Chang Suining: "The prince is still ill, and your family must be busy. Since you are a sincere guest, we should not disturb you if we can."
Li Lu smiled and said, "Mrs. Chang is really considerate."
He said, "I expected Madam Chang to come, and I also thought that Madam Chang might not enter the mansion through the main gate, so I had instructed the guards in the mansion in advance that if they saw Madam Chang, they should not stop her, so as to avoid accidental injury... Now it seems that I was worrying too much."
He had told them not to stop them, but he also told them that if anyone came, they must report to him first.
But now, everyone has come to the inner room of his residence, and the guards in the mansion have found nothing.
The guards in his house were not all for show. Among those who were there for outsiders to see, there were still a few useful people hidden, but they didn't even notice that someone had entered the house...
Just at this moment, a burst of hurried footsteps were heard outside.
The man pushed the door open and came in. He stopped outside the beaded curtain of the inner room, bowed his hands and apologized, his voice a little nervous: "Prince..."
As he spoke, he looked through the beaded curtain into the inner room and saw a young man standing there leisurely with one hand behind his back, not hiding. He looked increasingly nervous and uneasy, and subconsciously touched the scabbard at his waist.
Li Lu looked over and saw that it was the leader of his guards who came.
Li Lu's expression and tone seemed somewhat helpless: "Okay, go out and guard."
"Yes." The leader of the guards had no choice but to retreat nervously and close the door of the outer room.
"The distinguished guests have arrived many times, but I just received the report now. The defenses in Lu's residence are lax, far inferior to yours. I am sorry to make Madam Chang laugh."
As Li Lu spoke, he showed a hint of curiosity: "But... Madam Chang was able to find my residence without the help of a servant. It seems that you are very familiar with the layout of my house?"
"I am familiar with him." Chang Suining did not deny it, but said, "It is better to know yourself and your enemy, right?"
"Know yourself and know your enemy..." Li Lu asked with a smile, "But this is a strategy for dealing with the enemy. Does Madam Chang regard me as an enemy?"
"Then it depends on the prince."
Li Lu said seriously: "Lu has never had any ill will towards Madam Chang."
Chang Suining: "Unlike the prince, I am more accustomed to judging whether there is malicious intent based on deeds."
For example, the other party's previous proposal, to him, what is wrong with the intention of asking for marriage, what is evil? But the person being asked to marry is unwilling, and after the rejection, he still cannot change his mind. For the person being forced, it is not love, but malice, isn't it?
Li Lu understood what she meant, so he apologized, "I was not thoughtful enough about what happened before, please forgive me, Madam Chang."
"Whether I forgive you or not, the prince probably doesn't care." Chang Suining didn't want to revisit the past with him. She found a chair and sat down, looking at him: "The prince's illness this time was such a coincidence, but now it seems that it doesn't seem to be fake."
"Mrs. Chang is always so frank when she speaks." Li Lu sighed softly, "How dare I lie when the emperor is watching."
"So it's self-injury?" Chang Suining didn't need his answer, but continued to ask: "The prince would rather injure himself than come forward as a witness. Could it be that he already knew that the real murderer who killed Zhangsun Qi Niangzi was from the Ming family?"
When Li Lu was unwilling to testify at first, she thought that the other party was waiting to see what was going on, or wanted to use the witness as an excuse to get something in return from the Chang family as a deal.
But when she thought about it carefully afterwards, she felt that the other party might have already known who the real murderer was, so he "sick" at such a timely moment.
Of course, the above two are not contradictory. Knowing the truth and attempting to make a deal can coexist. The former can even be the bargaining chip of the latter, which can make him more important in this transaction.
Facing Chang Suining's blunt question, Li Lu was a little surprised: "Madam Chang...has already found out?"
Chang Suining: "Because it is not difficult to guess, it is not difficult to check."
The difficult part is how to solve it after finding out the truth. Finding out the truth is not the end, but the beginning of fighting the truth.
Li Lu smiled and said, "I originally thought that Madam Chang came here to test whether I knew the truth. Now it seems that I thought Madam Chang was too passive."
Chang Suining: "But no matter whether one knows the truth or not, everyone is passive in front of the Ming family."
The members of the Ming family living in Duke Ying's mansion certainly have nothing special except the ability to reincarnate, but who made the man sitting on the dragon throne also have the surname Ming.
"Yes." Li Lu sighed: "Mrs. Chang is like this. Although my surname is Li, I am also like this."
Chang Suining listens to it with his ears and thinks about it.
The Prince of Rong was not as respectful and submissive to the Queen as he appeared to be.
That's right, the kingdom originally belonged to the Li family, but it was controlled by someone from another family. How many people in the Li family would truly and wholeheartedly follow him? Not to mention the Crown Prince of Rong, who was no different from a hostage.
