Chapter 43

After Gu Lianzhao finished speaking, he waited for a moment, but receiving no response, he couldn’t help lifting his eyes to look at Liu Yuanxun. He found the man pursing his lips, stifling a laugh.

In the past few days, Liu Yuanxun’s complexion had improved day by day. Though it still didn’t match that of an ordinary person, it was far better than his previous frail and sickly state.

At that moment, he was quietly chuckling to himself. His fingers, white as jade, lightly covered his lips, while his lashes, dark as crow feathers, drooped low. A faint blush colored his cheeks, like the first hint of spring after winter—subtle yet tender.

Under such an appealing sight, the frustration in Gu Lianzhao’s heart quietly dissipated, allowing him to speak properly at last.

The two had originally been sitting one facing forward and the other to the side. Liu Yuanxun had just been deliberately avoiding him, squeezing himself into the corner and leaving a large empty space beside him.

With the seat already vacated, wouldn’t it be a waste not to take it?

Gu Lianzhao rose and stepped over, settling into the spot. With swift movements, he then extracted the dagger from Liu Yuanxun’s embrace.

Liu Yuanxun started in surprise and instinctively rose to evade him, but he quickly realized the limited space inside the carriage. Shifting directly to the other side would be far too rude.

With that in mind, he could only sit still.

After a moment, he quietly lifted his eyes to glance at the man beside him. Gu Lianzhao was lowering his gaze, quietly toying with the dagger. He looked utterly harmless.

A thread of doubt arose in Liu Yuanxun’s heart.

Though Gu Lianzhao appeared fierce and treated him with a touch of aloofness, he had never truly harmed him. On the contrary, he had used his true qi to help regulate Liu Yuanxun’s body, clearly a case of cold exterior and warm heart.

So why was he so afraid of him?

This fear was different from the terror born at their first meeting, when Gu Lianzhao had been covered in blood. This current unease felt more like an instinctive bodily aversion.

Could it be that the initial prejudice hadn’t fully faded?

Liu Yuanxun couldn’t figure it out, but he could sense that ever since Gu Lianzhao had sat closer, his own body had remained tense. He leaned back slightly, trying to appear more relaxed. “Is the dagger a good fit?”

The carriage jolted, and with the two sitting so close, Gu Lianzhao worried he might accidentally injure Liu Yuanxun. He gave the blade only a cursory glance before putting it away.

Even from that brief look, he knew the dagger was of superior quality. He cast a sidelong glance at the man pretending to be calm beside him. “This dagger must have cost Your Highness quite a bit of silver, didn’t it?”

Liu Yuanxun answered honestly, “The silver isn’t much. I simply saw it and thought of you, so I bought it.”

Strolling along the road, spotting something that reminded him of a certain person… What was the difference between that and clumsy flirtation?

Gu Lianzhao let out a silent huff. “In that case, I’ll accept it.”

He flipped his wrist, executing a graceful flourish with the blade, then sheathed it at his waist and turned to the main topic. “Does Your Highness remember that I once visited Xiao Jinye’s old residence?”

Mentioning serious business made Liu Yuanxun sit up straight at once. “Why bring that up so suddenly?”

If Gu Lianzhao had found anything back then, he would have informed him immediately rather than waiting until now. Raising it at this moment surely meant there was more to it.

Gu Lianzhao replied, “I have some suspicions that require Your Highness’s authority to verify.”

He had used the pretext of “visiting Xiao Jinye’s old residence” to seek out Physician Wang at the time. To cover the lie afterward, he had indeed made a trip there.

The name Xiao Jinye was one he had brought up to Liu Yuanxun himself, so naturally, he would investigate it with utmost diligence.

Eight years had passed, and Xiao Jinye’s residence had long fallen into disrepair.

Though it had been sealed, it was still the home of a third-rank official. Over the years, plenty of thieves had paid it a visit, using it as a temporary hideout. Thus, even under seal, fresh traces remained visible.

These traces made evidence collection all the more difficult. Moreover, since he had climbed over the wall to enter, he hadn’t wanted to make too much noise, so he hadn’t uncovered any major clues.

But it wasn’t as if he had found nothing at all.

Hearing this, Liu Yuanxun unconsciously curled his fingers, asking curiously, “What did you discover?”

“The carpet,” Gu Lianzhao said. “There was one missing from the main hall.”

Trade flourished in the Tianyong Dynasty, maintaining good relations with all friendly border nations.

Over a decade ago, Persian carpets had flooded the Tianyong market at their peak. Any family with means would purchase one to lay in the guest-receiving area of their main hall, a display of status and wealth.

Having one was commonplace; lacking one wasn’t unusual. But if one had been there originally and now was gone, it begged suspicion.

Liu Yuanxun nodded. “That’s true, but how do you know there was originally a carpet?”

“Scuff marks,” Gu Lianzhao said calmly. “Even after eight years, with the floor stained and filthy, some things can’t be hidden by dust.”

Unlike other objects, floors endured constant wear but rarely showed obvious use marks. At first glance, nothing seemed amiss, but carefully feeling inch by inch revealed that a carpet—nearly covering half the main hall—had once been laid there.

Leaving aside whether this anomaly counted as a clue, the fact that Gu Lianzhao had noticed it was enough to astonish Liu Yuanxun.

He said in surprise, “You were only there for half a day, under time pressure and without tools. Xiao Jinye’s residence is so vast—how did you zero in on the guest hall right away?”

The carriage lurched, and Liu Yuanxun, not seated steadily, nearly toppled over. Only when Gu Lianzhao reached out to steady him did he realize he had leaned in so close to hear better that he was practically in Gu Lianzhao’s lap.

He shrank back awkwardly, propriety prompting him to scoot away a bit.

