Chapter 38
"How long has it been since you last rested?" Yi Luoyue asked with concern, looking at the exhausted Gong Yuchen in the carriage on the way back to the mansion.
"I've been traveling these days and haven't had time to rest." He might be really tired. Leaning against Yi Luoyue, his eyes wanted to close uncontrollably.
"You should rest for a while. I will go to your house tonight to discuss it in detail."
"I'll take a break for a while and take care of some things in the evening. I'll come to see you when I'm done." Gong Yuchen rubbed his forehead. He could still bear the physical fatigue, but the useful information he obtained after searching for several days was pitifully little. This frustration made him even more tired.
"Um."
Gong Yuchen leaned his head on her shoulder, took a short rest, and his tired eyelids slowly closed.
"Auntie, Daddy looks so tired." Xiaoyue said in a low voice.
"Shh. Let's not disturb your dad." She made a gesture to keep quiet.
"Hmm." Xiaoyue quickly covered her mouth with her little hands, and soon she fell asleep leaning against Gong Yuchen. Looking at the two sleeping faces, one big and one small, Yi Luoyue couldn't help but reach out and stroke his cheek.
It was late at night...At this moment, the only sound in Dangui Garden was silence except for the rustling of leaves.
After coaxing Xiaoyue to sleep, Yi Luoyue went back to Yuege to take a bath, changed into loose clothes, let her black hair down, sent Baidie and the servants around away, and lay lazily on the couch reading a book.
She didn't know when Gong Yuchen would come. She held the book in her hand and read it. As she read, she leaned against the soft pillow and fell asleep.
The evening breeze blew open the gauze curtains, and the chill of the autumn night seeped into the house. Yi Luoyue, who was afraid of the cold, lay on the soft couch and curled up tightly.
This was the scene Gong Yuchen saw as soon as he entered the door.
He frowned, his eyes cast on her curled up body, shook his head, walked forward, took the book from her hand, picked her up, and sat on the couch, placing her in his arms.
She moaned softly and leaned into Gong Yuchen's arms following the source of heat.
Looking at her beautiful face, the longing for her for many days made him unable to control himself and kissed her lips.
Is she still alive? She doesn't know, she just knows that her whole body is so hot that she is about to melt.
"Yeah." Yi Luoyue slowly opened her misty eyes, her peach-like cheeks flushed as if she was drunk.
This man, cold and hard as ice! He was kissing her with a fiery and raging flame. He was like a volcano erupting violently...
"woke up?"
"What are you doing..."
"I missed you." He pecked her red lips lightly.
"Do you miss me?" He held her tightly in his arms, trying to control his breathing and calm her down. He didn't want to scare her.
"I..." She lowered her eyes, her body becoming a little stiff in his arms, and she didn't know how to answer him.
He didn't like this situation and he wouldn't allow her to be without him in her heart.
"This is not the answer I want. Say it! Say you miss me!" Punitively, he tightened his grip on her slender waist and bit her lips lightly.
"Don't bite me." She gently stroked her lips that were swollen from being bitten by him again, and felt a burning heat coming from his palm on her waist, which made her feel uncomfortable. She pushed him away and stood up, wanting to escape from him.
But how could Gong Yuchen let her leave? He reached out and easily pulled her back, pressing her to sit on his lap, with no intention of letting her leave at all.
"Ah!" This made Yi Luoyue cry out helplessly, startled.
"Don't even think about leaving if you don't tell me." The warm breath he exhaled slowly caressed the back of her ear, the tip of his nose touched her ear bone intentionally or unintentionally, and the tip of his tongue even traced her earlobe. This ambiguous atmosphere made Yi Luoyue almost jump up from him again, but his hands were like iron rings, tightly clasping her waist, preventing her from even moving, let alone leaving.
"Be good, it's just an answer. You know I won't hurt you." He lowered his head and buried it in her shoulders.
"Ugh... it hurts!" Yi Luoyue opened her eyes as big as copper bells. He was biting her again, but a tingling sensation ran through her whole body. She twisted her body to avoid him, but heard a gasp, and then her waist was clamped tighter.
"Little fox, you'd better stop moving, otherwise I can't guarantee what I will do later!" His low voice was full of lust.
"A little bit." Yi Luoyue mustered up the courage to look up and answered softly.
"A little bit of what?" Gong Yuchen couldn't help but smile mischievously. He could sense her nervousness and uneasiness, but he had no intention of giving up his determination to hear the answer.
"I miss you a little bit! Is that ok?" She snorted in annoyance and raised her hand to hit his hard chest.
He pecked her lips again. He thought her beautiful face would show displeasure, but unexpectedly she smiled and put her arms around his neck.
"Gong Yuchen, you're not the only one who can get angry." After saying that, she took the initiative to kiss his lips and bit him lightly, imitating him.
Gong Yuchen sighed softly. Talking about love with her was simply self-torture! This little devil! She would always be his, and only his. He couldn't help but respond to those endlessly tempting red lips and their passionate kisses.
After a while, Yi Luoyue, with rosy cheeks, and Gong Yuchen sat on the couch, leaning against each other.
"Where have you been these days?"
Gong Yuchen, hugging her tightly, began to tell her what had happened in the past few days.
"I went to the border between Western Yi and Southern Yi. According to the locals, there seemed to be an epidemic in a village near Western Yi in Southern Yi three years ago. However, almost everyone in the village died. They don't know the truth, so I went to that village again."
"Did you find anything?" Leaning against him and listening to his heartbeat made her feel at ease.
