Chapter 127 The Little Liar Who Keeps a Mouth Full of Lies
"Mother!" The Crown Prince of Ying'an caught the fallen princess with quick reflexes and tried to wake her.
On the other side, Prince Ying'an clutched his chest, nearly collapsing. He never imagined that what he meant by "face falling off" would be such a horrifying sight.
The once gentle and caring daughter was now no different from a cannibalistic monster in the eyes of Prince Ying'an.
"Didn't you see my mother faint? Quickly call the imperial physician!" Seeing that he couldn't wake the princess no matter what he did, the Crown Prince of Ying'an turned around and shouted loudly at the imperial guards around him.
A group of imperial guards remained standing still after hearing his words. The leader of the group said respectfully, "Please forgive us, Your Highness. His Majesty's order is to send you back to the Prince's residence immediately. He has not given any other instructions."
"You, you all..." The Crown Prince of Ying'an was furious and wanted to argue with them, but his wife pushed him away. She stepped forward and pinched the Princess's philtrum hard. It took a while for the Princess to react.
Although the princess regained consciousness, she was paralyzed on the ground and could not get up. In the end, she had no choice but to have the prince carry her out of the palace.
As for the imperial guards who had just escorted the prisoners, they had long since disappeared without a trace.
The prince, panting heavily, carried Princess Ying'an on his back and finally reached the palace gate. Before he could even catch his breath, he suddenly heard shouts from behind.
The Prince of Ying'an and his family stopped and turned around, only to see a member of the Imperial Guard carrying Bao'er out.
The imperial guard put Bao'er down on the ground and said to the others, "Your Highness, Lord Bai said that this child's parents have been arrested and the Vice Minister's residence has been sealed off. She is currently homeless and hopes that you can take care of her."
Even a quarter of an hour ago, even if they had known that Xin'an was not their blood relative, they would have been willing to take care of her daughter.
But at this moment, everyone fell silent.
Seeing Bao'er reminds them of Xin'an's terrifying face.
The imperial guard was merely relaying Bai Xiu's words; he wasn't discussing anything with them. After speaking, he turned and left.
Bao'er was still unaware of what had happened. She went to hug Ying An Wang's leg as usual, but Ying An Wang seemed to be frightened and took several steps back.
“Grandfather?” Bao’er looked at him in confusion.
The scene became tense for a moment, until the Crown Prince's wife spoke up: "Bao'er, follow behind me, we're leaving the palace."
Bao'er seemed to sense the change in the adults' attitude towards her. She wanted to act coquettishly as usual, but when she looked up, she saw the stern gaze of the Crown Prince's wife. She was immediately frightened and held back her tears. Instead, she obediently walked behind the Crown Prince's wife.
The Crown Prince's wife was also unwilling to let Bao'er stay in the Prince's mansion, but in the end she couldn't bear to abandon the child.
Seeing Bao'er now always reminds her of the missing Che'er. When Xin'an's family didn't return to Beijing, Che'er was always by her side.
Many things, if you don't think about them in the first place, you won't feel there's a problem.
But now that we know Xin'an's identity is different, is the disappearance of Che'er related to this fake Xin'an?
She even wondered if, if she were in the position of the real Xin'an, would she still have allowed her son to live?
She won't.
Is this fake? The truth is unknown, but either way, it's cruel to Che'er.
Bao'er doesn't understand anything, but from the moment her mother took Xin'an's place, she has already borne the burden of sin.
The Prince of Ying'an and his family have left the palace, but the case that ruined His Majesty's birthday banquet has only just begun.
The Imperial Guards who had gone to deliver Bao'er had just returned when Jiang Yan excitedly came over to find Bai Xiuming, carrying a piece of leather.
What he held in his hand was the snake-face skin that he had just asked Feng Yang to retrieve from the Mingjing Treasury. Although it was not as good as the snake-face skin, it was not much different in terms of its use in experiments.
At this point, the skin had already shown signs of drying out, and there were some scars on it, which were caused by corrosion from the black flint.
