Chapter 45 Her heartbeat became faster and faster...
The next day, Chen Qing received a jade token of identity from a servant in the Liu Mansion. The servant said, "Madam has arrived at the Dali Temple. Please wait at the corner gate of the Dali Temple."
After receiving the jade token, Chen Qing did not examine it for too long. Instead, he immediately changed into a Hu robe, dressed like a young man, and went to the Dali Temple alone.
Liu's mother had already sent someone to wait for a long time. It was a half-grown boy. Perhaps he had been waiting for too long, so he was waiting at the corner gate of the Dali Temple, squatting on the ground with his knees hugged, and nodding his head.
Few people go in and out of the corner gate. At this moment, the steps are mottled with moss, and the corners of the wall are covered with black marks. The little boy stepped on the sparse moss, his curled up body swaying. Just when he was about to collapse, someone slapped him on the shoulder. A sound in his ear startled him and he stood up suddenly, and all the sleepiness disappeared.
Fortunately, the weather was sunny today, and the ground and even the moss were dry, so he didn't slip and fall.
"Excuse me, are you Mr. Liu's men?"
The little boy rubbed his sleepy eyelids and looked into the distance. He saw a well-dressed and delicate-looking young man who had stepped not far in front of him and asked.
As he spoke, the other party handed over the jade token in his hand.
The child hurriedly took the jade token and saw a large "Liu" clearly engraved on it. He immediately said respectfully, "That's right, that's right! Please follow me, Master Shen!"
Chen Qing followed the little boy into the Dali Temple from the corner gate. On the way, the little boy led her to walk along the path with fewer people. When they were about to reach the guard room closest to the imperial prison, they suddenly bumped into someone head-on.
The little boy immediately bowed and saluted when he saw someone, "Greetings, Master Shaoqing."
The man was wearing a crimson round-necked robe with a leather sash underneath. He was hurrying over in black leather boots, his brows knitted tightly together, and he was pursing his lips. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a little boy saluting. He walked without stopping, wanting to pass by him, but he didn't know what he saw, and Shi Qinglan suddenly stopped.
Shi Qinglan asked, "Who is this person next to you? Why does he look so unfamiliar?"
When she saw Shi Qinglan, Chen Qing's heart tightened immediately and she lowered her head, wishing she could reduce her presence. When Shi Qing heard Lan asking her, she broke out in a cold sweat on her back.
She had met Shi Qinglan several times on the boat that day, and it would be bad if he recognized her today.
Fortunately, the boy had been prepared. He calmly said, "Sir, this man is connected to a murder case. Minister Liu has ordered me to bring him here, saying he wants to question him personally."
Seeing that it was the person Liu Siqing wanted, Shi Qinglan didn't say much. He just looked at her lowered head and couldn't help feeling puzzled.
He said unhappily, "Why do you hang your head so low? Is it because I look too scary and frightened you?"
Chen Qing pretended to be flustered and shook his head without saying a word.
The more Shi Qinglan looked at her smooth forehead, the more familiar it felt to him. He didn't understand where this familiarity came from. He frowned and said, "Why don't you say anything? Look up."
Shen Qing didn’t dare to move.
Appearance can be disguised, but voice cannot be faked. Moreover, the person in front of her is from the Dali Temple. These public officials are more sensitive to some subtle details than ordinary people. She had no choice but to keep her mouth shut and said nothing.
Shi Qinglan's patience was about to run out. He was already overwhelmed by the case of Minister Zhang's daughter falling into the water. The prince ordered him to close the case within a month, but he had just tortured the girl in the imperial prison, and it turned out that the girl was a tough guy and was not afraid of punishment at all.
He was not afraid that the girl was a tough guy, because after experiencing a round of punishment in the Dali Temple Prison, even an iron man would have to speak up, but the key was that the deadline given by the prince was only one month.
Besides, it will take time for that girl to speak.
By then, the case will be investigated, convicted, and reviewed. After that, it will be handed over to the Ministry of Justice for review. With all this going on, I'm afraid the case will not be closed within a month.
If he fails to meet the prince's requirements, his official position will be in jeopardy. When he returns home in disgrace, his father will scold him by the ears, especially comparing him with that annoying Gu Ze!
The thought of this made him more irritated, and he couldn't help but say again, "Look up." His tone was cold.
He is just a suspect, but he dares to have such an attitude. It is really infuriating.
Shen Qing still didn't dare to move.
Shi Qinglan completely lost his patience and was about to lift her head himself when the little boy immediately ran up to him and stopped him, "Young Master, calm down! This person is mute and timid, that's why he's like this..."
"Mute?" He looked at her head carefully. She really looked like a timid mute. No wonder she was huddled together like a quail. He felt bored for a moment, but he was still puzzled by the familiar feeling in his heart, so he kept raising his hand.
"few--"
"Master Shi! Master Shi!" A jailer came running towards them and interrupted the little boy, "Master Shi, a distinguished guest has come. Liu Siqing wants you to go with him to welcome the guest personally." He whispered in Shi Qinglan's ear.
Hearing this, Shi Qinglan turned his head to glance at Chen Qing, and finally left with the jailer.
Xiaotong and Shen Qing both breathed a sigh of relief.
When they arrived at Liu Siqing's residence, the boy knocked on the door and said respectfully, "Master, Master Shen is here."
The door of the duty room was opened, and the person who came in was Liu's mother.
She completely opened the door and excitedly welcomed Shen Qing into the duty room, saying, "Today, Alang and I should have personally received Madam Shen, but a distinguished guest suddenly came to the Dali Temple, so Alang had no choice but to accompany Master Shaoqing to greet the guest."
