C105

In the past two days, Xiao Qing's right eyelid had been constantly twitching as if something bad had happened.

Sure enough, at noon, when the master and servant were eating snacks in front of the table, an old woman hurriedly rushed into the courtyard and knocked on the door. "Third Miss, Third Miss, something bad has happened ~"

Xiao Qing Qing gave Li a look to let Li Er out.

And then, the two began to chat outside.

"There are no rules at all, you think you can barge into my yard?" How can you panic about anything else? "

"Miss Li Er, Second Miss …" Second Miss, she … "He died."

"What?" This voice came from Xiao Qingyi. She opened the door and stepped out onto the stairs. With a frown, she asked: "When did it happen?"

"Not long ago, the servant girl that was responsible for serving Second Miss went to deliver food to Second Miss. When she opened the door, she discovered that Second Miss … "He hit his head on the bed."

"Smash him to death?" Xiao Qing Ran's expression darkened. She quickly gave Riko a meaningful glance before lifting her foot to walk down the stairs. "Let's go and take a look first."

There were already many people surrounding the Rain Pavilion. The main house's people were all in the inner rooms, and at this point, the imperial court had yet to return, so before Xiao Qing could enter the courtyard, she heard a heart-wrenching cry. Presumably, it was the original owner, Li Jing.

They were surrounded from both inside and outside, and it was very difficult for Xiao Qing to get in.

At this time, Li Er displayed the skills of a direct maid and scolded sternly, "What are you all doing here? You don't have much to do, do you? Be careful that I report this to the old master, and chase all of you who have not the slightest idea of the rules out of the house! "

This threat was quite effective. The people in the courtyard immediately scattered in all directions, opening up a wide path in the middle.

Xiao Qing entered with a calm expression. There was only Li Jing, Zhao Ya, and one or two of their maidservants in the room.

Riko took half a step forward and whispered into her ear, "Fourth Miss has been pretty close with the young master of the Zhang family for the past few days. She often goes out to swim with him, so she probably won't be back until nightfall today."

Xiao Qingyi nodded her head. After entering the inner room, she called for someone politely.

Li Jing lay on Xiao Xi Yu's corpse and cried until she was completely out of breath. The two maidservants beside her drove her arms from left to right, while Zhao Ya stood on the other side with her left hand holding the handkerchief to her nose.

When she saw Xiao Qing Ran enter, she turned her head. "Qing Ran has come. Quickly go and see your second sister."

'Look at your second sister '? These words were like fart in Xiao Qing Ran's ears.

This man was dead. As the current head of the household, shouldn't his first reaction be to help out those who were so upset that they were on the verge of death, and then to have the appropriate people put the dead man neatly on the bed and send someone to deliver the message to his father?

She had at least spent the time it took to boil a cup of tea to rush over from her residence, but she actually allowed Xiao Xiyu to lie dead on the ground after such a long time. She didn't even care about the servants outside.

Back when Li Jing was his mother, she had frequently caused trouble for her. Now that she finally had a chance to ridicule the mother and daughter duo, Zhao Ya did not have to make use of them. However, based on her way of doing things, Xiao Qing could probably understand why Xiao Zhi had been unwilling to allow her to be the housekeeper for so many years.

However, these were not things that Xiao Qing Qing should be concerned about. She purposefully ignored Zhao Ya's' negligence 'and stepped forward.

Because no one had touched Xiao Xiyu's corpse, it could be considered the first scene. The woman on the ground stared with widened eyes, her pupils were unfocused, her hair was in disarray, and her clothes were in disarray. She was lying on the ground with her head on her left, and there was a pool of blood on the ground.

However, because the blood had congealed into a lump and stuck onto her hair after such a long time, Xiao Qing could not completely confirm just how big the wound was. Simply looking at it like this could determine the cause of death.

"Miss, look over there." Rie stood behind her and lowered her voice.

Xiao Qing's gaze shifted from the wound to her arm. It was unknown if it was due to Li Jing's excessive crying or what other reason, but the clothes on Xiao Xi Yu's left arm was pulled up, revealing her pale arm. What caught Xiao Qing's attention was the large bruise on her arm.

Such a mark was man-made.

Xiao Qing narrowed her eyes dangerously as she glanced at Riko.

Li Er lowered her head and left to do something.

Just as she left the room, the servant outside ran into the inner room in a panic, shouting, "Master is back."

A moment later, Xiao Zhi, who didn't have the time to change out of his official uniform, hastily came in: "What is going on?"

