was thick with the smell of freshly disturbed soil.

Qin Ying stared dumbfounded. “Could a few detonators really cause a disaster on this scale?”

This was no longer merely the site of an explosion. It had reached the level of a geological disaster.

“How long is it going to take to dig all this out?”

Deputy Director Chen was helpless too.

Despite his snow-white hair and beard, his hairstyle remained perfectly neat after the long trek through the mountains, and he wasn’t even breathing hard.

He sighed. “No matter how difficult it is, we still have to dig.”

Marrow Fluid was simply too important to their research.

Qin Ying glanced around. Seeing no one else nearby, she spoke without reservation. “It might all be wasted effort.”

The River God had once said that someone had come back to search for the laboratory, so it had hidden the laboratory away.

That laboratory could almost be considered concealed within the gap between two different points in time.

What had collapsed was probably space itself, not merely the mountain.

No matter how much effort they poured into the excavation, they most likely wouldn’t find anything.

Deputy Director Chen’s thick, saber-like brows drew together, but he still said, “We have to try.”

Since he had put it that way, Qin Ying said no more.

It wasn’t her budget they were spending, after all.

After that brief conversation, the path ahead only became more difficult.

The Thunderbird had received permission to remain by Qin Ying’s side. Once its identity had been fully verified, it would be issued official credentials.

It did, however, have to contribute several feathers so they could determine exactly what it was.

Still, the Thunderbird, now officially named Jinbao, had been formally approved and effectively given an identity card.

It was free to fly wherever it pleased and no longer had to hide inside Qin Ying’s hat.

The moment they entered the forest, it began darting freely between the mountains, its joyful cries echoing across the slopes.
After crossing the ridge, the group arrived at the ruins of a collapsed mansion.

Despite being deep in the remote mountains, the area was bustling with people, and electrical cables had even been strung up.

Behind the cordon, people in protective suits came and went.

Qin Ying had also been given a protective suit. After putting on the mask and hiding the Thunderbird against her chest, she stood before an old mansion riddled with cracks.

A researcher handed her a surveyed floor plan.

Qin Ying skimmed it and instinctively remarked, “Why does this look like it wasn’t built for the living?”

The old mountain mansion was perfectly square, with a tall screen wall at the front and a bulging structure in the middle that resembled a burial mound.

Judging by the floor plan alone, it was clearly a gigantic tomb.

The person who had brought the plan was wearing a protective suit, making it impossible to see what he looked like, but his voice sounded middle-aged.

At her remark, he explained, “We consulted specialists in the field. This does indeed match the specifications of a traditional Yunlan tomb.”

Qin Ying looked up. Quite a few staff members were entering and leaving the building to investigate despite the risk of collapse.

“Can I go inside and take a look too?” she asked.

Deputy Director Chen readily replied, “I’ll go with you.”

The older man was clearly accustomed to charging onto the front lines himself, and no one tried to stop him.

He led Qin Ying straight through the ancient mansion.

Once they passed the stone archway, Qin Ying looked around.

Sure enough, the mansion had fortress-like perimeter walls.

After searching her memory, Qin Ying recalled something and asked Deputy Director Chen, “Director Chen, when did Yunlan City abolish death by a thousand cuts?”

“Were there any people who survived it?”

“Why do you ask?” Deputy Director Chen turned from his own inspection of the surroundings.

Qin Ying said, “When we escaped before, the man leading the pursuit had fish-scale scars covering his face.”

“They looked like scars left by death by a thousand cuts.”

Qin Ying lived in the Old City District, and the Cultural Center had an entire exhibit devoted to illustrations of historical punishments.

Her school used to organize visits to the Cultural Center all the time. She was confident she couldn’t have mistaken those scars.

“The scars on his face were extremely uniform. You could tell they were made by a veteran executioner.”

“Assuming the people pursuing us came from 1910, capital punishments like that were already rarely used by then.”

“Most executions were carried out by beheading or hanging. An inhumane punishment like death by a thousand cuts was hardly ever used anymore.”

“If we investigate those sentenced to it, we might be able to identify that scar-faced man.”

Then they could follow that lead and see if it brought them any closer to Shiye.

After listening to her explanation, Deputy Director Chen clicked his tongue. “Why didn’t you mention this sooner?”

Qin Ying replied innocently, “You grabbed the Marrow Fluid and ran off.”

In truth, her mind had been a complete mess at the time, and she genuinely hadn’t thought of it.

Still, shifting the blame was necessary.

Deputy Director Chen was speechless for a long moment before taking out his phone and sending several messages.

As he typed, he said to Qin Ying, “There can’t be many people who survived death by a thousand cuts. Still, we can’t simply assume the man was a Yunlan local. A nationwide search will take some time.”

“But at least it’s a lead.”

After a pause, he turned to Qin Ying. “Wait, that’s not right.”

“Your file says you were in a car accident. Your eyes were severely injured when the airbag deployed, leaving you with impaired vision, didn’t it?”

Qin Ying realized her past had been investigated down to the last detail, but she didn’t panic in the slightest. Instead, she countered, “Didn’t I use the No. 3 Healing Agent?”

“My eyes started getting better after that.”

She looked at Deputy Director Chen with such surprise that he began to doubt himself.

“The No. 3 Agent can do that?”

Qin Ying shut him down with a single retort. “If you’re asking me, who am I supposed to ask?”

Deputy Director Chen fell silent again. After mulling it over, he said, “Go to headquarters for a physical when we get back.”

Qin Ying nodded vaguely, though whether she would actually go was another matter.

As they spoke, the two of them came to a stop before a half-collapsed building.