Chapter 129: Exploring the Scumbag Dad’s Secret Room, There’s a Soul-Calming Incense

Hearing what Old Lady Xie said, Xie Mingan's uncle beside him also sighed: "Yes, Zhongcheng's tablet is still inside..."

Uncle Xie’s real name is Xie Zhongcheng, and he is the elder brother of this uncle.

Upon hearing this, Xie Mingan's face suddenly darkened.

His mother and cousin were really talking about something that was irrelevant to him. They said such things in front of so many guests, especially Zhang Qingcai and He Yu. Aren't they implying that he was unfilial?

What's more, there are so many ancestral tablets in the ancestral hall, why do you have to mention that old immortal Xie Zhongcheng?

He frowned and said, "I'm afraid that mother hasn't recovered from the drowning incident and has started talking nonsense."

"Come, help the old lady back to her room and find a doctor! And my uncle is old, he should go down and have a good rest."

"I……"

Mrs. Xie wanted to argue, but then she thought of Mr. Xie and sighed.

Her late husband wasn't a good man worth remembering. He was incompetent and lustful. Apart from inheriting the title of earl, he was only a fifth-rank official his entire life. But compared to his son, at least...

Old Madam Xie glanced at Xie Mingan nervously, and was then supported and taken away by two maids.

My uncle left even more swiftly.

Mr. Xie evacuated the guests, while Xie Ming'an straightened his clothes and went to the back house with Lord He, Eunuch Qing and others.

Led by Jiang Si, a group of guards went back and forth to fetch water and poured it on the fire with buckets, but the fire did not subside at all.

Xie Ming'an turned to face the crowd, his face filled with grief and indignation. "Ancestors, it is Ming'an who is unfilial. I failed to protect the ancestral hall... It is Ming'an who is unfilial!"

As he spoke, his eyes turned red and he was about to kneel down facing the blazing fire.

Lord He quickly supported him and said, "Brother Ming'an, please accept my condolences. The most urgent thing is to put out the fire. Don't hurt yourself."

Xie Mingan stood up, wiped his face, and said in a choked voice: "As the Minister of Rites, I can't even protect my own ancestral temple. I am really ashamed of the court and my ancestors."

While screaming in pain, he directed the guards to put out the fire, looking as if he couldn't wait to jump into the fire.

In fact, Xie Mingan kept his eyes on Eunuch Qing who was silently standing beside him.

Eunuch Qing still looked calm and composed, which made Xie Mingan feel even colder.

The Emperor must have used Eunuch Qing to warn him. The Emperor guessed that he was a member of the Empress Dowager's party, so he burned down his ancestral hall on the day when the Xie and Xiao families got married as a warning!

Xie Mingan didn't dare show any doubt and could only pretend to be sad and continue to cry out to the sky outside the ancestral hall.

At this time, Xie Yao had already avoided everyone and came to the study courtyard that Xie Ming'an usually guarded strictly.

The more chaotic the situation outside, the easier it is for her to take action.

None of the dozen or so guards who usually patrolled outside the study were there at this moment. Even the two servants who were guarding the door were transferred to put out the fire.

Xie Yao had long wanted to come to Xie Ming'an's study. It was heavily guarded. Apart from Xie Ming'an and his confidante, Madam Zhu, and the head of the guards, Jiang Si, only Aunt Sun could get close. Even Second Master Xie rarely entered, so there must be a secret hidden there.

Previously, when Manager Wang was writing his confession, he explained that Xie Ming'an had bribed the old Minister of Rites with a thousand taels of gold and asked him to present a white jade Buddha with golden eyes to a certain nobleman.

The old Minister of Rites is already a third-rank official in the court. That nobleman is so mysterious that he must be above the third rank. Even if the emperor no longer cares about Xie Ming'an's bribery and forming cliques for personal gain among officials above the third rank, he will still care if there is evidence.

These things happened ten and six years ago, and they are just Manager Wang’s one-sided statement, but there might be real evidence in the study.

More importantly, the poison in the mother.

Honeysuckle said that if her mother didn't detoxify, she would only have half a year to live.

Even though Honeysuckle is developing an antidote and her uncle gave her Pingfei Powder to relieve the symptoms, she can't just sit and wait.

