Maochu, the beginning of the day.
The sun rises later in winter and it’s not yet dawn, but the long night is finally over.
Xue Bai rushed from Daozhengfang to Pingkangfang, preparing to face Li Linfu.
On the way, he also met You Xiaowei holding the right prime minister's handwriting to summon him back to resume his duties. He didn't know if Li Linfu blamed him for giving orders everywhere in the name of the right prime minister's mansion, and he felt uneasy.
Because of the extraneous consequences of the Xin Twelve Festival, he has done too much tonight, and the more he does, the more mistakes he makes.
If you can't pass this level next time, it won't matter no matter how well you did before; but as long as you can win Li Linfu's trust, even if there are some omissions, it doesn't matter.
In the power arena of the Tang Dynasty, everything depends on "one person's heart".
Xue Bai was not very sure. He was not sure whether the Longyou veterans could escape from the heavy manhunt; nor could he guarantee that all those who knew about it had been silenced.
Although the gambling house was destroyed, the gambling continued.
~~
The Right Prime Minister's Mansion is right in front of you. The side door is open and the front door is heavily guarded.
Xue Bai turned over and dismounted, and Du Jin's worried words suddenly echoed in his ears.
"Li Linfu has many enemies. He worries about assassins day and night. He moves his bed several times every night as if to guard against a powerful enemy, although his family does not know where he lives. If you are a person like this who suspects that there is even the slightest possibility that you are the son of an enemy, you will die without a burial. land."
From what he heard before, he thought that Dong Gong might have considered assassinating Li Linfu before he knew this, but now he gradually felt a severe tightness in his chest.
Meeting Li Linfu felt dozens of times more dangerous than killing someone under the arrest of the Sixteenth Guards of Nanya.
…
The atmosphere was solemn, and the concierge had no expression on his face. He did not say much to Xue Bai, and acted cautiously as he led everyone inside.
Xue Bai glanced at the concierge and thought that it was probably okay for Xin Twelve to tell him that he was an official slave, but there were too many unknowns to be sure.
He, Wang Zhun, Li Xiu, Jia Chang and others were taken to the second courtyard and each entered a veranda room. Everyone waited alone.
Li Linfu actually called people for questioning one by one, without giving them a chance to cover up each other or help block the conversation. In this way, Xue Bai's good at guiding others to speak will no longer be used.
From this point of view, there are two hurdles today. I will meet with Li Linfu alone, and there will be a confrontation later. I have to pass both hurdles to be safe.
The purpose of meeting alone was to lay a foundation of trust and see who between him and Ji Wen could win more trust from Li Linfu; the confrontation was to criticize each other and make the other party lose Li Linfu's trust.
Xue Bai knew that he was more trustworthy in terms of ability, but what was worse was his loyalty.
After waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour, someone pushed the door open and came in. It was not the cute and cute maid before, but the cold-faced female servant wearing a robe next to Li Linfu.
"Xue Bai, Alang calls you, let's go."
Xue Bai stood up and followed without saying a word, entering the meeting hall in the west courtyard.
There are no small windows on the wall, only the guards of the Prime Minister's Mansion standing on both sides with swords in their hands, looking murderous. There was no screen in the hall, but a bamboo curtain hung there. The candlelight was bright outside the curtain, but the candlelight was dim inside. Li Linfu didn't even show his figure, but he could see the expressions of others through the gaps in the curtain.
This arrangement was probably because Li Linfu was suspicious of his subordinates and was afraid of being assassinated. In short, it made people feel eerie.
"I've met the right prime minister."
Xue Bai crossed his arms in salute, with all kinds of sophistry stuck in his throat, and finally faced the curtain with an indignant look on his face, and complained angrily.
"Right Chancellor, I finally found out that it was all caused by Ji Wen!"
If you want to trap Ji Wen, it would be wise to just calmly remind him and let the superiors think about it, but this would be too despicable.
But he considered that young people don't always have to be too mature. He was so angry tonight. It would be more loyal to express his unhappiness directly.
"Continue." Li Linfu said calmly.
Xue Bai suddenly felt stressed.
Only when Li Linfu asked questions could he determine what the other party knew and then take advantage of them.
