Song Yinghuai watched the two women below showing panicked expressions simultaneously. A cold sneer rose in his heart.
It's too late to be afraid now!
"Come out now!" he said coldly into the dark night sky.
A faint sound came from among the carved beams and painted rafters. Before everyone could even blink, several men in tight black outfits that were darker than the night materialized out of thin air.
"My lord!"
They all knelt on the ground and saluted.
A bead of sweat rolled down Caiyu's forehead.
She had been in the Lianyin Pavilion for so long. She had destroyed the monitoring devices, tamed the carrier pigeons, and bribed the people in the pavilion...
She had never expected that there were still several elusive members of the Duoyan 3,000 Guards hiding in the pavilion!
No wonder Song Yinghuai always seemed to anticipate her moves. In his eyes, she was nothing but a clown!
The bead of sweat on Caiyu's forehead fell right into Song Yinghuai's eyes.
His eyes were as deep as the night. He asked, "Before and after my mother's accident, besides Caiyu, did anyone else enter the bedroom?"
The leader replied, "Yes. Not long after the old princess was sent back to the mansion after the accident, Zhui'er sneaked into your lordship's bedroom."
Zhui'er, who was kneeling beside and being slapped, immediately swayed hopelessly.
Han Fen, who was carrying out the punishment, raised his eyebrows. He exerted all his strength with the ruler in his hand and slapped Zhui'er across the face with a "pop"!
How dare she sneak into the lord's bedroom? She really didn't want to live anymore!
Zhui'er let out a wail. Her already swollen and red face was directly broken. Blood spurted out from the cracked flesh of her face. The wound stretched from the corner of her mouth to her ear. The red and white flesh turned over under Han Fen's lash, looking extremely terrifying.
A scream of horror rang out on the scene. Some timid maids even bent over and vomited.
Xiangye was naturally timid and afraid of ghosts. Seeing Zhui'er looking like the Eastern Split-Mouth Ghost from the storyteller's tales at the moment, she rolled her eyes and fainted to the side.
Han Fen immediately stopped the ruler in his hand. He rushed forward in panic and caught Xiangye just before she fell to the ground. He picked her up horizontally in his arms.
A deep sense of annoyance flashed in his eyes.
He had been so carried away with the beating that he had forgotten to restrain his cruel side. He had actually scared Xiangye fainting.
"My lord," Han Fen looked up at Song Yinghuai.
"Go down," Song Yinghuai nodded.
Han Fen heaved a sigh of relief and carried Xiangye towards the back building.
Song Yinghuai's gaze was as sharp as a blade. "If so, why didn't you arrest Zhui'er on the spot? And why didn't you show up when Caiyu was wronged?"
The leader of the Duoyan Guards was quite used to this kind of situation. His face was as expressionless as a wooden carving. He replied methodically,
"My lord, please forgive me. Without your lordship's permission, I dare not show up without authorization. My duty is to protect your lordship. As for the lives of others, it is not within my scope of responsibility."
Hearing this, Caiyu silently thought in her heart: Yes, she had long known her own status. Human lives were as insignificant as grass.
Just then, Zhu Xiao, who had just stepped into the door, heard this and couldn't help but blurt out,
"My lord, I must say, what kind of stubborn fools have you raised? They don't know how to be flexible!"
Song Yinghuai's eyebrows twitched. He reached out and rubbed his temples, remaining silent.
The leader glanced at Zhu Xiao. "General Zhu, Miss Xiangye and Guard Liu had already released the carrier pigeon to inform your lordship. According to the rules, when we see a carrier pigeon flying out without permission, we should intercept it. But I didn't stop them. How can you say that we don't know how to be flexible?"
"Otherwise, how could your lordship be here in Yanjing tonight?"
Caiyu: ...
So all the time when she had been feeding and bribing the pigeons, Song Yinghuai had known everything!
Zhu Xiao was silent for a moment and then gave a thumbs up. "Well... I was being narrow-minded. You do have some sense, but your brain just isn't very sharp."
Jiang Jinyue had long decided to distance herself from this matter. Before Song Yinghuai could ask another question, she immediately burst into tears and said,
"Cousin! Yue'er didn't know that Zhui'er had done so many bad things behind my back! Yue'er failed to discipline her properly! Yue'er is guilty!"
"It... it was Yue'er who wronged Caiyu and almost killed her. Can Yue'er apologize to Caiyu?"
