Butler Wang gave a brief reply and then walked out.
The room suddenly fell into silence again.
After a while, the Duke's wife gently comforted the depressed Duke Anguo beside her: "Don't worry too much, my lord. Tomorrow, I plan to go to Jingzhao Prefecture with Huai Jin to take some daily necessities to Huai Chen, so as to give him some psychological comfort."
"No, I don't want to go!"
Duke Anguo immediately and firmly refused, "Letting this unfilial son bear the consequences himself is the best lesson for him! But if..."
He paused for a moment. "But what if our Huaichen really has been wrongly accused of a crime he didn't commit? I still think it's safer to go there in person."
The Duke's wife stood up and gently patted her husband's back, which was tense with tension, in an attempt to calm him down.
"Alright, that's the only way to go. But remember one thing: you are not allowed to use your connections to interfere with the official investigation! Everything must be done according to normal procedures, and the government must handle this case fairly and reasonably. If this is indeed the case, you must be severely punished according to national law!"
Finally, Duke Anguo stated his position in a firm tone.
"Yes, sir."
Fu Yu nodded respectfully in response.
That night, in order to calm down and think about countermeasures, Duke Anguo chose to temporarily stay in a nearby temple to practice and recuperate; on the other hand, Fu Yu accompanied Wen Zhu back to the courtyard where she usually lived to rest.
As each of them had a lot of thoughts in their minds, they did not say much in the temple and went to bed early.
Lying in bed and closing my eyes, everything that happened during the day still echoed in my mind.
Thinking back on everything that happened today, Wen Zhu's mind couldn't calm down for a long time.
In her previous life, she had overheard her servants talking about this shocking case.
The hometown of one of the servants was located near the scene of the crime. It is said that in order to solve the case as soon as possible, the government not only summoned adult men from the surrounding villages to assist in identifying the murderer, but even the monks who usually lived in peace were forced to get involved, which made the people in the entire village feel a deep sense of unease.
Although the victim was blindfolded and could not see the murderer's true face, she still remembered two details that were extremely important to her in her panic: when she tried to resist, she stabbed the other person's right hand with a hairpin, and she noticed a unique scent of Lingjun perfume coming from the man, which later became one of the key clues to finding the real murderer.
After about three weeks of difficult and tortuous investigation, the truth finally came to light.
However, the truth was unexpected and shocking - the so-called victims were actually a couple who made a living by fraud.
The two had a clear division of labor and cooperated tacitly to perform one "pornographic photo scandal" drama after another, with the aim of defrauding money through various means.
In this elaborate scam, the woman took on the responsibility of seducing the target, while the man pretended to discover the situation and used it as a threat to demand a high amount of compensation.
They moved around like ghosts, committing crimes. Whenever there were no more fish to catch in the previous place or their reputation was damaged, the couple would quickly change their identities and start weaving new scams.
It was not until one of their operations that an unlucky scholar who had unfortunately fallen into their trap was unable to raise the required ransom to resolve the dispute due to financial difficulties, thus completely exposing the dark side behind this.
This scam not only caused the young student to lose his personal reputation, but also deprived him of the opportunity to take the imperial examination and change his destiny.
With deep resentment and unquenchable anger, the scholar secretly tracked the two criminals to their destination and hired professional assassins to eliminate the man in a ruthless manner.
The executor originally planned to deal with the female companion as well, but in the end due to some unexpected circumstances, the latter only fell into a coma but was not fatal.
From the time the servants' private discussions gradually fermented until the case was finally settled, various speculations and rumors about the incident emerged one after another, as if the entire mansion was shrouded in a mysterious and tense atmosphere.
As for why this incident left such a deep impression on Wen Zhu, it was because the Duke's wife and the young lady decided to stay in Guanghua Temple temporarily to enjoy a moment of peace, but they unexpectedly encountered this sudden incident.
The next morning, when they heard that such a serious incident had occurred in the village, they immediately returned to their own houses to avoid possible danger out of concern and anxiety for their own safety.
In this complicated incident, almost no party can be said to be innocent. It can be said that everyone has reaped the consequences of their own actions.
Now that Wen Zhu has another chance to be reborn, he uses the remaining information in his mind and his keen insight to carefully plan and successfully lure Sheng Huaichen, who is bewitched by his beauty and whose mind has become less clear, to the vicinity of the scene of the incident.
As expected, this Mr. Sheng became the object of suspicion as she had expected.
Fortunately, at the critical moment he was able to maintain a bit of rationality and did not involve her in the turmoil, thus avoiding more unpredictable consequences.
Faced with the worst-case scenario—that is, having to surrender himself to the authorities in person, although Wen Zhu had made sufficient preparations to deal with all possible consequences, the best outcome would naturally be if he could find a way to successfully avoid it.
The next day, it was rumored that the Duke's wife would personally go to the prison to visit Sheng Huaichen who was trapped there.
Perhaps in order to speed up his family's rescue, she guessed that he would choose to conceal all information related to her and minimize unnecessary trouble.
However, there is still an unpredictable factor in this situation: Su Qiulu actually secretly came to the place where the adultery was discovered.
So the question is, when did Su Qiulu start to realize that Sheng Huaichen had evil intentions towards her?
Recalling the morning before leaving the main hall of Xuanhe Courtyard, Wen Zhu noticed that Su Qiulu's gaze towards Sheng Huaichen was extremely complicated, as if implying some unusual emotions.
The deep meaning in her eyes was not simple curiosity or hostility, but an indescribable exploration and alertness.
Looking back now, I’m afraid this feeling wasn’t something I only noticed that evening?
I must have felt it at some point in time before.
Perhaps it was because Sheng Huaichen had been harassing Su Qiulu frequently and covertly in recent times, and this series of actions was eventually discovered by someone and passed on to Su Qiulu through some channel.
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