However, these were all known and noticed before. What is worth thinking about is that the other party chose to reveal them in front of her at this moment.
It is active disclosure, not leakage.
The frail young man sitting on the couch looked at her and said sincerely, "Since Madam Chang already knows, I have no intention of being mysterious... That day in the back mountain of Dayun Temple, I did talk with your brother alone for a long time until your brother returned to the public."
"And after that, I have been sitting in meditation at the same place. If you want to go to the maple forest, you need to pass through a small path on the side of where I am. If Mr. Chang has been to the maple forest, I will definitely see him." He said slowly but firmly: "So, Mr. Chang is innocent, I know it very well."
"This is one of them." Li Lu continued, "After all the people who were picking chrysanthemums returned to the temple, I saw with my own eyes that Prince Ming and a girl came out of the maple forest one after the other. Because they looked different, I did not make a sound to startle them."
Chang Suining: "Is that girl disheveled and wrapped in a cloak?"
Li Lu nodded: "That's right."
This is consistent with what the girl who lived in the same Zen temple with Feng Min said.
Chang Suining looked at Li Lu: "It turns out that the prince not only knew about it a long time ago, but also saw it with his own eyes."
She didn't even think that it was a coincidence that Li Lu chose to sit there.
Perhaps, he already knew that Ming Jin and Feng Min had entered the maple forest, so he wanted to stay and find out...
Could she understand that he and his people, within their sight, had been secretly watching Ming Jin—that is, the actions of the Ming family members related to the Ming Queen? "Since the prince saw that Ming Jin's demeanor was different when he left the maple forest, even if he would not go into the maple forest to check it out himself, I think he would have asked the guards to investigate, right?" She said, "If it was a 'coincidence', he might have seen the Ming family's wife's 'aftermath' actions."
Li Lu did not deny it, but said, "The Ming family is very cautious and we were unable to get close to investigate. Therefore, I did not know in advance that the other party wanted to use the jade pendant to frame your brother."
Didn't you know about it beforehand? Chang Suining was skeptical and said, "If the prince had made it clear on that day and not given them the opportunity to erase the evidence, we wouldn't be in this situation today."
Li Lu looked embarrassed: "If I had spoken up that day, I wouldn't have been able to explain to His Majesty why I paid so much attention to Prince Ming, or His Majesty might have suspected that I was secretly spying on the Ming family."
Chang Suining: "Your Highness doesn't have to show up. Even if you just give some clues and reminders secretly when the Changsun family is looking for someone without exposing yourself, you can avoid all the troubles later—"
"Yes, I should have thought of that..." Li Lu said with some shame, "But I was so frightened at the time that I really didn't think so thoroughly. I have been cautious in the capital for many years, and I am used to keeping my distance from the Ming family's son."
Yeah?
Chang Suining looked quietly at the young man with calm eyes, who clearly did not show any sign of fear.
The false feeling is that he was frightened and thoughtless, but the true feeling is that he felt it was useless to speak out about it too early.
Perhaps, he might not have known about the jade pendant in advance as he said, but he had been waiting for all this to develop, waiting for her to "beg" him at this moment.
Looking at the weak and harmless young man, Chang Suining's eyes dimmed slightly: "If that's the case, can I make a narrow guess that the prince or someone under his command heard the cry of Lady Changsun Qi and her maidservant for help?"
Since he was intentionally paying attention to Ming Jin's actions, if the people he sent to follow him were close enough, they would definitely be able to see Ming Jin committing the crime.
"It doesn't matter whether I heard the cry for help or not." Li Lu sighed: "Even if I heard it, I would be powerless to stop it, right?"
So, I did hear it.
The frank and lively face of the girl flashed before Chang Suining's eyes, and his heart froze for a moment.
The girl was very unfortunate, but there was someone who could have saved her from this misfortune. However, that person chose to turn a blind eye and watched and allowed this misfortune to happen.
She had no intention of imposing all her noble virtues on others, and she was not a very noble person, but the other party's sigh at this time was really hypocritical, and he took advantage of the situation and called it powerlessness to stop it.
Just as she said just now, there were many ways to alert the Changsun family. So, at that time in the maple forest, facing the unwary Ming Jin, there were also many ways to save people without exposing themselves.
Even if he didn't come out to rescue people, he could just order his guards to secretly scare Ming Jin away and interrupt the crime.
He did not choose to save people, not because he couldn't, but because he didn't want to.
Because for him, allowing the prince of the Ming family to kill the daughter of the Changsun family who was about to become the Crown Princess was a good choice to consume foreign forces no matter how the matter developed.
