Sister (3)
"Liu Yu and I were both daughters of the Duke of Dingguo's mansion. She was the eldest legitimate daughter, while I was only a concubine's daughter. We didn't interfere with each other. People in the mansion said that although we looked about 70% alike, my appearance was more delicate. She naturally knew this, and over time, she grew resentful and often made things difficult for me and my concubine.
I was only eight or nine years old at that time. My aunt was worried, so she pretended to be sick and asked me to go to the countryside to recuperate.
When I came back the year I came of age, I saw that my aunt was living in a woodshed! I also learned that my aunt had not lived a happy life in recent years, often bullied by my mother and her. My mother chose to swallow her anger because she didn't want me to cause trouble.
"Originally, I had no intention of getting involved with her and thought I'd just marry her off. But she was arrogant, domineering, and ruthless. She even killed my brother's wet nurse!
She saw that I was becoming more and more beautiful, and my appearance had already surpassed hers. People in the capital even said that I looked more like the eldest daughter of the Duke of Dingguo's mansion than she did.
"Alas, women's jealousy." Qu Yi sighed beside him. Xu Ning glanced at him with resentment.
"It's only limited to some people." Qu Yi slapped his own mouth.
"In the twenty-fifth year of Zhenning, I met Han Li, the son of the Marquis of Nanyang. We were in love, and our families agreed on a marriage. But when we were about to get married the following year, my elder sister actually drugged me and arranged a marriage for me! It was because she had been having an affair with someone unknown and was pregnant.
My parents didn't want this scandal exposed, so they switched us without consulting me. From then on, she was Liu Han, and I was Liu Yu.
"Is this your reason for killing her?"
"What do you mean I killed her? She obviously deserved it! And am I the only one who killed her? Let me tell you in detail." The woman roared like crazy, and then suddenly calmed down.
"After this incident, I was completely disheartened with my parents. I asked Han Lang, and he said he still loved me. He never touched my sister after she married him, and he kept a certain distance from her. Of course, I know my sister has a strong temper. How could I allow someone to treat her like this?
Humph, as expected, not long afterward, the Nanyang Marquis' wife, my former mother-in-law, became extremely dissatisfied with her. She privately told me that she acted like a princess at home, was disrespectful to her in-laws, and was arrogant and domineering, causing unrest throughout the Marquis's mansion. I asked Han Li and the neighbors, and they all said the same thing.
"The princess still has her dignity, and with the Empress behind her, no one dares to touch her openly. And my sister has always been very fond of beauty, and she has been looking for talented people to do her beautification."
"I understand. No wonder the murderer hasn't been found. I've always been confused as to why the evidence points to so many scattered points. It turns out the murderer is actually a group of people. They're all her relatives.
Were you the ones who tipped her off that someone in Buhuo City could make her beautiful, but it was actually someone you hired who deceived her?" Xu Ning suddenly realized, feeling a complex mix of emotions.
"No, there are indeed people like that in Buhuo City who specialize in facial treatments, but they're expensive. After she was done, we sent someone to tell her she needed another application at the Qingfeng Inn, and that's how we tricked her into coming."
"The Marquis of Nanyang poisoned her food. The alum oil was poured by the maid of the Marquis of Nanyang's wife. To avoid being exposed, she was first poisoned and silenced, and then Liu Yu's personal maid was made to imitate Liu Yu's voice and scream."
"Then she pretended to have just discovered the dead body and called out to us."
"No wonder I always felt that the time of death didn't match, and there were tear marks in the corners of the deceased's eyes. The time interval was too short, and the coroner was unable to carefully test the specific time. He only knew that she was poisoned by a chronic poison at the time." Only then did Xu Ning reconcile these with the details of the investigation.
"However, we didn't see the maid when we entered the house. How did she provide an alibi?"
Tang Xixu closed his eyes and figured out all the doubts. "It was the waiter who served tea. We were on the second floor, and they lived on the third. While we were going upstairs, a waiter happened to come down. His face was black, but now I think it was just a little coal dust."
"I didn't even doubt the waiter at all at that time." Xu Ning expressed shock.
"None of us has ever heard Liu Yu's voice, so even if you find someone to imitate it, no one will doubt it." Xu Lian said, "The ones acting with you seriously are the innkeeper, you and your wife, the middle-aged couple. And the middle-aged couple must be the Nanyang Marquis and his wife.
