Chapter 44: Evidence What on earth is he going to do?

Zhou Tinglan's expression was unclear. She looked at Fu Chang standing in front of her and asked, "Master Fu, why are you stopping me?"

Why do I feel that Fu Chang's behavior is very strange? He seems to be loyal to Yao Ningde, but he is helping her secretly.

"I..." Fu Chang was interrupted by a maid who came running over before he could finish his words.

"Master Fuchang, your Excellency invites you to come over."

Fu Chang frowned and looked at the maid: "Did you say what it was?"

The maid's expression seemed somewhat awkward. She looked up at Fu Chang, then lowered her head again and said in a muffled voice, "Master didn't say anything, but...but Master doesn't look well. Master Fu, please be careful."

"I understand. Go back and tell the adults. I will go right away."

The maidservant left in response, and Zhou Tinglan looked at Fuchang who was still standing there.

She raised her eyebrows: "Master Fu, Master Yao is still waiting for you, aren't you going?"

Zhou Tinglan thought that Yao Ningde looked unhappy, maybe he had been discovered. It seemed that she needed to act faster.

"Of course I will go." Fu Chang looked at Zhou Tinglan deeply, turned his back, and stopped after taking two steps.

Zhou Tinglan heard Fu Chang's voice: "There might be Miss Zhou in the fifth room on the left side of the corridor in the backyard."

She was puzzled. What was in the fifth room on the left? Why did Fuchang tell her this?

Is he telling me where Yao Ningde hid the evidence?

How could Fuchang be so kind?

Before Zhou Tinglan came, he had imagined where Yao Ningde would hide the evidence to win over court officials and slander the Xie Mansion for treason.

Yao Ningde is good at disguise and acts with great care. However, he cannot feel safe anywhere where the crucial evidence can determine his life or death, as he is always worried that others will find him, spy on him, and use him to take advantage of him.

So……

All Zhou Tinglan could think of was that Yao Ningde placed the evidence of his crime next to him. After all, the most dangerous place in the world is also the safest place.

With doubts in his mind, Zhou Tinglan walked along the corridor and passed by the backyard he had seen some time ago.

The backyard was filled with precious flowers, all vying for beauty, but she did not feel any joy in her heart.

The scene of Xiao Ruo being tortured and killed in the night was still vivid in her eyes. The smell of blood was no longer in the air, and everything had changed.

Zhou Tinglan seemed to still see the bloody figure hanging in mid-air, breathing weakly but speaking in a firm tone.

Xiao Ruo, Xiao Ruo...Xiao Ruo!

Tears gradually rose in her eyes. Zhou Tinglan wiped them away with a flick of his sleeve. He stopped looking at the precious flowers in the backyard and walked straight forward.

Zhou Tinglan counted the doors and came to the door of the fifth room.

Looking towards both sides of the corridor and seeing that there was no one else around, Zhou Tinglan calmly knocked on the door.

"Sir, I have something to report."

For a long time, no one responded in the room, and a hint of success flashed across Zhou Tinglan's eyes.

She placed her hand on the door and slowly pushed it open. As she pushed Zhou Tinglan, she said, "Thank you, sir. I'll go in and report to you."

Zhou Tinglan walked into the room and she quickly turned around and closed the door.

After she looked around, she finally understood why Fuchang told her about this place.

In front of him was a study, and in the huge residence of the Minister of War, there was only one person who could have a study of this size.

However, Zhou Tinglan always had doubts about Fuchang. He helped her out at the gate of the mansion to avoid being discovered by Yao Ningde. Now he directly told her the location of Yao Ningde's study to facilitate her search for evidence.

Although she didn't know the reason, Zhou Tinglan felt that Fu Chang's behavior did not mean any ill will towards her.

"Let's first look for any evidence. It will be bad if Yao Ningde comes back later."

Zhou Tinglan kept searching in the study, and she was always paying attention to the movements outside the study.

