Chapter 72 Concerned: Have you found out something?
The group looked at the continuous water stains on the table and nodded in agreement.
On the surface, Prince Ning appears to have no direct connection to these matters, but upon closer examination, it becomes clear that he is involved in every single one.
Qi Jingxuan recalled the Dragon Boat Festival boat trip and slammed his hand on the table: "That's right, he was there on the Dragon Boat Festival too. That palace maid named Su Lan might have been killed by someone he sent."
No one had previously considered the possibility of Prince Ning being involved, because there were many royal relatives, nobles, and high-ranking officials on the ship that day, and Prince Ning had no prior grudge against Qi Jingxuan, so there was really no reason to associate it with him.
But now that everything is connected, and Prince Ning is always involved, the death of Su Lan has taken on another possibility.
"That incident implicated both you and the Sixth Prince. The Sixth Prince was even demoted to a county prince as a result, which is entirely beneficial to Prince Ning."
"Shen Yan said."
"If he had succeeded in framing you back then, you might have been banished from the capital and would never have remembered the palace banquet that day, and you wouldn't have exposed him. Even if he hadn't succeeded, the blame would have been placed on the Sixth Prince, and he himself would have been completely unscathed."
"Now that Consort Hui has killed Lin Si, he can use this to influence the political climate in the court, making people think that it has always been the Sixth Prince who has framed you."
"If His Majesty stops here and doesn't investigate, that's fine. But if he insists on investigating, I'm afraid he has already prepared enough evidence to clear his name and make the Sixth Prince take the blame for him."
Gao Zheng had just thought of this as well, and nodded in agreement, while Xu Jinyu and Qi Jingxuan looked enlightened.
"I knew it! How could the Sixth Prince be so stupid? He dared to frame Ah Xuan just because they were wearing the same clothes. It turns out it was Prince Ning who was behind it all..."
At this point, Xu Jinyu couldn't help but get goosebumps again and shivered as she said, "It was purely a coincidence that Ah Xuan wore the same clothes as the Sixth Prince that day, but he came up with such a scheme in such a short time after seeing the two of them. He is truly vicious."
Gao Zheng scoffed, "Not necessarily. Perhaps it's not that he's so smart, but that the Sixth Prince is as stupid as a pig."
“The servants on the ship that day have all been interrogated. Although the Sixth Prince’s personal attendant denied killing Su Lan, he admitted that he was instructed by the prince to wear that dress and humiliate Su Lan, hoping to frame the prince. I think it is likely that the Prince of Ning found out about this and took the opportunity to kill the man.”
“With Su Lan dead, either the Prince or the Sixth Prince will suffer, but he will never be at a disadvantage.”
The group had all agreed that the mastermind was Prince Ning, but they had never provided any concrete evidence. The only person who could directly point to Prince Ning, Lin Si, had already been killed, which was quite disheartening.
Qi Jingxuan was also very annoyed, both annoyed that he couldn't find any fault with Prince Ning, and annoyed that Qi Jinghong was just looking for trouble for no reason, handing him a knife for no reason.
Now both of them are in deep trouble, but Prince Ning is still clean and is still regarded by civil and military officials as a person of exceptional intelligence who can be compared with the Crown Prince.
Shen Yan felt a little heavy-hearted, but still comforted him, saying, "A fox will always show its tail eventually. We now know that he is probably the one behind it all, so we just need to keep an eye on him. Every goose leaves a trace. He has done so much, it's impossible for him to really cover everything up completely. As long as we investigate diligently, we will eventually find out the truth."
Xu Jinyu cheered and said, "That's right, things are better now than when we knew nothing at all."
"Speaking of which, I've also made some progress at home. There's a steward who was sent to the estate who wants to be transferred back to the manor. These days, he's been trying to find someone to help him. He mentioned the spring banquet incident, as if he knows some secrets."
"I was afraid of alerting the enemy, so I didn't have him arrested and interrogated immediately. We'll find the person who colluded with him later and get a confession from him."
"I want to see who conspired with others to drag my Marquis of Cheng'an into this mess."
He then turned to Qi Jingxuan and asked, "Have you found out who left the palace banquet in the first month of the lunar year?"
Qi Jingxuan frowned: "We've found out, but there are too many people. We can't figure out exactly when they left. We'll have to keep looking."
The palace banquet in the first month of the lunar calendar is usually the busiest time of the year. In addition to the imperial relatives, officials of the third rank and above can also bring their families to attend. In addition, important officials from all over the country and foreign envoys come from outside the capital. A banquet can easily have hundreds of people.
It's easy to find out who went to change clothes or sober up during the day; just ask the palace maids and eunuchs who were serving them. But it's not easy to get them to remember the exact time each person left their seat.
Qi Jingxuan had to investigate himself, sending people to question and sort things out one by one; he couldn't get the Ministry of Rites or the Imperial Household Department to cooperate. Otherwise, how could he explain that he had seen someone secretly having an affair in the Imperial Garden during the palace banquet that day?
He didn't even see it, he only heard it; all he saw was a handkerchief that's now commonplace.
He had no evidence that the person behind the artificial hill that day was Prince Ning, so what reason did he have to get anyone to cooperate with him in investigating something that had happened several months ago?
Xu Jinyu knew this wouldn't be easy, so she patted him on the shoulder and said, "Don't rush, take your time. Now that we have a clue, we can always find something by following the clues."
The group briefly recounted their recent findings and then decided to disperse to continue their individual investigations.
Shen Yan asked Qi Jingxuan to see the two out, while she herself wanted to go to the garden to practice her archery skills some more.
