Chapter 100
In fact, Li Yu really didn’t know how the mission was going.
On the one hand, the bandits came suddenly, and he ran out in the middle of the mission. Although he did some simple concealment, what if someone found out? But he didn’t care so much at that time.
On the other hand, the System didn’t give him any hints. According to his experience, this meant that the mission was still in progress and hadn’t failed. If the main mission failed, the System said that he would become a fish bone and a fish ash. He could now freely switch between mermaid and mermaid, which was good. No news was the best news.
King Jing put the amulet back on Li Yu and guarded him for the remaining few hours. During this time, Li Yu turned into an octopus and clung to King Jing. He made up his mind that even if God was outside, he wouldn’t be fooled. King Jing punished him by rubbing his head, which made him even more embarrassed.
If it weren’t for him, King Jing would definitely be able to catch all the bandits in one fell swoop. After all, he was a hindrance to King Jing and made King Jing worry, so he wanted to make up for it.
“By the way, Your Highness, don’t forget to investigate that Military Counselor.”
Li Yu eavesdropped on a lot of information about Military Counselor from the bandits. Except for the fact that his face was covered, he didn’t know his name. This Military Counselor could use a baby and golden swaddling clothes as bait, which was completely different from the bandits. He felt that this person was most likely targeting him and King Jing.
It was well known in the Western Frontier that King Jing had only four young masters, and the golden swaddling clothes were specially used by Dabao. Ordinary people generally didn’t use this color. If someone was interested, this information could be found out. Military Counselor must have done some research in advance.
Li Yu’s suspicion wasn’t unreasonable, and King Jing also had the same opinion.
In this battle, the bandits were almost completely wiped out, and the few survivors were those who stayed in the bandit nest. King Jing ordered the guards to torture them and force them to confess the identity of Military Counselor.
This Military Counselor gave him a strange sense of familiarity.
Throwing the white powder at him, thinking that he had been hit in the eye, then turning to attack his legs. This action seemed superfluous, but King Jing himself knew that if he had taken action in the past, he would hide a dagger in his boot, just in case. This time, he also brought a dagger. However, after his eyes turned red from the killing, he casually put the dagger into his sleeve. It was the dagger that he used to counterattack.
The Military Counselor had attacked the place where he had kept the dagger. Was he trying to prevent him from pulling the dagger out?
No matter what, the military counselor must know something about him. Otherwise, he would not use a baby as a lure. But how did he even know where he hid the dagger?
Apart from this time, he had only used the dagger once in public, and that was when Xiao Yu saved his eyes when he was assassinated in the palace!
It was precisely because of that incident that King Jing paid special attention to close combat. That was how he managed to avoid the smoke ball in time. He was even able to beat them at their own game and pretend that his eyes were injured.
The Military Counselor had also used the same powder, which was similar to the method used by the person who attacked him in his memory. In addition, the Military Counselor knew that he had a habit of hiding the dagger. King Jing had reason to believe that the Military Counselor was the person who attacked him that time!
“Your Highness, I once accidentally saw that the Military Counselor’s hand had been bitten by an animal …”
Li Yu mentioned a clue. Although he did not know if it was related to the Military Counselor, he said it anyway.
As soon as he mentioned it, King Jing immediately remembered that the person who attacked him in the palace kept covering his hand that day, as if he had been injured.
King Jing wrote down the details of what happened that day. Li Yu did not know that King Jing’s eyes had been injured by lime powder, and that there was such a detail behind it.
“Your Highness, could it be that you suspect that the Military Counselor was the person who attacked Your Highness?” Li Yu pondered for a moment and asked.
King Jing nodded.
In the western border, other than bandits, there was no one who could go against him. The Military Counselor had just arrived in the western border not long ago, so he was not a bandit before. The only possibility was that he had something to do with the Imperial City.
Li Yu thought about the wound on the Military Counselor’s hand, and then thought about other things besides King Jing’s eye injury that day. It could not be so coincidental, right?
“Your Highness, do you still remember that day, Xiong Feng and I also met the masked man, the one who poisoned the fish food … He was bitten by Xiong Feng, and it was also on his hand!”
When Li Yu mentioned Xiong Feng, King Jing was obviously stunned for a moment before he realized that Li Yu was talking about his experience when he was cooking fish, and Xiong Feng was Ye Qinghuan’s dog.
Suddenly hearing Xiaoyu call out another name affectionately, King Jing felt a little uncomfortable, but he quickly turned his attention to the matter at hand.
