When Zhongsun Mou took the mirror and turned it over again and again for inspection, some of the fluid got onto his hands, marking him as the snail toad’s target.

Of course, He Lingchuan had been marked too, but the moment he left the tower, he had hurriedly washed both his hands and the mirror clean, then rowed off in a boat as fast as he could.

So really, washing your hands diligently afterward was very important.

As a second layer of insurance, He Lingchuan had already made contact with Mai Xuewen the day before.

In front of Mai Xuewen’s puppet, he had taken out the snail toad egg, and both parties had been able to confirm one thing each. He Lingchuan confirmed that Mai Xuewen and the snail toad were still in Baishajue, and Mai Xuewen confirmed that He Lingchuan knew perfectly well what would happen if the snail toad egg was crushed, as he had clearly already interrogated Wan Song.

That meant that as long as the snail toad showed any unusual activity this morning, Mai Xuewen would most likely be able to guess who had summoned it.

Under his deliberate control, the snail toad would not eat the wrong person.

It could be said that after the two sides met last night, Zhongsun Mou’s fate had essentially already been sealed.

He Lingchuan was more than willing to trade that man’s life for the initiative in this case. After staying by He Chunhua’s side for so long, he had long since understood one principle: the evidence you present to others must be open and aboveboard, able to withstand scrutiny. However, the same need not be said for the process and methods by which you obtain that evidence.

As for the notion that killing Zhongsun Mou also let him vent a little anger, he certainly would never admit to that.

Young Master He was magnanimous and broad-minded. How could he possibly hold a grudge over such a tiny little matter?

The only trouble here was that he himself might still come under suspicion. After all, Zhongsun Mou’s death benefited him.

However, He Lingchuan had an alibi, and among the witnesses was even Fan Sheng, the deputy commander of the Tongxin Guard.

That was the strongest possible human testimony.

From the very beginning, He Lingchuan had actually had another reason for luring Fan Sheng into the Lotus Palace: to draw away this absurdly powerful fellow and increase the likelihood that the snail toad’s attack would succeed.

Otherwise, with Fan Sheng at Zhongsun Mou’s side, could the snail toad have escaped cleanly afterward? He Lingchuan could not say for sure, but Fan Sheng not being on the scene was always a good thing.

It had to be remembered that the snail toad had previously been badly injured by He Lingchuan’s explosion. Only a few days had passed since then, and there was a high chance its wounds had not yet healed.

So the greatest difficulty in this entire plan had been Fan Sheng.

He Lingchuan first had to survive returning alive from under Fan Sheng’s axe. Otherwise, everything afterward would have gone down the drain.

For that battle of barely a dozen breaths, he had wracked his brain dry and run through the situation over and over for two full days and nights.

Fan Sheng’s martial strength was overwhelming, and he also had origin energy on his side. The whole point of He Lingchuan’s strategy in that fight had been to avoid confronting him head-on as much as possible.

Those three spiders just now had been Bloodfang Guards[1] summoned using the blood essence that Zhu Erniang had given him. The trio was a combination of offense, defense, and healing.

In an environment like that, they were unquestionably just tanks and disposable cannon fodder meant to draw Fan Sheng’s attention and restrain his movements.

Moreover, He Lingchuan had quietly learned from Xiang Yan that Fan Sheng’s swimming ability seemed fairly ordinary. Two years ago, when a woman fell into the water, Fan Sheng had jumped in to save her, but after climbing back ashore, he himself had coughed up water for a long time and nearly choked to death.

So the Lotus Palace truly had been the ideal place to face Fan Sheng.

He believed that the moment Fan Sheng leaped down from Chao Lake Tower to pursue him, the man had not been calculating nearly that much.

He Lingchuan had even prepared several different plans and several layers of backup measures. But from start to finish, Fan Sheng had not used any magical artifacts, and once he was bound in the spiderweb, he had not been able to use them anyway. Who could he blame for that?

Roughly half an hour later, someone knocked on the door.

“The rear gate of the Cen Residence is lined with carriages, and they’ve stacked up trunks and chests.” The moment Commander Lu entered, he got straight to the point. “Cen Boqing intends to flee!”

“You can’t stop him?”

“I’ve already sent men to block him, but Cen Boqing led more than ten guards on horseback straight into the barricade, with blades drawn and whips flying. My men don’t dare strike back.”

The other side were officials of Lingxu City, after all. If anything happened to them in a clash, not one ordinary soldier of the State of Chiyan would dare bear that responsibility.

Just as He Lingchuan was considering this, there came a fluttering sound at the window ledge.

The two men turned to look, only to see the goshawk landing there, its beak open as it panted rapidly. Clearly, it had flown back at top speed.

“They’ve come, they’ve come!” it said to He Lingchuan. “Go meet them quickly!”

