Chapter 146 The voice even included…

Zhong Lishuang looked at the confession handed over by Ming Er and couldn't help but laugh. "The person behind this who dared to embezzle so much disaster relief money is not to be underestimated."

Zhong Lishuang had a vague idea of ​​who could have such ability and kept the matter a secret for so long.

Zhong Lishuang didn't say it aloud, but not all the officials here were colluding with Prefect Qi. Those who were unwilling were still sitting on the sidelines.

They have also been constantly suppressed by others.

Zhong Lishuang had her guards find the person and ordered them to temporarily handle the prefect's affairs. She then led Ming Er to continue their search.

Since Prefect Qi gave the silver to his superiors, then this prefect must also be problematic. It's the protection among officials that allows these people to act with such impunity, even daring to embezzle disaster relief funds.

This group of scoundrels, for their own selfish desires, disregarded the safety of the people. It is because of people like them that the people suffer.

Zhong Lishuang felt like she had skinned them alive.

She took Ming Er to the governor's mansion.

Compared to Prefect Qi, this Governor Lu was much more low-key.

When I saw her, she even had blisters on her lips. When I asked, she said she was so anxious about the flood that she got very upset.

Although surprised by Zhong Lishuang's arrival, he was still deeply moved.

"Your Highness has finally arrived! The famine victims in Indiana are truly saved."

Is she genuinely worried about the people, or about losing her own head?

"Stop spouting nonsense. Qi Xiang said you also took the money she embezzled, Governor Lu. I'm curious, how come so much of the disaster relief funds were missing when they reached your hands?"

Prefect Lu immediately knelt down, saying that she was innocent and that Prefect Qi was clearly framing her.

"Your Highness, I could never have done such a thing. I have been wronged. I beg Your Highness to investigate thoroughly."

"Really? Then how will you prove it?" Zhong Lishuang looked at her.

Governor Lu closed his eyes, looking as if he were ready to die, and said, "I am willing to die to prove my loyalty."

Zhong Lishuang scoffed, "If you die, there will be no way to prove anything, right? Since there's no problem, why would you even think of dying?"

Governor Lu moved his lips and looked at Zhongli Shuang, "Is Your Highness determined to convict me? Even if you want me dead, you should at least provide evidence. Otherwise, it wouldn't be good for Your Highness to bear the blame for forcing a loyal minister to his death."

Are you threatening me?

"Your Majesty, I dare not say that. It is only because I feel that Your Highness has gone too far in your actions..."

Zhongli Shuang kicked him, saying, "How I do things is none of your business."

Governor Lu gritted her teeth and knelt down, never expecting that this Third Prince was far more troublesome than she had imagined.

She argued that the Third Prince said Prefect Qi had implicated her.

She vowed to die to prove her innocence, but the Third Prince said, "If you didn't do it, why are you so anxious? Who are you trying to protect?"

Governor Lu originally thought that the Third Prince's investigation would take some time, and that he could be stalled for a while by going to Prefect Qi's place. Who knew that as soon as she learned that the Third Prince had arrived in the disaster area, the Third Prince came to the governor's mansion and even made Prefect Qi tell her everything he knew.

The Third Prince acted so swiftly that he didn't give her a chance to react. Despite having no evidence, he immediately concluded that she was involved.

Governor Lu hadn't expected them to arrive so quickly, giving her no chance to explain. She didn't even have time to prepare a proper response; she could only cautiously answer the questions, trying to avoid giving the Third Prince any opportunity to find fault.

She's not a fool like Prefect Qi. If the Third Prince can't produce evidence, does he really think he can kill her?

She guessed that Prefect Qi must have been trapped, which was why he revealed his true colors. Therefore, she had carefully considered every word that Prefect Lu said.

He even reminded Zhong Lishuang that without evidence, even if she was a princess, he could not simply kill her, the governor of a prefecture.

As the guards arrived, Ming Er glanced at Zhong Li Shuang, and seeing that the other woman nodded at her, she quietly left.

While Governor Lu was still considering how to answer, Ming Er had already gone to Governor Lu's residence.

She avoided the servants in the mansion and searched through Governor Lu's study, but found no clues.

There were a few paintings hanging in the study, all by famous artists, and they weren't cheap.

