Chapter 65 Suspect: I'm so innocent! I'm so innocent!
Qi Jingxuan was dumbfounded. A thousand thoughts exploded in his mind, but when he tried to speak them, they were stuck in his throat. He couldn't decide which sentence to say first.
After holding it in for a long time, until his face was red and his neck was bulging, he slammed his hand on the table, using the action to force out a sentence: "Just because of this."
Although there was still no concrete evidence, Shen Yan was basically certain, so she nodded and said, "Yes. Without that handkerchief, I wouldn't be so sure. But with it, I'm certain there's something wrong with this."
“I told the prince back then that since you haven’t made any deadly enemies, you must have unintentionally done something that offended someone, causing them to want to get rid of you. And this must have happened not long ago, otherwise they would have already made their move.”
"If the Crown Prince or Prince Ning had been the ones attending the palace banquet in the Imperial Garden that day, it wouldn't be surprising if they wanted to get rid of you."
"Why? Why?!"
Qi Jingxuan felt utterly wronged: "I just happened to be passing by and didn't even see who they were! Why would they want to kill me? Besides, even if they were doing those kinds of things in the palace, it has nothing to do with me. Even if I knew, I wouldn't care. Why do they have to kill me? What kind of deep-seated hatred do they have for me?!"
"What if the person with that person at the time was a concubine or the wife or daughter of an official attending a banquet?"
Shen Yan suddenly asked.
Qi Jingxuan was stunned, then abruptly covered his mouth, looking at her in disbelief: "No...no way."
He let out a sentence through his fingers, his mind seemingly filled with syrup, a pot of paste being stirred endlessly.
When Shen Yan said that the people behind the rockery might be the Crown Prince or Prince Ning, he subconsciously assumed they were secretly meeting with a palace maid and didn't think of anything else.
Leaving behind all the officials and ministers at the palace banquet to secretly meet with palace maids would damage the reputations of both of them. It wouldn't be impossible for them to get rid of him to protect their own reputations, but it would be making a mountain out of a molehill, so he felt wronged.
But what if that person wasn't meeting a palace maid at the time...?
Qi Jingxuan couldn't help but shudder, his voice trembling slightly: "This...this is incredibly audacious!"
That's incest, or at the very least, it's defiling the wives and daughters of officials, which would be the same as his reputation at the spring banquet at the Marquis of Cheng'an's residence.
Shen Yan nodded: "They are indeed very bold, and... what they did is probably much more serious than the problems between the two of us."
"Although the spring banquet at the Marquis of Cheng'an's residence damaged our reputation, we are both still unmarried, so there are still ways to resolve this. For example, now that we are married, this matter can be turned into a minor issue and then forgotten. At most, we will be gossiped about and ridiculed behind our backs in the future."
“If the other party were in the same situation, he could have done the same; there’s no need for him to go to such lengths to get rid of you. The fact that he’s gone to such lengths means that what you witnessed that day… was something he absolutely didn’t want to be exposed. Once it’s revealed to the public, it will ruin his reputation and make it impossible for him to ever stand in front of anyone again.”
Qi Jingxuan, trembling, supported his drooping chin: "You mean... the one with that person back then... must have been a palace concubine?"
"Whether she is a concubine or not is uncertain, but she is probably not an unmarried young lady from a wealthy family."
Otherwise, there are many other ways to resolve this. Whether it's said that there was affection between them beforehand or that it was just a momentary impulse, as long as it's classified as a romantic relationship and the marriage is arranged, things will be much simpler.
To put it bluntly, if Qi Jingxuan could come up with a solution, surely the other party could too? Besides, since the woman he was with dared to meet him in the Imperial Garden during the palace banquet, they were probably in love. If he were willing to propose, she would likely agree.
But that person didn't solve the problem that way; instead, he was single-mindedly focused on getting rid of Qi Jingxuan, which shows that he couldn't solve the problem by getting married.
Who could attend the palace banquet but could not possibly marry someone? Either a palace concubine or a married woman who had already been married...
Qi Jingxuan understood and murmured, "No wonder that person went to such lengths to get rid of me. He... he either committed incest or defiled another man's wife. If this gets out, it's far more serious than my drunken misbehavior. If he seduced the wife of some important official, that would be cuckolding him, and that official would definitely be his sworn enemy."
"Yes, and Your Highness's reputation was already bad to begin with. Although it got even worse after the incident at the Marquis of Cheng'an's residence, you yourself didn't really care. If that person hadn't wanted to kill you, you wouldn't have bothered with it at all. But if that person were the Crown Prince or the Prince of Ning, reputation would be of utmost importance to them. Before His Majesty abdicates the throne, they would never allow anyone to ruin their reputation."
Although the Crown Prince is already the heir apparent, he is not as favored by the Emperor as Prince Ning; he only holds the position because of his status as the eldest son of the legitimate wife. If news were to spread now that he had an affair with a concubine or a court official's wife, he would most likely lose his position as Crown Prince.