"The village wasn't big and was far from town, which is probably one of the reasons the epidemic didn't spread. We found a few people who had some knowledge of the situation at the time, and their stories were basically the same: the people in that village had contracted an incurable plague, and to prevent the spread of the plague, someone sealed off the village."
"Then why did the epidemic spread to the Li Palace?"
"It is said that there was a villager who left the village and never returned. We have also found some useful information about this villager."
"This actually happened! What did you find out? Do you know where that person went?"
"I need information about the female corpse abandoned in the well three years ago. Can you have Li Fei bring it over tomorrow?"
"You mean the villager who didn't return is a woman?" She took a breath.
"Yeah. If I'm not mistaken, it should be that woman."
"Why do you suspect it was that female corpse?"
"Because that person's surname is also Qin, and her name is 'Qin Su'. She is Qin Ying's older sister who married far away."
"You mean they are sisters?"
"Yes, there is one more thing." Gong Yuchen was hesitating about how to tell her better.
"What do you want to say?" What kind of thing could make someone like Gong Yuchen hesitate?
"If the incident of leaving the palace three years ago was indeed related to these two sisters, then what happened to your mother was deliberately done."
Yi Luoyue's body stiffened, and she grabbed Gong Yuchen's collar.
"You mean on purpose? Tell me, what happened in that village?"
"Massacre the village."
"Massacre the whole village!" How could this happen?
Gong Yuchen sighed.
"We opened the coffins in the village and found obvious knife wounds on most of the bodies. They died at the same time and with knife wounds, so it doesn't seem like they died from the plague. I just don't know if they were killed to prevent the spread of the epidemic or to silence them."
One of my team members is a skilled healer, and his investigation revealed that the epidemic in the village was unusual. The people were all infected at the same time, not just one by one, with symptoms spreading from one to the next. Furthermore, some people from other villages had come into contact with those people during that time, but returned without developing the disease. So, he speculated that it might be a virus similar to the epidemic.
"But what does this have to do with the palace? And what does this have to do with my mother?"
"If we use a poison that will make people mistakenly think they are dying of an illness, and if it causes the deaths of several people, people will think it is a plague." Gong Yuchen frowned.
"Then the death of your mother and the others would be an accident, not intentional! Didn't you think so at the time?"
"Yes, we all thought it was an epidemic." Yi Luoyue widened her eyes in disbelief.
"I've considered many explanations, but the most plausible one is that the village was a testing ground."
"You mean testing the poison on someone?"
"Other than that, I can't think of any reason why they would do that."
"Who could they be?"
"Without solid evidence, it's hard to say. It's hard to say whether the village belonged to the Western Yi or the Southern Yi."
A thought suddenly popped into her mind, making her tremble with fear. Could it be about the fetus in her mother's belly?
"Do you think someone wants to get rid of the fetus in the queen mother's womb?" Yi Luoyue shouted in horror.
This was also a question that Gong Yuchen had considered. After a moment of silence, Gong Yuchen sighed.
"Your mother is His Majesty's favorite woman. If the baby in her womb is a prince, then he will be the legitimate heir. Moreover, the Queen's maternal family is powerful, so I'm afraid the child will be the crown prince as soon as he is born."
"Except for me, because I am a princess and cannot inherit the throne, the only ones related to the throne are my eldest brother and second brother. As long as there is no legitimate son, they, as our father's illegitimate sons, are qualified to sit on the throne." Yi Luoyue said sadly.
"That should be the case, but three years ago, King Cheng was only nineteen years old, and his mother's family was powerless, so they couldn't do things like massacring the village or poisoning people. The only thing they could do was..."
"The 23-year-old Xian Wang and Shu Fei's mother's family!"
"Why? Why are they so cruel?"
"In the fight for the throne, there has never been any talk of family affection." He was no exception, Gong Yuchen sighed in his heart.
"They deserve to die! They killed my grandmother, my mother, and my unborn siblings. I hate them so much!"
Yi Luoyue's face was tense, tears streaming down her cheeks, and she was almost speechless. Although she had always suspected this, when she heard it with her own ears, her heart still couldn't bear it.
Seeing her reaction, Gong Yuchen hugged her tightly, caressing her back gently, his eyes resting on her pale face. If Yi Luoyue hadn't been in good health, she would have been one of the souls that left the palace. The thought of this made Gong Yuchen furious.
"Don't worry, I will find out the truth for you, and I won't let anyone who deserves to die go." He gently kissed her forehead and wiped away her tears.
Yi Luoyue clutched his clothes tightly, blinked away the tears from her eyes, and looked at Gong Yuchen.
"Gong Yuchen, you will help me, right?"
In fact, he already knew the situation in his heart, but he had no solid evidence. The mastermind he found would only be a scapegoat, and the truth of the case would never come to light.
"I will find out the truth and kill the mastermind. No matter who that person is, I will make you kill your enemy with your own hands."
"Tell me, what do you want me to do?"
"You don't need to show up in this matter. Leave it to me and Li Fei. Without strong evidence, you've lost your composure in front of Yi Luoyao."
"Okay, I'll listen to you."
Looking at Yi Luoyue who looked exhausted.
"Sleep well!" He gently kissed Yi Luoyue on the forehead and said in a soft voice.
"Well, I'll sleep for a while, you can't leave." She squirmed on his chest, trying to find a comfortable position.
"Okay, I'll stay with you," he stood up and carried her to the bed, placed her in his arms, hugged her, and accompanied her to sleep.
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