The person who poisoned the fish had been bitten by Ye Qinghuan’s dog, and the Military Counselor’s hand had been bitten by an animal, so it was a complete match.
The Military Counselor was indeed from the Imperial City, and he had dealt with them a long time ago. He was the one who poisoned the fish food and turned around to attack his people.
“… Is it the Second Prince?” Li Yu asked tentatively.
When the masked man poisoned the fish food, the Second Prince was scheming against the Duke Chengen Mansion and had ordered people to buy arsenic. King Jing and Eunuch Wang believed that the person who poisoned the fish food was sent by the Second Prince, and that the Second Prince wanted to vent his anger.
At that time, the second prince was indeed the most suspicious. But now, the situation had changed. The second prince had been beaten up by King Jing to the point that he was delirious. He was a man who had lost his power and had retired from the stage of power for a long time. How could he still have an accomplice? Moreover, this accomplice was the masked man who had poisoned him.
This didn’t make sense. King Jing had also left people at the Second Prince’s place, and he was very clear about the situation in Mu Tianzhao. It couldn’t be the Second Prince who continued to stir up trouble, so there was only one possibility. They had all been wrong in the past. The person who poisoned the fish food wasn’t sent by the Second Prince, and the Second Prince had taken the blame for the poisoning.
If it wasn’t the Second Prince, then it could only be the Third Prince or the Sixth Prince.
In the past, King Jing would have suspected the Third Prince, but now the Third Prince couldn’t even protect himself. Someone had used the Third Prince’s name to pass information between the western border and the Imperial City, and had been discovered by the Emperor, so the Third Prince was the unlucky one.
Using this method to make the Third Prince take the blame, wasn’t it similar to making the Second Prince take the blame?
King Jing pondered for a long time, then picked up a pen and wrote a “six” on the paper.
Xiao Yu was right. Mu Tianxiao was indeed his formidable opponent.
Moreover, he had been plotting against him for so long.
“So it was him …”
Li Yu sighed softly. If all of this was done by the scheming Sixth Prince, then everything could be explained clearly.
Military Counselor was the Sixth Prince’s subordinate. At this time, only the Sixth Prince would have the time to come to the western border to do bad things.
In the past, the Sixth Prince had been hiding behind the Third Prince, and the Second Prince had been in front of him. No one would have thought that this invisible, unfavored person was the culprit.
Now that the Sixth Prince had gotten rid of the Third Prince, he had become “the Emperor’s only adult prince left in the Imperial City.” Although he had been in the limelight in the imperial court, he had also put himself in the limelight.
He no longer had a shield in front of him.
Since he had discovered that the Sixth Prince was the culprit, King Jing didn’t hold back. A month later, the people left behind in the Imperial City received a secret letter from King Jing.
There was only one line in the secret letter: “Do something about him.”
His identity was revealed through other channels. This was the rule of King Jing’s mansion to pass on confidential information.
These people had gone through fire and water with King Jing. Now that they were guarding such a large mansion, they were bored out of their wits. With their master’s order, they immediately acted as if they had been injected with chicken blood.
Soon, the Assistant Minister of Works, Zheng Jing, submitted a memorial to impeach the Sixth Prince for accepting bribes when he was in charge of renovating the Zhongcui Palace.
Mu Tianxiao’s expression changed greatly, and he flatly denied it, stating that he had only acted according to the regulations.
Zheng Jing confronted him with righteous indignation and took out the previous drawings of the Zhongcui Palace. He said that the Zhongcui Palace had been renovated by the Sixth Prince. Although its appearance was exactly the same as the original, the actual wood used was inconsistent with the drawings. Instead, it used inferior wood, even the roof beams were the same.
The Emperor was greatly shocked. He immediately ordered people to take down the roof beams of the Zhongcui Palace and examine them. In a row, he found more than a dozen carpenters to come forward and examine them. The Emperor was afraid that someone would frame the Sixth Prince, so even the carpenters were personally selected. However, these people all said that the wood didn’t match the original drawings.
In fact, the actual renovations were different from the drawings. It wasn’t as if they had never been done before, and they could find a reason to explain it. However, the problem was that the Sixth Prince reported to the Emperor and the Ministry of Revenue based on the top-grade wood. Thus, the accounts were one set, and the actual renovations were another set. Where did the difference in the middle go?
