C81 Anxiety

"Yun'er!" Jia Bi Ru seemed moved and sad. She stepped forward and grabbed her hand, "How can you be so stupid? "Who does the Prince like? As a concubine, I shouldn't resent him, let alone a mere servant girl like you."

"Madam, this servant can't bear to see you shed tears every night. You'll stay alone in the empty room!"

Jia Bi Ru covered her mouth and pleaded with Xiao Yi Xiu, "My lord, I couldn't control my own strength. If there's a punishment, I'll take it on her behalf. I just hope you can spare her life."

Xiao Yi Xiu's expression was cold. "In your eyes, I'm a cruel and tyrannical person. Would you want a person's life for a cat?"

Gabriella kept quiet.

"Someone, bring Madam Jia back to your own courtyard. Rewrite the scripture a hundred times, you are not allowed to leave the Yue Wu Xuan until now. As for Yun'er, she pulled down her staff and reprimanded him twenty times. Although it is only killing a cat, the worst part is the Duke Mansion's rules. Even if you want to punish that cat or its master, you shouldn't overstep your boundaries to do it. "

Yun'er was speechless. Biting her lips, she glared fiercely at Gu Qing Li as she was pulled down to use her staff.

"Are you convinced?" He looked at Gabriella and saw that she was speechless, so he continued, "The reason why I didn't kill that cat was because Lady Li Yue is a guest. She has always treated guests with respect. There is no such way to punish her. Even if Miss Li Yue's cat did something evil, it should be left to the master to deal with. After you have trained me to such a state, are you planning on letting others say that the Mo King Manor has broken the rules after this matter has spread out? "

Gabriella lowered her eyes. She didn't dare to beg and could only say that she was.

Gu Qing Li hadn't expected that Xiao Yi Xiu would suppress Yun'er's fighting spirit with a single word, so that the pair of servants couldn't even open their mouths.

After the room was empty except for Gu Qing Li, Xiao Yi Xiu furrowed his brows and asked, "What do you think of Miss Li Yue?"

Gu Qingli thought for a moment. "Why don't we go to the medicine garden again? We can talk as we go."

Xiao Yi Xiu nodded slowly, and the two of them walked side by side towards the herb garden.

"It sounds like both of their arguments were flawless. The main point is, if neither of them were present that night, how did they get the cat to kick over the oil lamp and cause a fire?"

"You still think someone set fire to it."

"Even I must have been one of them."

"So you can't be sure who it is."

Gu Qingli was silent. The master and the servant were both playwrights, and it was difficult for her to tell from her expression or words who had spoken the truth, who had lied, or whether it was all a lie.

One had to know that the most powerful lie was actually one of the ten truths.

"However, This King believes that there might really be something fishy about this matter."

"Hmm?" Gu Qingli stopped in her tracks.

"If they set the fire, it would be unnecessary to go back and kill the cat. Could it be that, as spies, they only have to deal with a cat? "

Gu Qing Li was startled. They had indeed made her dizzy, but she had forgotten about this! If they were Imperial Concubine Lan's spies and set fire to the medicine with the intention of extinguishing Xiao Yi Xiu's life, it would be unnecessary to kill the cat after the fire!

Were they telling the truth?

In the blink of an eye, they had arrived at the medicine garden. There was still a group of heavily guarded guards that bowed and allowed them to pass.

After a night of rain, the burnt stench had gradually dispersed. However, the charred tables and chairs, shelves, and herbs couldn't be restored. Because of Xiao Yi Xiu's orders, everything inside was still as it had been before, and no one dared to move inside.

The brass oil lamp had been poured onto the table. Naturally, the oil within the lamp had long since been burnt dry. Apart from the burnt smell, he could not smell anything else.

After the fire, they poured water over it. Inside the house, there were the messy footprints of the fire extinguishers. All the marks were messy, even the cat paw prints and cat hair couldn't be found.

"If someone was up to something and there were guards, servants, and maids here to save the fire and no one discovered that someone had escaped from the wooden house, then where did this person escape from?" Gu Qingli muttered to herself and slowly walked a few rounds.

"Why did everyone assume that Miao Er kicked over the oil lamp, causing the fire?"

"Look, aside from the door being open, the windows are all closed. When the night watchman saw the fire, he saw Black Jade jump out of the wooden house with more than one pair of eyes."

If someone was up to something, it would be impossible to escape through the window with everyone watching. Then, he would be able to close the window from the inside. This was the reason why everyone had agreed that it was a cat that caused such a disaster.

"Actually, why does everyone think that the culprit must rush out of the house and escape?" Gu Qingli lightly tapped on the table. "The situation was chaotic then, and the night watch was a small team of guards. As soon as they noticed the fire, they would scream, and all the servants and maids nearby would rush over to help. Is there really someone who noticed who entered the wooden house first?"

"If he hadn't run away and discovered that there was someone outside, he would have hidden inside the house and met up with the people who rushed in to save the fire in the chaos …" As she spoke, she changed places and stood, then stopped behind a row of shelves.

"The shelves are more than two feet apart, allowing people to pass. Before the shelves fall, the innermost shelf is actually still safe, and it is relatively well hidden. Your Highness, look, there are all kinds of mortar, medicine bed, wooden box on the shelf... If there's someone hiding behind us, who will notice us coming out of the chaos? "

Xiao Yixiu nodded. It wasn't that he hadn't thought of this, but he'd even investigated further. Just as Gu Qingli had been worried about, no one had noticed.

If the palace itself had been infiltrated by a spy, this person could have been any of the guards, servants, or maids. Since the others were familiar with him, seeing him appear in the room, they would naturally assume that he was here to save the fire.

"Madam Jia has a deep affection for the Prince that lasts for ten years. It's really touching."

Xiao Yi Xiu couldn't help but be startled by her sudden change in topic. He looked up at her and saw the confusion in her eyes. His dark eyes were like a bottomless pool of water. The only thing he could be sure of was that she wasn't joking.

"What she said may be true, but emotions are something that you keep in your heart. As for whether or not she actually has them, only she knows." Although he had a vague memory of what happened, he still had some impression that Jia Bi Ruo mentioned it. This matter would not be fake.

Gu Qingli was silent. She wasn't sure why she said that, but did she subconsciously mind it? Feeling somewhat confused, she said, "Thankfully, we didn't lose any important medicinal ingredients. I'll go to Liu Yanyu's place and fry the medicine."

Upon seeing that she was about to run away in panic, Xiao Yi Xiu asked, "Where did you hide those two medicinal plants?" Looking up and down, the scales were as small as ornaments. It was fine to hide them on one's body, but the horns were as large as antlers. No matter what, they couldn't be hidden on one's body.

Of course, Gu Qingli couldn't tell him that she was hiding in the wangfei's dorm. She only said, "I grinded it into powder and hid it in a safe place."

Xiao Yi Xiu looked at her back and sighed. He realized that it wasn't a good thing that she had been avoiding him for the past few days.