Chapter 33 Nothing Left
When Zhou Zheng returned, it was already late at night. Jin Shu couldn't stay awake any longer and fell asleep on the table for a while.
She was covered with Li Jin's pale yellow outer garment, which startled Zhou Zheng as he stepped across the threshold.
He thought that while he was out, the prince had been attacked and was seriously injured!
"You'd better not put this outer garment on Mr. Jin so easily." Zhou Zheng took off the bundle he was carrying. "It's fine if we're on the same side, but if someone tries to assassinate him and mistakes him for someone else, Mr. Jin's health can't withstand two stabs."
Upon hearing this, Li Jin frowned and looked at Zhou Zheng with surprise.
“An assassin with such poor eyesight wouldn’t be able to get into this courtyard.”
After saying that, he took the small bundle from Zhou Zheng's hand, turned around and went to the small tea table next to him, put the bundle on it, and opened it to take a look.
“Fang Qing’s secret room entrance was extremely well hidden, under his bed in his bedroom,” Zhou Zheng said. “Fortunately, he was just an ordinary businessman, not very alert. My subordinates waited until he was sound asleep and then found an opportunity to go in.”
Inside the bundle was a thick stack of letters, which Zhou Zheng had tied together with thin rope.
“There are three rows of antique shelves in the secret room, and there are many such letters. I was afraid of alerting them, so I didn’t take too many. I only took a portion from the middle of each stack.” Zhou Zheng hesitated for a moment. “But… at night on the roof, I saw that Fang Qing seemed to have burned several stacks and moved some of them. I sent people to chase after them, but they left Yiyang at full speed, and we didn’t catch anything.”
Li Jin listened without saying a word, silently flipping through the letters in her hand one by one.
Those envelopes, like Fang Qing's fashion sense, were colorful, varied, and shaped as they pleased—square, rectangular, and in exaggerated colors: black, red, white, yellow… everything imaginable.
None of the envelopes had a signature; there was only a strange stamp in the lower right corner.
It could be a flower petal, a bird, or an eagle.
He sorted out the envelopes marked with different symbols, lined them up, and upon careful counting, found that there were twelve different printed shapes, including two black envelopes without any symbols.
Li Jin gently stroked her chin with her fingertips, glancing at the letters and pondering for a long time.
Are these business correspondences? Are they kept in a secret room because they involve trade secrets?
He picked up an envelope at random. A red peony was printed in the lower right corner of the kraft paper. Inside was only one sheet of paper, without a salutation or signature, just a short line of small print: Received, March 3rd. Travel by water with peace of mind.
Eleven words, the content is unclear and ambiguous, reading it is as good as not reading it at all, leaving you completely confused.
Li Jin's fingertips lingered on the different patterns for a long time before he picked up another letter with a bird printed on it. He pulled out a white letter and flicked it gently. The moment the contents of the letter came into view, he raised an eyebrow.
“This… Your Highness…” Zhou Zheng, who was usually so composed, was startled.
Li Jin made a "shh" gesture, turned to look at Jin Shu, and seeing that she was not awake, she turned her gaze back to the letter in her hand.
Before me, on the smooth, white, and delicate Xuan paper, were written elegant small characters: "Magistrate Yang An of Linyang County has been imprisoned. Do not contact him again." Huiyan, for reasons unknown, had left the capital and was heading towards Yiyang.
The candlelight flickered slightly. A businessman, who actually possessed information about the Six Doors constables, looked solemn and closed the letter.
His words proved prophetic, turning the case into a case within a case.
"Open them all." He parted his cool lips slightly. "See how many letters are related to the Six Doors and local government offices. Even the suspected contents should be sorted out."
After saying that, he specifically instructed Zhou Zheng: "Make sure you take it out of the envelope neatly, don't make a mess of it."
That night, Li Jin sorted through the more than eighty letters that Zhou Zheng had brought back.
He thought that once everything was sorted out, he would be able to obtain a picture of the truth, but in the process of sorting it out, he seemed to see a huge net, a predatory net that covered the mountains and rivers of the Great Wei.