The wood used for the renovations couldn’t escape the eyes of the supervisors, and it was also the responsibility of the supervisors. The Sixth Prince had no way to defend himself. Moreover, the Sixth Prince had gotten married a month ago. In principle, a prince’s wedding was prepared by the Ministry of Rites. Except for the King Jing’s wedding, which was in the western border and had received the Emperor’s special permission to be held by the King Jing himself, the other princes’ weddings were all handled by the Ministry of Rites. There was no difference in the regulations. However, it was said that when the betrothal gifts were sent, the Sixth Prince had privately added a lot of gifts for his fiancée, Marquis Dingbei’s legitimate daughter. They were all added to Marquis Dingbei’s daughter’s dowry and carried all the way to the Sixth Prince’s manor.
Marquis Dingbei loved to show off and had already announced the gifts given by the Sixth Prince’s son-in-law. Anyone with a discerning eye could see what the Sixth Prince had given. Gold and silver jewelry were the most inconspicuous. There were also pearls, agate, coral, jadeite, and ivory. They were all counted by the number of dendrites. There were also countless ancient books and paintings. The Sixth Prince had claimed that he couldn’t even prepare a decent birthday gift during the Emperor’s birthday.
Then the question was, how did the Sixth Prince obtain so much wealth in less than a year? It had to be known that based on a prince’s allowance and salary, it was absolutely impossible to gather this much. In addition, the Sixth Prince’s birth mother was a palace maid, and his family was poor. Otherwise, the Sixth Prince wouldn’t have been so poor in the past.
Either he had lied to the Emperor during the Emperor’s birthday, or the money had come from an improper source.
In fact, there were court officials who had suspected this, but the Emperor only had one adult prince. The Sixth Prince’s status had risen, and the court officials really didn’t want to make things difficult for the Sixth Prince, who was very likely to ascend the throne in the future.
Zheng Jing had only dared to impeach the Sixth Prince after he had obtained evidence of the Sixth Prince receiving bribes.
Zheng Jing was very familiar with the Sixth Prince’s work in the Ministry of Works. When he found out that the wood used for the Zhongcui Palace’s renovation was different from the blueprint, Zheng Jing guessed that there was something fishy going on. He could think of several parties who had benefited from this with a little thought.
Zheng Jing ordered people to follow the Sixth Prince’s servants, and found that during the renovation of the Zhongcui Palace, the Sixth Prince had ordered people to pawn a few mahogany chests. Zheng Jing tried his best to obtain them, and found that they were the family heirlooms of the imperial merchant in charge of the wood. From this, he knew where the Sixth Prince’s money came from.
Zheng Jing used the pawn tickets from the pawnshop as evidence, as well as the treasures that were pawned as evidence. When the Emperor questioned the Sixth Prince, the Sixth Prince insisted that it was his confidant who had done it behind his back. He said that the Sixth Prince had taken the money without his permission and cheated him when he was working as an overseer. The Emperor didn’t suspect him out of trust, and in short, pushed away all responsibility.
The Emperor’s face was as cold as ice, and he stared at the Sixth Prince. The Sixth Prince felt that he couldn’t hide from the Emperor’s cold gaze, so he gritted his teeth and continued to pretend to be innocent.
The Emperor accepted the Sixth Prince’s explanation.
But because of this, everyone around the Sixth Prince was replaced.
This was all for later.
Li Yu finally made it to the last moment of “protecting the pet fish”.
The long-awaited System’s voice sounded, but it didn’t inform him whether the mission was completed or not. Instead, it asked him to enter the System and check it himself. It was different from the usual scamming System, and Li Yu’s heart was in turmoil.
He was really afraid that the mission was a failure.
After giving a simple explanation to King Jing, Li Yu immediately entered the System.
The main mission, “Postpartum Care”, was still lit, and at the end of the “Protecting the pet fish” step, there were small squares that kept changing colors.
So this step also depended on the judgment?
The System said, “This mission was originally for the Tyrant to protect the pet fish. If the transformed pet fish was discovered, it would be considered a failure …”
Li Yu argued, “I actually did cover it up. They didn’t see my true face, so it shouldn’t be considered as being discovered, right?”
The System said, “It doesn’t count. But there were two bandits who were killed by the Tyrant after seeing the Host’s mermaid form. This mission can’t be considered a success, but it can’t be considered a failure either. It can only be judged according to the Tyrant’s actions. ”
That was close. Li Yu breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, it didn’t count as a failure. He had been judged a few times before, and King Jing was always strong, so there shouldn’t be a problem this time.
Li Yu stared hard at the small squares that represented the results. Green was a success, and red was a failure. He remembered that the small squares had turned into colors once. What color would it be this time?
The small squares’ colors changed faster and faster, faster and faster, and finally stopped.
It was yellow.
Li Yu, “…”
This was an unexpected color!