“My lord, the black flint is indeed as useful as you said.” As he spoke, he presented the snake-faced skin to Bai Xiuming. “This snake-faced skin has already shown signs of drying out.”
Bai Xiuming reached out and felt the skin. It was slightly hard. After a snake dies, its body can maintain its state for at least several years to several decades. This kind of touch was obviously not normal.
"Well done."
Jiang Yan smiled broadly: "Thank you for the compliment, sir."
However, he quickly added modestly, "I am far from qualified. If you hadn't reminded me, I wouldn't have known that black flint had such a use. I just don't know what method the person who did this secretly used to dry the snake skin so quietly."
"Just look it up and you'll find out."
He turned to Feng Yang and instructed him: "Bring all the people from the Vice Minister's residence back to the Mingjing Division and question them one by one. I need to know every detail of the Princess Xin'an's life during this period."
"yes."
Feng Yang took Jiang Yan and left first, while Bai Xiuming stayed behind to say a few words to the newly returned Crown Prince before slowly walking out of the palace.
Upon returning to the Mingjing Division, Bai Xiuming went directly to the Zhenyu Prison.
At this moment, Jiang Kai was interrogating Xu Zecheng, but without success.
Hearing a few sudden knocks, Jiang Kai walked out of the interrogation room and looked up to see Bai Xiuming standing outside. He stepped forward and whispered, "Sir, he's very stubborn. No matter how I ask him, he only says that he was deceived and didn't know that the Princess of Xin'an was an imposter."
"If he's unwilling to speak, then have someone else do it."
Jiang Kai raised an eyebrow and ordered his subordinates to bring over the fake Princess Xin'an, but he did not let her show herself.
He then went back to continue interrogating Xu Zecheng.
After all, they were important officials of the court. In case they were impeached in the future, Jiang Kai did not punish them severely for the time being, but only used a whip.
Even so, it almost cost Xu Zecheng half his life.
He was hung on a rack, his body covered in horrifying bloodstains.
He had just breathed a sigh of relief when Jiang Kai left, but he returned shortly afterward.
"I don't know anything, I was deceived." Xu Zecheng's voice was already hoarse, but he still didn't forget to emphasize his innocence.
Who lied to you?
“Your Highness, you lied to me. I was busy with official duties and had no idea that you had been transferred.”
At that moment, the fake county magistrate that Xu Zecheng was talking about was standing outside listening to him speak.
She was taken away to another interrogation room after only a few words.
The interrogation room was clean and didn't have a strong smell of blood. There was a chair inside, and a person was sitting in the chair.
When she saw Bai Xiuming, her body trembled involuntarily.
She was suspended on the frame, watching the man sitting opposite her, his expression obscured by the flickering firelight, and a sense of fear slowly rose within her.
"What's your name?" Bai Xiuming asked.
Princess Xin'an turned her head away and refused to speak.
"How did you change Princess Xin'an's face?"
"Bai Xiuming, you don't need to ask these useless questions. I won't tell you. Do whatever you want with me."
"I don't kill people easily," Bai Xiuming said gently. "It's fine if you don't want to talk. Since you like cutting people's faces so much, I'll let you taste what it's like to be skinned alive first."
He beckoned with his finger behind him, and a guard from the Mingjing Division walked in.
"Skin her skin off, but don't kill her."
The man immediately replied, "Your Excellency, rest assured of my skills. I guarantee she will live a good life."
As the man approached with a knife, the fear in Princess Xin'an's eyes was hard to conceal.
The guard from the Mingjing Guard ignored her shouts, grabbed one of her hands, and sliced her fingers with the tip of his knife.
Princess Xin'an felt a sharp pain in her finger, which wasn't initially noticeable; the knife seemed to be coated with pain-relieving powder. But she watched helplessly as the other person peeled the skin off her finger.
Looking at her bloodied finger and the thin layer of skin underneath, Princess Xin'an screamed in agony, not from pain, but from fear.
She had personally experienced the agony of having her face cut off and bones shaved away, but that was over a decade ago, when she was just a country girl. Now, after more than a decade of living in luxury, how could she possibly endure such pain?
