C98

In the next few days, Li Yannan did not have much face left, other than the His Majesty, every one of them had come to pressure him. After all, the Ministry of Rites was the examination hall and the examination papers were all in the Ministry of Rites, so if one were to change the exam papers, everyone in the Ministry of Rites would have a chance to escape suspicion. And the facts were that, the first ranking given was not very fair.

After Ministry of Justice took over the case of the fraud, other than sending a bunch of people to the Rites Department to watch over them, then sending a few young masters who were extremely difficult to please in, they did not have any other results. No one knew what they were doing every day, but the situation had not progressed at all.

"Master, Lord Gu is inviting you."

"What is he planning to do now?!" Li Yannan unhappily yelled at the manager, "No, that's not right. How come I don't know when he came?"

It was you who said not to bother you if you had nothing to do with it...

Li Yannan impatiently threw down his work. "Let's go and take a look. Every day …"

Li Yannan came outside Feng Chen's room, only to see one of his subordinates lowering his head and bringing out a plate of squirrel fish, Gu Yun stood by the side with his hands behind his back, and took the initiative to greet him, "Thank you, Master Li."

Li Yannan cupped his fists, "Yo, why didn't Lord Gu inform everyone that he was coming?"

"Lord Li is too polite. I came here on a routine inspection, so I didn't want to disturb you from your work. Thus, I came here first."

Then why bother? Li Yannan looked at the squirrel fish with its tail held high and snappily. Then, he suddenly noticed a piece of fish skin that was exposed from the bottom of the fish's belly. His pupils constricted. "What is this?"

Gu Yun had been looking at his reaction the entire time, and laughed heartily upon hearing this, "Oh, Master Li might not know this, but since I've been here today, I've coincidentally met your esteemed head who came to deliver the food, and then decided to throw away the fish belly. In the end, I found a slip of paper with a fish belly, wrapped in that fish skin."

"A note? "There's actually such a thing?" Li Yannan was astounded as he turned to look at the head, "What's going on?"

The owner's face was filled with tears, as if he had lost his parents, "I didn't know, Master, we were just bringing the fish over to the Young Master Feng as usual, who knows what's hidden inside."

No matter how you looked at it, the main task wasn't really a person who could put the piece of paper inside and then return the fish to its original form. Therefore, this piece of paper should have been placed inside the fish before it was fried.

The words were very small, but one could still make out that the words written on the paper were exactly the same as the answers written on the papers previously used by Feng Chen on the examination. That meant that Feng Chen's so-called "different handwriting" was not written by himself, but was written by someone else.

This way, the scope of the exam papers could be narrowed down, because after the exam papers were handed in, they would be affixed with a piece of paper with a stamp on it. Whether it was before or after the exam papers were exchanged, the number of people who could be reached was very limited, and coincidentally Li Yannan was one of them. Furthermore, other than His Majesty, the only people who could come into contact with the Hall Exam questions were a few Scholars of the Hanlin House and a few Masters of the Main Examiner. Coincidentally, Li Yannan happened to be one of them as well.

"Lord Gu, this matter can be big or small. I thought that it would be better to gather more evidence and thoroughly investigate. After all, regarding the selection of my Great Chen exams and the reputation of the examiners, I hope that Lord Gu would be cautious."

Master Li is serious, so you should try your best to handle the matter. However, Master Li, you can rest assured that the few Masters in your clan have always been cautious and diligent. I personally believe that the various Masters here will make this matter clear and will not make things difficult for Master.

Li Yannan laughed and patted Gu Yun's shoulders, "Lord Gu is young and promising."

Great Scholar Feng naturally was unable to eat the squirrel fish he yearned for. This fish was brought back to the Ministry of Justice as proof of submission, and was placed in front of Gu Yun as he looked around.

The words on Feng Chen's paper were the same as the handwriting on the piece of paper, which also proved that Feng Chen's Top Scorer had cheated as well.

The number of people participating in the Hall Competition was higher than in previous years, and other than the people who were originally ranked, after the second round of examination, the people who thought that they were qualified for the Hall Competition had also arrived. His Majesty had personally taken charge of the examination, so the questions were all fresh out.

The His Majesty had personally sent guards to read the papers after the test. This meant that the test papers were being read in front of the His Majesty and everyone else.

The reason why Feng Chen still allowed them to participate in the Palace Trials was to ensure fairness. If these few people could still make it to the top few in this kind of situation, then it would be considered as them having talent. Whether they were deceitful or not, they would be treated as being lenient on the basis that they could only make a pillar of their school, and if their rankings were to differ, then it would be unforgivable.