She has been diligently practicing archery with Aqing every day lately, and while she hasn't yet mastered it, she has made rapid progress. Perhaps she truly has a natural talent for things that require accuracy; aside from her strength being far inferior to Aqing's, her accuracy is getting better and better.
But just as she was about to instruct the servants to prepare bows and arrows, Chidou stepped forward to announce that the Ninth Miss of the Li family and the Third Miss of the Yongchang Marquis's Mansion had arrived and had been waiting in the flower hall for a while.
Shen Yan was slightly taken aback and asked, "Why are you only telling me now?"
Chidou replied, "This servant was going to come and inform you, but the two young ladies heard that you and the Prince were discussing matters with Prince Xu and Young Master Gao, so they didn't want to disturb you and said that you could come over after you finished."
Upon hearing this, Shen Yan hurried to the flower hall, and sure enough, upon entering, she saw Li Yaozhi and Gu Niannian sitting opposite each other, playing chess. It seemed they had been waiting for a long time and were bored, so they were passing the time in this game.
Gu Niannian had already lost three games in a row and was frowning in deep thought when she suddenly saw Shen Yan arrive out of the corner of her eye. She took the opportunity to shuffle the pieces that were already at a disadvantage and said, "I'm not playing anymore, Aci is here."
Li Yaozhi glared at her, but didn't say anything, and put down the chess piece in her hand.
The servants quickly removed the chessboard, poured tea for Shen Yan, and then quietly retreated to the side.
Shen Yan said apologetically, "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."
Gu Niannian shook her head: "It's nothing, it's nothing. We just came over to sit for a while because we had nothing else to do. Your business is more important."
Li Yaozhi nodded in agreement, then asked, "Have you been very busy lately? Is something important going on?"
Shen Yan didn't have many friends in the capital to begin with, and after the incident at the Cheng'an Marquis's Spring Banquet, even fewer people were willing to associate with her. Li Yaozhi and Gu Niannian were the few people who got along with her and didn't care about the rumors and gossip.
The group used to get along very well, but for some reason, Shen Yan seems to have gradually become distant from them lately.
They sent invitations to Shen Yan, but she always refused. They said they wanted to visit her home, but she always made excuses to decline. Apart from the dowry they sent to the Shen family before her wedding, Shen Yan almost never saw them again.
At first, the two thought she was too busy with her wedding to play with them, but after her marriage, she became increasingly absent.
They were worried that Qi Jingxuan was mistreating her and had deliberately detained her, so they came uninvited to find out what was going on.
To their surprise, when they arrived, the servants of the manor did not prevent them from seeing Shen Yan, and treated them with great courtesy, as if they did not intend to lock Shen Yan up.
The two of them didn't have anything important to do, and when they learned that Shen Yan and Qi Jingxuan were receiving guests, they didn't urge them and told the servants to wait until she was finished before informing her.
Shen Yan smiled and said, "There's nothing important. I'm just learning how to manage the affairs of the Prince's Mansion since I've never taken over such a large operation before."
That makes sense. The Shen family had a small population and meager resources, so they could handle all their affairs easily, without even needing many account books. Although the Pingjun Prince's Mansion only had two masters, Shen Yan and Qi Jingxuan, it had over a hundred servants, countless fields and shops, and frequently dealt with the palace and many other high-ranking families. The affairs they had to handle were far greater than those in the Shen family.
It's perfectly normal that Shen Yan, being new to the area, has to learn how to manage the household affairs and doesn't have time to meet with friends.
Gu Niannian immediately believed her and repeatedly thanked her for her hard work. Li Yaozhi, however, was not so easily fooled. She glanced at Chidou and the others guarding the room and said, "I have something I'd like to discuss with you privately. Would you mind dismissing everyone else?"
Shen Yan was taken aback, but still agreed and dismissed Chi Dou and the others.
Gu Niannian glanced at Shen Yan, then at Li Yaozhi, and tentatively stood up: "I'll go too."
Li Yaozhi glared at her but ignored her, so she knew she didn't need to leave and calmly sat back down to continue eating her tea and snacks.
After all the servants had left and the door was closed, Li Yaozhi said, "Aci, are you hiding something from us?"
Judging from her expression just now, Shen Yan knew that she must have guessed something, but she really didn't know how to answer such a direct question with concern.
Hiding it would be useless; Li Yaozhi obviously wouldn't believe it. But if the truth were told...
Shen Yan smiled bitterly and remained silent for a long time.
Gu Niannian, confused, swallowed the tea and snacks in her mouth before asking, "What's wrong? Is something really wrong?"
After saying that, she became a little anxious: "Aci, you have something to tell us. Did Prince Ping bully you...? He was so good to you before, was he just deliberately trying to trick you into marrying him? Now that he's got you, has he stopped pretending and started treating you like this..."
"Have you found out anything about the spring banquet at the Marquis of Cheng'an's residence?"
Li Yaozhi interrupted, the question still directly pointing to Shen Yan.
Gu Niannian chuckled, realizing she had misunderstood, and stopped interrupting.
"The maid just now said that you went to meet guests with Prince Ping. They were Prince Xu and Young Master Gao."
“You are a woman, and since these two men have come to visit, it is only right that Prince Ping should entertain them. There is no need for you, the princess, to make an appearance. Since you two went together, there must be a reason for you to meet them together.”
“Young Master Xu comes from the Marquis of Cheng’an’s mansion. The reason you were framed for having an affair with Prince Ping was during the spring banquet he was preparing. Young Master Gao is an old acquaintance of yours and comes from the Gao family of Jiangzhou. He is skilled in criminal investigation.”
“Aside from the matter at the Marquis of Cheng’an’s residence, I really can’t think of anything else that would bring you all together.”
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