Compared with the inconvenience of his right foot, the prince's internal injuries seemed to be more serious, so Lu Anran could go out for activities, but Zi Sangjin could only stay in bed.
When Lu Anran and Yun arrived, Zi Sangjin happened to be drinking medicine. He drank a bowl of pitch-black medicine in one gulp without changing his expression, and wiped the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief, saving the two of them from saluting.
"Since my legs and feet are inconvenient, I don't have to do the false courtesy."
Yun Qi sat down happily, helped Lu Anran put the crutches aside, and pretended to be concerned, "Is your highness okay?"
Zi Sangjin handed the medicine bowl to Hua Jie, waved the people in the room to leave, and then turned to look at the two of them, "I still need to rest for a while."
Lu Anran noticed that Zi Sangjin frowned before taking the medicine. Remembering what he said about childhood medicine being mixed with poison, Zi Sangjin's eyes showed something else.
"Your Highness, Miss Meng asked me to send you a message to thank you for your life-saving grace."
Yesterday, Lu Anran had asked someone to see Meng Shizhao. She was rescued by the prince's men after Lu Anran left. After learning that Meng Shizhao was fine, Lu Anran finally felt relieved.
Zi Sangjin thought carefully before remembering this, and faced Meng Shizhao with the face of a lonely and proud woman with bright red lips in his mind, "You have a good relationship with Miss Meng?"
Lu Anran considered it and said, "It's a close relationship."
A trace of regret flashed across Zi Sangjin's eyes. Sure enough, when the two of them left the wild forest and deep valley and returned to their status, they could no longer speak as they pleased.
He couldn't help but feel a little amused when he saw Lu Anran's cautious tone. He had just asked it casually, without any intention of probing, but once his name was preceded by the title of Prince, every word and behavior seemed to imply another deeper meaning. .
However, these feelings of Zi Sangjin passed by in a flash. After all, he was not an ordinary person who was passionate and emotional. When he raised his eyes again, his eyes were ordinary, but he still had a peaceful and unparalleled noble aura, "I asked you to come today. Gong thought of something and forgot to mention it."
Yun Qi rolled his eyes. He originally thought that Zi Sangjin's summons at this time was related to Princess Ding'an's affairs, so he might have questioned him first. After all, no matter what their relationship was like, the two were brothers and sisters. Even if it doesn't make sense on the surface, you still have to pretend.
But now judging from Zi Sangjin's attitude, it seems not?
Yun Qi clicked his tongue and asked, "Could what your Highness is about to say be related to the murder case that happened in Diqiu?"
Red Beard has been executed. Apart from this, it is nothing more than Yaksha's murder, which makes everyone feel headache and confused.
"Yes." Zi Sangjin confirmed, "When we investigated the Zhou family before, our people found that several people who worked as part-time workers for the Zhou family disappeared inexplicably. We originally wanted to conduct an in-depth investigation because Di Qiu I put the matter at the dojo on hold and when I tried to investigate again, the Yaksha murder case happened again.”
Later, the Zhou family had troubles one after another, Yun Qi took over the Yaksha murder case, and Zi Sangjin was busy competing with Red Beard, so he ignored this matter for the time being.
"The first person to disappear was named Zhu Afu. He was originally an ordinary farmer who worked as part-time workers in various places during the off-season." Zi Sangjin started coughing as he spoke. He couldn't stop for a while and waved his hand to Huajian to signal her. continue.
Hua Jian nodded, smiled at Yun Qi and Lu Anran, walked out and said, "Zhu Afu has no father or mother. He is alone. At first, no one paid attention to his disappearance until the other two people in the village also disappeared."
Yun Qi guessed: "Did the other two people also work as helpers in the Zhou family?"
"Yes, more than that, they all had unusual behaviors before disappearing."
"What's abnormal?"
Huajian gave an example: "A poor villager spent a hundred taels of silver in the entertainment venue in one night."
Yun Qi raised his eyebrows, "Is it very profitable to help the Zhou family?"
Hua Jian gestured, "Three hundred coins a day."
"It's a bit more than outside, but it's far less than the cost of Huanchang."
Lu Anran asked: "Others too?"
Hua Jian shook her head: "The other two are brothers. One of them bought a set of jewelry, and the other opened a shop."
Yun Qi smiled inexplicably, "With their usual ability to make money, wouldn't they be able to accomplish anything in their lifetime?"
"Yes, I asked someone to check it. The set of jewelry is worth nearly a thousand taels, and the shop's transaction price was 3,200 taels."
"You mean, these three people became rich overnight after working as helpers in the Zhou family?" Yun Qi tapped the jade bone fan on his palms and sighed: "I have to suspect that the Zhou family is an invisible philanthropist. Rich boy."
The Zhou family is naturally not a philanthropic family, so there are a lot of strange things here.
Yun Qi: "Has the prince discovered anything else?"
Zi Sangjin came over slowly and leaned back on the pillow, "I noticed this. I originally suspected that the Zhou family was still doing human trafficking secretly, but after checking for a while, there were no clues."
Yun Qi touched his chin: "Anyone who gets rich overnight is definitely not a serious business person. Could it be that these three people caught the Zhou family for some reason and then silenced the Zhou family?"
"This is all I know. The rest requires Prince Yun to work hard. I have an intuition that this matter is related to the Zhou family."
—
After coming out, Yun Qi spread his hands to Lu Anran and said, "Did you see it? The royal people are the most shrewd. They found a difficult problem for me in just a few words."
