Chapter 66 The mistake was the other person behind the artificial hill that day.
"You guessed right, Prince Ning is indeed more likely than the Crown Prince."
After listening to Shen Yan's story, Gao Zheng said.
He and Xu Jinyu sat in a restaurant on the street next to the He family's house for half a day, finally waiting for the people inside to come out. The final news they got was that the He family had split up, and nothing else.
But for the Ho family to hastily split up and cut their losses to survive, something major must have happened, and this information was useful to them.
Xu Jinyu immediately went to the Prince's Mansion to inform Qi Jingxuan, and Gao Zheng followed her as if possessed. Only after arriving did he realize that Shen Yan had already guessed it.
But their trip wasn't in vain. Shen Yan shared her story about the handkerchief, and Gao Zheng agreed with her idea after hearing it.
"Since the other party is so fixated on Prince Ping and insists on driving him out of the capital, it means that the handkerchief must be very important and not something that can be found everywhere."
"The fact that such a crucial piece of evidence would appear in the hands of the Third Princess, whether it is the same piece or a similar forged item, must be intentional and not a coincidence."
"The only possible reason why the person behind the scenes would do such a thing is that he was in a panic and grasped at straws, trying to find a suitable solution for himself. Between the Crown Prince and Prince Ning, Prince Ning was naturally the more convenient option."
"However... there is another possibility."
"besides"
Shen Yan frowned in thought, wondering what she had overlooked.
Gao Zheng glanced at her, hesitated, and said, "...If she were a concubine, it would be very convenient for her to slip that handkerchief to her daughter."
Shen Yan was stunned, while Qi Jingxuan and Xu Jinyu opened their mouths wide at the same time, their jaws almost falling onto the table.
"You...you...you mean...the person behind the artificial hill that day might have been the Imperial Concubine...the Imperial Concubine with someone else..."
Xu Jinyu could barely speak properly, and she gripped the corner of the table so tightly that she almost dug a fingerprint into the nanmu wood.
Although Gao Zheng was reluctant to speak to Qi Jingxuan, he still looked at him and asked, "Did the Imperial Concubine leave her seat that day?"
"I...I don't know," Qi Jingxuan said. "There were so many people at the palace banquet that day, and men and women were seated separately. I wasn't with the women, so how could I know who left their seats and who didn't?"
After he finished speaking, he looked at Hsu Jin-yu and said, "Do you know?"
Xu Jinyu glared at her: "I was sitting right next to you, how would I know?"
The two looked at each other, both shocked by Gao Zheng's guess.
Although Gao Zheng is only seventeen years old, he has handled many cases over the years, including all sorts of trivial family matters and immoral and inhumane acts. Naturally, he has more to speculate about than others.
Shen Yan thought about it and realized that it was indeed possible.
If Qi Jingxuan had encountered the Imperial Concubine that day, she would have found a way to get rid of him for the sake of her reputation and her children's future. Otherwise, if the incident came to light, not only would her own life be in danger, but Prince Ning and the others would also be affected. Perhaps some people would even use this to doubt the bloodline of Prince Ning and the Fourteenth Prince, at which point they would be completely out of the running for the throne.
But... the third princess is also her child. Would a mother really abandon her daughter for two sons?
Shen Yan had seen this kind of situation before when she was in Yingzhou, but she remembered that when she first entered the palace to attend the palace banquet hosted by Consort Shu, Consort Jia sent someone to call her back immediately to prevent the Third Princess from causing trouble, and she was quite protective of her.
By then, the palace banquet in the first month of the lunar calendar had already passed, and the incident in the Imperial Garden had already occurred. If she truly didn't care about this daughter, or had already decided to frame her, why would she go to such lengths? Wouldn't it have been better to let her offend people? That way, when the matter came to light, it would further prove that the Third Princess was immature and that she was the one who had an affair with someone.
After much deliberation, she still leaned towards Prince Ning between the Imperial Concubine and Prince Ning and his mother.
Gao Zheng didn't refute, but said gently, "It's all just speculation, but at least now we can focus on the two of them, instead of wandering around like headless flies like before."
Xu Jinyu already admired Gao Zheng, and now she also felt great respect for Shen Yan, sincerely praising her: "Brother Gao, Miss Shen, you are really amazing. You were able to come up with so much from such a small clue."
"No, it's just that you don't want to think the worst of people."
Shen Yan said modestly.
Xu Jinyu chuckled and was about to say something when Qi Jingxuan said from the side, "No, I just didn't think of that."
Gao Zheng rolled his eyes upon hearing this, thinking to himself, "What's so great about that? Saying it so confidently." But then he heard Shen Yan chuckle, her eyes crinkling with laughter. Xu Jinyu, on the other side, also shook her head and chuckled, playfully punching Qi Jingxuan: "You're so honest."
The tense atmosphere in the room eased slightly because of those words. Gao Zheng looked at the smiles on the faces of the three people and felt inexplicably out of place with them.
The thought had barely crossed his mind when he froze. He was the one who knew Aci first, the one who had laughed and talked with her for the past few years, so why now… it seemed like he was the one who couldn't fit in?
