Gu Xin went to the palace and went directly to see the emperor.
"Little Xinxin is here! Come and sit down!" The emperor was reading memorials, and there was another person in the room whom Gu Xinmei had seen before.
"This is Bai Feng, Baozhu's bodyguard. You know Baozhu, she's the only daughter of the King of Donglin. By seniority, you should call her 'elder sister'," the Emperor said, pointing to the man.
"This humble subject, Bai Feng, greets Princess Xin Xin!" Bai Feng bowed to Gu Xin.
Gu Xin nodded, telling him not to stand on ceremony.
Before Gu Xin could even ask, the emperor recounted the whole story.
This morning he received a memorial from the prefect of Taizhou, who knew about the matter. Now that Bai Feng had come in person, Princess Bai Baozhu of the Donglin Prince's Mansion was worried.
King Donglin fell ill before the New Year, and everyone thought he wouldn't make it through. But he pulled through and recovered by the first month of the lunar calendar. He happily celebrated the New Year and played for a few more months. Then, on the second day of the fifth month, King Donglin was found dead in a secret chamber.
So far, the coroner of Taizhou Prefecture has not examined the exact time of Donglin King's death, because the people in the King's palace are preventing it.
The Wang family in Donglin is surnamed Bai. The Bai family has four sons and one daughter. The daughter, Bai Baozhu, is the youngest and is already thirty years old. She has married into a noble family. Bai Baozhu's husband is the headmaster of Jiangnan Academy. Ten years ago, he passed the imperial examination and became a Tan Hua Lang (third-ranked scholar), but he did not take up a position in the court. Instead, he returned to Jiangnan Academy to become a teacher.
The couple had a good relationship and had a son and a daughter.
Because of the illness of the King of Donglin before the New Year, Bai Baozhu was very worried. So, at the end of April, she set off from Jiangnan with her husband and children to Taizhou, planning to spend the Dragon Boat Festival with her parents before returning home.
They arrived on the first day of May, but did not see the King of Donglin when they arrived at Bai Baozhu. The Queen of Donglin and her brothers said that the King of Donglin liked to go out and play recently, sometimes for several days at a time. As a result, the King of Donglin was found dead in the secret room the next day.
Princess Donglin and the four Bai brothers resolutely refused to let the government officials investigate, claiming that the deaths were natural, but Bai Baozhu refused.
However, she was already a married daughter, and the Princess of Donglin was still in charge of the royal palace, so the situation remained at an impasse.
Bai Baozhu went to the prefect of Taizhou herself, but the prefect couldn't even get into the palace. Despite Bai Baozhu's insistence, the funeral for the Prince of Donglin could not be held. The body was still in the coffin, and whenever someone came to pay their respects, Bai Baozhu would say that her father had died a violent death. The Princess of Donglin and her sons couldn't bear the shame, so they asked the prefect of Taizhou to investigate, but forbade the coroner from disturbing the Prince of Donglin's body.
The prefect of Taizhou had no choice but to submit a memorial to the imperial court.
Bai Baozhu was worried that the prefect of Taizhou had been bribed by her mother and brothers, and that if the emperor issued an edict, she might never find out the truth. That's why she sent Bai Feng to the capital to meet the emperor directly, following the people from the Taizhou government.
Because Bai Baozhu was the only daughter of the King of Donglin, she was pampered and cherished from a young age. Her parents and brothers loved her dearly and gave her the best of everything. Even when she married, they chose the best man in the world for her.
She couldn't understand why her mother and brothers wouldn't allow an investigation into her father's death, which was clearly suspicious.
The more they prevented her from investigating, the more suspicious she became.
"That's roughly what happened," the emperor said, frowning as he recounted the events.
"Your Majesty, my family..." Gu Xin decided to go to Taizhou, but she was afraid her family wouldn't allow it.
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