Chapter 53 I must be cruel to Yuan Wanru next time

Lu Jiangnian decisively refused: "No."

His interrogation methods were always brutal. If she got scared and fell ill, she wouldn't know how she would scold him.

Yuan Wanru probably understood his concerns, she smiled and said: "I am quite courageous, I am not afraid even if you skin me alive."

"Besides, even if you were really scared, I wouldn't blame you."

Does that mean she is determined to follow him?

His eyebrows twisted into a "川" shape, and he disagreed: "What if I don't agree?"

Yuan Wanru put away the smile on her face, her eyes were full of loneliness and sadness, then she turned around silently and no longer looked at him.

Lu Jiangnian struggled for a while and said, "Forget it. Don't blame me if you get scared."

She immediately turned her head back to look at him, her eyes full of smiles, expectation and joy pouring out: "No way."

With bright eyes, he suddenly thought of a poem, "The sun and the moon shine brightly, day after day."

He took a deep breath, feeling like he'd been fooled again.

Why is she so good at pretending to be pitiful?

She lowered her head slightly, or remained silent, looking as if she had suffered a great deal of injustice, making it difficult for him to refuse her request.

Next time, be more ruthless.

-

In a dark room in the East Palace, the guard was hung high.

The identity of this person has been found out. He is an ordinary guard of the Eastern Palace named Ma Zhen.

Ma Zhen's lower jaw had been reconnected. He was beaten with a barbed whip and his skin was torn. His two hands were drooping, and one of them even had exposed bones. He looked very tragic.

Lu Jiangnian was still wearing the same dark brocade robe. A faint smile appeared on his handsome face. He patted Ma Zhen's face and said, "Aren't you going to tell me yet? If you tell me, I can make you happy."

When Ma Zhen was caught cheating, he was still in a daze and had not yet recovered from the effects of the drugs.

When Lu Jiangnian removed his jaw, he used some clever force to make him temporarily deaf, so Ma Zhen couldn't hear what the people around him were saying at all.

He didn't know that the woman in the side room was not the wife of the Marquis of Loyalty and Bravery.

But Lu Jiangnian was a frequent visitor to the Eastern Palace, so Ma Zhen certainly knew him.

Thinking of Lu Jiangnian's kick, his eyes turned red and he taunted arrogantly: "Master Lu, even if you kill me, so what?"

"It's worth dying for Ma Zhen to have cuckolded the high and mighty Lu Jiangnian."

"The taste of the wife of the loyal and brave Marquis's son is really good."

Lu Jiangnian punched him in the chest. Ma Zhen's ears buzzed, his throat felt sweet, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.

Then, he took out a dagger and pointed it at Ma Zhen's face: "You're just being stubborn, aren't you?"

"Unfortunately, the person in the side room with you is just a palace maid."

"Ma Zhen, do you think you lost your life unjustly?"

He showed a ferocious smile on his face. He pried open Ma Zhen's mouth and tapped it lightly with a dagger, and one of Ma Zhen's front teeth fell out.

"These teeth aren't that hard."

Ma Zhen's pupils shrank. He didn't expect that he would end up like this. He actually made a mistake!

Oh my God, are you kidding him?

He had a mouthful of blood and angrily spat at Lu Jiangnian.

Lu Jiangnian moved quickly and dodged it.

He turned back to look at the prince and sneered, "Your subordinate still has some backbone, but it's a pity that he is a traitor."

The prince looked at Ma Zhen calmly and said, "I checked and found that you were assigned here when I moved from Xuanzhe Palace to the East Palace seven years ago."

"I have lived a peaceful life these years. I am nearly 30 years old, but I have not yet started a family."

"It seems that from the beginning, you were someone else's pawn."

Ever since he found out Ma Zhen's background, Lu Jiangnian has realized that it would be difficult to pry Ma Zhen open his mouth.

Regardless of whether the plot against Yuan Wanru succeeds today, as long as Ma Zhen is caught, there will be only one outcome for him, and that is death.

Ma Zhen knew the result, he would not survive. If Lu Jiangnian did not have something that could threaten him, he would not speak.

Yuan Wanru walked over slowly, and Lu Jiangnian opened his arms to stop her: "There's blood on the ground, what are you doing here?"

The prince raised his eyebrows. So nervous?

For Lu Jiangnian, a killing god on the battlefield, blood is nothing strange to him, but he is afraid of tarnishing the Yuan family?

Is this still the Lu Jiangnian who came to him for a drink to relieve his worries and didn’t want to get married?

Yuan Wanru stopped, looked at Ma Zhen, and said, "You are not afraid of death, but if the woman you love knew that you did such a beastly thing, how would she look at you?"

Ma Zhen's eyelids twitched, but he didn't look up.

She still spoke softly and said a name: "Fang Ming, it must be her, your sweetheart."

Ma Zhen, who was hanging on the rack like a corpse, looked up suddenly when he heard the name, and looked at Yuan Wanru fiercely: "Why are you..."

He realized something and suddenly closed his mouth.

Yuan Wanru chuckled: "The law of nature is clear. You have harmed others. Do you think you can hide your deeds from the world?"

"Ma Zhen, you better keep your life for now."

"Maybe one day, your secrets can save her life."

The prince understood what she meant and knew that further questioning would yield no results, so he had Ma Zhen taken away.

Lu Jiangnian asked curiously: "What is the origin of this Fang Ming?"

Yuan Wanru shook her head: "When Ma Zhen was doing that with Caidie in that room, I heard him shout this name. Actually, he said it vaguely, so I couldn't hear it clearly. I just tricked him just now."

"However, judging from his reaction, I got the pronunciation right. It depends on whether you can figure out which two words they are."

Fortunately, she put half of the hallucinogen in the incense burner. When Ma Zhen gave it to the eunuch, he must have inhaled a lot of it. So he probably mistook Caidie for the "Fang Ming" he liked, and couldn't help but call out this name.

The reason why she followed was to test whether the name was correct through Ma Zhen's reaction.

This name might be an important clue in the future.

Lu Jiangnian's handsome face fell: "Are you a woman or not? You actually listened to that..."

She is a lady from a wealthy family. How could she listen to those obscene words?

But she looked at him with teasing eyes: "It's not that embarrassing for me to listen to it alone, but you are listening to it with more than a dozen people. I can't even compare to you in terms of fun."

Lu Jiangnian was furious: "I thought you had fallen into a trap, but when I found out that the person inside was not you, I immediately turned around and left. There was no such thing as the 'fun' you mentioned!"

Yuan Wanru thought about the situation at that time, and it seemed that Lu Jiangnian had really turned around and left, standing quite far away from the wing room.

She looked curious: "How do you know I'm not in there?"

Lu Jiangnian wanted to say something, but then he realized that the prince, such a grown man, was still standing there, watching them with great interest, as if he was watching a play.

He immediately changed the subject: "Let's not talk about this, Your Highness, have someone bring in the maid and the eunuch."

The prince asked teasingly, "No, why are you so anxious? I want to know too. You didn't even open the door, so how do you know that the person inside is not your wife?"

Lu Jiangnian snorted in a very disrespectful manner: "Go ask the sky."

The prince laughed loudly. He had a premonition that Lu Jiangnian's heart of stone was about to bloom.