Linglong, the maidservant beside the queen, looked at Yue Nu in front of her and put a bag of money in her hand. "You have done very well. You have served Concubine Duan for fifteen years. Now you are twenty-nine years old, and she refuses to let you leave the palace. Take this money and go back to your hometown quickly to find a good husband to marry."

"Thank you, Queen. Thank you, Queen!"

Yue Nu took the purse and left happily. Linglong looked at his back with a cold smile on her lips. The Queen looked at Concubine Duan begging in front of her and kicked her aside with great resentment, as if something extremely dirty was dangling in front of her.

"Duan Fei, Duan Fei, how was the late emperor treating you? I never thought you would collude with the ministers. Even the eldest prince is not your biological son. If this matter gets out, the royal family will lose face. So I advise you to settle this matter as soon as possible. Otherwise..."

Concubine Duan's tears had dried up, and she fell to the ground like a puddle of mud. She sneered, "Yes, the emperor treats me well. If the emperor takes a fancy to a woman, that woman will treat him wholeheartedly... It's fate, this is fate, and the woman's fate is to be locked in this prison. This palace is really big, but there is no place for me..."

The queen rubbed her head with a headache and sat aside, her demeanor was graceful and her aura was not inferior to hers at all, "Concubine Duan, are you still stubborn and unwilling to change your ways? If this scandal of yours gets out, your entire family will suffer, not to mention the left prime minister.

The left prime minister is indeed powerful in the court, but so what, no one will buy into what you did."

"I understand, I understand. Zhi'er is no longer in this world, so what's the point of living alone? I just hope the Queen can help me find the real murderer who killed Zhi'er. Then I will have changed and rested in peace..."

"Okay, leave me alone. I don't want to see you."

The queen closed her eyes, as if to drive away something extremely dirty in front of her, and Concubine Duan returned to Yongning Palace with a dejected look on her face.

When the maid of Yongning Palace was about to go in to visit Concubine Duan, they found that she had hanged herself and her body was already cold.

"How could this happen?" Gu Yunru felt her breath and found that she had been dead for more than half an hour...

"I don't know. Ever since Her Majesty came back from Qixiang Palace, no one has spoken. She asked the servants to wait at the door, saying that she would come in after a few sticks of incense. But we didn't expect that after she came in..." Several palace maids looked at each other, and they shrank their necks in fear as if a cold air had passed through their bodies.

Gu Yunru came to the open-air courtyard, where Rong Zhen and Ji Heng were sitting and chatting with several adults about the progress of the case.

"What should we do now? Where should we start?"

Gu Yunru took the initiative to ask, "If we keep staring at each other here, I'm afraid there's nothing we can do."

"First, check for suspicious people in the palace. The spy must be hiding in the palace!" An adult proposed a solution. Rong Zhen's face became even uglier. "There are at least hundreds of thousands of people in the palace. How are you going to check?"

"this……"

Everyone looked at each other, all stumped by this matter. Gu Yunru took a deep breath and sat in front of everyone and said, "Concubine Duan hanged herself, most likely because of the eldest prince's matter. What we need to focus on now is where the eldest prince went before his death."

Everyone knew that this matter should be handled outside the palace first, but the area was so large that everyone looked at each other, not knowing what to do. At this time, someone brought in a book boy beside the eldest prince, who knelt down bravely beside him.

"Princess, your Highness, our master died unjustly. You must stand up for him and catch the real murderer as soon as possible!"

Rong Zhen had him helped up, and then quickly asked, "Where did your master go before the flower banquet?"

The book boy's eyes rolled around and he thought carefully, "The teahouse, Yancui Tower and the gambling house are the places the eldest prince likes to go to the most. If you can't find him on weekdays, you can definitely find him in Yincui Tower. He has several courtyards of his own outside, so he can live wherever he wants."

Gu Yunru nodded and continued to ask, "I heard that the eldest prince disappeared for some time. He disappeared for a few days. Where were you? Why didn't you tell Concubine Duan?" A panicked look flashed across the servant's face, "Princess, I have already told Concubine Duan, but the Left Prime Minister asked us not to make it public at that time, so we didn't investigate the matter further. We thought that the eldest prince was so sad and angry because he couldn't get love, and he wanted to find a quiet place to calm down..."

"You are lying." There was a shrewd glint in Gu Yunru's eyes. The person who could successfully lie in front of her was not even born yet. This guy was fat and had big ears. It seemed that he and Yin Zhi were used to doing bad things outside.

"I don't know what the princess means by this. The other servants really don't know, but the eldest prince has no grudges against anyone..."

The information provided by the servant boy was irrelevant and very limited, making it difficult to understand further, not to mention who the eldest prince had offended outside.

"Forget it. Come with us and take a look at the gardens he has outside the palace."

This work is organized and uploaded by Liujiu Book Bar~~

Gu Yunru felt that it was more important to start the investigation from outside the palace first. It was most important to know who he usually interacted with and what he was planning every day.

Rong Zhen and Gu Yunru disguised themselves as ordinary people and came with his servant to a large courtyard in the suburbs of Beijing. The address of this courtyard was very remote, but it contained many antiques and calligraphy and paintings, all of which were first-class fine items.

After searching for the whole morning, nothing was found. Just as Gu Yunru was about to walk behind a rockery, the servant stopped her and said, "Princess, what are you looking for here? There won't be any information here."

Seeing the servant boy trying to stop him, Gu Yunru felt that there was something fishy going on. He casually touched the rock a few times, but unexpectedly, the button of the mechanism was activated, and it turned into a narrow corridor. There seemed to be a secret room below the corridor. "You know where this is, right?"

Gu Yunru narrowed her eyes and stared at the servant boy fiercely. The servant boy lowered his head and dared not say anything.

"Princess..." Seeing that Gu Yunru was about to go in, the servant said nothing and didn't want to let Gu Yunru go in. Seeing that he was acting like this, Gu Yunru knew that he was guilty. She grabbed him and scolded him, "You take the lead and get out quickly. Don't play any tricks on me."