As she spoke, Mother Liu touched the teacup and poured the tea into the teacup, "Come, Madam Shen has come from afar, you must be thirsty, have some tea!"
Chen Qing took the teacup with a faint smile, calmly placed it on the table, and changed the subject, "I'm here only to collect the evil spirits needed to calm Madam Liu's soul. My senior brother is busy with affairs at Xuanji Pavilion and can't get away, so he had to ask me to come here. I'm sorry to bother you, Madam."
After all, it was inconvenient for a woman like Chen Qing to appear in the Dali Temple full of men, so Liu's mother used the excuse that her husband was not used to the food in the public kitchen to personally bring the food box and wait for Chen Qing in the duty room arranged by Liu Siqing.
Mother Liu said: "No trouble, no trouble!"
Chen Qing said, "The evil spirit in this prison is the heaviest. However, because it is too thick, it is exactly what Madam Liu cannot bear. Therefore, we must find some more diluted evil spirit."
She said directly that she needed to carefully explore every corner in the Dali Temple, and wondered what Liu's mother thought.
After hearing this, Liu's mother thought for a moment, then said with a firm expression, "Don't worry, my lady. I'll take care of everything." She then took out a bronze medallion from her waist and said, "This is my pass. If you meet anyone, just tell them you're a servant in my husband's household, and that you're here to do something for him."
Chen Qing took the token with a smile and said, "Then I'll trouble you, Madam."
Given how much Liu's mother loves her daughter, even if Chen Qing wants to break into the imperial prison today, no matter how big the mess she makes, it will be taken care of by Chen's mother.
Mother Shen paced anxiously in the room, while Shen Qing, who had the pass token, came to the document library without any obstruction.
But as she got closer, Chen Qing pondered over it again and again. If she took the token into the warehouse, someone would undoubtedly know. After thinking about it, Chen Qing decided to avoid alerting the enemy, so she folded a paper man and prepared to lure away the warehouse clerk guarding the door.
The paper figurine became spiritual and immediately ran to the nearby courtyard wall in a ball of black mist, making some noise. The two storekeepers heard the sound and immediately ran to the source of the sound to investigate.
Chen Qing took advantage of the opportunity when their backs were turned to slip into the document library.
The document library was empty, which was exactly what Shen Qingyi wanted. However, the library was full of cases accumulated over the years, and the shelves were densely packed with documents.
Chen Qing searched according to the years on the shelf.
She thought about it and realized that the underground palace was large and would take time to build, so she simply focused on the case from five years ago and started looking again.
Baishuisha was the reincarnation of a drowned person, and his face remained the same as it was before his death, which means he was about twenty years old. Judging from the specifications of his tomb, it was a third-grade tomb facing upwards, so we had a direction to look for it.
Shen Qing didn't have much time left, so she quickly scanned the words on the shelf, paying attention to similar cases.
After an unknown amount of time, due to excessive tension and the hot and humid air in the room, a thin layer of sweat had appeared on Chen Qing's forehead. Finally, her eyes lit up and she found a document.
That was a case four years ago.
She tried to calm the thousands of waves stirred in her heart, and with trembling hands she turned a page in the book. She saw the record: "In the year of Kui Mao, the sixteenth year of Yongzhen, the Minister of the Chancellery..."
Just as I saw this scene, there was suddenly a lot of noise outside the warehouse.
Chen Qing was shocked and looked around. The document library was full of rows of shelves with hollowed-out spaces in the middle, which could not cover a living person at all.
The sound was getting closer, and at the critical moment she suddenly saw a desk half a person's height in the corner. Perhaps an official had placed it there for convenience.
She immediately ran to the desk and squatted down with her head down.
"Your Highness, this is the document library, please come in." The visitor was surrounded by a group of people and was respectfully welcomed into the document library.
The other party said indifferently: "I know."
"Oh, good! This is Master Qinglan, the Junior Secretary. He's quite familiar with this archive. He can—"
The man was also wearing a brightly colored round robe with a red collar and a black turban on his head. His delicate face was neither salty nor dull, and his whole body was full of charm, but his lips were a light pink, as if he had caught a cold.
In order to avoid offending the noble, Shi Qinglan deliberately took off his official robe and changed into an inconspicuous green robe.
"No need, everyone is waiting outside." The young man said calmly.
"Yes!" The person next to him wiped his sweat and sent the god in.
Seeing the people go in, they all breathed a sigh of relief, and then gathered together to have a heated discussion.
"This person isn't at Dongshan Temple, so why is he here at Dali Temple today?! Could it be that he's come across some difficult case and wants to look through the old files here?"
"Who knows? What if he has had enough fun in Dongshan Temple and suddenly wants to interfere in the affairs of the court?" After he finished speaking, he suddenly shut up.
Shi Qinglan said gravely, "How dare you! Who taught you to speak so rudely? How dare you openly gather together and talk about the prince behind his back? Have you forgotten all the rules and regulations you learned?!"
"Master Shaoqing, I know I was wrong! I was confused for a moment..."
.
Li Daoxuan completely ignored what was happening outside and began to look through the old ancestral files without being moved.
Shen Qing felt him getting closer and closer to her, and she couldn't help but cover her nose and mouth and hold her breath, but her heartbeat became faster and faster.
Li Daoxuan couldn't help but feel annoyed after searching for a long time without finding what he wanted. He was dizzy due to catching a cold, but when he thought of the threat of Bai Shuisha in Chang'an, he had to be patient and search carefully.
After searching like this, he found two or three cases of drowning of officials above the third rank and their families. His eyes swept over the desk and he immediately walked over with a few volumes of documents.
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