Transmigrated into the Scumbag Ex-Wife of the Prime Minister - Chapter 80

The scream came from the adjacent private room. Hearing the sound, the first to act was Princess Changning.

She glanced at Lin Shuqing, and the two left their private room synchronously. Qin Feiyan followed closely behind them.

Outside the room, Princess Changning’s maid Ah Lü and Lin Shuqing’s groom were stopping three people: a grey-clothed page boy, a woman wearing a red ruqun (traditional skirt), and a maid in plain clothes.

“Who are you!” The grey-clothed page boy looked startled and terrified.

The woman was even more distraught, yelling, “Murder! Murder!”

The little maid was also in a panic, clutching the woman’s sleeve.

The commotion they caused was considerable; not only did people from the other private room on this floor open their doors to look, but people were also peering curiously from the staircase.

“What’s going on?” Lin Shuqing asked, frowning.

Lin Shuqing’s maid looked at the private room next door, her voice somewhat panicked, “Miss, Princess, next door, next door someone is dead.”

Hearing her words, the expressions of Princess Changning and the other two quietly changed.

“Block the staircase, no one is allowed in or out.” Princess Changning merely glanced in the direction of the stairs, said to Lin Shuqing in a low voice, and then stepped towards the room next door.

The manager of Linjiang Pavilion heard the news and also rushed up with a page boy. Lin Shuqing turned to speak with him.

Their private room was on the top floor of Linjiang Pavilion, which only had three rooms. The adjacent room was at the west end.

As the two reached the doorway of the room, Princess Changning’s hidden guard knelt before her, clasping his hands and speaking to her with a grave expression, “Princess, the person is already dead.”

“Did you see who did it?”

The hidden guard glanced in the direction of the three people, and respectfully replied, “Apart from those three people, no one else entered or exited.”

Catching a glimpse of Lu Sheng and the others walking over, Princess Changning did not ask anything further. She instructed, “Bring those three people over.”

“Yes!”

After speaking, Princess Changning entered the adjacent private room. Qin Feiyan followed her inside.

Qi Zhenshu looked at Lu Sheng. Lu Sheng nodded, and the two also followed them into the room.

Ruan Ru also wanted to go in and watch the excitement but was pulled back by Ruan Peng. Shen Jiaying, on the other hand, stood at the door of their own private room, watching Lin Shuqing talking to the Linjiang Pavilion manager, and did not follow.

As soon as they stepped into the room, a thick smell of burning mugwort came to greet them.

People in Qingzhou were accustomed to using mugwort for incense during the Dragon Boat Festival, so it was nothing special, but the smell was truly quite strong.

The private room was a suite. The outer room had a round table full of half-eaten food. The inner room had a bed with brocade curtains and a set of low tables.

Qi Zhenshu surveyed the room and noticed that the floor lamp in front of the bed was knocked over, the lampshade scattered to the side, and the candle inside was broken into several pieces.

On the floor in front of the bed was a puddle of water with tea leaves in it, and scattered around were some small pieces of porcelain, but no intact porcelain cup was visible.

A slightly overweight man lay on the bed. He was dressed, covered from the waist down with a quilt, and a dagger was plunged into his chest. The blood on his chest had soaked through the bedsheet beneath him.

The blood on the man’s clothes had not yet dried. Princess Changning checked his pulse; the man had no pulse, but his body still carried a slight warmth.

The person must have died not long ago.

The entire bed reeked of alcohol. The man must have drunk a lot of wine before he died.

The hidden guard brought the three people over. The two of them were somewhat panic-stricken, half-kneeling on the ground.

“Your Excellency, spare my life, Your Excellency, spare my life!” The page boy knelt on the ground begging for mercy, “The person was not killed by this humble servant!”

“Your Excellency, I am innocent!” The woman in red was also weeping, “When we came in, he was already dead.”

The maid was too terrified to speak, only crying softly.

They had heard that Princess Changning was the Transport Commissioner of Jiangnan Circuit, and were so scared out of their wits, afraid that she would charge them with murder.

Princess Changning stood in front of the bed, her hands behind her back, looking askance at them, her voice full of authority: “Who are you?”