If you let him speak for himself, it will be easy for him to make mistakes.
"In the afternoon, I reported to the Prime Minister that the dead man in the East Palace might be at Wang Weng's villa or Yang Shenjin's villa. I needed to defraud Wu Kangcheng, so I went to Jingzhao Mansion."
Xue Bai organized his thoughts and started with a nonsense sentence to make sure there were no mistakes.
After that, he felt Li Linfu's aura and continued to speak.
"I deceived Wu Kangcheng, and I was 80% sure that the dead men of the East Palace were hiding in Wang Wen's villa. But for some reason, Jifa Cao sent people to trap me in Jingzhao Mansion. Even though Jiaonu revealed the identity of the right minister's female envoy, those officials He also refused to let me go, so bold."
He had calmed down and used the words "I don't know why" to deliberately betray some of his thoughts, waiting for Li Linfu to question him, "Don't you really know?"
But there was no sound behind the curtain.
Xue Bai felt a sense of emptiness, as if he had punched nothing.
He hesitated, thinking for the last time whether he could hide the fact that he went to Xuanyangfang to rescue Du Wei, and at the same time he realized the first mistake he had made - using Han Chaozong to leave Jingzhao Mansion in advance.
If he had followed the original plan, he would only have to wait in Jingzhao Mansion until Li Linfu summoned him. But at this time, we can only believe in the character of Han Chaozong, and hope that Li Bai's words "I don't need to be granted the title of Marquis of Ten Thousand Households in my lifetime, I hope I can get to know Han Jingzhou" is true.
After a moment of silence, Xue Bai was about to speak when someone outside the hall suddenly spoke loudly and helped him out.
"Right Prime Minister, we have found out that the murderer went from Xuanyangfang to Pingkangfang, and then from Pingkangfang to Dongshijiekou, and then to Daozhengfang!"
Xue Bai thought to himself, it seems that there is no slave in Ji's villa in Xuanyangfang to identify him.
There was just a hint of luck in his heart, but his nerves froze and he admitted directly: "Right Prime Minister, I broke into Jiwen's house in Xuanyangfang."
The atmosphere in the hall suddenly froze.
"You dare to go to the official residence to kill people?" Li Linfu finally spoke, his tone serious.
"Kill someone?" Xue Bai was stunned and said anxiously: "No killing. Ji Wen trapped me and tied up the eldest sister at that time. He must have threatened me afterwards so that he could take the credit smoothly. I just wanted to do it for him. Just snatch the eldest sister back from the other house!"
Li Linfu was silent.
Xue Bai said anxiously: "Your Prime Minister Mingjian, I just heard from Du Erniang that the eldest sister was kidnapped, and I quickly led people to snatch her back. At that time, the servants in the Ji family's house were very surprised when they saw me coming. I scolded them angrily. Working for the Right Chancellor with Ji Wen, I wanted to compete for credit too much, so I took the eldest sister away. How could I dare to touch the people of the Right Chancellor's family without the Right Chancellor's instructions? I still understand this truth."
The reason why he let the Tian brothers kill people was because Xin Twelve and others identified him as Xue Xi's son and thought he was dead, so they acted unscrupulously. At that time, Du Wei could not be saved without using a knife.
Xue Bai must get out of this thinking framework. He is not the son of Xue Xiu who is destined to die. He has never heard of this matter. He is a loyal retainer of the right prime minister!
So why did Ji Wen take Du Wei away? I don’t know, that’s Ji Wen’s problem, maybe he wants to take credit, maybe he’s just sick. Xue Bai was not willing to be outdone and went to snatch it back. He also worked under the right minister, so it was the most normal situation to see no blood.
Li Linfu remained silent and signaled to his maid to ask: "The nine slaves who died in Xuanyangfang Villa were killed by a young man and woman with two armored guards. Who could they be if they weren't you?"
The first half of the sentence was harsh, and she obviously read it while reading the message.
"This testimony!" Xue Bai was surprised and confused. "It sounds very much like what I did. I led Du Erniang and the Tian brothers to snatch the people back. But we didn't kill nine people. Why did they say that? Why? ?”
He waited for a while before coming to a conclusion, giving Li Linfu time to make his own guesses.