As she said this, she actually turned to Caiyu and pleaded, "Miss Caiyu, it was because I was too anxious and had a prejudice against you. I thought you were the one who killed Auntie, so I tortured you... Now, we still need to investigate slowly to find out who actually poisoned her."
"But if you're angry, you can beat me up first. I'm willing to accept the punishment!"
She, the young miss of the prestigious Jiang family in Jiaodong, was begging a servant girl. If Caiyu were to accept this, what would people think if word got out?
How could the aristocratic families in the Yan region tolerate Caiyu?
How could Concubine Yao tolerate her?
Caiyu wasn't going to fall into her trap again.
She didn't follow Jiang Jinyue's words. Instead, she seized on another matter.
"Miss Jiang, don't be in such a hurry to apologize. Maybe there are other things you need to apologize for as well. I guess it was also Zhui'er who poisoned her."
Zhu Xiao couldn't help but interrupt. "Oh? How do you know?"
Caiyu said, "That day, only Zhui'er and I touched the food. I remember that Zhui'er was wearing false fingernails at that time... I was in a hurry that day. Although I thought it was inappropriate for a servant girl to wear false fingernails, Zhui'er was always showy as Miss Jiang's servant. It was possible that she wore them because her mistress had rewarded her with them. But..."
Caiyu's eyes flickered. "After the incident, I thought back. If it was Zhui'er who poisoned her, then in that short moment, the only way she could have poisoned it was..."
A glint of light flashed in Song Yinghuai's eyes. He nodded as if he agreed with Caiyu's speculation. "She must have smeared the poison powder on the false fingernails and then inserted her fingers into the soup when she turned around."
"My lord is wise. That's exactly what this servant guessed," Caiyu said. Her tense expression finally began to relax.
Since Song Yinghuai was following her speculation, he would surely uphold justice for her this time.
Caiyu said, "This servant requests to search Zhui'er's room to find those false fingernails and check if they are stained with poison powder!"
"There's no need to search," Zhu Xiao laughed heartily and stretched out his hand.
He turned over his palm, and there on it was a pair of false fingernails.
"Miss Caiyu is really smart. My lord is also impeccable in his plan. As soon as we entered the mansion, my lord ordered me to search the rooms of Miss Jiang and Zhui'er in the Wanxiang Hall. Just now, I found a pair of false fingernails in Zhui'er's jewelry box. There was some white powder on them, so I took them to Master Guangzhi to take a look," Zhu Xiao said.
Song Yinghuai took the false fingernails.
They were not particularly outstanding. The workmanship was ordinary, looking more like a boring trinket for a servant girl.
Zhu Xiao said, "Master Guangzhi said that the white powder on them was poison. It came from the Half-Moon Poison of the Hu people. That's the same poison the old princess was poisoned with."
Jiang Jinyue nervously watched Song Yinghuai examining the false fingernails.
She had specifically told Zhui'er to buy those cheap false fingernails from a peddler's stall in the market in order not to arouse anyone's suspicion.
"Did you reward these false fingernails to Zhui'er?" Song Yinghuai asked casually.
According to the hierarchy convention in Daye, servant girls of slave origin were not qualified to wear false fingernails, unless they were rewarded by their masters.
Jiang Jinyue was well-prepared. She immediately replied, "Yes, it was Yue'er who rewarded them to her. But Yue'er didn't expect that she would use them for such a thing."
Song Yinghuai laughed softly, as if finding it quite amusing. He said meaningfully,
"The Jiang family in Jiaodong is also a noble and prestigious family. I didn't expect that my cousin's situation in the Jiang family would be so difficult and poor... These false fingernails are made of rough materials and the workmanship is extremely shoddy. They're worth at most five wen. When did my cousin start hiding such cheap trinkets?"
Jiang Jinyue's face turned pale.
She had only been worried about Caiyu noticing the false fingernails on Zhui'er's hands, but she had forgotten that the workmanship and value of these false fingernails were not in line with her status.
Before she could say anything, Song Yinghuai teased again,
"If my cousin is so short of money, there's no need to be polite. You can just tell my mother. If it's inconvenient to tell my mother, you can tell me. And if it's even inconvenient to tell me..."
Caiyu felt relieved and boldly continued, "Then you can also tell this servant. This servant manages two of the lord's industries. It's quite normal to give Miss Jiang a few hundred taels of silver to spend. Why does Miss Jiang have to suffer like this?"
Jiang Jinyue was being mercilessly taunted by Caiyu and Song Yinghuai in turn. She felt as if she had swallowed a fly.