Chapter 77 Asura storms the Jin residence.
When news of Yue Yining, Ye Miheng, and others being placed under house arrest reached the capital, it was already the seventh day.
The maidservant in charge of delivering the message hurried into the Xie residence. Under the hanging flower gate, prayer flags fluttered like snow, and brand-new white silk hung from the bamboo branches of the covered walkway. The maidservants who passed by along the way were all in a hurry, carrying incense burners and paper money basins for funerals.
Passing through layers of eaves, she arrived at the courtyard of Xie's eldest son, Spray Frost. Looking through the artificial hills and pine trees, she could see that it was packed with people. Several unfamiliar men surrounded Xie Qingyu, who sat in the center, while a group of servants bustled in and out.
The young maid rushed inside, but the guards at the door, seeing she was unfamiliar, stopped her: "What is it? The young master is inside discussing matters with the managers, can't you see? Which courtyard do you belong to?"
The young maidservant quickly replied, "I work at the gatehouse. Just now, there was an urgent message from Suyang. The gatekeeper sent me to deliver a message to the young master..."
The guard interrupted her: "Suyang? What could possibly happen to Suyang? The eldest young master already handed over Suyang's affairs to the Zhao family. News from there shouldn't be reaching the Prime Minister's residence, right?"
"But that person said, said the situation was really urgent...!"
"Come on," the guard said with a sneer, raising his sword hilt slightly. "You have no idea how busy the young master is right now. I'm stopping you for your own good. If you bother him with these trivial matters, you might anger him, and then you, this servant, will be truly finished."
The maid was so anxious she was tongue-tied, not knowing what to do. Just then, a shopkeeper inside noticed the commotion by the door. "What's going on? Who's here?"
A group of shopkeepers dressed in dark robes dispersed, revealing a man in black robes sitting in the middle. He had a refined and noble appearance, and his features were as clear and elegant as distant mountains and forests.
Xie Qingyu glanced at her, her face expressionless, and simply nodded slightly. "Let her in."
The maid was let in, and Xie Qingyu spoke a few more words with the shopkeepers before calming everyone down and sending them off one by one.
He pressed his temples, a hint of weariness barely perceptible. But it was only for a moment; his eyes regained their clarity, and he looked at them again, his voice calm, "What brings you here?"
The young maid, carrying the message, timidly spoke up: "It's...it's news from Suyang. They say that the officials who stayed behind to investigate the case have all gotten into trouble!"
Even after driving back to his residence overnight to oversee the overall situation, and working tirelessly for almost two days without sleep, the refined and gentle Young Master Xie never showed any displeasure to his servants. Yet now, Xie Qingyu smashed the azure dragon porcelain teapot beside him after hearing just a few words.
The fragile teapot was thrown to the ground, shattering into pieces with a crisp sound.
Seeing Xie Qingyu's gloomy face, the surrounding servants were terrified and knelt down.
Xie Qingyu stared at the messenger, and her first words were chilling: "What else? Where is Lord Yue being held now? Has he been tortured? How is his health?"
The messenger was just a young maid, who had never seen Young Master Xie in such a state before. She was almost in tears, trembling so much she could barely speak: "This servant...this servant doesn't know...the messenger only said...only said that Lord Yue is under house arrest in the villa of Lord Jin's mansion, and no one is allowed to enter or visit him. They said that since Lord Yue was imprisoned the day before yesterday, no one has seen him..."
The veins on Xie Qingyu's neck bulged, and he raised his hand to smash two more teacups.
Yin Yi, who had rushed over, had just entered the room when he saw this scene. His heart skipped a beat, and he quickly stepped forward and knelt on one knee: "Young Master, I have just received news that Lady Yue has not been tortured, but has been placed under house arrest by Jin Yuanxiu and is not allowed to move around freely. She is currently in good condition and in good health."
Xie Qingyu's expression was like that of a demon, and even Yin Yi had never seen him so out of control.
Yin Yi broke out in a cold sweat. Remembering the information he had just gathered, he quickly said, "Young Master, I just received news concerning the Princess's residence..."