Prince Ning was the most likely candidate to become the heir apparent besides the Crown Prince, and among the princes, he was the most favored by the Emperor. Unfortunately, he was neither the eldest son nor the legitimate heir, thus missing out on the position. However, it was common knowledge that the Imperial Concubine and the Xie family had been eyeing the position of heir apparent for years. As the son of the Imperial Concubine and the grandson of the Xie family, how could Prince Ning be without ambition? If he wanted to compete with the Crown Prince, he naturally could not allow himself to be tainted by such a stain.
Therefore, regardless of who was behind the artificial hill that day, as long as it was between the two of them, there was a reason to eliminate Qi Jingxuan.
"I've been wronged! I've been so wronged!"
Qi Jingxuan couldn't help but speak again.
"I didn't offend anyone, and I didn't want to compete with anyone for anything. I just happened to pass by that day and saw a handkerchief. Yet I was chased and killed eight times! No, if you include the time I don't remember but you do, it should be nine times."
Although the people who were chasing him don't remember, he does! Now, he feels a headache whenever he sees someone shooting arrows.
"The Crown Prince! It must be the Crown Prince!"
After he finished reciting, he spoke with certainty.
"Why didn't you just think it was Prince Ning?"
Shen Yan asked.
"That's because we didn't know about this handkerchief yet," Qi Jingxuan said. "Now that we know, it must have been the Crown Prince who did it. Otherwise, how could that handkerchief have ended up with Qi Yunying? Qi Yunying is the Fourth Prince's own sister, he wouldn't do something like that to her. So it can only be the Crown Prince."
Shen Yan remained silent for a moment, then slowly shook her head: "I think... he's more like Prince Ning."
Qi Jingxuan was greatly puzzled: "Why is the fourth brother always so good to Qi Yunying, especially protective of her? Whenever Qi Yunying gets into trouble, he either helps her clean up the mess or takes the blame for her. Qi Yunying's bad temper now is at least half due to his spoiling her."
In Qi Jingxuan's eyes, few of his brothers and sisters were truly sincere to each other. Everyone was polite on the surface, but behind the scenes they were all scheming to stab each other in the back. Those like him, who only caused trouble for themselves and did not harm others, were the minority. But the fourth brother and Qi Yunying were siblings, and Qi Yunying was a woman, not involved in the struggle for the throne, so their relationship had been very good since childhood and had not changed as they grew up.
Qi Jingxuan was the only son of Consort Shu, and he was quite envious of her, wishing he had an older or younger sister.
Shen Yan didn't want to think the worst of people, but based on what she knew, Prince Ning was more suspicious.
"What is the relationship between the Crown Prince and the Imperial Concubine and her children? Are they usually close?"
She asked.
“Not at all.” Qi Jingxuan shook his head. “Although the fourth prince seems calm and unassuming, he is, after all, the son of the Imperial Concubine, and his maternal family is the Xie family. The Crown Prince is too busy being wary of them to possibly be close to them.”
"Then it seems the Imperial Concubine and the others are also very wary of the Crown Prince."
"That's natural."
"In that case, given how suddenly the incident happened that day, how did the Crown Prince manage to arrange for someone to deliver that handkerchief to the Third Princess in such a short time, and have her carry it with her without any suspicion?"
Qi Jingxuan was stumped by the question. After thinking for a moment, he said, "I only saw that handkerchief with Qi Yunying today. I can't be sure she had it a long time ago. Maybe the Crown Prince found a way to give it to her later, and she didn't know it."
“No.” Shen Yan said with great certainty, “The person behind the scenes is meticulous. Whether it was the spring banquet at the Cheng’an Marquis’s mansion or the many methods they used against you and me later, they left no trace. It is clear that they are a cautious and careful person.”
"Given his personality, he should have destroyed that handkerchief immediately, instead of leaving it until now, which led to such a big mistake."
"He didn't destroy the handkerchief immediately because the incident happened so suddenly. He didn't expect you to see it, and in his haste, he panicked and came up with the idea of shifting the blame to clear himself."
"If he hadn't done that at the time, and had calmed down and thought about it carefully, he wouldn't have kept the handkerchief that could have been used as evidence and handed it over to someone else."
"So... this must have been a hasty decision, and only someone close to the Third Princess could have done something so hastily."
The Third Princess was not wary of that person, which allowed him to successfully deliver the handkerchief.
In this way, the Crown Prince can be excluded, and the Prince of Ning becomes much more suspicious.
Qi Jingxuan frowned, still finding it hard to believe that someone would do such a thing to their own sister. But Shen Yan's deduction was reasonable and sounded plausible.
He instinctively reached for his nod in agreement, but then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he said, "But that doesn't make sense either. If it really was given to Qi Yunying by the fourth brother, he could easily take it back later. Why keep it?"
If Prince Ning had realized his mistake afterward and taken the evidence away and destroyed it in time, wouldn't that have erased the evidence just the same?
Shen Yan paused for a moment, then a hint of annoyance appeared on her face: "That's right, I thought we had caught the suspect, and I was so happy that I forgot about this."
But for some reason, she just felt that Prince Ning was responsible for this. Ever since Qi Jingxuan mentioned the handkerchief and the palace banquet that day, she had been fixating her gaze on Prince Ning.
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