"Right Minister, I really didn't kill anyone. This must have been done by the dead man in the East Palace... No, he just wanted to frame me. Could it be that Ji Wen did it on purpose? Why did he do this?"
"presumptuous!"
Li Linfu scolded.
Xue Bai quickly performed the ceremony, but his heartstrings relaxed a little.
If he can't fix this first big omission, then he won't fix it. What he wants to prove is not ability, but loyalty. Only loyalty is the key, everything else is trivial.
Then tell the truth and win Li Linfu's trust with sincerity and openness. It doesn't take much, as long as you are more trustworthy than Jiwen, you can transfer the suspicion.
Therefore, a living Ji Wen must bear this burden. Only if he is alive can he arrange for Ji Wen's servants to give perjury, which will then lead to various conjectures.
"go on."
"After snatching away the aunt, I rushed to the Youxiang Mansion. I heard that Ji Wen led people to the Yang family's house in Changlefang to catch the thief. I hesitated for a moment if I was wrong, so I went over to take a look. In fact, there was a dispute. The heart of merit..."
Xue Bai then only concealed the matter of contacting the dead men in the East Palace, and described in detail how he had been running around all night and how he had worked hard to save the huge trap that Ji Wen had poked.
Compared with the death of several slaves in the Ji family house, Ji Wen's most critical and serious mistake was to let the dead men in the East Palace kill people and escape. He wanted Li Linfu to always focus on business.
After he detailed what he saw and heard in the secret gambling room of Daozhengfang, he made a final summary.
"Right Prime Minister, I thought that the East Palace sent two groups of dead men to intercept Ji Wen and Ji Xiang and his son respectively, or to take revenge on Ji Wen."
He buried a lot of words and let Li Linfu think about it by himself.
For example, he said that Donggong took revenge on Jiwen. The investigation was wrong, so why take revenge?
Then why do you still want to kill someone if you check wrongly?
Silence?
~~
Xue Bai's solo speech has ended.
If the original plan had not left many flaws, perhaps Li Linfu would have given him a few words of encouragement, promised to marry his daughter, and then reprimanded Ji Wen to settle the matter. From then on, he settled down in the Tang Dynasty.
But it was quiet behind the curtain.
Just when Xue Bai began to wonder if he couldn't even pass the first level, Li Linfu finally spoke.
"Go down and wait."
"Here."
Xue Bai returned to the veranda and sat alone. He could neither ask for information nor talk to others.
The Sixteenth Guards of Nanya are still searching for those Longyou veterans, but we don’t know what the result will be.
Xue Bai could only deduce in his mind how Li Linfu asked everyone individually.
What Yang Zhao will say, what Wang Zhun will say, and Ji Wen will definitely insist on the matter of Xuanyangfang Villa and pass the responsibility to him.
What's even more disturbing is that if an insider is missed and Ji Wen gets a report, or Ji Wen can guess that Xin Twelve's death is related to his life experience, then the situation will suddenly become clearer.
No matter how likely it was, he hated the feeling of having his fate decided by someone else.
Xue Bai had to tell himself to calm down. As long as Li Linfu believed in his loyalty, there would be no need to be afraid of Ji Wen in the subsequent confrontation in court.
Looking back on the one-on-one interview just now, he felt that he performed well. Ji Wen has always been passive and has no time to sort out the whole situation. It is difficult to do better than him.
…
Time passes slowly and excruciatingly.
Birds chirped first outside the window, and then the morning light gradually appeared on the window paper.
finally.
The door of the room was pushed open, and someone stood in the morning light. It was still the female envoy, not the guard holding the knife. It can be seen that Ji Wen failed to bite him to death when he reported alone.
Xue Bai walked towards the lobby.
He suddenly recalled that when he was responsible for the first case in his previous life, he was so angry that he couldn't sleep because of a villain, and he was determined to send him in.
At that time, he used the law as a weapon and was upright.
Now, what he is delving into is the dirty power and human heart, struggling to survive.
But in this life-and-death situation, he just wanted to defeat that cruel official and survive.
"Boom."
The morning drums of Chang'an sounded in the distance.
Xue Bai's waist was straight, his steps were calm, and he became calmer. Confrontation in court was once the battlefield he was most familiar with.
