C52 No × 2

It was probably because there were so many human bones dug up in the hall that when Luo Yi walked back in, she felt a chill down her spine, but the feeling was not too strong, so she calmed down and forgot about it.

It was rumored that this palace was occupied by a Consort Sin, but judging from the size of the Lin Yi Hall, the rank of this Concubine Sin should not be too low.

Luo Yi was concerned that this place had not been cleaned for a long time, so the dust must be heavier than other places. Thus, before she stepped into the main hall, she cleverly covered her nose and mouth with a handkerchief, and waited until she was sure that she would not choke on herself.

There were not many furnishings in the house, but because it was not dark yet, Luo Yi did not need to ignite her candle to be able to clearly see the interior of the house, but after Luo Yi walked around the house twice, she felt that something was weird, but she could not quite put her finger on what it was.

She frowned as she fiddled with the silver wine jug on the table. When her gaze inadvertently landed on the wine cup beside her, her entire body froze in place. She immediately understood why this place was emitting a strange aura.

Half lit candles, half empty glasses of wine, and a bed curtain that would not be put down. Every piece of furniture in the room gave off the feeling that it had stopped. It was just like how, one second ago, the owner of the room was still drinking with someone here, but the next second, he was nowhere to be seen.

Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that someone had deliberately stopped the room at the moment its owner had disappeared.

The most obvious point was the wine left in the glass.

According to what others said, the owner of this room had died at least a decade ago. Even if the cup was full, it should have been full by now, yet it still had half a cup left …

Luo Yi put down the handkerchief. Sure enough, she did not smell any dust.

There were indeed no traces of people living in this room, but there was clearly someone inside.

Chen Liyi would not have had the leisure to cause trouble for such things. After all, he was not even born yet, and Wen Yan did not have any reason to play tricks on him, so the remaining … It was the person that had intentionally lured her back just now.

Luo Yi did not know martial arts, and from Qing Luo's words, she knew that the two of them were powerful, so unless the other party deliberately revealed it, she would not easily detect her existence. But what was her motive for doing so? Just to lure her back? Then what must she see in that hall?

Luo Yi forcefully suppressed the endless questions in her mind, and turned to the main bedroom.

Luo Yi was not in the mood to look again. She walked along the furniture and even through the corners of the room, but she did not find anything useful. She immediately frowned and wondered if she had thought too much into it.

She turned to go to the other rooms, but at the very moment she lowered her eyes, she saw an extremely unremarkable change at the foot of the bed.

She bent her index finger, tapped the protruding phalanx two times on the ground, and attentively examined the furnishings in the room once more. Then, with a smile, she pressed one hand on the spot where the phalanx had not left her finger and simultaneously turned over to jump onto the bed.

Almost at the same instant she left the ground, a hole appeared in the ground beneath her feet. The hole was not big, just enough for one person to fall down. Luo Yi waited for a while, confirmed that there was no difference, and then carefully moved closer. She stuck her head into the hole.

Under the dim sunlight, Luo Yi could barely make out the silver light coming from the blade at the bottom of the hole.

She was curious about the person who had lived in this house before.

She waited patiently for a while longer until the hole slowly closed in front of her. Then, she pressed down on the hole she had pressed down on earlier, but this time, the hole didn't open again.

Luo Yi turned her head and saw a passage going downwards from a completely opposite direction.

With the blessings of that mysterious person, Luo Yi was still able to walk through half of the candles before she descended. She rummaged through her bosom and took out the fire piston that she had hidden in her arms earlier that morning, then proudly raised her eyebrows.

Luo Yi carefully walked down, thinking that there was something strange hidden in the mechanism that that that person spent so much effort to create, that only then did she realize that it was only a square secret room.

The four walls were like a square wooden box. There was nothing inside other than a painting hanging on one of the walls.

The painter must be a master. Even though more than ten years had passed, and the drawing paper had turned slightly yellow, one could still clearly see the face of the person in the painting.

Luo Yi brought the candle closer to the woman, using her free hand to caress every single part of her face. The more she saw, the more shock she felt in his heart, to the point that her fingertips were trembling uncontrollably.

