The First Lackey Under The Empress

Inside room "A" of the inn, candlelight spread across the table.

Zhao Du'an, wearing only an inner robe loosely draped over his shoulders, stood by the table, putting down his brush, as if he had been writing something.

Hearing the voice of the princess, he raised his head, his handsome face appearing particularly three-dimensional in the candlelight.

"Writing poetry," Zhao Du'an said casually, a slight curve to his lips.

Poetry?

Xu Junling's eyes lit up instantly. She stepped forward, approaching the table.

After pestering him all the way here, she finally saw this guy writing poetry again. How could the princess, a celebrated Jiangnan talent, miss this?

But just a few steps closer, she was surprised to see that the ink freshly written on the brown stationery spread on the table was rapidly drying up, becoming parched.

It was as if it had been absorbed by the paper, leaving no trace behind.

"What kind of poem is this?" Xu Junling frowned.

Zhao Du'an smiled and recited to himself:

"A maiden of sixteen, her body like cream, her waist like a sword, severing mortals. Though no heads fall, secretly she drains your soul."

Xu Junling's sweet and lovely face turned pale, then green, as she said expressionlessly:

"Master Zhao, why must you always embarrass me with this method? And writing such vulgar poetry? Even if you aren't afraid of me reporting to my imperial sister, aren't you worried about eavesdroppers?"

Tsk, easily teased…

Zhao Du'an smiled, remaining silent.

In the end, Xu Junling couldn't contain her curiosity. After holding back for a while, she still asked:

"What's going on with this paper?"

"A warding item."

Zhao Du'an dropped the brush, folded the palm-sized stationery, and tucked it into his chest:

"Before leaving the capital, I borrowed it from the Zhao Ya's treasury. It can be used to transmit messages within a certain distance."

Xu Junling was exceptionally clever:

"You're communicating with the 'fake imperial envoy' at the relay station? Gathering information?"

"That's right," Zhao Du'an pointed to the chair, inviting the princess to sit down.

He sat down himself, tapping his forehead lightly with his finger in distress:

"It's not optimistic. Heh, according to these local officials in the prefectural city, some days ago, before the imperial orders arrived, Wang Chusheng, the magistrate of Taicang County, suspected of corruption, had already disappeared."

"Disappeared? Could it be that he fled in fear of punishment?" Xu Junling was astonished.

"It's not that simple. Around the time of his disappearance, the Mining Tax Supervisor who submitted a letter of accusation to the Censorate, exposing him, also disappeared." Zhao Du'an's eyes were deep.

The Taicang silver mine was not just a mine, but also had supporting smelting furnaces.

The common people called it the "Gold and Silver Factory."

The government office in charge of this area was the "Mining Tax Supervisor's Office."

The person who submitted the "report materials" to the capital was the eighth-rank Supervisor of the Supervisor's Office, surnamed Song, who was also an important witness in this case.

After the Empress saw the report, she immediately issued an order to the officials of Linfeng Road.

She demanded the arrest of the Taicang County Magistrate and the protection of Supervisor Song.

But it was a step too late.

"Both of them disappeared?"

Xu Junling was even more surprised:

"Could it be that after Supervisor Song sent the letter, the matter he reported was accidentally leaked, and the Taicang County Magistrate, Wang Chusheng, found out and silenced him? And then fled in fear of punishment? Or kidnapped him?"

This was the most logical guess.

"That's one possibility,"

Zhao Du'an crossed his legs, half-lying, half-leaning on the chair.

Due to a habit left over from his previous life's studies, he gently played with the penholder in his hand while thinking.

"The answer given by these local officials is the kind you guessed."

In the dim and quiet inn room, Xu Junling's eyes were black and bright, with a sense of excitement from participating in solving a case, acting as a detective.

With her arms crossed in front of her chest, her small hand gently propped her chin, consulting for him:

"In that case, isn't the clue cut off? The suspect is gone, and the accuser is also gone. Then, next, shouldn't we think of ways to find traces of the fleeing official and try to capture him?"

She was a little excited.

As the daughter of a prince, pampered and lacking experience in detective work.

At this moment, she had a feeling of playing a mystery-solving script murder game…

Her eyes darted around, and she suddenly said:

"Then those cavalry you mobilized are useless. Why don't you beg me? My Huai'an Prefecture's merchant teams are all over the place. If this Wang Chusheng fled in fear of punishment, he would likely take the waterway. This princess still has some…"

Zhao Du'an glanced at this girl with a smile that wasn't a smile and said:

"Why rush to arrest people?