Although ordinary nobles wouldn't pass by here, if someone among them happened to hear her voice, wouldn't that mean everything would be lost? "
"Most people passing by here are in a hurry, but your presence alone makes me wary. But from what I've observed, you're just a bunch of wuxia people who don't care about the imperial court. So, even Heaven can't stand it! Even Heaven is helping me!"
"This entire inn belongs to you, right?" Xu Ning asked tentatively.
"Hahaha, you're not that stupid. We started planning this place half a year ago to kill her. It was all for this day."
"The man who plays the innkeeper must be a man of the martial arts world, right? And who did you learn such excellent martial arts from? I want to become his disciple too." Qu Yi has wanted to ask for a long time.
Xu Ning complained in his heart: Brother, we are trying a case here, can you please stop interrupting?
"Good eyesight, little brother. It's definitely not him, but I can't tell you who it is. That's the rule of the martial arts world. Regarding my master, I can only say one thing: he is the shadow in the night."
The shadow in the night, could it be him? Interesting.
Tang Xixu had his eyes closed, but when he heard this, he opened his eyes slightly, his eyes a little dim.
"But she is your biological sister. Did you hesitate for a moment when you took action?" Xu Ning still felt regretful that their own flesh and blood were killing each other.
The woman who was very emotional just now calmed down, her eyes flickered slightly, and she was speechless for a long time.
Xu Ning didn't know what she was thinking, she only saw tears quietly running down the corners of her eyes.
The maid was brought up again and admitted everything but was very regretful: "No, no, no, I was just doing things for them. They threatened to kill me if I didn't do it. Sir, please forgive me! Please forgive me!"
Obviously impossible.
After the interrogation, the authorities took them both away and imprisoned them in Liucheng Prison.
Unfortunately, the emperor valued the Marquis of Nanyang very much, so the Marquis of Nanyang and his wife could not be touched. He was only fined half a year's salary and his wife was imprisoned for half a year.
The incident at the Marquis' Mansion was a family scandal, and the Empress, wanting her niece to rest in peace, had the matter suppressed. However, Liu Han suffered miserably. The Empress, enraged, sent her to Pudu Temple, where she would spend the rest of her life surrounded by the ancient Buddha and the green lamp.
When others asked how the princess died, they simply said she accidentally fell into the water while out and about. But the few who knew the truth knew that the eldest daughter of the Duke of Dingguo's family was arrogant and disrespectful to her elders, and she deserved death. And Han Li, her nominal husband, said nothing.
"Mr. Han is truly pitiful, marrying such a wife."
"Alas, if I were him, there would be nothing he could do. After all, a higher-ranking official can crush a lower-ranking official."
Rumors about Liu Han spread throughout the city.
The task was completed, but the system did not give any indication that the task had been completed.
Is there any clue that is missing?
"After a few days of rest, it's time for us to leave. The inn has been taken over by the government. If we don't leave now, we really can't afford the room rent." Xu Lian suggested.
A group of people were having breakfast in the lobby.
"This old woman has been acting crazy these past few days. I don't know what has stimulated her." Qu Yi looked at the old woman outside the door whose emotions were fluctuating greatly.
She cried, laughed, felt sad, and sighed.
Xu Ning had just finished practicing a set of sword techniques outside and happened to meet the old woman when he came back.
"What a sin, what a sin."
"I don't know, I don't know, I didn't see anything, nothing. Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"
"Ah! Don't come to take my life, no!" The old woman who was holding the baby in the inn not long ago was now shouting crazily in the bamboo forest with messy hair and tattered clothes.
"Don't you think the old woman's mumblings are a little strange? I heard her the other night, 'The little ghost is out, and the god of death is taking my life.' The day she came, she was holding the baby and looked like a normal person.
Liu Han said that the reason Liu Yu exchanged marriages with her was because Liu Yu had an affair with someone and was pregnant, and the Duke of Dingguo's Mansion wanted to suppress the matter so they allowed her to be exchanged in marriage.
"Calculating the time, the baby must be Liu Yu's child." Qu Yi added.
"Whose child is Liu Yu pregnant with?"
"There's another point. Liu Han said that Liu Yu was arrogant and domineering, but during the time she was in the inn, I saw that her every move was like that of a lady from a noble family, and her attitude towards the maids was quite gentle. But according to rumors, she must be someone who can't hide her emotions." Xu Lian couldn't help but frown.
"You might as well go to the Duke of Dingguo's Mansion and the Marquis of Nanyang's Mansion to check it out."
