Chapter 1350 Is He Dead or Not?

etc.

Shu Yu's expression suddenly changed.

The beads that Xiao Songle possessed were left behind at the scene when the Song family was wiped out; they belonged to the murderer.

And the murderer, without any doubt, was someone from Miyagaoka.

Now that the black market manager also has the same string of beads, the manager and the murderer must have a close relationship.

The murderer was from Miyagaki, and the manager... was also from Miyagaki?

Based on this reasoning, is the mastermind behind the black market Miyagaki?

Shu Yu was also surprised by her own speculation. If the black market was really related to Gongqiu, then it seemed reasonable that Steward Guo was unwilling to sell the black market to Meng Yunzheng.

Previously, she and Meng Yunzheng had racked their brains but couldn't figure out what grudge the black market had against him.

Now, it doesn't seem so strange anymore.

But Gongqiu is dead; he was beheaded last year. Yet the black market is still operating, and it's clear someone is still giving orders; even the closure of the Jiangyuan County black market was carried out in an orderly manner.

Before Gongqiu was beheaded, his identity was verified. The Fifth Prince, being such a cautious person, would not have allowed him to escape by falsifying his identity.

No... Gong Qiu's identity was verified, but there was one person whose identity was not verified, and that was the Second Prince.

The second prince was Gong Qiu's son, and the late emperor hated him to the bone and would never let him go.

But the late emperor himself knew this, while others did not. He could not announce to the world that he had been cuckolded.

Therefore, the second prince was still his son. No matter how much he hated him, he could not directly order the death of his own 'son', and the court officials would not agree to it.

Moreover, the second prince harbors rebellious intentions, but he has not yet taken any action.

Throughout history, even those princes who took action did not necessarily end up being sentenced to death.

So the late emperor simply demoted the second prince to a commoner and imprisoned him in a separate courtyard.

Of course, both Shu Yu and Meng Yunzheng knew that the late emperor would not really leave him as a threat. He was looking for an opportunity to make the second prince die before him.

So at the end of last year, just ten days before the late emperor's death, an accident suddenly occurred at the villa.

It is said that the second prince was feeling depressed, so he made a bamboo raft and drifted on the lake in the villa.

Who knew he would slip and fall into the water, and drown?

However, it took several days for the servants in the villa to discover his body. After all, the Second Prince was a demoted commoner who often went hungry, so the servants were unlikely to serve him well.

Moreover, ever since the Second Prince was demoted, he has become extremely irritable and often beats and scolds his servants.

Over time, the servants became unwilling to approach him. They would only leave food at his door when they remembered, otherwise he would go hungry.

This time, after the servants brought the food several times, they found it hadn't been taken into the room, which was strange. So they searched everywhere and finally found the Second Prince's body in the lake.

But by then, the second prince was already swollen and bloated from being soaked in water.

When the late emperor learned of this, he simply had the Court of Judicial Review and the Imperial Guards confirm it, dealt with the servants in the villa, and then hastily buried the deceased.

Everyone says that the second prince is dead.

But what if it wasn't him who died?

Shu Yu had never thought about this before. She thought that the death of the Second Prince must have been caused by the late Emperor, and nothing unexpected would happen.

But if the black market is really related to him and Gongqiu, then wouldn't the Second Prince's death be suspicious?

"Ayu, Ayu? What are you thinking about?" Yuan Shanchuan noticed that she hadn't spoken for a long time, but her complexion was extremely poor, so he couldn't help but worry.

(End of this chapter)