Shen Yan didn't notice his expression. After laughing, she pulled the group back to the main topic: "Regardless of whether the real mastermind is Prince Ning or Consort Gui, what we need to do now is to figure out why he didn't destroy that handkerchief."
"Your Highness was right earlier. Even if that person made a foolish move by giving the handkerchief to the Third Princess, he could have easily taken it away and destroyed it afterward. Why didn't he do that, allowing the handkerchief to remain until now?"
Hearing her words, Gao Zheng snapped out of his reverie, clearing his mind of the jumbled thoughts and carefully considering the possible reasons. Before he could come up with a solution, Xu Jinyu hesitated and said, "Well... I can probably guess something."
The group's gazes immediately turned to Xu Jinyu. He was unusually nervous and pursed his lips, saying, "Although I haven't seen that handkerchief in person, it seems quite familiar from Ah Xuan's description. My aunt and sister seem to have used similar ones, and I've seen them more than once."
Do you have a handkerchief like that at home too?
Qi Jingxuan was surprised.
Xu Jinyu nodded: "Two butterflies and a few peony flowers. Some people have one red and one green butterfly on their handkerchiefs, while others have one red and one blue. The butterflies and flowers are in the same position and are the same size, only their colors are very similar, so they look almost the same. If you don't look closely, you might think they are exactly the same."
“My two younger sisters were comparing these handkerchiefs earlier, and I happened to see it, so I have some recollection of it. I just never expected... that it would be related to this year’s spring banquet.”
Shen Yan: "Butterflies among flowers isn't a new pattern, and peonies are also very common in this kind of design. Unless it's painted by a famous master, the final product depends entirely on the embroiderer's color matching and embroidery skills. If they're even slightly lacking, the resulting handkerchief will be quite ordinary. A family like Xu Shizi's would probably not use such a handkerchief. Could it be... could it be that the trends in the capital are different from our Yingzhou, and this kind of pattern is quite popular there?"
Xu Jinyu chuckled and gave her an approving look: "That's exactly what I wanted to say. Miss Shen is indeed amazing; you grasped the key point right away."
"This pattern isn't popular, and my aunts and sisters didn't have it embroidered because they liked it. It was a gift from a silk shop in the capital. They said that a few skilled embroiderers had recently joined the shop, and the shopkeeper specially asked them to embroider some small items like handkerchiefs and purses to give to their regular customers, so that the customers could see the embroiderers' skills and have their clothes made at his shop in the future."
"Because the handkerchief was embroidered really well, even though the material was just average, my aunts and sisters all liked it quite a bit."
“I figured that the shop didn’t just do business with us, and the handkerchiefs must have been given to more than just us. I imagine that now, in the capital, there are probably many people in famous and well-known households who carry the same handkerchiefs.”
“Since everyone has this handkerchief, how can the fact that the Third Princess has one serve as evidence? On the contrary, it would be more suspicious if she had it given to her and then secretly took it back. If I were the suspect, I would pretend nothing happened and let the handkerchief remain in the Third Princess’s possession.”
Qi Jingxuan frowned and replied, "Isn't doing this redundant? When did that shop hire the new embroiderer? When did they start sending handkerchiefs? Who did they send them to? These things can be easily found out with a simple investigation."
"When we compare their testimonies, and find that the embroiderer arrived after the palace banquet, and the handkerchiefs were also sent after the banquet, then it's obvious there's something wrong."
"If we investigate this shop further and find out who owns it and who gave the order, we can easily catch the person."
This doesn't sound like something the person who framed him and Shen Yan would do. They're incredibly stupid; even he could see through it at a glance.
Gao Zheng's eyes flickered slightly, and he exchanged a glance with Shen Yan. The two spoke in unison, "It's the other person behind the rockery that day."
When that person returned, he was just as flustered as Prince Ning or the Imperial Concubine, fearing that someone would trace him back to the handkerchief. So he came up with this plan to muddy the waters by scattering embroidered handkerchiefs of the same pattern everywhere, thinking that this way he would not be found out.
But this method was full of flaws and was even worse than the one used by the palace official to shift the blame.
Embroidered handkerchiefs aren't as complicated as screens or ready-made clothes; with a few embroiderers, a large number can be made quickly. In his haste, he had many made and sent out without informing the person in the palace. By the time the person in the palace found out, it was too late to stop.
So even though the person in the palace later realized that it wasn't necessary to lose her composure over a handkerchief, she couldn't very well take back the one she had already given to the Third Princess, lest it arouse more suspicion when the investigation started in the future.
Since Qi Jingxuan had already left the palace to establish his own residence, he rarely went back to the palace unless absolutely necessary, preferring to wander around the capital. He was far more likely to see other women using that handkerchief outside the palace than he was to see Qi Yunying using it inside. If he didn't remember anything about it, the handkerchief was unimportant, and its destruction was irrelevant. If he did remember, and had seen someone else using it first, he wouldn't suspect Qi Yunying.
Unfortunately, Qi Jingxuan had been completely preoccupied with Shen Yan lately, spending all his time around her and paying no attention to anything else. Nearly six months after that palace banquet, the first time he thought of that handkerchief was because he accidentally bumped into Qi Yunying.
So, following the clues, they eventually found out about Prince Ning and the Imperial Concubine.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
