C39

This was not a big matter, after all, Luo Yi did not have a single scratch on his body, but somehow it had alarmed the emperor, causing Chen Jinyan and Ye Rong to come to the Hall of Announcements one after another to look at her.

Mu Yizhou followed behind Chen Jinyan as usual, and as he dealt with all of the Empress's questions, he stared blankly at Mu Yizhou's green clothes.

It wasn't easy for him to send off these two great buddhas, and the imperial physician's cure for them was also left behind. Luo Yi finally spoke to Qing Luo: "Hurry, hurry, pour me a cup of water, you're exhausting me to death …"

"Did you find the body?"

The man was as cold as ice, and his expression made people shiver. The people under the stage kept pushing and pushing each other for a long time, and only when he was about to get angry did one of the unlucky ones get pushed out.

The young man who was pushed out swallowed his saliva, and with the word "Submit" written on his face, his tone was also a bit hollow, but his voice was loud and clear as usual: "Reporting to Sir, I found it, it's in extraction hall's pond."

As he spoke, he took another peek at the man in front of him, whose face was as black as the bottom of a pot.

The man was called Wen Shili, he was the Commander of the Imperial Guard in charge of the palace guards, he usually served in front of the palace and rarely came to the harem, but today, he coincidentally had matters to attend to, who would have thought that he would become someone's meat cushion right after entering the imperial garden.

"What is it?" Luo Yi's interest was piqued, but she did not feel tired at all, hence she found a more comfortable sitting position and asked.

"I heard that some palace maid died, and the Mr. Wen came to investigate."

Qing Luo was not too sure either, but on the way back, she met a few palace maids talking about this matter, and only then did she remember.

"Oh …" Luo Yi dragged her words: "You're not some ordinary palace maid are you?"

There were at least a few thousand servants in the palace. Although her name was recorded in the book, but there were too many people, so even if Literari Star was alive, it would still be difficult to remember everything. However, according to Qing Luo, this palace maid was discovered right after she went missing.

"Yes, the missing palace maid is called Night Fragrance. She was served by the imperial palace. "Today, when the emperor was in the morning assembly, no one came to add to his tea, which was why he was discovered."

Qing Luo cleaned up the table and said: "But it doesn't seem to be a good idea to amuse people this late."

She thought for a moment and continued, "I heard that she has a mean personality and a venomous mouth. She bullies people quite often … Oh yeah... "This Evening Fragrance used to serve in the East Palace, the Supreme Emperor was too …"

She paused here and purposely skipped the phrase, "At that time, the Crown Prince was very underhanded and probably got bullied a lot. It was all thanks to the crown prince's magnanimity that he spared them and found such a good place for them …" Your Highness the Crown Prince! "

Qing Luo suddenly stopped as he spoke. To her surprise, she suddenly raised her voice, not caring about the chores at hand, and knelt down in front of the door.

Luo Yi raised her body and turned her head, she did not know how long Chen Liyi had been standing at the door for, but the noon sunlight shone onto half of his face, causing him to be unable to see her expression clearly.

"What are you standing at the door for? "Come in." She waved her hand at Chen Liyi, and at the same time instructed him: "You may leave."

"I … Let me see your injury. There were too many people just now, so I didn't manage to squeeze in. "

As soon as he finished speaking, he paused for two breaths and then changed his way of addressing Luo Yi. When he stopped in front of Luo Yi, his head was slightly lowered, showing a clear sign of weakness.

Luo Yi was startled, she stood up from the ground, looked at Chen Liyi for a while, and finally laughed: "You want to come see me, are you not simple?"

She raised her hand and called Chen Liyi closer: "Back then the situation was too chaotic so I didn't have time to ask you, what about you? Are you scared? "

Chen Liyi shook his head.

"That's good."

Luo Yi said indifferently, as though she was really not interested in Chen Liyi's abnormal behavior. After comforting him a little, Luo Yi coaxed him back into her own room, causing her expression to instantly turn cold, even her voice became softer.

"Go and call Hong Xiang over … Quietly, don't alarm the crown prince. "

Hong Xiang suddenly called out, without knowing the reason, he kneeled on the ground in confusion.