Noticing the change in the girl's eyes, Li Lu hesitated for a moment, but still chose to ask her: "Ms. Chang, you think my behavior is inappropriate, right?"
This question was not in his conversation plan, and it didn't matter how she felt about him, but for some reason, he asked it anyway.
The girl answered simply: "Yes."
Li Lu: "Then why didn't Madam Chang directly criticize and scold her?"
"Scolding is useless, and I have no right to scold Prince Rong."
"But Madam Chang must have regarded me as a cold-blooded, hypocritical and despicable person in her heart." Li Lu laughed self-deprecatingly, "But if Madam Chang was placed in my situation for a long time since childhood, and experienced everything I have experienced, Madam Chang might do the same."
He seemed to want to continue speaking, but was interrupted indifferently by the girl.
"I just said that I have no right to rebuke Prince Rong, but that doesn't mean Prince Rong can try to 'educate' me, and use this false assumption to imply that I am naive and shallow and don't understand the hardships and helplessness of the world because of my lack of experience."
Chang Suining looked at the young man with an indifferent look in his eyes: "Everyone has different choices. If Prince Rong has a clear conscience, he can just follow his own path. Why would he try to persuade me to accept his ideas? Just like I didn't bring out my many principles, and I didn't even put out the natural suppression called morality to try to persuade Prince Rong to accept my ideas, right?"
Li Lu was stunned and silent for a long time.
He often remained silent in front of others, either for disguise or to achieve some purpose... but this moment was different.
After a while, he smiled complicatedly: "Ms. Chang is right, Lu is self-righteous."
Chang Suining had no intention of discussing right and wrong with him, nor did he think that the other party was worth his excessive and useless emotions.
There are all kinds of people in the world. If you can get used to it, just watch it. If you really can't stand it, move to a higher place. When you stand high enough and have enough ability, you don't need to hand over the dominance of this world to the people you can't stand, and you can make rules that you can get used to.
When she looked at Li Lu again, her tone was flat: "I came here today to ask the prince, what does the Chang family want in exchange for the prince to come forward and tell the truth you know?"
Even though it was too late to speak up now, it was better than nothing, and she needed to use this opportunity to find out the other party's intentions.
"This question..." Li Lu seemed to think about it, and when he was about to speak, he heard footsteps outside.
Soon, a maid came in, bowed and announced through the curtain: "Prince, several eunuchs have come to the palace, saying that they are here to visit you on the orders of the Saint."
Li Lu coughed twice and said, "I'm afraid I can only trouble them to move here..."
The maid responded, "I will go and invite a few eunuchs to come here."
The maid left for the time being. Chang Suining, who had been hiding behind the floor-length sandalwood screen with clothes and thick cloaks draped over it beside Li Lu's bed when the maid pushed the door open, said, "It seems I came at the right time."
It was worth it that she had to do other things on the way and came late on purpose.
Li Lu understood: "It turns out that Madam Chang also intended to gather information during this trip."
Chang Suining: "Your Highness, this is the best place to get to know the emperor's will. Even if the deal fails today, I can't make this trip in vain."
She wanted Li Lu to come forward, but there were people who didn't want Li Lu to come forward.
If Chang has confessed everything when she entered the palace today, then a real "distinguished guest" will definitely come to Prince Rong's mansion.
Li Lu laughed: "Mrs. Chang really doesn't like to suffer losses."
Chang Suining nodded: "Indeed."
As soon as she finished speaking, Li Lu, who was leaning against the head of the bed, felt something cold and sharp pressing against his back through a layer of bed curtains.
The young girl standing behind him, hiding behind the screen, reminded him, "As long as the prince doesn't speak nonsense and alert the people coming from the palace, the dagger in my hand will be as obedient as the prince."
"My deal with Madam Chang has not been finalized yet, so how could I alert the people coming from the palace?" Li Lu sighed, "Does Madam Chang really not trust me?"
"Compared to a prince who wants to make a deal, a prince who wants to survive is more trustworthy."
Chang Suining said: "I did this so that the deal can go smoothly."
Even if there is only a one in ten thousand chance that something unexpected will happen, she will never put her own safety in the hands of the other party. She came to save her brother, not to sacrifice herself.
"Then please be careful under the knife, Madam Chang. Lu's life is in your hands."
Chang Suining didn't say anything more, but just checked carefully to see if his hiding place was secret enough.
Soon, someone from the palace arrived.
Chang Suining then skillfully concealed his breathing.
I remember the 4,000 words I owed yesterday. I will try to finish them this week. I really slept yesterday and didn’t sneak out to play. How can you not trust me so much! (I slept until dawn. I thought I was as strong as an ox and I thought I could write 8,000 words, but in the end_(:з」∠)_I will try hard tomorrow)
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