She touched everything in the room. Two vases seemed to be fixed in place and could be rotated, but nothing in the room had changed.

These two vases do not appear to be any kind of mechanism.

The Nine Female Masters of Mechanical Arts had told her some things, and they seemed very similar, but after she turned them, there was no reaction.

"Hahahaha, I know this mechanism. I was just studying it."

Seeing the excited system, Xiang Bei tapped it, "I know you're not going to say anything right now."

"Host, can you please calm down? Calm down... Okay, okay, I'll tell you." The system quickly waved its hand as it saw the baseball bat that Xiang Bei had taken out.

Ming Er searched the room for a while, but apart from the two vases, there was nothing else that seemed amiss.

No matter how she turned the vase, no hidden compartment or secret room appeared.

Just when she thought she was going to return empty-handed, a line of text appeared before her eyes.

[The vase on the left, first turn it twice to the right, then three times to the left.]

Seeing the words suddenly appear before him, Ming Er tried turning the vase and heard a slight clicking sound. A bookshelf suddenly moved, revealing a hidden door that had been blocked.

This Prefect Lu is indeed very cautious. Although the vase can be rotated, if it is not rotated correctly, the hidden door will not appear at all.

If anyone asks, I can answer whatever I want.

Ming Er reached out and pushed, but found that it wouldn't budge.

[The vase on your right, just now, rotate three times to the right, then two times to the left.]

He turned the vase back and spun it around. There was another slight clicking sound, and the hidden door slowly opened.

After entering the hidden door and walking quite a distance, they saw the gold and silver treasures hidden inside.

Ming Er held the jewels in his hand, weighed them in his hand, and couldn't help but ask, "How much did they embezzle?"

There's also a hidden door nearby.

With Xiang Bei's guidance, Ming Er found the hidden door, which was almost the same color as the wall. This time there was no mechanism, so he simply pushed the door open and went in.

This hidden door leads to a house outside the city, which Governor Lu probably left for himself to escape.

Ming Er wrote it down, and when he was about to go back, he saw the floating words again.

This Prefect Lu is really cautious; he actually installed a hidden compartment at the exit to conceal secret letters exchanged with others.

Those who corresponded with Governor Lu were also very cautious and did not leave any words that revealed their identities.

The letters were few and far between; they were mostly direct instructions to Governor Lu.

There was a letter on the mail, and the picture on it looked very strange.

Ming Er took everything back and handed it over to the Third Prince.

After reading the letter, Zhong Lishuang's expression also became serious.

The design on the letter was exactly the same as the one used by the assassins who had hunted her down.

He threw the letter written by Governor Lu in front of her, asking, "How do you explain this?"

Governor Lu remained silent.

The other party did not leave their name, but she addressed them as "master" in the letter. She did leave her name on the letter.

"Take it down!" Zhong Lishuang said.

Governor Lu was imprisoned, but no matter how he was tortured, he refused to utter a single word.

Zhong Lishuang looked at her and took out one of the secret letters. "Even if no name was left, I can still recognize the handwriting."

Governor Lu remained silent.

"It's the eldest princess, isn't it? I remember, the eldest princess's husband's surname is Lu."

Zhong Lishuang grabbed Governor Lu's chin and leaned closer, saying, "Back then, it was your Lu family that framed my father for treason, and it was you who sent people to hunt me down, wasn't it?"

In her memory, her father was clearly a gentle and kind person.

He would hold her on the way home from court and wait for her, telling her that her mother was a role model for all people and a monarch.

Her father had always revered his mother, the Empress, so how could he possibly utter such treasonous words and even plot rebellion?

That time, thanks to the Empress Dowager's grace, my father was allowed to return home to visit his family, and she was even allowed to accompany him. But for some reason, my father fell seriously ill after returning home, and when he woke up, he was a completely different person.

He was also saying some strange things.

How can a woman be an emperor? The world should belong to men.

The empress is so beautiful, she should stay obediently in the harem and serve men.

After his father returned home, in addition to seeing his family, someone handed him a letter, inviting him to meet privately.

Zhong Lishuang was still young at the time, and only glanced at it vaguely, not taking it to heart.

