Zhan Zhao Adventures Episode 30 Recap
> Zhan Zhao Adventures Recaps
Zhan Zhao, Bai Yutang, and Huo Linglong questioned Zhong Shou about why the assassin Luo Chang Shui had tried to kill him. Zhong Shou played innocent, claiming that after burying his niece Jin Niang years ago, he had traveled constantly to trade in medicinal herbs. He insisted he had no ties to the powerful Zhao family and had no idea why anyone would want him dead.
Unconvinced by his excuses, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang secretly trailed him after he departed. Their suspicions were validated when they followed him to a quiet medical clinic, catching him and a corrupt physician red-handed as they forcibly drugged a terrified young woman. Dragged before Magistrate Hu Xiaochen, the two criminals were forced to confess.
Zhong Shou admitted that years ago, when ghost marriages were popular in Xiangzhou, a wealthy family offered two hundred taels of silver for a young woman's corpse. Driven by greed, he had desecrated Jin Niang's grave and sold her body. Realizing how lucrative the trade was, he partnered with the black-hearted clinic physician to secure more "merchandise."
Because finding natural female corpses was difficult, they had resorted to drugging nine healthy young women across Yicheng, Sui County, and Wanshan County, staging their deaths to sell them as ghostly brides. Furious at their cruelty, Hu Xiaochen ordered them imprisoned to await execution. Seeking deeper answers, Zhan Zhao visited the prison to interrogate Zhong Shou further.
The prisoner revealed that his business had dried up everywhere except Wanshan County, where his most recent client was a man named Wang Heng, who had purchased a corpse for his deceased brother, Wang Qing. Troubled by the sheer number of young men dying under mysterious circumstances within a year, Zhan Zhao shared his doubts with Hu Xiaochen.
The magistrate explained that the deaths were likely the work of the depraved Xiuluo Cult, which had used locals for human sacrifices and poison testing before his administration successfully drove them out. Zhan Zhao remained highly skeptical. If Wang Qing had indeed been murdered, he questioned why his family had remained silent instead of reporting it, and how ordinary families could suddenly afford hundreds of taels of silver for ghost marriages.
To find answers, Zhan Zhao, Bai Yutang, and Huo Linglong investigated Wang Heng's residence. However, the family had already fled overnight, leaving behind spoiled food. Before they could pursue them, urgent news arrived from the prison: both Zhong Shou and the physician had been silenced, killed with professional precision. Bai Yutang immediately suspected a traitor within the county office who knew the guards' rotation schedules.
Hu Xiaochen fiercely defended his officers, stating he trusted his men just as Zhan Zhao trusted Bai Yutang and Huo Linglong, and refused to believe anyone close to him had turned. Later that evening, over drinks, a semi-drunk Hu Xiaochen finally lowered his guard. He admitted that Wanshan County was harboring dark undercurrents and confessed he knew Zhan Zhao was in town to purge the Lord of Xiangyang's faction.
Pledging his full support, Hu Xiaochen agreed to Zhan Zhao's request to exhume Wang Qing's body. The exhumation went ahead, and the coroner determined that Wang Qing had died from severe internal trauma and fractures, consistent with a heavy fall or being crushed by a heavy object, rather than poison. Neighbors revealed that Wang Qing had left home to work on a mysterious, high-paying job.
However, when the team tried to exhume another victim, Liu Er Lang, a hostile crowd led by the victim's brother, Liu San Lang, and angry village elders blocked them. They accused the outsiders of bringing trouble to their peaceful town, forcing Zhan Zhao to halt the exhumation to prevent a riot. Meanwhile, Bai Yutang checked Zhan Zhao's pulse using the "Classic of Pulse Diagnosis" and noticed that the green poison marks on his body were spreading.
Despite the gravity of his illness, Zhan Zhao remained cheerful and brushed off the danger. That night, Zhu Ming Yuan secretly met with an envoy, revealing that he had killed Luo Chang Shui to protect Wanshan County's secrets. He urged the messenger to warn their master to prepare for Zhan Zhao's next moves.
While Bai Yutang hid Zhan Zhao's worsening condition from young Ming Zhu'er to keep him from worrying, he privately urged Zhan Zhao to take care of his health. Recalling that Jin Niang's husband had also vanished in his prime, Zhan Zhao realized that their best course of action was to leave Wanshan County and head to Gucheng County to dig into the ten-year-old case.
He wanted to uncover why Zhao Yue An had targeted Jin Niang, a simple market woman with whom he had no personal grievance. Entrusting Ming Zhu'er and Zhao Zhi'er to Hu Xiaochen's care, the trio departed. In Gucheng County, they met Jin Niang's mother-in-law, who explained that Jin Niang had gone searching for her husband, Duan Shi Lang, who was working at Jiuzhou Mountain.
Instead, she discovered his remains alongside a dozen other young men buried in a shallow mass grave. Realizing the conspiracy spanned a decade and involved multiple regions, the group went to investigate the Zhao family cemetery. There, they noticed that Zhao Yue An's tomb was strangely neglected. They deduced that Zhao Yue An had faked his death to protect his family's highly illegal, deadly labor operations after the murder of Jin Niang.
Determined to expose the truth, Bai Yutang abducted Zhao Yue An's father, Zhao Zheng De. Under the threat of a blade, a terrified Zhao Zheng De admitted he had faked his son's death to protect him, though he claimed ignorance regarding the fatal operations on Jiuzhou Mountain. He then revealed a massive secret: Zhao Yue An was actually the illegitimate son of a powerful noble—the Lord of Xiangyang—fostered in their home.
After faking his death, the youth changed his name and was taken to a wealthy estate in Huilonghe. Huo Linglong quickly connected the dots. Huilonghe was a small place with very few wealthy families, and the timeline matched perfectly. Shao Ji Zu, the youngest son of the Shao family, had returned to his household ten years ago at the age of sixteen and was now twenty-six.
While Tang Sect's Xiao Tang (who also fit the age profile) and her own sickly brother, Huo Feng, were also possibilities, Bai Yutang agreed that the arrogant Shao Ji Zu was the most likely suspect. To prevent the mole in Wanshan County from silencing their new witness, they decided to return to Wanshan County first to plan their next steps while keeping Zhao Zheng De hidden outside the yamen. Upon their return, however, they immediately stumbled upon a sudden commotion.
