Chapter 194 A Spotless Scene
It was highly unusual that the driver was a eunuch.
Without a pass to leave the palace, eunuchs and palace maids were not allowed to leave the palace even for a moment.
This Wang Er kept claiming to be a famous porter, which must have been because he had to hide his eunuch identity.
Could it be someone from the Crown Prince's palace?
This question lingered in Li Jin's mind throughout his journey to Guiyifang.
Normally, he would travel by horse-drawn carriage, but today he, Zhou Zheng, and Shen Wen rode horses along Zhuquemen Street to get there quickly.
If you arrive too late, the other box and that small courtyard in Guiyifang Alley might be cleared away.
With the sound of horses' hooves, Li Jin leaped down at the gate of the courtyard and, before Zhou Zheng could climb over the wall, stood on the outer wall of the courtyard in a few steps.
The simple and clean courtyard made him frown.
It's too clean; it lacks any sense of life, which is abnormal.
Fortunately, the box was still there, sitting quietly in the middle of the yard, as if waiting for Li Jin and the others to arrive.
Bai Yu, who had secretly followed, led several shadows to thoroughly inspect the courtyard inside and out before standing on the eaves of the main hall and giving Li Jin a "safe" signal.
He climbed down from the courtyard wall, a black fan in his hand, and strode forward, heading straight for the camphor wood chest.
The box has a lock.
With perfect coordination, Zhou Zheng opened the padlock in the blink of an eye, and with both hands he forcefully lifted the cover.
In that instant, the second corpse, which had been huddled inside and had been dead for some time, was suddenly revealed before them.
Zhou Zheng was stunned.
He looked at that familiar face and said in surprise, "Lord Liu?"
The deceased was Liu Quan, the former Vice Minister of Works who had resigned from his post many years ago.
When he resigned from his post, the late Crown Prince Li Mu had not yet been implicated, and Li Jin was still fighting on the northwestern frontier. Zhou Zheng occasionally returned to the capital to deliver letters and had seen him a few times.
Li Jin looked at the clean courtyard, scanned the entire area, and gave Shen Wen a "search" signal.
"The current Vice Minister of Works, Lord Lin Yongde, succeeded Lord Liu in his position." Zhou Zheng thought for a long time, then frowned and shook his head. "I have truly forgotten why he resigned. It seems he said that his ambitions lay elsewhere and that he wanted to return to the countryside."
Looking at Liu Quan, who was locked in a camphor wood box, and at this person who had entered the underworld before even reaching the countryside, he remained silent for a long time.
"Zhou Zheng," he called, "After you've transported this box back to the Six Doors, you'll go to the Ministry of Justice."
"Huh?" Zhou Zheng was taken aback. "Why go to that awful place?"
"Please ask Xu Weiyou for help," Li Jin said calmly. "Just say that Lord Yan and Jin Shu are both away, that they are unwell and have requested to stay home, and that the Six Doors are without a coroner. Ask him to send someone."
Seeing his surprised expression, Li Jin added, "If he doesn't agree, just go find Zhu Dongli again. You don't need Zhu Dongli's consent; just scold him."
Zhou Zheng was completely bewildered.
"Your Highness, Lord Zhu is a fourth-rank official, while I am only a fifth-rank official..."
“Just scold him.” Li Jin smiled and said, “Scolding him for being ungrateful. The Six Doors helped him, but now he won’t even lend them a coroner.”
At this point, Li Jin specifically added, "You have to curse him before he opens his mouth."
He patted Zhou Zheng's chest with his fan: "Don't worry, Lord Zhu is a man of great principle and will definitely not make things difficult for you. At most, he will kick you out."
"This isn't considered difficult?" Zhou Zheng was utterly puzzled. "This...this..."
Seeing his frustrated look, Shen Wen laughed heartily: "Lord Zhou, if this job wasn't something only the Prince's top bodyguard could do, I would really like to do it for you."
He chuckled mysteriously, "Don't worry, His Highness is always meticulous in his thinking. Just do as he says." He then added with a grin, "If you get kicked out, remember to keep shouting tomorrow!"
“Yes.” Li Jin nodded, her smile deepening. “Exactly.”
He wanted the entire Ministry of Justice to know that Yan Zhao and Jin Shu were not at the Six Doors at the crucial moment, which resulted in no one examining the second corpse!
Li Jin bent down and looked at Liu Quan's dark skin, which already had some green lividity. Seeing that he was bleeding from his seven orifices, he used a fan to lift up his hand and immediately saw the peeling skin, grain-like keratinized bumps, and the wear and ulceration at the joints of his fingers.
These were all told to Li Jin, who also died from chronic arsenic poisoning.
Zhou Zheng, who was standing to the side, transported the box back to the Six Doors as quickly as possible. After waiting for half an incense stick to burn, he stepped into the gate of the Ministry of Justice in full view of everyone.
That afternoon, the entire Ministry of Justice was in chaos, and Xu Weiyou was so angry he felt like his soul was leaving his body.
Only Zhu Dongli, who was scolded mercilessly and almost branded with "ungrateful" by Zhou Zheng, understood what Prince Jing's performance really meant.
Unfortunately, I understood it, so I couldn't say anything and suffered in silence all afternoon.
To protect Jin Shu, he could only listen to Zhou Zheng's accusations, which were red in the face and thick in his neck, while remaining expressionless and never agreeing to help him.
Faced with this situation, Zhu Dongli pondered for a long time but still couldn't figure out what he had done to offend Prince Jing, that he would be the target of such a attack.
On the other hand, Li Jin also couldn't figure it out.
This small, square courtyard was so clean that there wasn't even a speck of dust.
The kitchen was fully stocked with water and rice, but the firewood was arranged piece by piece.
In the courtyard, the flowers and plants were trimmed to a uniform height, and there was not a speck of dust on the bluestone slabs.
In the main hall, the eight-immortal chairs were spotless, and the books on the antique shelves were arranged from top to bottom. Even the small calligraphy brushes on the brush holders were arranged in order of thickness and length.
There was not a trace of human presence.
If this is considered a kind of fastidiousness in his life, then there is some truth to it.
However, when Bai Yu walked back and forth on the beam in the room a few times, he found that the beam, which was nearly three meters above the ground, was spotless and clean. He squatted down on it in surprise and looked at Li Jin: "Your Highness, this must have been cleaned repeatedly."
He pursed his lips: "How could the beams of an ordinary house be so clean?"
He stretched out three fingers, smeared them on the beam, and then showed them to Li Jin.
There wasn't a trace of dust on my fingers.
"We're late again," he said, his voice full of resentment.
There were no traces in the room except for writing brushes, ink, paper, inkstones, books, and scrolls. There were no accounts, no gold or silver, and the clothes were neat and the bed was tidy.
If Liu Quan ultimately ingested arsenic and suffered acute poisoning, then the murderer must have been a master among masters, a professional assassin.
Li Jin stood in the main hall, looking around, trying to find a place that the assassin had overlooked.
After all, the crown prince wouldn't target someone who had resigned from office more than six years ago without a reason.
There must be something behind him that forced the Crown Prince to silence him.
Li Jin stared at the portrait of Confucius hanging in the main hall, and paused for a moment.
In the lower right corner of the painting of Confucius, after the elegant commentary, in the "poor signature" section, where the author's name is written, there is only one single character.
The thickness and size of the handwriting are quite different from the previous elegant comments, making it stand out conspicuously in the painting.
He stepped forward and saw the distinctive small characters.
six.
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