The teenager, who rarely participated in discussions about the case, was yawning at this moment.
Xu Ning didn't understand why Tang Xixu was always sleepy. After leaving Li's house, it seemed like he never got enough sleep.
"Let's try to get it done tonight. We don't have much money left. If we stay here for a few more days, we won't be able to catch up on the rest of the journey." Xu Ning took a look at the package.
The four of them were divided into two teams, Xu Ning and Tang Xixu went to the Duke of Dingguo's Mansion, and Xu Lian and Qu Yi went to the Marquis of Nanyang's Mansion.
At night.
In the once bustling Duke's Mansion, white mourning silk fluttered in the night wind, expressing the sorrow of the death of someone in the mansion.
"Wow, Yu'er, it's mother's fault, it's all mother's fault. Mother shouldn't have let you marry in place of someone else." The lady of the Duke's Mansion aged ten years overnight. Without her gorgeous clothes, she was just a mother who had lost her daughter in her old age.
The Duke's mansion was filled with desolation. The servants in the mansion dared not breathe, and all knelt with their heads bowed. It was said that the maid who had served Liu Yu was originally intended to be buried with him, but was released because the Duke's mansion wanted to accumulate merit.
The two of them climbed over the wall to get in, but as for Xu Ning... she definitely couldn't get over it.
"Higher, higher. That's enough."
Xu Ning sat on the eaves, not daring to jump down.
"I don't dare to jump. Please go down and catch me later."
The young man said nothing. Before Xu Ning could finish, he had already jumped onto the eaves. He was tall, so turning over and jumping down was as easy for him as Xu Ning jumping over a high step.
"I jumped, and you caught it."
"Hurry up, if you don't jump, it will be dawn soon."
The girl stretched out her arms and lunged at the boy below. She wanted to scream, but then she remembered that they were sneaking into someone else's house. To put it nicely, it was a "night visit," but to put it bluntly and easily, it was a "thief" or an "assassin." So she kept her mouth shut.
Seeing the young man with his hands on his hips, she thought he would take advantage of the situation and let her stay.
Who would have thought that Xu Ning would fall to the ground with a thud.
At the same moment, the boy turned sideways and dodged?
Just dodged it so easily?
Xu Ning looked incredulous.
Although it was dark, the light from the lanterns in the courtyard was dim. The girl still caught the sly smile that flashed across the boy's face.
He actually can laugh.
Xu Ning was even more incredulous.
In her eyes, for the villain in the original book, laughter only exists when he sees his white moonlight.
"Congratulations, Master! The main quest has reached 10% completion!"
Joy comes from heaven.
Xu Ning had been having a lot of troubles recently, so when she heard the good news, she laughed out loud.
"Hehe, finally there is something happy."
Did this girl fall down and become stupid again? Tang Xixu was puzzled again.
"What’s wrong with you?"
"Tang Xixu, I've been wanting to say your headband is so pretty." Xu Ning answered irrelevantly. She was actually so happy that she couldn't help but praise her target.
The young man was stunned, his mind went blank for a moment, and he stared at the woman in front of him who was praising him.
She has a really good attitude and can always smile. No matter how thorny the road ahead is, she can always maintain a mentality of letting the tide rise and fall.
Xu Ning didn't know that Tang Xixu was so envious, really so envious.
She also didn't know that in the boy's eyes, the girl's smile was like the spring breeze in March, bathing the boy's heart and caressing his cheek like a hand.
"Oh, really? This was the birthday gift my mother gave me when I was five years old." To Xu Xuning's surprise, he answered her in a gentle voice.
The girl raised her hand and touched the headband. It was made of silk. It was cool and the fabric was very smooth.
"Let's go in first."
The door was unlocked, and the guard was dozing off.
"Meow~Meow" Xu Ning attracted the attention of the guards.
The guard turned around and saw a woman.
"Who is it?" The guard followed Xu Ning out, and then Tang Xixu knocked another guard unconscious.
Xu Ning ran around the outside of the house, and Tang Xixu knocked the guard unconscious.
"Yes, very clever."
The girl was a little embarrassed by the compliment: "It's just so-so."
The furnishings in the house are very low-key, yet luxurious in its understatement.
On the table was the same white jade porcelain teapot that Liu Yu had used at the inn. There was a carpet under the couch, so thick that Xu Ning and Tang Xixu could not hear any sound when they walked on it.
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