Li Nanke no longer trusts those officials in the capital.
At least for now.
Before going to find the marked location on the map, he came to the cell again to see Li Donghai.
Compared with the leisurely life of the previous two days, Li Donghai was obviously haggard at this time.
He turned his back and stared at the small window on the wall, looking very fascinated. It wasn't until Li Nanke came to him that he noticed it.
"Are you yearning for freedom?" Li Nanke sarcastically asked.
Li Donghai smiled and said softly: "Who in this world has true freedom? Even the Supreme Emperor is not free."
Li Nanke was silent.
After a while he asked: "Are you surprised?"
Li Donghai knew what the other party was talking about, and couldn't help but feel dazed for a moment, and sighed: "I didn't expect that the real chess piece was him. This Lao Yu, his acting is really real, and he has deceived so many people."
He looked at Li Nanke and smiled: "Of course, I couldn't deceive you."
"So do you think there is still hope for you to get out?"
Li Nanke looked cold.
Li Donghai wanted to keep the smile on his face to disguise his inner feelings, but under the burning eyes of the other party, he finally lowered his eyes and said sadly: "When things have developed to this point, it is indeed difficult to get out."
"No matter how bad things get, you can't get out!"
Li Nanke said in a deep voice, "Li Donghai, don't you understand now? The underworld is going to be dissolved, so it won't need you chess pieces at all.
Even if you are still valuable, they will not take the final risk to save you!"
Facing Li Nanke's scolding, Li Donghai remained silent.
"Think about it carefully."
Li Nanke was too lazy to persuade him any more and was about to leave.
"In my hut..." Li Donghai finally relented and said quietly, "The second brick on the left side at the top of the door can be opened. There is a key inside."
key?
Hearing Li Donghai mention the "thatched room", Li Nanke suddenly remembered that when he sent Yu Hongye to monitor the other party, the woman said that Li Donghai sometimes stayed in the thatched room for a long time.
At that time, Li Nanke wanted to investigate, but he was too busy and forgot about it.
"You hid some incriminating evidence in the treasure chest?"
Li Nanke asked.
The fact that the other party hid the key in that kind of place means that there is a hidden locked box.
And there must be something that Li Donghai cannot see in the box.
However, the other party shook his head.
"No." Li Nanke said bitterly, "For a chess piece like me, it is impossible for the underworld to let me know too many secrets.
I got that key by chance two years ago.
On the day when Prince Anping's daughter Bai Fenghuang was attacked, I received a mission to go to Hecun to investigate a Hongyu case."
"Hecun..."
Li Nanke frowned when he heard this name.
During his previous investigation of Xiaolei Village, he learned that thirty years ago the village was divided into Shang Xiaolei Village and Xia Xiaolei Village.
Later, Xiaxiaolei Village was divided and changed into Hecun Village.
This is the village where Grandma Meng Xiaotu lives.
Five years later, the capital provided policy subsidies to allow the people of He Village to relocate to the city, and then the villagers moved one after another.
Only Meng Xiaotu's grandma did not enter the city, but she did not stay in the village either, but stayed outside Phoenix Mountain.
Hecun was completely in ruins.
So it is indeed strange that Li Donghai went to an abandoned village to investigate a case two years ago.
"What Hongyu case is being investigated?" Li Nanke asked.
Li Donghai said: "At that time, the Night Patrol Division investigated and found out that Ji Tianhao was planning to make a deal with the underworld in Phoenix Mountain, so I reported the news secretly and prepared to act together with Shangguan Guan and the others.
But on the way, I received a message from the underworld, asking me to go to Hecun to investigate a red rain case on the pretext of receiving a report.
It is said that someone in Hecun secretly hid Hongyu.
I searched for it based on the address provided, and actually found a batch of hidden red rain.
I brought the red rain back to the Night Watch Division, but accidentally knocked over a box of red rain during transportation, and found a key in one of the bottles.
I didn't tell anyone about this and hid the key secretly.
Later, the batch of red rain was transported to the capital by the people above. During this period, the underworld never found me.
It wasn't until seven days later that the underworld suddenly sent someone to ask me if I had touched the batch of red rain. I said no. After that, the matter was settled.
So I guess this key is more important to the underworld.
Maybe someone from the capital came to answer the call, but found that the key was missing, so he came to question me."
After listening to Li Donghai's statement, Li Nanke fell into deep thought.
At that time, Hecun was a desolate place, and the underworld could have been found by oneself, but Li Donghai was sent to find it.
Obviously, the underworld plans to use the Night Watch Division's red rain transportation mechanism to directly deliver the key hidden inside to someone in the capital.
But why don't they just send it over?
It's safer this way.
I think there is only one reason.
They have never met the mysterious man in the capital, and there is no way to hand him over in person, so they must use this method.
All their communications are remote.
It can even be guessed that this method of transporting items was proposed by the mysterious man in the capital. But I never expected that something went wrong in the middle.
It is enough to show that the man in the capital takes his disguise very seriously.
Identity is even more complicated.
Li Nanke crossed his arms on his chest and muttered to himself:
"It stands to reason that these confiscated red rains are sent to the capital and destroyed uniformly. There are very few people who can encounter these red rains, so..."
"So there is a high probability that he is someone from the palace or the Night Patrol Department of the capital."
Li Donghai gave the answer.
"Perhaps, they are people from the palace." Li Nanke's eyes flashed with a sharp light and he murmured to himself.
Li Donghai hesitated for a moment and said calmly: "In addition, I suggest you go investigate Hecun. You may gain something unexpected."
…
After bidding farewell to Li Donghai, Li Nanke went to the other party's home and found a box in the tiles on the wall of the latrine.
There is indeed a key inside.
Only when he saw it with his own eyes did Li Nanke realize the uniqueness of this key.
The shape of the key is very unique and exquisite, with a round head and a Bagua pattern engraved on it, consisting of two complete rings in black and white.
The end of the key handle is inlaid with four small balls cut from amethyst stone, and is also engraved with rune-like symbols, with layered irregular geometric shapes.
With just one glance, you can truly feel the mysterious feeling exuded by this strange key.
It has a very noble and evil feeling.
And after watching it for a little longer, I seemed to be deeply attracted and completely forgot about the passage of time.
Li Nanke tried hard to distinguish the symbols, which vaguely resembled the twelve earthly branches and had very strange shapes.
"What the hell is this?"
Li Nanke was confused, so he simply put the key in his arms and left the courtyard.
After that, he went to the case file library to look for some old case files about Hecun. But after looking through it for a long time, he found that all the files related to Xiaolei Village had been torn up!
It looked like someone had torn it off on purpose a long time ago.
At this moment, Li Nanke realized the seriousness of the problem.
At the same time, other doubts hidden in my heart also emerged. Why was the imperial court so concerned about such a small mountain village and thoughtfully provided relocation subsidies?
A good village will be ruined at the drop of a hat.
What happened during this period?
Inexplicably, Li Nanke felt a chill down his back.
He always felt like there was a huge black hole vortex behind him, trying to swallow him inside.
"Oh shit!"
Li Nanke hammered the bookshelf hard and took a long breath to relax himself.
He returned the files to the bookshelf and left the archives.
Although there are many doubts, the most important thing at the moment is to investigate Qifeng Mountain, and I don't know what the three points marked on Chu Yunxin's map are.