"I never force anyone. You and Xu Zecheng only have one chance. Whoever tells the truth first will have a chance to live."
"I'll talk." Princess Xin'an gritted her teeth, which were trembling, thinking about what she had just heard. Xu Zecheng had pushed all the blame onto her. Since only one person could survive, that person should naturally be her.
After all, if it weren't for Xu Zecheng, she would never have succeeded.
"I'll tell you first, you won't kill me, will you?" Princess Xin'an asked again.
"yes."
“I said,” she repeated, “whatever you want to know, I will tell you.”
Bai Xiuming's lips curled slightly. Behind him, outside the wall, Jiang Kai was holding the half-dead Xu Zecheng and had clearly heard what the County Princess of Xin'an had said.
Jiang Kai said jokingly, "Lord Xu, it seems that the Princess of Xin'an wants to live even more than you do."
"No, no, no, that woman is a liar. Don't listen to her. Whatever you want to know, I know. You can ask me." In order to survive, Xu Zecheng could no longer keep up the pretense.
"Okay, let's start from the beginning."
This story sounds a bit cliché, nothing more than old neighbors, childhood sweethearts who haven't seen each other for many years, reuniting, one with an overbearing wife, the other with an unromantic and down-on-his-luck fiancé.
Both were dissatisfied with their situation; one was willing and the other was not, so they secretly began to engage in illicit relations.
The story diverges here. Xu Zecheng says that the fake Princess Xin'an told him that her fiancé's family had inherited a secret face-changing technique that could swap someone else's face onto one's own, and no one could tell anything was wrong.
The fake county princess claimed that Xu Zecheng, after hearing her mention this matter, got the idea and instigated her to deceive her fiancé into swapping her face with the real Xin'an county princess.
After that, there's nothing more to say.
They drugged Princess Xin'an, changed her face, and then killed her.
Then, they returned to the capital and lived a carefree and wealthy life for more than a decade.
"You killed the real Princess Xin'an?" Bai Xiuming asked.
"Yes, Xu Zecheng did it himself. He stabbed the man in the heart, and only after he stopped breathing was he wrapped in a mat and thrown into a mass grave."
Bai Xiuming heard the answer he wanted and did not stay any longer. Instead, he called someone over to continue questioning him and left the town prison first.
After leaving the town prison, Feng Yang had already finished investigating the people in the Vice Minister's residence and was waiting for him.
Feng Yang placed several confessions on the table and said to Bai Xiuming, "My lord, the maids around the Princess of Xin'an have recounted all of her recent itinerary and daily life in detail. According to them, the princess returned to the Prince of Ying'an's mansion once this month and listened to a ghost play."
After that, Granny Xu from the manor gave her two massages, both times using a new incense, which the county princess reportedly liked very much.
"Ghost play? Which troupe is it, and who's performing?" Bai Xiuming suddenly remembered the mask that was still hanging in his mansion and asked.
"They are a troupe from Jiaozhou. The troupe's leading actress is Yu An, a woman. I heard that when she sings ghost plays, she doesn't use a mask like others, but wears a family-inherited ghost mask. That ghost mask looks no different from a real face, which is why she is very popular and is known as Master Yu."
"...It's quite a coincidence that the opera troupe came from Jiaozhou."
"My lord, what coincidence did you say?" Feng Yang asked, not having heard Bai Xiuming's words clearly.
"Nothing much, just tell me about that Granny Xu." Bai Xiuming picked up the confession on the table and started reading it.
Feng Yang suppressed his doubts and said, "I ordered someone to investigate this Granny Xu. She is a distant relative of Xu Zecheng. Not long after Xu Zecheng got married, she brought her son to the capital to seek refuge with him."
She held a high position in the household, and the county princess treated her well. However, there was one problem: her son had been expelled from the household for embezzling money.
My subordinates discovered that her son owed the gambling den five hundred taels of silver and had also stolen the county princess's jade pendant to pawn. However, when my subordinates went to investigate, the gambling den staff said that someone had redeemed the IOU for more money than stated on it, and the pawnshop owner gave the same explanation.