It had all been planned from the beginning.

She was almost unable to stand steadily. Her arms, which had been hanging down due to her sudden exhaustion, were clenched into fists. Every fingerbone seemed to be struggling to break through this layer of skin and flesh that imprisoned it.

She bit her lower lip, finally calming herself down. Her eyes darkened as she took the portrait off the wall.

The touch of the stone wall felt cold. Luo Yi quivered, and tiptoed to hang the painting back to its original position with difficulty.

Outside, the sun was shining.

Luo Yi stood under the sunlight and took a deep breath, strongly swallowing the pressure that was so heavy that she couldn't breathe in, and then, patting her clothes, she walked out of the Lin Yi Hall without any hesitation. However, she didn't see that after she left, a figure had suddenly appeared in the previously empty main hall.

The person was around fifty years old, and only after walking out of Lin Yi Hall did he casually take out the candle that was placed in its original position after Luo Yi came out of the secret room. He then took out a brand-new candle from his chest and placed it on it, and then used a fire piston to light it up, and then, as if he had completed some kind of important task, he bent his knees and sat on the ground with his legs crossed.

When he smiled, there would be obvious wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, making him appear much gentler. He had a kind and compassionate look on his face, as if he was an elder. His back slumped. A satisfied and pleasantly surprised sigh came from the depths of his throat. "It's been so many years. This old servant thought she was already dead. Who would've thought …"

He sighed at the fickleness of the world, and then after a long while he laughed. He said to himself, "The Empress must also be very happy, right?"

There was no one in the empty room to reply him, only the candlelight to strike his shadow against the window paper, then connecting it with the things dug up today in the front yard, giving rise to a sense of cold ghost shadow.

The candle burned very slowly, but the man was extremely patient. He sat cross-legged for several hours, and only when the candle was exactly where he remembered it did he get up and put it out — he had done this several hundred times in the past ten years, so of course, it was very easy for him to do it now — then he leisurely patted the robe on his body, lowered his head and left, "Mother should rest early, this old servant will take his leave first."

A light breeze came in through the gap in the window, blowing the candle in response to his words, and then there was silence again.

When Luo Yi returned to the Hall of Announcements, there was only a sliver of afterglow left in the sky. Chen Liyi took a seat at the entrance of the main hall and waited for her, not listening to anyone's advice.

Seeing her from afar, Luo Yi could not help but laugh, his heart becoming a little weak. Seeing Chen Liyi looking up at her, the smile on his face became even wider, he simply squatted down, and waited for Chen Liyi to rush straight into her embrace like a little cannon fodder.

These past few days, he had been extremely obedient. After staying in Luo Yi's embrace for a while, he came out by himself and stared at her with his big eyes, saying that he had already finished today's homework.

"Yes." Luo Yi's eyes curved, she stood up and held his hand as they walked indoors: "Have you eaten?"

Chen Liyi shook his head.

Luo Yi stopped and smiled at him again, the comforting look on her face was especially obvious.

Qing Luo had already known that Luo Yi was back the moment she rushed out, but her feelings for Luo Yi were a little complicated right now, especially after hearing what she had said just now. As a result, she did not know how to face him, and only when she was right in front of him did she come back to her senses.

Luo Yi looked at her, and her tone was no different from usual: "Did you run a whole day with me and get tired? If you're tired, then rest early. There's nothing here for you. "

With that, he did not care about Qing Luo's reply, and immediately called Hong Xiang over: "Go and get some water for the crown prince to wash his hands, and prepare to eat."

Hong Xiang looked suspiciously around between the two of them, his movements extremely nimble: "Yes."

After dinner, Luo Yi watched as Chen Liyi read the book again.

She herself had read a lot of books, but there were very few on governance. Thus, the books that Chen Liyi was currently reading were still the ones that the Tutor Liang had given her before. Luo Yi wanted to ask Chen Liyi about the matters of the Tutor Liang, but was afraid that if he talked too much about it, it would attract his attention.

Luo Yi was startled, seeing Chen Liyi lower his head even more: "I only wanted Wen Yan to make him suffer a little, and make him not look after me, I didn't think that I would kill him."