"Your Majesty, those who are capable will work harder." As soon as I heard it, I said it but didn't mean it.
It was inconvenient for Lu Anran to go down the steps, so Yun Qi grabbed her shoulders and helped her down, "My legs are lame and they still won't stop. Why do I have to follow her out?"
Lu Anran got on the carriage, moved his right leg and straightened it, first corrected: "Broken bones, not lame." Then he said: "I'm a little worried."
Yun Qi sighed softly: "After falling off a cliff, your character has changed?"
"I always feel that if the truth cannot be found out as soon as possible, I'm afraid the truth will be lost."
Yun Qi understood Lu Anran's concerns. In ancient times, Gu Laifan was involved in ghosts and murders, but in the end it was settled. Otherwise, what else could he do? Where could he catch a ghost?
"It's useless to be anxious. We still have to investigate the case slowly." Yun raised his fingertips to move a little closer to the low table, his eyebrows narrowed, and his eyes were a bit sharp, "Let's start the investigation from this Zhu Afu."
—
In the Zhou Mansion Ancestral Hall, Master Ma was still playing chess with Duke Zhou when he suddenly felt a dull pain in his forehead and woke up immediately.
He got up from the bed and opened his eyes, suddenly facing a pale and blue face with a bright red tongue and faint green eyes.
"Ah——" Master Ma rolled down from the bed, "Ye, Yaksha."
"Hahahahaha——" Lu Taotao laughed so hard that his stomach hurt. He rolled on the table, rubbed his face, took off a piece of painting, and looked around, "Hehe, the painting is quite good."
Master Ma was helpless and spread out on the ground and said: "Little Miss Lu, if you scare people, you will scare them to death."
"Aren't you an eminent monk who specializes in catching ghosts?"
Master Ma emphasized: "I am a Taoist priest, not a monk."
"Hey, it's almost done." Lu Taotao waved his hand impatiently, "Asshole, I won't recite your scriptures and hide in the room to sleep. I'm going to tell Old Man Zhou that you pretended to cheat him out of money."
Master Ma got up and said, "Keep people on the front line so that we can share the spoils in the future. Bah, it's easy to discuss."
Lu Taotao's big eyes rolled around, "Eighty-two points, I want that eight."
"Little Miss Deer..."
"Okay, I'll have a chat with Mr. Zhou now."
"make a deal."
Lu Taotao jumped on the table and crossed her legs, then she showed a satisfied look, "Why don't you sleep? Why don't you go sit in meditation and chant sutras? You'll work harder later and try to stop old man Zhou from bleeding again. Do you understand?"
Master Ma regretted it very much. He just took a fancy to Yun Qi and Lu Anran who seemed to have extraordinary status, and wanted to see if they could get some benefits by following them. Who would have thought of meeting such a difficult ancestor.
After Master Ma went out, Lu Taotao walked around the room out of boredom and decided to put the dough on it and try to scare Xiao Xunqing.
The Zhou family ancestral hall is built high and has few courtyards. In addition to the main courtyard in the middle, two rows of wing rooms for resting are built on both sides.
Lu Taotao never walked through the front door when looking for someone. He always flew over the eaves and walls, swinging through the big trees in the courtyard, and rushed in through a window, which happened to be the lobby.
Lu Taotao is no stranger here. More than a hundred heads of the Zhou family were piled up in the open space outside not long ago. Now that the bodies have been collected, the smell of blood still seems to linger.
No one else would dare to run in casually, so the Zhou family ancestral hall does not need to be closed. This is a haunted house that even thieves would not dare to break into casually.
In a way, Master Ma and Xunqing are also bold people.
It's just that Xunqing's mind is pure and he only wants to eliminate bad karma for the dead. As for Master Ma, he was someone who didn't dare to break into Guisi Village at the beginning, but he went to the haunted house to chant sutras without hesitation. To put it bluntly, the temptation of money was too great, and he was not brave enough. Got fat.
Lu Taotao was different from the two of them. She was not afraid of anything. Even when Yasha came, she wanted to catch her and keep her as a pet.
There was no one in the lobby. Xunqing had gone somewhere. Lu Taotao walked around with his hands behind his back. He didn't necessarily show respect for the tablet placed on it. Instead, he felt that the fragrance was pungent to his nose, and he waved and pointed to wipe it all out.
When she heard movement outside the door, she heard the brisk footsteps and thought it was someone searching for someone else. She immediately flew to the beam above to hide, intending to scare the children.
Then an old man came in.
Lu Taotao lay on the beam and looked down for a long time, wondering whether to scare the old man. Thinking of how many times the old man cried and fainted at the entrance of the ancestral hall that day, what if he was scared to death?
Of course, Butler Zhou didn't know that Lu Taotao was at war with heaven and man. He saw that half of the incense was left, but all of it was extinguished for no reason, and he stopped midway.
"Are you here?" Butler Zhou suddenly said.
Lu Taotao blinked. How did the old man know that she was hiding here? Could it be that he knew kung fu?
Think about it again, no, he is talking about you.
She looked around and determined that she was the only one left in the ancestral hall except the old man. Where did this 'we' come from?
Butler Zhou was already close to the incense table. He placed his hand on the half incense stick in the middle. When Lu Taotao thought he was going to light it again, he cut it off with a movement of two fingers.
Lu Taotao opened his mouth in surprise, but saw Butler Zhou turn sideways, his expression falling into Lu Taotao's eyes, his face was cold and solemn, and his eyes were sinister.
He said viciously: "Even if you come back, it will be too late."
