My Promotion Story Through Time Travel

Chapter 135 Watchtower

There were no statues of gods inside the tower; it was completely empty and exposed.

"His Highness the Sixth Prince has led his men to inspect the place thoroughly many times," Lin Ziping said.

Old Huang looked them over and asked, "Did they find anything?"

Lin Ziping shook his head: "I don't know."

Shi Yong said, "Alright, the lord arranged for us to check this place out, let's look around a bit more."

The three had a clear division of labor: Lao Huang was in charge of the bottom floor, Shi Yong checked the second floor, and Lin Ziping searched the third floor.

Lin Ziping said to Shi Yong, "Brother Shi, there's a scratch over there. We suspect the arrow came from there, and they might have a crossbow."

Shi Yong nodded: "Okay, I'll be careful. You be careful."

Lin Ziping walked to the third-floor corridor and looked out through the window. The entire mountain village came into view once again.

He saw the Xiao family leading their men to search house by house, carrying out the corpses from the houses and placing them in the square.

He saw Magistrate Wei bowing and scraping obsequiously as he spoke to Chen Feng.

He saw a flock of birds fly across the sky, through the entire village, and then disappear without a trace.

Lin Ziping withdrew his gaze and surveyed the entire mountain village. A movie he had watched before came to mind. He had forgotten the main plot, but he vaguely remembered that the entire village was interconnected underground, and every household had dug tunnels. The guerrilla warfare and tunnel warfare of the modern era were also very famous.

Could it be that this mountain stronghold is also riddled with underground tunnels?

Lin Ziping recalled the layout of the entire mountain stronghold he had just seen, as well as the tower where he was staying.

He couldn't tell what materials the tower was made of, but it was definitely not concrete. Judging from the productivity of that era, it was probably a wooden or stone structure.

In my own time, the foundations of high-rise buildings were usually used as underground parking lots. This tower is about ten meters high, so it doesn't seem impossible to build a basement using its foundation. Besides, the group of people who shot arrows at me before entering the tower have not been found to this day, as if they disappeared into thin air. They are very likely hiding underground.

But then he was puzzled again. If there was a basement, why did Wang Changping and his men search inside and out, up and down, several times without finding it?

Although Lin Ziping did not know whether Wang Changping and his team had found any clues, he had no doubt about the professionalism of these people who had received professional and technical education in this era and had rich work experience.

Honestly, if he had the chance, a technical education school with guaranteed job placement and a permanent position after graduation would have been a dream school in the old days. Lin Ziping would have fought tooth and nail to get it.

Getting back to the main point, Lin Ziping turned to look downstairs. Old Huang was conducting a thorough search from the tower walls to the floor, but it seemed he wasn't making any progress.

Am I overthinking things?

Did those people just vanish into thin air? Is there some inhuman force in this era?

A battle raged within his mind, and Lin Ziping found himself in a stalemate between science and metaphysics.

He couldn't help but look around the corridor. The other side of the cliff was shrouded in mist, and the scenery was beautiful, but he couldn't see anything else.

Returning to the previous position, we turned our gaze back to the mountain stronghold.

Suddenly, the watchtowers on both sides of the village gate caught Lin Ziping's attention. Logically speaking, such structures, which serve to guard the entire village, should be the tallest. However, the tower he was currently standing on was clearly the tallest in the village, offering a complete view of the entire village. From this perspective, the watchtowers seemed somewhat superfluous.

Moreover, since it's at the main entrance, most people's attention is focused on the people coming in and out, and without any particularly striking colors or designs, it's easily overlooked.

It feels like reaching the summit and then few people notice the ant struggling to climb to the bottom.

With this thought in mind, Lin Ziping suddenly felt enlightened.

There's definitely something fishy about those two watchtowers!

"Brother Shi, look at those two watchtowers at the gate of the village," Lin Ziping said to Shi Yong.

"Where? Is there a problem? Let me take a look." Shi Yong said as he walked to the position where Lin Ziping was standing on the second floor.

Lin Ziping asked, "Did you see it at the gate of the mountain stronghold?"

"Oh, you mean the watchtower? Is there a problem? You haven't been here long, so you might not be familiar with it. These watchtowers are very common; almost every mountain stronghold has one, used to observe the situation outside," Shi Yong explained.

"No, Brother Shi, if we're just looking at the situation outside, isn't this tower we're in sufficient? We can see everything around here very clearly. Isn't building another watchtower a bit redundant?" Lin Ziping hurriedly said.

Shi Yong pondered for a moment: "What you said doesn't make sense, but even if both of these exist, they don't contradict each other."

"Why build a watchtower when there's already a tower here?"

Why can't we have both?

……

The two got caught up in a vicious cycle of arguing about whether the chicken or the egg came first.

"Have you two discovered anything?" Old Huang's voice came from below.

The two of them stopped talking abruptly.

Lin Ziping said, "Old Huang, I think there's something wrong with those two watchtowers at the entrance."

“Isn’t it normal for a mountain stronghold to have watchtowers?” Shi Yong continued. “We shouldn’t waste our energy on trivial matters. Lin Ziping, you just said that the thugs who attacked the Sixth Prince and his men disappeared in this tower, which means there’s something strange about it. We should search here as soon as possible and find clues.”

“But the Sixth Prince’s guards have already searched the place thoroughly, and we’ve searched for a long time now, but we haven’t found anything,” Lin Ziping argued. “I think we should look somewhere else.”

"Lin Ziping was assigned by the master to inspect this tower. Do you have any objections to the master's arrangement?" Shi Yong chuckled.

"I...I..." Lin Ziping was speechless.

Old Huang looked at the two of them and said to Lin Ziping, "Ziping, I know you want to find clues as soon as possible, but there has to be a method to doing things. Just follow the instructions from above."

Lin Ziping understood what Lao Huang meant: if you don't stand out, you won't attract attention; if you don't innovate, you won't make mistakes.

Thinking of the people buried under the collapsed iron mine, Lin Ziping felt a tightness in his chest and a sense of unease. He said, "Old Huang, Brother Shi, you guys check here first. I'll go check the watchtower and come back. If the magistrate investigates, I... I'll take full responsibility."

Old Huang looked up and stared at Lin Ziping for a long time before sighing, "Go ahead, but come back quickly."

"Old Huang!" Shi Yong slapped the railing in the corridor.

“Yongzi, since no one has any clues right now, why not let Ziping go and take a look?” Old Huang said.

Lin Ziping ran down the stairs and waved to the two men at the door: "Old Huang, Brother Shi, don't worry, I'll be right back."

Watching Lin Ziping's disappearing figure, Shi Yong poked his head out and said, "Just let him go like that?"

"What else can we do? Can we stop them?" Old Huang rolled his eyes at Shi Yong.

"How should we explain this to the higher-ups?" Shi Yong frowned.

"It's alright, just tell the truth, we can't stop you," Old Huang said. "Let's get to work."