"Where did Yao Ningde hide the evidence?"

She opened the drawer of Yao Ningde's desk, which contained rolls of documents from the Ministry of War, and on top of the documents was an account book.

Zhou Tinglan picked it up and started flipping through it. It was the daily expenditure account of the Minister of War's Mansion.

"Two million and a half ounces of gold, fifty and seven plots of land..."

The amount in the account book was so huge that Zhou Tinglan's eyes widened. Yao Ningde actually embezzled so much. It was impossible for him to have such a huge fortune with just the position of Minister of War.

Suddenly, footsteps were heard outside the door. Zhou Tinglan put the account book back, closed the drawer, and hid behind the bookshelf.

She held her breath and stared at the study door.

The door of the study was pushed open. Yao Ningde looked hurried, with faint blushes on both sides of his cheeks. He walked into the study with a strong smell of alcohol.

Standing in front of the desk, Yao Ningde scanned the documents on the table. He thought for a moment and picked up a roll of documents.

Zhou Tinglan had just read the document, which was a list of the numbers of weapons recently purchased by the Ministry of War. She didn't see any problems.

Zhou Tinglan was surprised. Yao Ningde was holding a poetry party, and the banquet was only half over, but he actually came to the study to get documents from the Ministry of War.

The thought came to my mind that Yao Ningde would not falsify the accounts again, but I didn't know whether he was simply trying to embezzle money or was using the same old trick to continue slandering others.

Thinking of this, Zhou Tinglan gritted her teeth. She would definitely expose Yao Ningde's crimes to the public and expose his hypocritical mask before he took action.

Just when Zhou Tinglan thought he was about to leave after taking the documents, Yao Ningde walked to a calligraphy painting on the side wall of the study.

In the painting, black bamboos emerge from the rocks, and next to them, several cranes stand by the pond with elegant postures. The whole painting has an elegant and refreshing atmosphere.

However, in Zhou Tinglan's eyes, Yao Ningde had been pretending to be in the court for many years, and there were probably countless court officials who had suffered at his hands.

The flatterers in the court are jumping around under the emperor's nose, walking on the edge of the minefield, but in the study hangs a painting that symbolizes a noble gentleman.

How ironic!

As Yao Ningde observed the calligraphy and painting, he seemed to have noticed something, and his eyes suddenly turned towards the bookshelf.

Zhou Tinglan's body was tense and her breathing was very light. She felt as if someone could see through her from behind.

Suddenly there was a noise from the windowsill of the study. A tree sparrow was knocked unconscious next to the flowerpot on the windowsill and fell on the windowsill, motionless.

Yao Ningde glanced at the bird on the windowsill, not knowing whether to live or die. "It turned out to be a fearless tree sparrow."

After saying that, he left the study without looking back.

The study door was closed. Zhou Tinglan stroked his chest and gasped, "I was so scared. I thought he was going to find me."

Looking around the study, she had searched almost every drawer in the study, but apart from the daily account books of the Minister of War, she did not find any suspicious evidence.

"Where did Yao Ningde hide the evidence?" Zhou Tinglan murmured, her hands constantly groping every corner of the study.

"I don't believe that Yao Ningde didn't leave any traces after making such a big move."

Zhou Tinglan suddenly thought of the plots she had read in novels in the past. In novels, there were often dark rooms in the study rooms of the mansions of wealthy families.

The plot is based on life, which is an unchanging truth since ancient times. Maybe the same is true for Yao Ningde's study. Besides, wasn't she hiding in a dark cellar in Duke Xie's mansion, thus escaping Yao Ningde's capture?

"When characters in novels open the door to a darkroom, it's usually to trigger some kind of switch."

However, after Zhou Tinglan touched all the decorations in Yao Ningde's study and still found no clues, she collapsed against the wall in frustration.

She muttered in dissatisfaction, "Novels really aren't reliable. What dark room? It's all just a joke to fool children!"

