Soon, Gu Shen arrived with the constables.

The people had never seen such well-dressed and wealthy people being prisoners before, and they all unconsciously made way for them.

Gu Shen walked into the courtroom with his hands behind his back, exuding an imposing aura.

Gu Han and Li Jiaojiao were kneeling inside. Gu Han turned around and stared at him with a venomous look in his eyes.

He hasn't changed at all, and is even more imposing than he was a few years ago.

Gu Shen stared intently at him, his eyes filled with anger and contempt. This unfilial son had changed a lot, becoming dark and withered. Humph, a rat in the gutter!

When father and son met, their eyes were filled with intense hatred.

Outside, Madam Mei desperately wanted to rush over, but was stopped by the constables. Her eyes were red-rimmed: "Master..."

Gu Shen waved his hand at her, and only then did Madam Mei bite her lip and quiet down, but she glared hatefully at Gu Han kneeling on the ground.

"Silence!" Prefect Song, sitting at the head of the table, slammed his gavel and asked as usual, "Who is below?"

Gu Shen raised his head: "I am Gu Shen, the Marquis of Ningguo, hmph!"

Prefect Song's face darkened slightly as he looked at Constable Lu beside him: "Have you found any evidence?"

Constable Lu stepped forward and said, "Reporting to you, sir, we have found it. Moreover, there was no need for a search at all; we saw Lord Gu holding it with our own eyes."

Then he recounted the events of that time.

Prefect Song raised an eyebrow: "It seems this blue box really was hidden by Lord Gu, and someone tipped you off beforehand, so you tried to destroy the evidence. Do you admit to this crime? Do we need to summon witnesses?"

Gu Shen's face was ashen. There were so many eyewitnesses, and all of them were of high status. No matter how he tried to deny it, he couldn't get rid of it!

Gu Shen gritted his teeth: "I admit that I did dig it out. But I did not poison my own child."

"Moreover, the box didn't belong to me; it was put there by this little thief. Prefect Song, everyone says you are a reincarnation of a righteous official, a genius at solving cases. Can't you even see this clearly?"

"This whole thing is a setup, clearly orchestrated by someone who sent a thief to put the box in. Later, someone told me, and I panicked because I was afraid of being wronged by you all... so I decided to take a look, and to my surprise, there really was a blue box."

Along the way, he had already come up with an excuse and figured out a lot.

He's been set up!

The prefectural governor at the head of the table chuckled: "But I never said where the box was hidden. Nor did I ask where the thief stole it. Instead, I sent Constable Lu with the thief to the Gu family. Unexpectedly, before the thief could even find the box, Lord Gu dug it out precisely from the cellar."

Having handled cases for so many years, Prefect Song was certainly no pushover.

When Gu Han suddenly revealed his innocence, he became wary and didn't ask the thief where the item was stolen from, just to guard against Gu Shen's trick.

Prefect Song then looked at Constable Lu: "How much time did it take from the time Marquis Gu returned to the mansion until the item was unearthed?"

Officer Lu replied, "Your Honor, I asked the gatekeeper, and it has been less than a quarter of an hour."

Prefect Song looked at Gu Shen: "It's been less than a quarter of an hour, which shows that Lord Gu has a specific goal. He didn't look anywhere else, but specifically dug a cellar. This shows that the thing really exists, which is why he found it so precisely."

Gu Shen's face turned pale and then red, and he gritted his teeth: "I said... but I was afraid of being wronged by you! I just happened to think of this cellar. Prefect, you have no witnesses, so on what grounds do you convict me?"

"You had no witnesses back then, so what right do you have to convict me!" Gu Han roared at him. "You've said it yourself now, that someone might have put me in there. Then why isn't mine?"

Gu Shen retorted angrily, "Shut up! Who said there were no witnesses? Your personal servant said you were the one who bought it. That's a witness!"

"Hahaha, you have that servant's indenture in your hands, what kind of witness are you?"

"Nonsense, what do you mean I have? The indentures of the servants in each room of the house are in the hands of their respective masters, so your servant's indenture is naturally in your hands."

"Yes, so what? Later you expelled me from the family genealogy and kicked me out of the house! What, you think my money and servants can follow me? In the end, didn't they all become part of the manor? As long as I'm no longer the heir or young master of the Marquis's manor, what use is this indenture? It's all the same as the Marquis's manor's property!"

"You—it was you who poisoned me!"

The onlookers were utterly astonished by the argument between the father and son.

"Tsk tsk, what's this called... Anyone have a word to say about it?"

"This is called 'the magistrate is allowed to set fires, but the common people are forbidden to light lamps'!"

"Yes, yes, those are the two sentences! If someone hid something in their own room, it must have been put there by someone else. If they found something in their son's room, it must have been him!"

"His desire to crush his own son is blatantly obvious!"

"What kind of father is this?"

"Silence!" Prefect Song slammed his gavel down and looked at Gu Han: "Tell me the details of what happened back then, every single one."

Gu Han nodded, and then recounted the events of that year in detail.

The story is simple and straightforward, with almost no twists and turns: his father fell ill, and to show his filial piety, he personally brewed and fed him medicine, only to discover that his father had been poisoned by mosquito-repelling insecticide, which would kill him after forty-nine days. Finally, the poison was found in Gu Han's room, and his servant also jumped out to testify, saying that Gu Han had poisoned him. Gu Han was then kicked out of the house.

Prefect Song asked, "Where did the poison come from? Where did you buy it or who sold it to you?"

Gu Han sneered: "I didn't poison him, I don't know anything about it! Ask the person who poisoned him, sir!"

Prefect Song then looked at Gu Shen.

Gu Shen angrily said, "It was this unfilial son who poisoned me... I am the victim, how dare you question me?"

Prefect Song laughed in anger: "No, what I'm trying to say is, why didn't you ask about the source back then? Didn't you investigate?"

Gu Shen choked: "This..."

Prefect Song: "So whatever his servant says goes? What, is that servant your own son?"

Gu Shen: "This..."

Prefect Song laughed again in anger: "Hmph, how much do you want your own son to die!"

Gu Shen: "......"

Prefect Song: "And what about that servant who testified against Gu Han?"

Gu Shen: "......"

"Lord Gu, please answer!"

Gu Shen coughed lightly: "I'll be the manager of a manor on the outskirts of Beijing."

The onlookers chuckled, "He's done something big for his master; he's been promoted."

Standing at the front, Madam Mei's face was dark. Gu Yang roared, "What do you know! He doesn't protect his master, he has a conscience, so naturally he should be promoted."

Prefect Song rubbed his temples, utterly speechless. The case was practically transparent; it was such a simple case of frame-up!

However, because Gu Shen was powerful, Gu Han was young at the time, and the court was in chaos, they were fooled.

Prefect Song snorted coldly: "Regardless of whether you framed your own son or not, Gu Han should not be convicted based on this."

Gu Shen said coldly, "Prefect Song is meddling too much. Expelling Gu Han from the family is our family matter, and the clan can decide that. He was the one who fed me poison bit by bit, and I almost lost my life because of it. That is his filial impiety!"