Who said that if people are gone, there's no way to investigate?

Have you forgotten that what I told you earlier, what His Majesty cares about is never a mere seventh-rank county magistrate, but whether there are bigger backers behind him."

… Xu Junling stuck her neck out and said stubbornly:

"Isn't that even more reason to arrest people? If you don't arrest people, how will you know who…"

Zhao Du'an slowly stroked the stray hairs on the tip of the brush with his finger and said:

"In that letter of accusation presented to the capital, Supervisor Song mentioned that, in order to prevent something happening to him, he made a backup of the evidence in his hand and entrusted it to a relative's house.

In other words, as long as I get that piece of evidence, I may not need to arrest anyone."

Gah—

The princess's words suddenly got stuck in her throat, and her eyes widened slightly.

It could be like this?

She suddenly became excited:

"Then let's go get it quickly, what are we waiting for?"

"Hachoo ~"

Zhao Du'an suddenly covered his mouth with his hand, waved his hand, and scolded with a smile:

"It's so late, and we've been traveling all day. It's time to sleep. We have to get up early tomorrow."

…

…

Nothing was said that night.

The next morning, while the "fake imperial envoy" was still at the relay station, following Zhao Du'an's orders, wrangling with the local officials to delay time.

Zhao Du'an and the princess's party took a carriage out of the city and headed towards the "Taicang Silver Mine" in the suburbs outside the city.

Today was a cloudy day, the sky covered with clouds.

The carriage traveled for more than an hour, and the mine could already be seen in the distance.

"Princess, is that the mine? Gee, it's so big…"

In the carriage, the maid, Lǜshuǐ, stretched her neck and pointed into the distance.

Zhao Du'an opened his eyes and ordered:

"Get out of the car and take a look."

The two carriages stopped by the side of the road, and everyone got out.

Looking into the distance from this place, one could see a continuous range of mountains.

The mountain peaks were red, interspersed with yellow-green.

That was the maple trees covering the mountains. Linfeng Road had many maple trees.

Every autumn, when the wind blew, they would turn the mountains red.

Among the mountains, a huge open-pit mine suddenly sank down, as if a god had hammered a fist, smashing a deep pit in the earth.

People standing on the edge of the pit looked tiny.

"The miners are in there, right? Tsk, they're as small as ants."

Among the princess's guard team, the ordinary-looking female knight marveled.

Beside her was the burly man who had threatened to challenge Zhao Du'an that day.

A straight sword was slung across his waist, and he laughed loudly at this moment:

"It's so far away, of course, they're small. Oh, Master Lǚ, I remember you're from Linfeng Road, have you ever been here before?"

Beside the man was the plain-robed old man.

After being injured by Eunuch Hǎi's flick of a finger that day, he had now recovered as before.

At this moment, the mountain wind blew, and his gray robe inflated like it was filled with air. He smiled and said with emotion:

"I have indeed been here, but that was more than ten years ago. At that time, this pit wasn't so big. When it rained, the bottom would accumulate into a river, and the government would also summon the nearby townspeople to dredge it.

I remember that there was a declining small clan surnamed Song nearby, which was also a scholarly family.

When I passed by that year, I stayed in the Song family's manor for a few days. That family even wanted to keep this old man to be their martial arts instructor, but I politely declined."

Seeing the mountains covered in red and the magnificence of the mine, Xu Junling was in a great mood and smiled sweetly:

"A small local gentry actually wanted to keep Master Lǚ, that's commendable courage. They probably don't know Master Lǚ's reputation in the martial arts world."

Lǚ Qīngfēng habitually wanted to boast about himself, but suddenly caught a glimpse of Zhao Du'an, who was standing silently beside him with his hands behind his back, looking into the distance.

He cleared his throat and said humbly:

"A mere wanderer in the martial arts world, not worth mentioning."

On this journey, although they had become familiar with Zhao Du'an, they still had a great deal of awe for this vengeful "King Yama Zhao" because of the arena challenge.

At this moment, the plain-robed old man, who was stationed in the Huai'an Prince's Mansion and was considered a master in the martial arts world, smiled and said:

"Young Master Zhao, I wonder which mountain you're looking for the person on?"

When traveling outside, to avoid trouble, everyone called him and the princess young master and young lady.

Zhao Du'an squinted his eyes, withdrew his gaze from the distance, and looked at this Prince's Mansion expert with a smile:

"Since you know the Song Family Manor, how about you lead the way? The one I'm looking for is this family."