As Zhou Tinglan angrily muttered to herself, questioning whether the novel was true or not, she stood up angrily and leaned her hands dejectedly against the wall.

The sound of her hand slapping the wall startled Zhou Tinglan. She raised her hand and then lowered it. Zhou Tinglan looked at her palm in disbelief. The sound of her hand slapping was crisp and slightly hollow.

There's nothing behind the wall!

Zhou Tinglan recalled that when she came, the study was right at the inner corner, there were no other rooms parallel to it, and the study was not at the end of the T.

Then... where is the space behind this wall?

Since the secret room is here, the mechanism must not be far away. Zhou Tinglan looked at the calligraphy and paintings on the wall, and the bamboo and rocks in the calligraphy and paintings once again attracted her attention.

She gently stroked the surface of the calligraphy and painting. The paper was high-quality Xuan paper, which was widely used by the noble families in the capital.

Zhou Tinglan's gaze finally fell on a raised part of a stone on the calligraphy and painting.

"There really is a mechanism."

There was a secret door on the wall of the study, and Zhou Tinglan opened it.

She opened the secret door and stood at the door to take a look. There were very few objects in the secret room.

A wooden table and a few wooden boxes are all there is.

Seeing that there was no danger, Zhou Tinglan felt relieved. She walked into the dark room and went straight to the wooden table.

She picked up the document on the wooden table. When Zhou Tinglan finished reading the contents of the document, the joy on her face could no longer be concealed.

"Found it! With this evidence, Yao Ningde will probably be beaten to death in prison and won't be able to get up!"

Zhou Tinglan continued to look through the rest of the documents on the wooden table, and the anger in her eyes grew stronger.

She slammed the document onto the wooden table, her chest heaving. "Yao Ningde is so... so arrogant! Could it be that no one noticed what he's been doing all these years?"

Her father was not the first court official to be framed by Yao Ningde. The first was a palace compiler named Lu.

Soon after his family was framed by Yao Ningde, they were all imprisoned. They died one after another in prison because they could not bear the torture.

Zhou Tinglan also saw Yao Ningde mention a person in the sealed document, His Royal Highness Prince Duan of Dazhao Kingdom.

Prince Duan? Zhou Tinglan had no information about this person in his memory.

"I wonder if this Prince Duan is a good person or an enemy?" Zhou Tinglan checked the wooden box again.

They are all rare calligraphy and paintings or jewelry.

When Zhou Tinglan saw the box full of jewels, she slammed the lid shut in disgust: "The jewels in the box might have been coveted by Yao Ningde! What bad luck!"

She realized that she had stayed in the dark room for too long, so she picked up some evidence on the wooden table and Zhou Tinglan put it in her arms.

Carefully closing the secret door and tidying up Yao Ningde's study as if no one had been there, Zhou Tinglan pushed open the door of the study.

She looked outside and made sure that there was no one around before she walked out of the study door.

As she turned to close the door, a voice sounded from behind her.

"Miss Zhou, did you find what you wanted?"

Zhou Tinglan trembled all over when he heard the familiar voice. Why did he suddenly appear here?

She slowly turned around and looked at the person who came.

"Why is Master Fu here?"

Fu Chang looked at Zhou Tinglan's wary face and chuckled, "It seems Miss Zhou has gained a lot this time!"

Zhou Tinglan's voice rose as she demanded, "Why? Master Fu is planning to capture me and bring me before Master Yao to claim credit for it?"

"Is that what you think?" Fu Chang remained calm and slowly approached Zhou Tinglan.

Zhou Tinglan was sweating in her heart. She was becoming more and more confused about Fu Chang. What exactly was he trying to do?

Her back was pressed against the study door, and Zhou Tinglan shouted angrily, "Don't come over here!"

"Miss Zhou, I am only doing what you wish."

Fu Chang came to Zhou Tinglan in an instant and extended his hand to her.