"Second Miss!" Gao Zhou came back and presented the scroll, "It has been signed."
Xia Zhaoyi took it, looked at it a few times and then put it away: "You did a good job."
Gao Zhou was happy: "Thank you, Miss Second, for the compliment!"
Xia Zhaoyi was not in a hurry to leave and looked up at the soldiers and horses slowly retreating in the distance.
Xia Junnan himself came on horseback: "Second Miss, they have really left."
"As long as there is a court, there must be power in the game," Xia Zhaoyi said slowly, "There are more than 8,000 people, and the commander who led the troops this time cannot afford to lose."
"The second young lady is smart, she can defeat others without fighting, and she still has enough mercy!"
"The battle is over," Xia Zhaoyi smiled lightly, "Everyone has worked hard this time. Once their ransom comes, we will buy all the houses and houses for everyone."
"Don't say goodbye!" Xia Junnan said hurriedly, "Second Miss, if you buy Zhuangzi's house, everyone will run away!"
Xia Zhaoyi's smile became brighter, and he pulled the reins and turned around: "There will always be a day to disarm and return to the fields. Let's go back to the city."
The sky is getting darker and darker, and the lights on the outskirts of the village are lit up, making them bright like stars near and far.
The outskirts of the city have been particularly lively these days. There are often troops running back and forth, even at night. Pedestrians on the road have long been accustomed to this and have to give way in advance.
When there were still two big village households that could enter Hengxiang, near an ancestral hall outside the village, I suddenly heard a frightened scream. It was a girl.
Xia Zhaoyi immediately reined in his horse, and the soldiers and horses following him stopped.
Before Xia Zhaoyi could say anything, Zhan Ning said first, "Second Miss, I'll take someone to take a look."
"Be careful." Xia Zhaoyi said.
Zhan Ning led three soldiers forward, crossed a wide stone bridge, and disappeared behind the shade of lush trees.
The screams also attracted many nearby villagers, who all came running. Seeing the troops here, some of them had the courage to say hello.
"Second Miss!" Zhan Ning came back quickly, "There are two corpses! One was wearing the armor of the Hengxiang Guard Station and was buried underground!"
"Where's the other one?" Xia Zhaoyi asked.
"Ordinary commoners."
Xia Zhaoyi got off the horse and said, "Take me there."
The girl who found the body was frightened and crying.
The body was dug up from the ground by wild dogs. She happened to be passing by with a lantern, smelled the smell and walked over. Unexpectedly, she saw such a scene.
Zhan Ning and the others had lit torches. Under the firelight, the two corpses had just begun to rot, and there were many insects on them.
There was a soldier wearing armor buried outside. Xia Zhaoyi looked at the soldier inside and suddenly paused, "It turned out to be Cao Yu."
"Give me a stick." Xia Zhaoyi looked at Xia Junnan.
Xia Junnan immediately went to chop it.
Xia Zhaoyi used wooden branches to untie Cao Yu's clothes, and a strong stench made many villagers watching the excitement vomit.
"Stop making noise! Be quiet!" Xia Junnan whispered to them.
Everyone covered their mouths with their hands and watched from a distance as the girl deftly opened the deceased's clothes with a wooden branch.
The body under the clothes was crawling with insects, but the old and new wounds on the body showed how much torture and difficulties the deceased had suffered during his lifetime.
"It's pitiful to die so tragically." Zhan Ning said while holding a torch.
"It's not pitiful," Xia Zhaoyi said, "He is full of sins and deserves to die."
"Second Miss knows him?" Zhan Ning was surprised.
"Longhutang, Cao Yu," Xia Zhaoyi said in a calm voice, "the horse bandits in Zhaoyun Mountain."
"That's really what you deserve!" Zhanning said.
After Xia Zhaoyi carefully inspected it, he found that the fatal wound should be the knife on the neck.
She looked at the other body again.
The armor was in dilapidated condition, and the cut on his neck was deeper than Cao Yu's wound, almost cutting off his head.
Xia Zhaoyi looked at it several times and then looked up at the ancestral hall.
It's a very simple ancestral hall, nothing special about it.
"Here comes someone." Xia Zhaoyi said.
"The general is here!" Xia Junnan, Xia Chuan and their left and right lieutenants responded at the same time.
"Dig three feet into the ground to see if there are any other corpses, and pay attention to whether there is an entrance to a secret passage within a radius of half a mile."
"Yes!" everyone said.
The soldiers did as they were told and started going to nearby places to borrow tools.
Some villagers offered to help, and Xia Zhaoyi agreed.
More villagers stood outside the open space and watched, sometimes looking at the soldiers digging, and sometimes looking at the girl standing next to the corpse, looking down at the corpse.
A large group of burly men obeyed such a thin and slender girl and let her give orders, which they had never seen before.
This is the girl Ali, the orphan of Duke Dingguo, a nobleman who was extremely honorable in the prosperous years!
"Second Miss, there is something discovered here!" a soldier suddenly shouted.
Xia Zhaoyi immediately walked there with his left and right guards.
Under Zhan Ning's firelight, what appeared was not a corpse, but bones.
Xia Zhaoyi knelt down on one knee and used a wooden branch in his hand to pick them apart. There were four bodies in total, and from the looks of it, they had been buried together.
"These should have been dead for a long time," Zhan Ning said.
"At least two years." Xia Zhaoyi said.
"How did the second lady know?" Zhan Ning was curious.
"This kind of weed grows very slowly," Xia Zhaoyi picked the branch in his hand, "their roots are under the corpse."
"Second Miss, the water has been dug out!" Xia Junnan shouted not far away.
Xia Zhaoyi immediately took people there.
It was dug down three feet deep here, and yellow water kept emerging. It was turbid and dirty, completely different from the nearby stream.
"What kind of water is this?" Zhan Ning frowned, "It seems to be rust?"
Suddenly, this piece collapsed slightly downward.
Xia Zhaoyi and others took a step back, and the guards stood in front of Xia Zhaoyi while retreating.
"No, you guys get out of the way." Xia Zhaoyi motioned for them to retreat, looking at the pit where yellow water was still rising.
More and more yellow water comes out, and at the same time, the pit collapses more and more.
Suddenly, there was a sudden collapse, and the pit, which was about half a foot long and wide, collapsed completely, leaving a large black hole inside.
Zhan Ning carefully poked out the torch. Under the cave, there happened to be the edge of a stone frame.
Half of it is concrete stone walls, and the other half is yellow turbid stagnant water.