On the day when Xie Mingan was accidentally poisoned by Aunt Sun, she clearly saw Nanny Zhu take out the antidote for Mantuo Powder.

Xie Yao's eyes became increasingly cold. After making sure that no one was in the study, she climbed in through the window.

At this moment, Xie Mingan was probably terrified by the fire in the ancestral hall. His mind was full of Eunuch Qing who was having a banquet at the Bo Mansion tonight. He never thought that he was the one who set the fire, let alone that she had come here.

Xie Yao went inside, and something in her heart moved. She simply lit a lamp and looked around.

The bookshelf takes up most of the wall, with some landscape paintings hanging on the side, and the tables and chairs are arranged meticulously. Behind the antique shelf is the inner bedroom, which looks no different from an ordinary study.

She carefully checked the books on the shelf, on the desk and above, and found nothing unusual.

After knocking on the wall again, Xie Yao's eyes darkened and her gaze stopped on the towering bookshelf.

There's something wrong with this wall.

In a corner of the bookshelf, there are several decorative celadon vases.

She lifted the lamp and took a closer look. Sure enough, she saw that the base of one of the vases had slight signs of wear and tear, obviously having been turned by someone.

Xie Yao felt something in her heart, and she held the vase with one hand and tried to turn it.

“Click——”

With a slight sound, the bookshelf slowly moved to the side, revealing a dark entrance behind it and the stone steps below were vaguely visible.

Xie Yao walked downstairs. There were candlesticks on the walls on both sides of the stone steps, but she did not light them. Instead, she held a lantern in one hand and a dagger in the other and walked slowly.

Below this is a secret room.

The secret room is not big, but it is packed full.

On one side were dozens of sunken wooden boxes, stacked high.

When she opened it, she saw that it was full of gold, silver and jewelry, huge pigeon blood gems, pearl and agate jewelry. The box below was filled with neatly stacked gold and silver ingots, at least three thousand taels of gold and three thousand taels of silver, glowing in the dark room with flickering candlelight.

To have such wealth, let alone a Minister of Rites or the Earl of Wenchang, even a high-ranking official sent to a remote area would have to save up his salary for many years.

What made her even more nervous was that inside a rosewood brocade box, there was a golden hairpin with a phoenix pattern. It was obvious that a large part of these gold, silver and jewelry were the dowry that the Xu family had given to her mother.

Xie Yao moved the lamp to the side to illuminate the table against the wall.

There were several account books spread out on the table.

She took a deep breath, suppressed the hatred that was surging in her heart, picked up the account book on the top that looked to have fresh ink, and opened it. It was filled with dense records of income and expenditure and the property in front of her, the amount was astonishing.

She also saw the Chengyuan that her mother had mentioned!

Sure enough, this is the real account book of the Bo Mansion.

Xie Ming'an has been deceiving his mother over the years and has handed over most of his dowry gradually, but he still appears to be honest and upright to the outside world. He even made a deficit in the accounts of the uncle's mansion, and the power of managing the household finances given to his mother was just a cover.

As she was flipping through the pages, she suddenly caught a glimpse of the wall at the back of the secret room.

There was a small Buddhist shrine with a black tablet in it.

Xie Yao walked forward and saw that the name engraved on the tablet was actually the name of Uncle Xie Zhongcheng!

She found it ridiculous. Uncle Xie's tablet had already been reduced to ashes in the fire in the ancestral hall. Could it be that Xie Ming'an, a man who killed his wife and daughter, was actually a filial son?

Xie Yao's eyes narrowed and fell on the unlit incense sticks beside the shrine. Each of these incense sticks was as thick as a little finger and all red.

This is not an ordinary offering of incense!

Xie Yao recalled her previous life. After Lu Shenyan killed Pu Wei, he said that Pu Wei had cursed him to die a miserable death when he tortured her.

For this purpose, he specially set up a tablet for Pu Wei and lit this kind of incense.

At the time, he boasted smugly, "This is called soul-calming incense. Burning this incense will keep her soul from reincarnation after she dies. I want to see who will die a miserable death."

Xie Mingan, actually lit soul-calming incense for his father?