Do they still remember what that person looked like?
Feng Yang said with a hint of helplessness, "That's the problem. The people at the gambling den said she was a woman in her early thirties with a hoarse voice, small eyes, thick lips, and was somewhat ugly. The pawnshop owner said she was a woman in her twenties with big eyes, a small mouth, and was quite pretty."
Bai Xiuming did not comment on this, but instead said, "Continue."
"Afterwards, I investigated the recent whereabouts of the people in the mansion and found that two people were acting strangely. One was Granny Xu, and the other was Cuihong, a cleaning maid in the main courtyard. I heard that she had offended the Princess of Xin'an County."
After questioning her further, the subordinate discovered that Cuihong had caught Xu Zecheng's eye, which was why she was deliberately given a fault and demoted from a second-class maid to a cleaning maid.
Who did they go to see?
"The person Cuihong met had an ordinary appearance, and she couldn't describe his features. The person gave her one hundred taels of silver and told her to keep an eye on Xu Mama's every move and report back at any time."
"Where is Granny Xu?"
"Granny Xu said that she met a maid from a wealthy family, and she suspected that she was the maid of Princess Puning, who had a grudge against Princess Xin'an. According to her description, the woman had willow-leaf eyebrows, phoenix eyes, and an oval face; she was a pretty woman."
The other party threatened her with the IOU from Xu Mama's son at the gambling den, and the fact that her son had stolen Princess Xin'an's jade pendant, demanding that she give Princess Xin'an three bottles of incense powder. The other party specifically emphasized that the last bottle of incense powder should be used before entering the palace. So she sprinkled the incense powder into the hand warmer intended for Princess Xin'an.
Didn't she ask what kind of perfume it was?
"She asked, and the person said that the perfume powder could cause itching and rashes on the face, and that their mistress wanted to embarrass Princess Xin'an at His Majesty's birthday banquet. Granny Xu had someone from the spice shop identify it, and the perfume powder was non-toxic. She also took some perfume powder and used it on the maids in the mansion, and there were no adverse reactions."
Bai Xiuming chuckled: "The person who makes these perfume powders is truly skillful."
Feng Yang was unsure whether his master was genuinely praising him or being sarcastic.
"By the way, Granny Xu said she saw the person who gave her the face powder this morning."
What did they say?
"That person suddenly started talking to Granny Xu about the two children of the Princess of Xin'an, and even asked her if the princess's son was dead. Granny Xu was shocked and asked him how he knew, and then the person left."
After Feng Yang finished his report, he said with some difficulty, "My lord, I have already had the painter draw portraits, but the four women they mentioned all have different appearances. Although their height and build are not much different, they are still quite common. No other traces have been left, so it will probably be difficult to find them in a short time."
Bai Xiuming put down the confession he had just read; the account was largely the same as what Feng Yang had said.
Rather than saying there are four people, it's more accurate to say that one person has four different faces.
This person deliberately chose to make his move at His Majesty's birthday banquet, and his actions were full of vengeful intent.
The person who chose such a complex and dangerous method to expose the fake security must be someone who has a great deal of connection with the fake security's face.
That person also cared about the life and death of the child that the Princess of Xin'an had lost earlier. Besides the real Princess of Xin'an, Bai Xiuming really couldn't think of anyone else.
How did someone who should have died survive? Why did it take so many years for them to seek revenge?
The truth may only be known by finding the other party.
No……
Besides the real Princess Xin'an, there is another person who should also be known, and should even be called an accomplice.
"My lord?" Seeing that Bai Xiuming remained silent, Feng Yang tentatively called out to him.
"Investigate that ghost opera troupe. Find out the identity and background of everyone in the troupe, especially that Yu family. Also, carefully examine their faces to make sure that every face is real."
Feng Yang's pupils contracted: "Understood, subordinate."
Just as he was about to leave, he saw Bai Xiuming stand up, seemingly also intending to go out, and couldn't help but ask curiously, "Is Your Excellency also going out?"
"Hmm." Bai Xiuming walked past him, he was going to see that little liar who was full of lies.
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