She later learned that her father had been engaged to the eldest daughter of the Lu family before he entered the palace.

Unfortunately, the eldest daughter of the Lu family died, and her father was sent to the palace.

The person who arranged to meet the father was the younger sister of Lu's eldest daughter.

"It was you, it must have been you who did something."

Xiang Bei was also completely confused. "Why does this sound so familiar? Director, is there a time traveler here?"

"That shouldn't be the case; there's no indication of any time travelers."

The system checked the current time data and found no time travelers. It then moved the time forward a bit and immediately jumped up.

"Host, there really is a transmigrator, but..."

"But what?" Xiang Bei looked over, her eyes dazzled by the dense data, but she still managed to grasp the key point.

When a transmigrator appeared in the small world, the system immediately reported it and, with permission from its superiors, accurately located the transmigrator.

A male transmigrator transmigrated into the body of a servant in the inner quarters of the Lu family patriarch's residence. Upon discovering that this was a matriarchal world, he spouted nonsense, saying that women should listen to men, stay at home obediently to bear children, and be filial to their parents-in-law.

He also told the head of the Lu family to listen to him from now on, and that he wanted to take the emperor's throne.

One could say, "To die beneath the peony blossoms is to be a romantic ghost."

She even instigated the men in the inner quarters to rebel, to show their manly spirit, to control the women, and to make them obedient to the men from now on.

The men in the inner quarters thought he was crazy and told the head of the household, indicating that they had nothing to do with him.

The time traveler was stabbed to death by the head of the Lu family with a single sword strike.

The person disappeared within three hours of arriving.

The reason he's been able to live this long is because the head of the Lu family listened to those strange and unusual things and kept him alive a little longer in order to pry something out of him.

Otherwise, they could have died even faster.

Later, it was discovered that this person was useless and would only say things that made people angry, so the head of the Lu family sent him away.

She was just a lowly concubine; no one would care if she died.

This person was probably the fastest time traveler to die.

"So, that time traveler later possessed the body of the Third Princess's biological father?"

"No, once that time traveler died, they were gone. There's no way they could possess another body."

"How did the Third Princess's father know about those words?"

Outside the big screen, Governor Lu looked at Zhong Lishuang and actually laughed.

"What's the use of saying all this now, Your Highness? The person is already dead."

"Your Highness, let me handle the interrogation," Ming Er said, helping Zhong Lishuang up.

Zhong Lishuang shifted her gaze from Governor Lu to Ming Er, nodded to her, and added, "Just leave her alive."

Ming Er dragged the man away, and after a while he came out and handed over Governor Lu's confession.

"Gu poison, they used Gu on my father?"

"This is what Governor Lu said: They hired a Gu master to control your father, originally intending to use this to control His Majesty. However, they did not expect that your father was not completely controlled, so they took action."

Zhong Lishuang didn't speak. She had been watching those people torture her father back then.

Ming Er went out with Zhong Lishuang, and the two stood on a high place, overlooking the entire city.

“Ming Er, do you still remember the first time you met me?” Zhong Lishuang suddenly asked.

"Remember."

“Those assassins were sent by the Lu family to kill me. If it weren’t for you, I would probably have already met my demise.”

It was called a family visit, but in reality, my mother granted my father permission to return home to celebrate my maternal grandmother's birthday, and he took her with him.

Who knew that such a change would happen? My father fell ill and was unable to return to the palace on time. My mother, the Empress, graciously allowed my father to stay at my maternal grandmother's house to recuperate.

At that time, she never expected that after her father recovered from his illness, he would often say some outrageous things, and one moment he would push her and tell her to run away quickly.

My maternal grandmother was afraid something bad would happen, so she kept it a secret and didn't dare to say anything.

He even secretly consulted a doctor for treatment.

My father's illness not only did not get better, but it became more and more serious.

He said someone was manipulating him in his mind, telling him to kill his mother.

Ming Er paused for a moment. This situation was somewhat similar to hers. Whenever she saw those people from the Jing'an Marquis's residence, that inexplicable voice would appear.

My father has never been able to return to the palace. For some reason, the treasonous things he said have been spread around the world.

