Chapter 464: The Clues

The next day, Chaoyang Palace.

In recent days, after Xiao Jingheng had breakfast every morning, Xia Ze would come to the palace to treat him with acupuncture and insect magic.

But today, it was almost noon, but there was still no sign of Xia Ze.

Xiao Jingheng urged Xiao Yinzi to inquire for a long time before he heard his timid reply.

"Your Majesty, Xia Shengshou...is missing."

"Gone?" Xiao Jingheng was a little angry. "Why is it gone?"

"The palace servant who went to pick up Xia Shengshou's family came back and said that the door of his house was closed and no one answered no matter how hard he knocked. After he broke into the house, he found that the family was not in the room and...there was no money or property in the house, and all the things that the emperor had rewarded him were gone."

Xiao Yinzi lowered his head, glanced at Xiao Jingheng's expression, and added,

"In fact, when I escorted Xia Shengshou out of the palace yesterday, I already noticed that something was wrong with his expression..."

With this as a lead, Xiao Jingheng recalled the time he and Xia Ze were alone together yesterday.

At that time, he was looking at Jin Yue's portrait and reminiscing about her. He looked very sad. He refused to drink Xia Ze's medicine and gave up the idea of ​​taking Ruoxin's virgin blood to heal his dragon body.

This back and forth would inevitably make Xia Ze think that Xiao Jingheng was blaming him for Jin Yue's death.

Therefore, it is not impossible to prepare for a rainy day and pack up and run away.

For Xiao Jingheng, his supreme imperial power would not allow anyone to challenge it.

Leaving without saying goodbye was Xia Ze's contempt for the emperor, and he would not let it go.

"Send someone to find him! Alive or dead!"

When he was about to get angry, Zhao Hua happened to enter the bedroom.

Seeing Xiao Jingheng's face turning blue with anger, she hurried to his side and gently stroked his back to help him calm down.

"Why is Xiao Lang angry again? What's the reason?"

Xiao Jingheng didn't want to mention this in front of Zhao Hua.

So he raised his hand to signal Xiao Yinzi to go down and do the work, and then said to Zhaohua indifferently:

"Nothing, it's just that I didn't do my job carefully and made me unhappy."

He didn't want to say, so Zhaohua didn't ask any more questions.

After all, she came here with something important to do.

After helping Xiao Jingheng to sit down in the warm seat, Zhao Hua took out a thick stack of notes and placed them in front of Xiao Jingheng.

"This is what the court officials said today. I have picked out the important things and told them to Xiao Lang one by one."

In the past few days, Zhao Hua has sent more and more records of court affairs to Xiao Jingheng.

She knew that although Xiao Jingheng was cold-hearted, he was a wise ruler who was never careless in governing state affairs.

Of course, a wise ruler cannot rest in peace if he cannot handle all the affairs of state.

Zhaohua simply obliged him by providing him with more records of state affairs and memorials, so that even if he could rest physically, his mind would not be idle for a moment.

While listening to Zhaohua's detailed account of state affairs, Xiao Jingheng suddenly asked her,

"Why didn't Ruoxin come to me today?"

Zhao Hua was silent for a moment, then said with a bit of sadness: "Ruoxin saw Jinyue's accident with her own eyes, which was a big blow to her. The child had a high fever when she woke up in the morning, and the imperial physician should be taking care of her now."

When she said this, tears were evident in her eyes.

Xiao Jingheng also understood that she had been very hard recently, so he patted her shoulder to comfort her and said softly:

"You have worked hard these days. Ruoxin is sick and you are worried. Go back and take care of the children. Please leave these notes for me to sort out slowly."

Zhao Hua was so overjoyed that he was too lazy to even put on an act in front of this beast.

Wei Qian smiled and bowed, "Then I will come back to accompany Xiao Lang tomorrow."

So he left in a hurry.

Later, Xiao Jingheng spent the whole afternoon flipping through the densely packed court affairs records and memorials.

Before I knew it, it was already dark outside.

The people sent by Xiao Yinzi still couldn't find Xia Ze, but the people from the Anbu came to reply to Xiao Jingheng.

"Your Majesty, all the records of the concubines' behavior stored in the Tianji Office have been taken out. We have carefully checked, but we can't find the volume of the 24th year of Qianyuan."

In the twenty-fourth year of Qianyuan...

This time, Xiao Jingheng asked the people in the Anbu to record the concubines' behavior stored in the Tianji Office, mainly to check the records of this year.

Xiao Jingyan was born in the twenty-fifth year of Qianyuan, so the year when Concubine Jinggui became pregnant with him should be the twenty-fourth year.

The summer of this year was the day when the late emperor made his third trip to the south of the Yangtze River. According to the ten-month pregnancy period, Concubine Jinggui should have been pregnant at this time.

During this period, she was outside the palace with the late emperor, and it was also the time when she was most likely to come into contact with men outside.

Now all the records of previous years' travels are complete, except for this year's records which have disappeared. This makes Xiao Jingheng feel even more suspicious.

He asked: "I asked you to check the officials who accompanied him back then. Have you checked them thoroughly?"

"That's exactly what I want to say. Among the accompanying officials... Song Shicheng is in charge of security dispatch."

"Song Shicheng?" Xiao Jingheng was almost surprised.

The ANBU spy replied, "Yes. He is the biological father of the current queen. He is also the only one among all the accompanying officials whose children are infected with peach blossom disease..."