The few examiners read the papers overnight, and only when the birds were crowing did they get the results. His Majesty had been observing from the side the entire time, and had seen every single paper.

The His Majesty was furious and ordered the several examinees to be locked up. This time, it was not about eating and drinking, but a real prison cell.

When he woke up in the morning and went to the front courtyard, he first told Lady Zeng about the matter of marrying the Fang family's young miss tomorrow, then he returned to his room. Zhuo Zhao Zhang went to the Ministry of Justice realm to ask if he wanted to send some food over, and so on.

But not long after Zhao Zhang left, Gu Yun returned. He did not notice anything wrong, and was only a little tired, "I'll go take a bath first, I'll explain it to you in detail later."

Xie Jingxi made Ming Yu make lunch earlier, so they could just treat it as having lunch together. Seeing Gu Yun like this, maybe he would even go out in the afternoon, as long as he ate lunch and rested for a while.

After Gu Yun finished showering, he changed into a set of ordinary clothes and came over. He immediately hugged her from behind, put his head on her shoulders and sighed, "Lie down with me for a while."

Xie Jingxi saw that he was really tired, so she did not scold him. She just closed the window, and said that no one was allowed to disturb him, she accompanied Gu Yun on the bed and asked: "How is the competition going?"

Gu Yun asked her to rest his head on his chest, and entwined his hair with circles of his fingers, as he slowly said: "The night examination results are out, and Feng Chen has not entered the top three, he has been locked up by the His Majesty."

Xie Jingxi raised her head and looked at him, she knew how much danger was hidden in these short few words. Firstly, this matter was being investigated by Gu Yun, who first had the father of an envoy from Jiang Nan. Furthermore, Feng Wannian's relationship with the Crown Prince was not shallow, and she already knew that. If one were to say that Feng Wannian could still control the fraud within the Jiang Nan territory, then this meeting and hall test was not something that an envoy from Jiangnan could obtain. In other words, it was most likely that the Crown Prince could control the fraud.

Everyone knew that the development of connections and control of Imperial Court, conspiracy, ambition, there was no shortage of everything, and it was true that he was someone who could cheat, and it was very likely that he was not the only one. After all, it was possible that there were a few of his own people in the top three, and in the future, his Imperial Court would be of assistance. But then again, if this matter involved the crown prince, then it could not just be judged by a few insignificant crimes, the matter of cheating could not be underestimated, if you wanted to judge, it would have to be decided by the His Majesty.

Since the explosion of her Ministry of War last time, Xie Jingxi had faintly guessed the scheme between Gu Yun and the King Jin. The crown prince was, after all, the ruler of a nation, and moving his country would not be an easy feat. If it was the last time it was about the firearms, Gu Yun could still take it away without a care, but this time's fraud was related to the crown prince. No matter how foolish His Majesty was, he could tell, that when Gu Yun decided to touch the crown prince, he took a huge risk.

The amount of pressure Gu Yun had to bear could be imagined. Just thinking about it, he felt that there was a huge burden on his heart, and it was clear to him that the evidence had been given to His Majesty this time, making it clear that it was indeed Gu Yun who should be the one to bear the brunt of the bet. It was truly a huge gamble, and if His Majesty was to soften his heart and let the crown prince go, Gu Yun would really be in trouble.

So this time, Gu Yun had handed over the right to live and death, and he was betting both of their lives, including the fate of the entire Marquis Mansion. Thus, Xie Jingxi knew that the current Gu Yun was not as calm in his heart as he appeared on the surface.

However, Xie Jingxi rejoiced because of this, this time he did not push her aside to bear the burden.

Xie Jingxi calmly held his hand, leaned over and tapped the corner of his mouth, then laughed, "Then you don't need to eat an entire roasted lamb."

Gu Yun pinched the tip of her nose, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, "Is this the first time Xi has kissed me so she can tell me?"

Xie Jingxi, with her chin on his shoulder, laughed very innocently, "That's not true, I thought you looked good. Why?

His daughter-in-law was really bold, could this be considered a blatant flirting? Gu Yun angrily bent over to bite the tip of her nose, "I wonder who he learned it from, you truly want to get a beating."

"If you want to fight, you have to wait for your sleep. I haven't had a good night's rest, so you have to sleep with me first."

Xie Jingxi laid in his embrace and closed her eyes. Gu Yun looked at her lovingly, and temporarily suppressed the thoughts in her mind.

Just after noon, Zhao Zhang called out to them from the outside, "Master, the palace has sent someone to invite you into the palace."