Yin Yi leaned in and whispered something to Xie Qingyu. Her heaving chest gradually calmed down, and although the coldness in her eyes remained, it was no longer as chilling as it had been just moments before.
Yin Yi stepped back and said respectfully, "That's right, Young Master. Don't worry, I think Lord Yue will leave the Jin residence safely."
"As for you, young master, this is a critical period for the Xie family. There are many complicated matters, and all of them, big or small, need your attention. Please be sure to act calmly."
Xie Qingyu's hand gripped the celadon tea brush on the table, his knuckles turning white. The surrounding servants stared at him in fear and helplessness. Fortunately, Xie Qingyu eventually released his grip, not throwing the tea set to the ground.
Young Master Xie, who had just transformed into a jade-faced demon, finally calmed down a little.
He said coldly, "The Jin family should continue to send people to monitor them, and every move they make should be recorded and reported to me. Investigate the Xie family's protégés who are working at the Dali Temple, write a letter and send it to them, asking them to come to the Xie residence in a couple of days so I can meet them in person."
Yin Yi responded, silently mourning for Jin Yuanxiu, who was about to suffer a terrible death.
........
At this time, the Jin family mansion was indeed heavily guarded.
Inside the villa, the woman in the green robe, who was the apple of everyone's eye and a source of great concern, lay leisurely on the bed reading a book, while her maidservant brewed her a pot of Junshan Silver Needle tea.
Seeing Yue Yining suddenly sneeze, Fu Yao frowned with worry: "Miss, did you kick off the covers again last night? Why would you suddenly sneeze?"
Yue Yining rubbed her nose: "It's nothing, I guess someone is missing me."
She spoke lightly, but Fu Yao wasn't listening at all. She asked a different question and continued to frown and sigh, "Miss, even if nothing happened, we can't just sit here and wait to die, can we? It's been seven days! If we don't get out soon, this case will never be solved, and all our hard work over the past few days will have been for nothing."
Yue Yining: "I thought you were worried that Jin Yuanxiu would lock us up and kill us all."
Fu Yao raised an eyebrow: "He wouldn't dare! No matter what, I still have this skill. With me protecting Miss, he can forget about it!!"
Yue Yining smiled faintly, finally no longer slumped on the couch, but slowly sat up: "Do you think he wouldn't dare?"
"I think he might already be considering it."
Fu Yao was stunned when she heard this: "Really, Miss? But, but we are officials in the capital! How dare he kill us so easily? If he kills us, he won't be able to explain himself to the court!"
“But if he doesn’t kill us, he’ll be the one who dies.” Yue Yining smiled, her eyes deep. “He must have already guessed that I found those pieces of evidence. He only needs to check the guards at the mint and the time when the evidence was lost to figure out that it wasn’t Zhao Xu’s doing. Ye Miheng is obviously a bit dim-witted, and his investigation is progressing slowly and he hasn’t gotten to the point yet, so it can only be me.”
“If he releases us, we will surely expose him when we return to the capital. Even if the evidence is insufficient, as long as we investigate in this direction, his corruption and embezzlement will definitely be found out. If he kills us, he can then stage it as a suicide, destroy the evidence, and even if the people of Yanjing blame him, he will still have a chance to survive. You know, people will do anything when they are driven to the brink.”
Hearing this, Fu Yao became even more anxious and couldn't sit still: "How could this happen! Miss, what should we do? We can't just sit here and wait to die!"
Yue Yining did not sit idly by and wait for her death. But she did not say it directly. Instead, she rested her head on her hands and leaned against the bed, thinking about the seven cargo ships she had seen at the dock before she was imprisoned the day before.
She had a gut feeling that there was something wrong with those cargo ships, but she only caught a quick glance at them and was taken back to her residence before she could examine them properly. Now she could only reconstruct the events of that day in her mind based on those meager memories.