Gu Lianzhao glanced at him. With serious matters at hand, he didn’t dwell on the evasion, merely explaining flatly, “Because it’s large enough.”

“There weren’t many servants in Xiao Jinye’s old residence—aside from a few doing menial labor, the rest were longtime retainers from Jiangnan. They all vanished overnight. Whether ambushed and killed or fleeing with gold and valuables, they would surely gather in a convenient spot for discussion. From the vantage, size, and access of the front hall, it was the most suitable choice—the one people would instinctively head to.”

Everyone had their expertise. Liu Yuanxun had never dealt with such matters before, let alone experienced them firsthand. With their impending meeting with Xiao Jinye, he felt it all the more urgent to grasp these details.

So he asked further, “Why would they gather together even if ambushed and killed?”

Rather than answer directly, Gu Lianzhao countered, “What does Your Highness think a full-family extermination looks like?”

Liu Yuanxun had always engaged with rigid, esoteric literary topics; this was his first brush with such grim questions, stirring a faint thrill.

He answered earnestly, “If assassins sneaked in to kill one by one, cleaning the blood would be troublesome. But gathering them together would still leave bloodstains, wouldn’t it? Perhaps I’d use a bewitching drug first, then drag them outside the city before striking.”

Whether in genuine praise or teasing, Gu Lianzhao added unhurriedly after hearing him out, “Who would have thought Your Highness has a knack for wiping out whole families.”

Eager for the answer, Liu Yuanxun impatiently tugged at Gu Lianzhao’s sleeve. “Why exactly?”

Gu Lianzhao hadn’t meant to tease him anyway. He just felt a casual answer might not convince Liu Yuanxun; better to let him think it through first to grasp the explanation.

But Liu Yuanxun was all too easy to hook—warm now, he nestled closer; toss out a question, and he’d tug sleeves in pursuit.

Gu Lianzhao relaxed, letting him pull at his sleeve while deliberately staying silent. Liu Yuanxun grew so anxious he itched to scratch him. “A’Qiao! Tell me!”

Gu Lianzhao gave him a leisurely glance, then flipped his palm, extending his hand. “Asking for free? No reward for me?”

“Huh?” Liu Yuanxun blinked, bewildered.

Gu Lianzhao fell silent after that, hand outstretched as if he wouldn’t speak without something in return. Liu Yuanxun couldn’t tell if he was joking or serious.

He never carried silver when going out, nor any other valuables. After a moment’s hesitation, he unfastened the jade pendant from his waist and tentatively placed it in Gu Lianzhao’s hand.

Gu Lianzhao chuckled softly, gripped the pendant, and naturally hung it at his own waist before casually revealing the answer.

“A bewitching drug isn’t as reliable as Your Highness imagines. Even the best ones carry risks of failure. Dragging drugged people out to some deserted spot is fraught with danger along the way.”

Gu Lianzhao spoke offhandedly, but Liu Yuanxun listened with utmost seriousness. Confined to the depths of the palace for the first half of his life and hampered by frailty after leaving it, his noble status hadn’t translated to a life better than an ordinary person’s.

These matters Gu Lianzhao described were utterly foreign to him.

“As for sneaking in to kill, blood splatter is one issue, but the real problem is if an assassin hesitates and spares someone, or fate leaves a survivor gasping—that’s the true headache. So, exterminating a whole family in the heavily guarded capital? The best method is drugging them first, hauling them to the front hall, verifying identities one by one to ensure none escape, then slitting throats efficiently. As for the bodies…”

Gu Lianzhao paused meaningfully. “Without an inside accomplice in the capital to adjust defenses and help transport them out of the city, they’d have no choice but to bury them on the spot.”

Liu Yuanxun keenly caught the implication. “So if I order the grounds dug up thoroughly, we might find evidence?”

Rather than reply directly, Gu Lianzhao brought up yesterday’s events. “If Your Highness were just spinning wheels, that bit of commotion wouldn’t drive someone to take your life at any cost.”

Feng Hu…

Whenever lives were involved, Liu Yuanxun’s mood grew heavy at once, gravity etching his brows.

“Many lives have been tangled in this affair, but Your Highness needn’t bear it too heavily,” Gu Lianzhao consoled softly. “From Liu San to Zhao Xiaozhu in the Nameless Residence, from that zither score to Xiao Jinye—and now, they’re striking at you without regard for consequences. This goes far beyond a single wrongful conviction like Xiao Jinye’s. If we unravel this case fully, the Tianyong Dynasty may well be turned upside down.”

These words wove the seemingly mundane details into a vast net.

Zither score, Liu San, the painting, Zhao Xiaozhu, Xiao Jinye… All pointed to a colossal conspiracy.

The thought of such a massive force lurking in the capital sent a chill down Liu Yuanxun’s spine.

As they spoke, the carriage came to a steady halt before the Imperial Prison gates.

Gu Lianzhao lifted the curtain and looked up at the familiar yet long-unseen doors.

Towering walls loomed stern and solemn, the black iron gates cold and massive. Two ferocious stone lions flanked the entrance, exuding an intimidating aura of chilling lethality everywhere.

Standing at the gates of the Imperial Prison, a complex mix of emotions surged in Gu Lianzhao’s heart.

This had once been a place he entered and exited countless times—a battlefield of his countless triumphs, the foundation of his foothold in the capital.

Liu Xun had once said that he was a natural-born interrogator of the Imperial Prison, and he had always believed it himself. Ordinary people who spent prolonged periods in the Imperial Prison either went mad or fell ill, but he took genuine pleasure in it.

Yet after leaving the Imperial Prison for just a short month, seeing those gates once more brought a quiet change to his state of mind.

He seemed to have truly believed Liu Yuanxun’s words. Unbeknownst to himself, he had already come to regard Prince Rui’s Mansion as his home.