“I, I am Ah Hong, the page boy of Old Master Wu,” Ah Hong stammered, trembling on the ground.

“And you?” Princess Changning looked at the other two.

“I am Yue Die, a dancer from Chunman House,” Yue Die said, casting a coy glance at Princess Changning, her voice meek and soft. Then she looked at the terrified maid beside her, “This is my maid, Xiaohua.”

“Mhm, mhm.” Xiaohua clutched Yue Die’s arm, nodding vigorously.

Yue Die was dressed in a light red qixiong ruqun (a type of high-waisted skirt), with a red gauze long shirt over it. The gauze shirt was thin and sheer, and as she half-knelt on the ground, the skin partially covered by the ruqun beneath the gauze shirt was clearly visible.

Her eyes were filled with terror, tears hung at the corners of her eyes, and her whole body was subtly trembling when she spoke, making her appear particularly delicate.

Qin Feiyan softly tsk-ed.

Princess Changning glanced sideways at her. Qin Feiyan turned her head away and looked out the window.

Withdrawing her gaze, Princess Changning lowered her eyes to the page boy, “Tell me, what happened?”

“I, I don’t know either,” the page boy was somewhat incoherent. “We, we came in, came in, when…”

Princess Changning interrupted him, guiding his answer, “Start from when you arrived at Linjiang Pavilion. When did you come? What did you do after you arrived?”

“In the morning, in the morning we came out of Chunman House.” The page boy glanced at Yue Die, then quickly explained to Princess Changning, “Last night, the Old Master stayed in Miss Yue Die’s room. The Old Master is a regular patron of Miss Yue Die.”

Princess Changning raised her eyes, signaling him to continue.

“Then we came to Linjiang Pavilion. The Old Master had specially booked this room earlier, intending to bring Miss Yue Die here to watch the Dragon Boat Race during the Dragon Boat Festival.”

“After arriving at Linjiang Pavilion, Miss Yue Die served the Old Master inside, and I waited outside with Xiaohong.”

“After lunch, the Old Master got drunk and fell asleep.” Ah Hong thought for a moment and said, “Then after a while, the Old Master dropped a cup.”

“Miss Yue Die called Xiaohong into the room to tidy up the cup, and then they, they went out.” Ah Hong’s face flashed with a hint of unnaturalness when he said this.

“When Miss Yue Die and her maid returned, we discovered the Old Master, the Old Master was murdered.”

Ah Hong recounted everything he could recall, then fearfully prostrated himself on the ground.

“Your Excellency, please be judicious, Your Excellency, the Old Master was definitely not killed by us.”

“They left. Did you never enter the private room?” Princess Changning asked.

“No, no, the Old Master didn’t call me, so I didn’t go in.”

Princess Changning looked at Ah Lü. Ah Lü leaned in and whispered to her, “The page boy indeed did not enter the room after the two women went out.”

When they arrived at Linjiang Pavilion, Ah Lü and the other maids were waiting outside the private room. She did indeed see that after Yue Die and her maid left, Ah Hong waited outside the door and did not enter the room.

“Is what he said true?” Princess Changning looked at Yue Die and her maid.

“True, true, it is exactly as Ah Hong said.” Yue Die nodded in agreement, “When we left, Old Master Wu was fine.”

“What did you go to do?” Princess Changning looked at Yue Die and her maid.

Yue Die blushed and said in a low voice, “To, to use the latrine.”

“When did you go out?” Princess Changning asked further, her expression unchanged.

“It should, should be after the Dragon Boat Race began.” Yue Die recalled and said, “When we went out, the sound of gongs and drums had just started.”

She finished speaking and looked at the maid beside her. The maid looked at her and nodded, muttering, “Yes, yes, it was after the gongs and drums, we, we went out.”

“According to your account, the person was indeed not killed by you.”

Princess Changning looked at Ah Hong, pausing for a moment. Ah Hong raised his head in surprise, kowtowing, “Your Excellency is wise, Your Excellency is wise.”

“However, how can you guarantee that the person was not killed by the maid and her mistress?” Princess Changning asked suspiciously.

“I’ve been wrongly accused, Your Excellency.” Hearing this, Yue Die looked tearfully at Princess Changning, “Old Master Wu was still fine when we left.”