Yue Yining had rarely seen cargo ships on the river before. She had spent four years traveling in Dongxi, mostly inland. Even when passing through large cities with ports, she rarely chose to travel by water. The last time she took a boat was two years ago.
But she vaguely remembered that those ships were very different in appearance from the cargo ships she had seen at Suyang Wharf.
It seemed to have a simpler structure, without too many complex bulwarks and decks, or as many sternposts and masts; it was more like a single, integrated unit. The cargo ship she saw in Suyang was more like the ship model she had seen in the curio shop, with a strong sense of patchwork throughout.
A flash of inspiration suddenly crossed her mind.
Yue Yining suddenly straightened up, put her hands on the window frame, and looked out the window. This action was so abrupt that it startled not only Fu Yao inside the room, but also the maid standing in the corridor outside the window.
The maid from the Jin household was so frightened that she stammered, "What...what are your orders, Lord Yue?"
Yue Yining blinked and stared straight at her: "Does anyone in your family work at the mint?"
The maid was stunned: "No, sir."
"Ah." Yue Yining sighed regretfully, but she was not discouraged. She waved her hand again, "Then you can leave. Find someone else to guard this place."
maid:".......?"
Although completely baffled, the maid obediently left, and a different maid came in her place. Yue Yining repeated the question several times, sending away and replacing several maids, until she finally found a suitable target.
"Replying to your question, sir, my brother-in-law works as a coal dust cleaner at the mint, and that's all..."
"Very good." Yue Yining nodded in satisfaction. "My instructions are simple: come in, sit down and chat with me."
"Don't worry, I won't eat you. I'm just so bored and want to talk to someone to relieve my boredom. Come on in."
......
Meanwhile, in the main hall located on the central axis of the mansion, the Jin family members sat around the table, with Jin Yuanxiu at the head of the table, his face grim and inscrutable. With no outsiders present, he finally shed his mask of generosity and affability, revealing his sinister side.
The Jin family members laid out the evidence and documents on the table one by one, all of which had been found in Yue Yining's house, and some of which were intelligence obtained in the past two days through investigations of the mint and government informants. Row after row, they presented almost every detail of the cases that Yue Yining had investigated in recent days.
The elder of the Jin clan stroked his beard and said, "This Lord Yue is quite capable; he has investigated almost everything."
"What should we do? If the Lord of Yue returns to Yanjing with this evidence, the downfall of the Jin family will be inevitable!"
The people in the hall were discussing among themselves. Seeing that Jin Yuanxiu had not spoken for a long time, Jin Lu was the first to get restless. He stood up, cupped his hands to him, and said, "I wonder what the patriarch plans to do? Will you hand over Yue Yining, or will you send her on her way with a cup of poison today?"
"Yes, elder brother! This matter can't be delayed any longer. You must settle it today. If it drags on any longer, the imperial court will get the news and send people over, and it will be too late for us to make a move!"
"Patriarch, please reconsider! If you kill her, Ye Miheng cannot be spared either! If we're going to kill him, we'll have to kill the entire group from Yanjing. I'm afraid it will be difficult to cover this up afterward. This isn't just about killing one person; it's about killing a whole group!"
"What kind of womanly compassion are you spouting here? If we don't dare to kill her, then we'll be the ones who die! Huh! Do you know what kind of trouble we've gotten ourselves into? Embezzling state funds, reselling ore, minting inferior currency—any one of those wouldn't be enough to get you killed eight hundred times over! Only by killing Yue Yining can we have a sliver of hope!"
"Yes, yes, just get things sorted out, fake it as a suicide, and find a few more excuses and pretexts. Maybe the court won't take this female official so seriously. And use this time to quickly destroy all the evidence of forgery, destroy it all, and leave no trace, right...?"
"The Huang family of Qinghuai bought so much precious copper from us to forge weapons and armor, and they're raising their own army. It should come in handy this time, right? We have to get their help. We're all in this together now!"
Annoyed by the noise, Jin Yuanxiu swept all the paperweights and documents off the table and roared, "Enough! Shut up, all of you!!"
His shout finally calmed the group down for a moment.