"Where was the Crown Prince last night?"

"Esteemed Empress, the crown prince is sleeping in his own room …"

"Never stepped out of the room?"

That would be weird … Luo Yi's worry did not decrease but increased instead. He did not do anything wrong, why should she be afraid?

"However …" Hong Xiang added, "Yesterday, when the Emperor arrived, because he did not have enough manpower, he called this servant over to help. After this servant finished working, I happened to see the crown prince coming back from the outside."

Luo Yi's face darkened, "Didn't I tell you to look favorably for the crown prince? Who told you to let him go alone! "

After pausing for a moment, he finally suppressed the anger in his heart and Luo Yi asked: "When did you return? When I return, is there anyone else with the crown prince? "

"No, the Crown Prince came back himself." Luo Yi had never gotten angry, it was a rare outburst that scared Hong Xiang to the point that she did not even dare to breathe, "After the crown prince returned, he went back to his room and never stepped out again."

Luo Yi frowned again.

Honestly speaking, just being able to work in the Eastern Palace alone wasn't worthy of Luo Yi suspecting the crown prince. The key point was that Chen Liyi's unease was too obvious, like a child who was afraid of being scolded by an adult after an ordinary person did something wrong. He didn't even want his identity anymore, so he came to Luo Yi to beg for mercy with a soft voice.

Hong Xiang was still kneeling on the ground, knowing that he could not get any more useful information from her. With a headache, he waved her away, and turned around to call for his people: "You said the kitchen staff is insufficient? Do you know who's missing? "

Speaking till this point, Luo Yi had some guesses about the answer, but she was not too surprised by the name Hong Xiang spat out, she only raised her eyebrows and laughed coldly once again, and said: "You left your duties without permission, you sure have a lot of guts."

"Secretly ask if anyone knows where she went last night and when she came back …" Oh right, keep quiet, especially not letting the Crown Prince know. "

After taking care of all of this, Luo Yi once again slanted her head to the side with her forehead furrowed, her face ashen.

Based on her conscience, all she had to do was ponder about the use of the jade pendant the old emperor had given her and watch over Chen Jinyan so that he wouldn't make a move against her without making any sound. But it was rare for Chen Liyi to rely on her, and she herself had a strange feeling of closeness to this child, so since she had already guessed that this matter was related to Chen Liyi, she definitely wouldn't just stand by and do nothing.

At night, Chen Jinyan did not come to look for her. He said that he had matters to take care of in the imperial court, so Luo Yi was very clear on the situation and laughed, saying that the emperor had to take care of a lot of things everyday, so he did not need to specifically tell her about all these.

"This is the emperor putting our Empress in his heart!" Qing Luo had a sweet mouth, this was what she said to Luo Yi when she saw her father-in-law back into his room.

Luo Yi gave a noncommittal smile. She did not reply, but in her heart, she could not smile at all.

Was it really all a coincidence?

As the night fell, in the entire Hall of Announcements, other than the palace guards, there was no one else who was awake.

Before Luo Yi went to sleep, she specially found an excuse to kick the maids and eunuchs out of the room. As a result, she flipped the windows extremely smoothly, not disturbing even a single bug.

The window of her bedroom faced the backyard, and the wall in the corner of the backyard was somehow shorter than the rest, so she didn't need to use too much effort to climb over it.

She dusted her hands and looked around like a thief. After confirming that there was no one around, she walked towards her destination cautiously.

In the day, Qing Luo said that the corpse was found in the extraction hall. It was a remote place, and there were very few people who went there originally, but two years ago, a concubine was found hanging in there. After that, there were even fewer people who went there, and basically, there were only people who cleaned it once every six months.

It was probably due to psychological factors causing Luo Yi to feel a chill the moment she stepped into the palace gate. It was as if something was staring at her all the time, which was extremely strange.

She rubbed her arms with both of her hands, taking each step more carefully.

It was said that the corpse was found in a pond in the backyard. Because it had not been cleaned for a long time, weeds that were half a leg high grew along the side of the pond, and the water was covered with moss. When the corpse was pulled out, it was even wrapped in aquatic plants.

