In the early morning, sunlight streamed through the window, casting dappled gold across the floor.

Shen Wan woke up, sat on the bed and stretched. Seeing that Yinshuang and Haitang hadn't entered the room, she called out, "Yinshuang..."

After calling twice, the door finally opened, and Yinshuang came running in, saying, "Your Highness, something has happened to the heir of the Duke of Mao..."

Shen Wan was just getting out of bed when she heard this and froze. "What happened to the heir of the Duke of Mao?"

Silver Frost's eyes sparkled as she said, "The heir of the Duke of Mao was hung on the city gate last night."

Shen Wan, “…???”

The heir of the Duke of Mao was hung from the city gate?

Shen Wan was completely stunned by the news.

Yinshuang was very excited. "Everyone is guessing whether it was the masked man who fought with the heir of the Duke of Maoguo in the street yesterday who did it."

Not to mention Yinshuang, even Shenwan had some doubts, after all, there were very few people in the whole capital who dared to provoke the heir of the Duke of Maoguo.

After Shen Wan finished washing up, Xie Jingyan returned from his morning exercise, and Shen Wan asked him, "Was it a masked man who did the hanging of the heir of the Duke of Maoguo on the city wall?"

"It's him."

"..."

It really was him.

Although Shen Wan had guessed it, she was still extremely impressed when she actually heard it.

The heir of the Duke of Maoguo, relying on being the Empress Dowager's maternal grand-nephew, acted recklessly in the capital, showing no regard for anyone. He almost killed Princess Huyang's own flesh and blood, nearly causing a major disaster, and still shows no remorse. He truly deserves a severe lesson.

but--

Shen Wan said, "The heir of the Duke of Maoguo was hung on the city gate all night, and the city patrol didn't even notice?"

Um.

The prestige of the city patrol division has been challenged like never before.

During a night patrol, someone actually hung the heir of the Duke of Maoguo on the city wall right under the patrol officers' noses. This was a slap in the face to the patrol officers.

Of course, the most humiliated was the Duke of Mao's mansion, which also caused the Empress Dowager to lose face.

Xie Jingyan placed a spiced packet into Chen Wan's bowl and said, "The city patrol discovered it last night. The heir of the Duke of Maoguo was beaten black and blue. Tang Ze and Lu Cheng weren't sure it was him, so they didn't let him go. When the patrol reached the Duke of Maoguo's mansion, they knocked on the door and asked the servants if their young master was missing..."

Shen Wan, "..."

Black lines were piling up on my forehead.

This method of handling the matter reveals a strong sense of personal grudge.

That would absolutely infuriate Duke Maoguo.

Even if the heir of the Duke of Maoguo was beaten black and blue and couldn't be recognized, they could have just let him go and asked him. Instead, Tang Ze and Lu Cheng chose to go to the Duke of Maoguo's mansion in the middle of the night to knock on the door and ask if the heir was missing. The gatekeepers were already being kind by opening the door for them. How could they possibly go and verify whether the heir of the Duke of Maoguo was missing?

Their young master got lost in his own mansion, wouldn't that be a laughing stock?

Last night, Tang Ze and Lu Cheng heard the servant of the Duke of Maoguo's mansion, suppressing his anger at having his sweet dreams disturbed, say with absolute certainty that their young master was in the mansion and was sleeping at the moment, so they couldn't laugh even if they wanted to.

The city patrol bureau inquired, but the Duke of Mao's mansion didn't seem to care about losing its heir, so the city patrol bureau couldn't be blamed.

Originally, if the Duke of Mao's heir had been released at night and some silver had been given to the city patrol officers to keep quiet, the news that the Duke of Mao's heir had been arrested in his own residence would not have spread, and he would not have lost face. The Duke of Mao's heir would not have had to be hung up all night, suffering all night, and then, at dawn, everyone would see it, and his face would be shattered beyond repair.

Who would have thought that the heir of the Duke of Mao was arrested in his own residence...

The heir of the Duke of Maoguo was narrow-minded and vindictive. He suffered repeated setbacks at the hands of Xie Jingyan, but could do nothing against him. Knowing that the man and Xie Jingyan knew each other before, he took his anger out on the man.

The servant found out which inn the man was staying at and forced the inn's young waiter to drug the man's tea. The waiter had never done anything like this before and panicked, which the man noticed.

The man remained calm, pretending to drink tea, then fainted on the table. He was then stuffed into a sack and carried into the Duke of Mao's mansion by the Duke's servant.

When the heir of the Duke of Mao arrived, the servant untied the sack. The heir squatted down to remove the mask from the man's face, but the man raised his hand and knocked the heir unconscious. Before the two servants in the room could react, they were also knocked unconscious by the hidden weapon the man carried.

The servants guarding the door heard the commotion, but no one paid any attention to it.

The man whipped the heir of the Duke of Maoguo a few times, stripped him of his clothes and put them on him, then stuffed the heir into a sack, threw him out the door, and ordered the servant guarding the door, "Quietly throw him out the back door."

The man was already risking everything by feigning unconsciousness and being brought into the Duke of Mao's mansion. Taking away the Duke of Mao's heir under the strict guards of the mansion was as difficult as climbing to heaven. He could only rely on the servants of the Duke of Mao's mansion to accomplish this task.

The two servants felt that the few lashes given by the heir of the Duke of Maoguo were too light, not even enough for them to catch people at the inn, so they kicked the person in the sack a few more times.

Under the cover of night, two servants carried sacks out of the mansion through the back gate, with a man dressed in the brocade robes of the heir of the Duke of Mao following behind. No one noticed anything amiss. When they reached the side gate, the guards were less vigilant, and the man climbed over the wall and left the Duke of Mao's mansion.

After the servants threw away the sack, the man picked it up, avoided the city patrol officers, and went to the city gate, where he hung the heir of the Duke of Maoguo on the city wall.

Poor Duke Mao learned during the morning court session that his son had been taken out of the mansion and hung on the city gate the night before, and he almost died of anger in the court.

When the Empress Dowager heard about this, she was furious and her vision blurred with rage.

When the Prince of Yanping and the eldest master of the Duke of Tan's mansion returned home after court, they heard that the city patrol had found the heir of the Duke of Mao hanging on the city gate the night before. They immediately felt dizzy and disoriented. Upon hearing about the way the man had used his position to settle personal scores, they were so angry that they ordered someone to go to the city patrol to bring the rebellious son back to the mansion.

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