Jin Yuanxiu's eyes were bloodshot, and the acupoints on his forehead were throbbing with pain.
He was now in a precarious situation, and he knew that this was a very difficult situation.
Seven days ago, when he, as the city lord of Suyang City, hosted a banquet for the group of people from Yanjing who came to investigate the case, he never expected that this gentle and elegant female official would be so deadly, actually managing to uncover the secrets of his Jin family in less than seven days.
If it weren't for Zhao Xu, this newly arrived good-for-nothing playboy, causing all the trouble, the things Yue Yining found would probably still be hidden from them, and they would be completely unaware.
This female official was only twenty years old, yet she was mature beyond her years, meticulous in her actions, and possessed a deep and unfathomable mind. If they let her go, the Jin family would truly be doomed.
But if I kill her...
For some reason, just having this thought in his mind sent a chill down Jin Yuanxiu's spine, making him feel as if he were in an ice cellar. It was the keen intuition he had developed over many years in politics.
—If Yue Yining is killed, his fate will probably be ten thousand times more miserable than death.
Jin Yuanxiu hesitated repeatedly, while the Jin clan members and elders around him began to urge and discuss, their whispers rising and falling.
At this moment, a flurry of hurried footsteps suddenly sounded in the courtyard outside the hall. Someone rushed open the tightly closed carved wooden door and rolled onto the bluestone floor in the center of the hall.
Jin Lu, who was standing to the side, raised his eyebrows and shouted, "Which courtyard's servant is this? Acting so recklessly and behaving so improperly!"
"No...something terrible has happened!!" The guard, bruised and battered from rolling on the ground, cried out, "Someone has led troops to storm the city lord's mansion! The guards at the gate couldn't stop them at all; they were all knocked unconscious!"
Jin Yuanxiu suddenly stood up, leaving everyone in the hall dumbfounded, when the sounds of weapons clashing outside came from outside.
The Jin family's guards were caught completely off guard. They were the Jin family's privately kept soldiers, who were usually poorly trained and had no chance to fight back when they were attacked.
The group of women who suddenly stormed into the Jin residence all had resolute faces. They were dressed in short crimson outfits, with brown armor over their shoulders. They had long arms and strong waists, and their posture as they held their swords and were ready to strike was like arrows drawn taut on a bowstring.
By the time the guards came to their senses, the Jin residence had already been surrounded by the surprise attacking Embroidered Vermilion Guards.
Upon seeing the group of women in red charging in with swords, chaos erupted within the Jin family mansion.
Upon seeing this, Jin Lu quickly stood up, flicked his sleeves, and roared fiercely, "Who are you? How dare you trespass into the City Lord's Mansion? Don't you want to live?!"
"Where are the guards?! Kill them all—"
A swift arrow shot out, piercing through his robes and embedding itself in the wooden chair, choking Jin Lu's words halfway through.
Jin Lu's robe was nailed shut, leaving him only able to raise his arm comically. His eyes trembled as he stared at the arrowhead. The arrow's fletching was painted with the totem of the Dongxi royal family in vermilion, depicting a coiled dragon roaring to the sky, majestic and awe-inspiring.
He was so frightened that he wet himself and collapsed onto the chair.
Everyone in the Jin family turned to look outside, where a crimson procession was seen approaching from afar, its strikingly bright color almost blinding.
This was followed by a loud and clear chorus:
"Her Highness the Eldest Princess has arrived!"
A woman in a crimson brocade palace dress trailed past the threshold of the Jin mansion, her dark hair adorned with golden hairpins that shone brightly.
The woman who slowly entered the hall was graceful and dignified, with unparalleled beauty; she was none other than Wei Yihua.
She was an unparalleled princess, but what she held in her hand was not a jeweled fan, but a gilded longbow.
She looked at Jin Yuanxiu, held her bow and arrows horizontally in front of her, and said calmly, "I heard that my strategist is being held captive in Lord Jin's mansion. I was very worried about her, so I came here today to take her back."
"Lord Jin, please."
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