Luo Yi didn't have the guts to run to the side of the pond, she only went along the way to see if she had left any clues, such as bloodstains.

There were many wounds on the body, roughly a hundred or so. This kind of crime looked more like revenge, and they heard that this palace maid wasn't drowned, but had lost too much blood and died while being dragged along the way, so …

"Who are you? How dare he trespass! Turn around! "

Unfortunately, before her thoughts could take shape in her mind, they were interrupted by a voice from behind her.

The voice of the person who spoke sounded ice-cold, even colder than the weapon he placed on Luo Yi's neck.

Luo Yi sighed at her shameful appearance as she raised her hand above his head. She carefully turned around, afraid that the sword on her neck that was emitting a cold light under the moonlight would leave a hole in her body.

Because of that, she only brought a fire piston with her as lighting. This pitiful fire piston, however, was extinguished because of Wen Shili's cold snort, so Wen Shili had to take advantage of the weak moonlight for a long time before he was able to recognize that the person in front of him was the person he had saved this morning.

"Esteemed Empress Yi?" Wen Shili frowned, he had retracted the sword. His tone was not polite at all: "What are you doing here?"

"..." When I heard that there was a murder case here, I was curious and came to take a look. "

She had not thought that she would be caught red-handed the moment she stepped out of the door, nor did she come up with a plan in advance. It took her a good while to come up with such an unwise reason. Fortunately, Wen Shili did not care too much about her words, after glancing at her for a moment, he kept his sword and walked towards the place where he had found the corpse.

The two of them had just misplaced their shoulders, Luo Yi immediately felt the sinister feeling behind him grow even stronger, and after standing still for a while, she couldn't help but jogging two steps and following behind them.

Wen Shili glanced at her but did not say anything.

"Do you no longer doubt me?" Maybe because there were too many differences in attitude, Luo Yi could not help but ask.

Wen Shili answered without thinking: "The crime was committed last night. At that time, the Empress was together with the Emperor. There was no time for the crime to be committed."

He used his sword to brush the grass in front of him. Just as he was about to walk forward, he paused for some reason and then took a step to the side. "Empress, this way please."

Luo Yi did not stand on ceremony with him, and walked along the path that he had opened up, feeling at ease. As she walked, she asked him: "This is not the first crime scene right?"

"Yes."

Was he agreeing with her or denying her?

Luo Yi curled her lips, she knew that the person in front of him would not easily divulge the details of the case to him, so she poured out all of the information she had heard from him: "I heard that he had been slashed by several hundred people?"

"Nope."

"How tragic … I've also heard that this palace maid died from excessive blood loss. "

"Crap."

"I wonder why the murderer had to go through so much trouble to bring the corpse here … Could it be because there are only a few people here that can't be discovered? "

"Empress Dowager …"

Wen Shili did not want to bother with her, seeing how she kept on talking, he took his as an old well, and only replied with a single word or sentence. However, when he said half of what he said just now, he immediately realised that something was wrong, and he could not control his anger and glared at his.

Luo Yi laughed like a cunning fox, "Oh …"

She used all her strength to drag out her last words. "This place really isn't the scene of the first crime. It seems like those sounds I heard in the afternoon weren't all fake!"

This was the first time in Wen Shili's life that someone tried to trick him. He was angered to the point that his face turned green and white, but because of the other party's identity, he could not say anything more.

Luo Yi had never seen such a person, she could not even utter a word with her staff, and was immediately interested. When others were not paying attention, she suddenly went over and teased: "Mr. Wen doesn't look too good!"

Originally, she wanted to laugh at him, but since Wen Shili was a martial artist, it was difficult for ordinary people to get close to him. When they saw Luo Yi's sudden attack, they instinctively leaned back to avoid it, but managed to endure it with great difficulty, and pitied Luo Yi, who ran straight into the pond. Fortunately, Wen Shili's reaction was fast, and he resisted the impulse to pull out his sword, so he extended his arm forward to grab Luo Yi back.

"Empress, please have some self-respect."

Just as Luo Yi stabilized her footing, she heard those words.