Zhong Lishuang remembers that many soldiers broke into her maternal grandmother's house, saying that her father was faking illness and hiding in her grandmother's house in order to plot a rebellion.

Her father hid her away and forbade her to come out no matter what noise she heard.

She watched as those people tortured her father to death.

She wanted to tell her mother that her father had not plotted a rebellion, but then she discovered that she couldn't even get into the palace.

In the end, it was the few guards her mother had left for her father who helped her fight her way out.

Ming Er stood quietly beside Zhong Lishuang. The Third Prince did not speak, and neither did she.

Judging from the Third Prince's appearance, that memory must have been very painful for her.

After a long while, Zhong Lishuang finally spoke, "After my mother found me, I never mentioned the past. Now the person behind it all wants me dead, because if I don't die, she will be the one to die."

Ming Er remained silent, simply listening quietly.

Zhong Lishuang stood with her hands behind her back. "Ming Er, if we continue investigating this case, it could involve the royal family. Aren't you afraid?"

"As an official, I naturally have to think about the people. Only when the people are at peace can the country be at peace."

"Well done, Ming Er. It seems you really can become famous."

"Your Highness is too kind."

Zhongli Shuang wrote a memorial and ordered her guards to send it to the capital by express horse. Further investigation revealed connections to the capital.

She took Ming'er back to the disaster area. Although only a few days had passed, the situation was obviously much better than when they first arrived.

Zhong Lishuang told Ming Er to return the children to the wealthy merchants, and the guards took good care of them.

The man was placed in the backyard of Magistrate Fu's house. He was a useful person, and he never revealed a word about it from beginning to end.

"I will report this matter truthfully to the Empress Dowager."

The group was a little panicked. They had been forced to hand over the grain. If His Majesty the Emperor found out, would he punish them?

The Third Prince also told them that the infertility drug would only last for seven days, after which it would lose its effect and would not harm their health.

That medicine was naturally obtained by Ming Er from the female tutor. Since it was said to be for seven days, then it would be for seven days.

Zhong Lishuang didn't say much, letting Magistrate Fu serve as acting prefect. Once she returned and reported to her mother, the Empress, she would be officially promoted to prefect.

"Magistrate Fu, I hope you will stay true to your original aspirations and govern Yinzhou well. I'm leaving the affairs here to you. Don't disappoint His Majesty the Emperor."

"This humble official respectfully sees off His Highness the Third Prince."

Zhong Lishuang, along with Ming Er and the guards, immediately rushed back.

It comes quickly and goes quickly.

By the time the people received the news and prepared to see them off, the group had already left Yinzhou.

The guards had just handed the memorial to His Majesty the Emperor when they returned.

Zhong Lishuang presented the secret letter found in Governor Lu's house.

"This handwriting looks unfamiliar," His Majesty the Emperor said.

Zhongli Shuang knelt down. "This handwriting is familiar to me. When I was young, I personally witnessed my eldest sister writing with her left hand. This handwriting is the same as the handwriting of my eldest sister's left hand."

His Majesty the Emperor looked up at Zhong Lishuang.

Zhong Lishuang looked at His Majesty the Emperor and brought up the matter of her father's rebellion.

"I witnessed everything with my own eyes. I beg Your Majesty to investigate thoroughly and clear my father's and my maternal grandfather's name."

His Majesty the Emperor looked at Zhong Lishuang without speaking for a long time.

Ming Er knelt down beside her; she hadn't had a chance to speak at all during the entire ordeal.

But to everyone's surprise, His Majesty the Emperor ultimately remained silent.

They only gave Ming'er seven days to find out where the disaster relief funds had gone.

Ming Er then withdrew, unaware of what His Majesty the Emperor and the Third Princess had discussed.

Back at the Marquis of Jing'an's residence, everything was quiet and nothing happened. During her days in Yinzhou, no one in the residence had asked her a single question.

It was like complete strangers living together.

What Ming Er hated most was that voice.

As soon as she entered the Marquis's residence, that voice would remind her to be filial to her own mother and kind to her younger siblings.

After hearing the Third Prince mention her father, Ming Er began to wonder if she had been bewitched.

If she had been poisoned, how could the female tutors not have noticed?

What exactly happened?

This time was different from before; the voice even carried a threatening tone.