“Ah Hong, Ah Hong also saw it, Old Master Wu was lying well on the bed!”

“Yes, yes.” Ah Hong nodded repeatedly, “When Miss Yue Die left, I glanced at the Old Master at the door. The Old Master was lying well on the bed at that time, and there was no knife in him.”

“Then perhaps the three of you conspired together to kill the Old Master,” Qin Feiyan raised an eyebrow, surmising.

“I’ve been wronged!”

“No, we didn’t conspire! He was clearly fine when we left.”

“We didn’t kill him, Your Excellency, please be judicious, Your Excellency!” Ah Hong said.

“Then are you saying that someone else killed Old Master Wu when none of you were in the room?” Qin Feiyan asked, raising her eyebrow, clearly disbelieving the explanation.

“Yes, yes, yes, that must be it,” Ah Hong echoed.

“Impossible!” Qin Feiyan stated with certainty, “We were on the balcony next door the whole time during the Dragon Boat Race, and we didn’t see anyone enter the room.”

The only ways to enter this private room were the door and the balcony. If someone had entered via the balcony, they would have seen them immediately, so the killer could only have entered from the door side.

After listening to the round of questioning, Lu Sheng also understood.

The entrances and exits of this room were all monitored, essentially making it a locked room.

If the three people did not conspire to kill Old Master Wu, then how did the murderer get into the room to commit the murder?

Lu Sheng looked around and confirmed that the wardrobe and under the bed could indeed conceal a person.

“Unless the killer is a master, it’s impossible for them to have disappeared without a trace.”

Qin Feiyan said, then thought of another possibility, and looked at Princess Changning.

For instance, Princess Changning’s highly skilled hidden guard. With that level of skill, they could totally have slipped out the window and left via the rooftop after the murder, while no one was paying attention.

Princess Changning immediately understood her look and gave her an annoyed glare.

Qi Zhenshu listened to their discussion, her gaze sweeping over the three people, and then examining the room’s furnishings. She first opened the wardrobe, which was empty.

She looked around the bed and found a layer of dust on the floor. Looking up at the ceiling beams, there was also a considerable amount of dust.

Qi Zhenshu walked to the doorway and looked inside from outside the door. She could indeed see the bed, but only from the head of the bed to the Old Master’s thigh area.

Turning back to the bedside, Qi Zhenshu examined Old Master Wu’s body closely again.

Old Master Wu’s clothes were neat, with no signs of struggle. He must have been stabbed in his sleep.

Princess Changning also turned around and meticulously examined the bed. After a moment, she found a very thin thread next to Old Master Wu.

Just as she was about to reach out to take it, Qi Zhenshu beat her to it and picked up the thread.

Sensing Princess Changning’s movement, she held the thread between the two of them, making it easy for Princess Changning to examine as well.

“It’s hemp thread.”

“It’s hemp thread.”

They both blurted out simultaneously, then exchanged glances, and immediately looked at the canopy frame of the bed, and then at the position of the headboard.

In some of the corners of the areas they examined, if you looked closely, you could see slight friction marks.

Then, the two simultaneously left the bedside and circled to the side of the bed.

Lu Sheng felt a slight discomfort watching their virtually synchronized movements.

On the side of the bed was the fallen candlestick. The candle was broken into several pieces, and there was some solidified candle wax on the floor.

After examining the floor for a while, Qi Zhenshu looked up in the direction of the candlestick. It was a half-closed window, and there was also a small piece of hemp thread caught on the windowsill.

She pondered for a moment and came up with a hypothesis.

“Has Scholar Qi already figured out who the murderer is?”

Hearing this, Qi Zhenshu turned her head to look at Princess Changning. Princess Changning’s eyes held a smile, clearly having also figured it out.

“I imagine the Princess also already knows?” A faint smile flashed in Qi Zhenshu’s eyes.

Working alongside Princess Changning, Qi Zhenshu always felt a sense of having met a worthy opponent.

Lu Sheng’s eyebrows furrowed even tighter, looking at the expressions of the two.

Qi Zhenshu stood up, pulled the stunned Lu Sheng to her side, and asked in a low voice, “The sound you heard just now, did it sound like a heavy object falling into the water?”

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