When he saw the scene inside the house, he was obviously shocked, his face jumped and he shouted angrily: Didn't you already send someone to take care of it? Why would such a thing happen again?! "

Seeing that the one in charge had returned, Zhao Ya instantly recovered her usual fox-like appearance. With a voice filled with tears, she said, "Old Master, you're finally back, if you don't come back now, I don't know what kind of mess you're going to cause in this house. Those underlings would only cause this trouble if they were not careful when doing things, so I can't discipline them properly, so if Old Master wants to blame me, I'll blame myself for it."

She covered her face with a handkerchief and sobbed in sobs. It was not fake at all.

Xiao Qing Ran felt that it was extremely funny.

How could he not know the thoughts of these women? Now that someone had died in the family, he was already upset, so how could he be in the mood to watch her act? He angrily rebuked: "This old man will give you the authority to be the housekeeper, now that something like this has happened, even if you don't say it, you will still be held responsible! If you think this old man is not annoyed enough, then just cry, but if you want to cry, then scram out and cry, don't be an eyesore here! "

The handkerchief in her hand trembled as she looked at Xiao Zhi with half-opened eyes. Even though she had not been given Yeye's best pet all these years, she had still been quite successful. However, she had never heard Xiao Zhi berate her so loudly before, thus she immediately softened her attitude and didn't dare to say anything more.

Li Jing, on the other hand, refused to give up. She wailed as she crawled over to Xiao Zhi to make the decision for their child.

Xiao Zhi's ears were filled with this woman's crying and he was unable to calm his emotions. He endured his temper and called the two maidservants to first pull Li Jing back into the room and lock her up.

After they walked for a while, the room immediately became a lot quieter.

It was only then that Xiao Zhi noticed Xiao Qing who had been standing quietly on the other side. He furrowed his brows, wanting to say something, but the words suddenly changed the moment they reached his mouth: "Something big happened at home, where did your fourth sister go?"

Xiao Qing Qing replied in a neither humble nor haughty manner. Just as she was about to tell her, she said, "I have already sent Ri-er out to pass a message to Fourth Sister. I believe she will be back soon."

"Father, it's not convenient for you to stay here. If you're not worried, you can leave the rest to Third Madame and me. There must be a lot of things that have happened in the afternoon, so Father should change into casual clothes. It's been a long time since we've had so many servants know about this.

Seeing how she handled the matter so securely, Xiao Zhi's anger slightly lessened. However, this didn't stop him from teaching Zhao Ya a lesson. After a while, he said, "Since that's the case, the rest should be handed over to Qing Yi. Remember to take care of everything properly and not leave any evidence for others."

"Yes."

After receiving his answer, Xiao Zhi turned around and left.

In a few sentences, Xiao Qing Qing had instructed a servant to arrange Xiao Xi Yu and have her on her way back clean. She had even sent people to make coffins according to the rules, and had also found a few elderly women to ask them about the funeral.

It was already afternoon by the time they finished doing all this. Although Zhao Ya was unsatisfied with how she stole her limelight, she didn't dare to say anything as it was the old master who had spoken up for her to send the order. Furthermore, Xiao Yan didn't know the rules and actually played until the afternoon when he returned.

The news of the departure of the woman from the General's Estate was quickly spread. All the relatives and friends who were related to the General's Estate received an invitation.

In the afternoon, the general's mansion busied themselves with preparations for the memorial hall ceremony. Xiao Xiyu's corpse had already been buried in the ground, because she had violently died. In addition to her marriage, the ceremony should have been held in the Zhao manor, but now, the general's mansion was filled with people with power and the etiquette towards the Xiao family.

It would not be a violation of the rules to wait until the next day, when relatives and friends came to express their condolences before returning to the Zhao Mansion for burial.

Naturally, Xiao Qing Qing was not the type of person who liked to cause trouble. The main reason she did this was to closely examine the wounds on Xiao Xi Yu's body.

As expected, the green mark on Xiao Xiyu's left arm was indeed a human handprint. She compared it to a man's handprint, and noticed that it was only left behind when a man's handprint was the size of a man's.

Xiao Qing Ran tried to imitate that action as she pictured a tall and big man grabbing Xiao Xi Yu's arm with one hand and pulling her armpits with the other. He would lift her up from the ground and throw her onto the bed, causing her to die.

Because there weren't many connections in the Xiao family, and since the various outer rooms needed time to send out the information, only the three siblings had the qualification to guard the manor at night. Xiao Jin Qing should have gone to the military camp today to take care of the aftermath, so from the time she received the news to the time she rushed back, it would take a long time for the two sisters to guard it in the middle of the night.

Xiao Yun stayed outside for a long time and was so stubborn that he was unwilling to pay any attention to this sort of thing. He put down his job early, yelled about being tired, and went to sleep in the inner room, leaving everything to Xiao Qing Ran.

Riko watched her young miss as she ate, but her heart ached. "Miss has worked hard all day and no one is changing shifts with you tonight. There will definitely be a lot of things to do tomorrow."