It lured merchants and officials from all over the country to commit all sorts of evil deeds in the dark corners unseen by the royal family.
Like a highly venomous spider, it hides by day and comes out at night, its eyes bloodshot with rage.
The Li family, who thought their rule was secure and that they could control everything, looked utterly ridiculous at this moment.
Li Jin looked up at the rising sun, her heart as desolate as a cold night.
Never before has the sunrise left him feeling so devoid of warmth as it does today. Nor has the morning mist ever obscured his vision as it does now.
“Go again tonight, take as much as you can.” He glanced at Zhou Zheng. “Tomorrow morning, go and arrest Fang Qing.”
He wanted to use this as a breakthrough point, following Fang Qing's lead, to personally tear open this man-eating net.
However, a sudden fire prevented Li Jin from having the chance to visit the Fang family again.
As evening fell, the fire engulfed Fang's house, turning half the sky red with flames, billowing thick smoke and churning black mist. Right under Li Jin's nose, Fang Qing rushed into the flames to save his two children trapped inside, and never came out again.
By the time the fire was extinguished, it was already late at night. Looking at the charred remains of the Fang family mansion, Li Jin's face was terribly grim.
Du Jin and his group searched for a long time before finally finding Fang Qing in an inner room.
He was lying face down on the ground, protecting a child with each arm, with a roof beam pressing down on his back. All three of them were already lifeless.
It was a terrible sight.
After several people worked together to lift the roof beam off him, Jin Shu tied his hands, squatted down, and looked at Fang Qing for a moment, pausing in shock.
Their mouths and noses were covered in soot, as were the two children's. Their eyes were closed, and their clothes were intact, with only slight damage where they had been pressed against the roof beams.
She remained silent for a long while, then turned to look at Li Jin, her lips pressed tightly together, and shook her head.
Could such a coincidence really exist?!
Seeing her confident expression, Li Jin raised his hand and slammed his fist into the charred pillar.
He genuinely didn't believe it. Lifting the hem of his robe, he walked to Jin Shu's side, looked at Fang Qing's unrecognizable face, and quickly tied his cuffs tight.
"Du Jin," he said in a chilling tone, "search. Don't miss a single item in this house."
Du Jin was stunned, looking completely bewildered. He pursed his lips and asked, "Your Highness... may I ask what Your Highness is looking for?"
Li Jin suddenly turned around, staring intently at him, a hint of murderous intent emanating from her: "Everything, I want everything here."
Seeing that he was angry, Du Jin dared not ask any more questions. He turned around and waved his hand, instructing everyone present in the government office to hold candles, bend over, and rummage through the thick ashes to retrieve the remaining items one by one.
Li Jin squatted down in front of Fang Qing, staring at him lying on the ground, her eyes burning with intense passion.
It's like grabbing a handful of quicksand, thinking it's a clue you've found, but it's just a mirage, fleeting and ephemeral.
It's so congested.
A moment later, Zhou Zheng returned and whispered in his ear: "The secret room is completely empty."
There was a deathly silence between the three of them.
From the moment the house caught fire and Fang Qing rushed in, things began to spiral out of control.
Like a gear that has gone off its string, it gradually slipped out of Li Jin's control.
He sneered, "What a strange fire, arriving at the perfect moment."
They weren't after Fang Qing, but after Li Jin.
Fang Qing, lying there, never dreamed that the reinforcements he had brought in the dead of night would not be his comrades-in-arms to help him deal with Li Jin, but rather executioners to send him to his death and silence him.
A moment later, Jin Shu, who was squatting on the ground tending to the body, turned Fang Qing over and noticed that one of his clenched fists looked slightly different.
She frowned, pried open her hand, and inside was a small piece of paper. On the edge of the paper, one could vaguely see the stamp of a small bird.
“Your Highness…” she said.
Before he could finish speaking, Du Jin rushed in, holding a throwing knife with a message attached: "Your Highness! This was just stuck in the doorpost!"
The letter was torn off the throwing knife. Inside was only one page with one word: the word "Preface," written in bold strokes and brimming with a heroic spirit.
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