He did not seem to be lying. Luo Yi looked at him for a while and laughed: "I know."

Chen Liyi looked up at her in astonishment. Seeing the smile in her eyes, he finally calmed down and started to read again.

However, Luo Yi's heart was still tightly clenched.

From the start, she never thought that Chen Liyi would take the initiative to kill her, it was more likely that Wen Yan had replaced her and turned into a killing knife without batting an eye, and Chen Liyi had only tacitly approved of her actions. However, this was the most terrifying aspect of it all — although he did not take the initiative to kill, he truly did not feel that killing someone was wrong.

Even if he wasn't the monarch who wielded great power in life and death, he would be the one to be deeply rooted in the depths of Wen Yan's heart.

Luo Yi sighed, she suddenly remembered something, frowned and asked: "Do you know how late it is?"

She didn't plan to get anything out of Chen Liyi initially, but after hearing the two Imperial Guards mentioning that he used to serve in the Empress Palace, she had casually asked. Who knew that Chen Liyi would actually know about this, he placed the pen in his mouth for a long time before hesitating and saying, "I remember, it seems like he served in the Queen Mother's palace."

Luo Yi reached out and took the brush that he had been biting into her mouth, while scolding him for not allowing him to bite a pen next time, she asked, "Have you seen her recently?"

Chen Liyi stared at the brush that Luo Yi had taken away and said, "Oh, I have not seen her before. I heard that she left the palace with my mother, but I was there before …."

He then carefully looked at Luo Yi's face before adding on, "When we were going out of the palace to attend school, I seemed to have caught a glimpse of someone secretly following me, it seems to be quite similar to her."

"When?"

"Just half a month ago …" Chen Liyi counted on his fingers, and then looked up at her: "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine." Luo Yi consoled him, thought for a while, and asked again, "How is the previous Queen treating you?"

This question was a little difficult to answer. Luo Yi saw Chen Liyi shake her head, and then nod her head after two seconds. Finally, he said to Luo Yi with a confused face: "I don't know, she doesn't really see me."

"Not only me, she also rarely sees anyone else. I used to go and pay my respects to her, but then I guess she just got annoyed with me and stopped letting me go. "

This was rather strange … Luo Yi thought in silence. Although Chen Liyi was not her biological son, there was no need for him to be so cold, right?

However, before she could come up with anything, Chen Liyi suddenly spoke up from the side: "In the palace, you are the only one who treats me well."

Luo Yi paused for a moment, then heard his words, "Wen Yan said that the reason the Queen Mother ignored me was because she hated me, that I was not her biological body, and that my royal father also hated me."

"He doesn't like anyone."

"Wen Yan is the same as well. She stayed by my side because she hated me. But I can't get rid of her, because I'm the only one left. "

His head drooped lower and lower, revealing a soft white neck.

Luo Yi's throat tightened, she did not know what to say.

The air seemed to have become a little heavy because of this topic. Luo Yi's eyelashes trembled, and squatted down on the ground to look up at Chen Liyi. At the same time, she stroked her eyelids with her fingertips: "I like you."

"Since our crown prince is so obedient, anyone who doesn't like you will be a fool."

Chen Liyi blinked, this person's smiling face reflected in his almond eyes.

The next morning, when Qing Luo woke up, he was waiting outside the door. Seeing that she had woken up, she immediately welcomed her with a smile, and called over a bunch of female palace eunuchs to help her put on her clothes. She held onto two different headdress and asked her: "Which one does the Empress want to wear today?"

His expression and tone were exactly the same as when they first met.

Luo Yi knew that she had regained her senses and she lowered his eyes to accompany her as she went from being a good person to a good one.

After eating breakfast, the eunuch on guard duty reported that there were Imperial Guards outside seeking an audience. Luo Yi went out to take a look and saw that it was one of the two brothers who brought Wen Wan's corpse back yesterday.

The other party bowed to her, but was ignored by Luo Yi with a wave of her hand: "What's the matter?"

"In reply to the Empress," his tone was slightly out of breath, as if he had come all the way here. "The cause of death has been investigated."