"Squeak—"
The doors of the ancestral hall were slowly opened once again.
A beam of cool moonlight, accompanied by a slight night breeze, rushed in instantly, dispelling the suffocating chill and oppressive atmosphere within the ancestral hall.
Lin Wanwan emerged from the darkness, her face pale from prolonged tension, but her beautiful eyes shone with an astonishing brightness.
"lady!"
Xiao Che, who had been waiting anxiously outside the door, immediately rushed forward, grabbed her arm, and looked her up and down, his tone filled with undisguised concern, "How are you? Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." Lin Wanwan shook her head at him, then turned and tightly grasped his hand, her palm slightly damp with excitement. "Your Majesty, I've found it!"
Xiao Che's heart skipped a beat, and two terrifying beams of light instantly flashed in his eyes!
"Let's go! We'll talk about it back there!"
Without saying another word, he pulled Lin Wanwan up, not even glancing at the two servants who were still counting silver notes and grinning foolishly. He moved like the wind and quickly disappeared into the deep night.
Back at the inn, I closed the door.
Before Lin Wanwan could even take a sip of water, she carefully placed the handkerchief containing the crucial evidence on the table, and then told Xiao Che everything she had discovered in the ancestral hall.
From the clenched fist to the skin flakes and silk fibers under the fingernails; from the horizontal ligature mark on the neck to the contradictory detail of the outer garment being torn while the inner garment remained intact…
With each additional word she spoke, Xiao Che's expression grew darker.
When Lin Wanwan uttered her final deduction—"The second young master of the Gao family killed someone in a fit of rage after his advances were rejected, and then fabricated the appearance of adultery"—the temperature in the entire room seemed to suddenly drop to freezing point!
"Snap!"
Xiao Che crushed the armrest of a chair next to him into dust, with wood chips falling from between his fingers.
"Good! Good for the Gao family! What beasts they are!"
Xiao Che's chest heaved violently, and a fury a hundred times more terrifying than the one he had felt in the government office erupted from his body!
If the previous anger stemmed from the trampling of "national law," then the anger at this moment stems from the loss of an innocent life and the vicious defilement of the last purity of a strong woman!
"They not only killed people, but they also destroyed their spirits!" Xiao Che's voice was icy cold, devoid of any emotion. Every word was like ice tempered from the deepest hell. "Such behavior is worse than that of beasts!"
He turned around abruptly, his eyes burning with raging fury as he stared directly at the deep night outside the window, his voice resolute.
"It's dawn! As soon as it's light, I'll take this evidence to the government office!"
"This time, I want to see with my own eyes how that fat Wang, and the entire Gao family behind him, dig their own graves in the face of irrefutable evidence!"
With evidence, we have confidence!
With confidence, you can completely crush your enemy within the "rules"!
Xiao Che's heart was filled with high morale and an unwavering belief in victory.
However, he and Lin Wanwan both overlooked one thing—
Rules are used to restrain virtuous people.
For a group of beasts who have already lost their minds, rules are just a piece of waste paper that can be torn up at any time!
The night gradually faded away.
A faint, pale light appeared on the horizon.
A new day seems to be about to begin.
Xiao Che and Lin Wanwan hadn't slept all night, but they were full of energy, just waiting for the hour of Mao (5-7 AM), which signified the "official court session."
However, just as dawn was breaking and the inn was still completely silent—
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
A sudden, sharp, and jarring sound of gongs and drums rang out from the distant street without warning!
The sound was sharp and chaotic, not at all like the watchman's drum announcing the dawn, but rather like... driving away something ominous!
Immediately afterwards, a woman's extremely shrill cry rang out!
"My daughter! You damned beasts! Give me back my daughter's life!"
That voice belonged to Granny Liu!
"Something's happened!"
Xiao Che and Lin Wanwan exchanged a glance, both seeing a hint of foreboding in each other's eyes!
The two rushed to the window, pushed it open, and looked in the direction from which the sound came.
In the dim light of dawn, a strange procession appeared on the main street below the inn!
The group consisted of a dozen or so Gao family servants dressed in black, each with a ferocious expression. They were banging on broken gongs and chanting incantations, as if they were performing some kind of exorcism ritual.
In the very center of the procession, four servants were carrying a huge... pig cage covered with a black cloth!
Through the gaps in the pig cage, a glimpse of a woman's clothing could be vaguely seen.
At the back of the group, Grandma Liu, with her hair disheveled and clothes in disarray, was frantically chasing after them, stumbling and crying out in anguish as she did so!
"Stop! You all stop right there! Give me back my daughter!"
However, the servants ignored her cries and even turned around and shoved her hard, knocking her to the ground!
This is……
Xiao Che's pupils suddenly shrank to the most dangerous pinpoints!
Just then, the door was kicked open with a bang, and the inn's waiter scrambled in, his face filled with terror and panic!
"Guest...Guest! Something terrible has happened! Something terrible has happened!"
He pointed out the window, shouting breathlessly:
"It's the Gao family! The Gao family...they carried out the execution ahead of schedule!"
"They said, 'Don't wash your dirty linen in public,' and we can't wait until the government holds court and let the whole city laugh at us! They want to... they want to drown him before the government even opens its doors!"
Boom!!!
Xiao Er's words were like a thunderbolt from the heavens, striking Xiao Che and Lin Wanwan hard on the head!
Execution ahead of schedule?!
Before the court hearing?!
The color drained from their faces instantly!
They understood completely!
The Gao family has absolutely no intention of going through the official channels! Their arrogance in court yesterday was no bluff! They want to use this most barbaric and direct method to tell everyone—
In this Jiangnan region, the Gao family is heaven! They are the law!
They not only wanted to kill her, but also to use this public humiliation to completely cement Liu Yu's reputation for "immorality"! They wanted everyone to see the consequences of offending the Gao family!
Once the body is sunk to the bottom of the river, all the evidence they have painstakingly found will be lost forever in the cold water, and there will be no way to verify it!
How ruthless!
Absolutely amazing!
This is practically... destroying the evidence!
As Xiao Che watched the execution procession receding into the distance outside the window, and the desperate figure of Granny Liu struggling to get up from the ground and chasing after them once again, his face turned ashen.
In those deep eyes, the last trace of pretense belonging to "Master Xiao" shattered completely! In its place was the overwhelming rage and chilling killing intent of an emperor, enough to change the very heavens and earth!
He suddenly turned his head, grabbed Lin Wanwan's hand, and his voice was as cold as ice!
"Walk!"
"Let's go..."
"Rescuing the execution ground!"
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