“Perfect timing!” He Lingchuan finally felt his heart settle, and he burst into delighted laughter. “Tell him to go straight to the rear gate of the Cen Residence and meet me there!”

“...” The goshawk could not help rolling its eyes. Forget drinking water, it had not even finished catching its breath before being sent off again in a rush with another message.

* * *

The soldiers Commander Lu had brought had surrounded the Cen Residence so tightly that not even water could leak through.

Cen Boqing personally led the charge at the front. The Chiyan soldiers did not dare strike, so they could only form human walls to block him.

The Cen household’s guards and servants shoved desperately, throwing in dirty tricks when they could, and were finally on the verge of breaking through the human barricade.

Once he left Baishajue, no one would be able to hold him accountable afterward.

Cen Boqing was already sneering inwardly, calculating how he would deal with these people once he returned to Lingxu City. He definitely would not spare that man surnamed He, nor Commander Lu for failing to know his place, nor County Magistrate Tian for his outward compliance and secret resistance.

At that moment, more than a hundred riders came galloping around the street corner, charging down the main road toward the Cen Residence.

They shouted as they rode, acting as though no one else existed.

If commoners failed to get out of the way in time, they were flung aside by invisible force. The unluckier ones smashed their faces against walls.

Even the spoiled young masters from the households of Lingxu City’s high officials rarely threw their weight around in Baishajue like this. It was arrogance on a different level.

The man riding at the very front had not yet arrived before his voice rang out first, accompanied by a long laugh, “Cen Boqing, where do you think you’re going?!”

Cen Boqing saw him clearly too, and his heart dropped to the pit of his stomach at once.

It was none other than the newly appointed Crown Prince of the State of Chiyan, Fushan Yue!

Shouldn’t he be in the capital winning people over? Why’s he suddenly here in Baishajue?

But that question flashed in his mind for only an instant. The moment he saw He Xiao riding beside Fushan Yue, he understood.

Trouble.

Fushan Yue yanked hard on the reins, and his mount reared upright.

“You still owe me a drinking session from last year. I’ve come personally today to take you up on that. You’re not thinking of backing out, are you?”

Cen Boqing said with a dark face, “I have urgent business, and I must return to Lingxu City. Why not come back with me and drink at White Jade Pavilion?” White Jade Pavilion was a famous grand tavern in Lingxu City.

“What sort of urgent business makes you unable to stay even through the Lotus Festival, insisting on hurrying back overnight?” Fushan Yue still wore a smile, but cold light flickered in his eyes. “Could it be you’re rushing back to destroy evidence and silence people?”

“Crown Prince, mind your words!” Cen Boqing barked. “These subordinates of yours are desperately throwing mud at me, yet they can’t produce a single shred of actual evidence.”

“They can’t produce actual evidence?” That was exactly the line Fushan Yue had been waiting for. “Bring him up!”

His men immediately shoved someone forward. It was a man with a square face, thick brows, and in his early thirties.

He was bound like a dumpling, bruised and swollen all over, clearly having endured plenty of suffering already, and his expression was timid and shrinking.

“Who is this?” Cen Boqing did not recognize him.

Commander Lu gave the man a shove. “They’re asking you. Speak!”

“This lowly one, this lowly one...”

Commander Lu smacked him across the back of the head. “Louder! Didn’t you eat lunch today?”

“Yes, yes... This lowly one is named Pang Denian. I worked under Wu Kai of the Cen household for seven years.” The man kept his head down and did not dare look at Cen Boqing as he shouted, “Ten days ago, Wu Kai ordered me to take a prepared confession to the county jail and coach Fu Songhua on his testimony, forcing him to confess that he was the mastermind behind the courier case!”

The commotion at the Cen household had already attracted countless passersby and local residents. The moment Pang Denian shouted this out, the crowd exploded in a buzzing uproar.

Really? Could that be true?

Because both the Touring Commissioner from Lingxu City and the Crown Prince’s special envoy had been handling the eastern imperial eagle courier case in Baishajue, news of it had already spread all over the area. There were countless mutated conspiracy theories in circulation.

And now the Crown Prince had arrived in person, while a servant from the Cen household was accusing his own master of being the true mastermind?

Oh-ho—now the real heavyweights were all here. This melon was huge, and the juice was plentiful.

Pang Denian continued to shout, “When the Crown Prince’s special envoy came to investigate the case—”

Cen Boqing was so furious that he laughed instead. “Slander! There’s no such filthy creature in my estate!”

Commander Lu rammed his elbow into Pang Denian, and the man immediately yelled again, “I bribed jailer Pi Linhai with fifteen taels of silver, and he let me in. Later, when the Crown Prince’s special envoy came to investigate, Pi Linhai disappeared.”

Fushan Yue cast a sidelong look at Cen Boqing. “After that bribed jailer died, you people thought the trail had gone cold, so Pang Denian was sent off by Wu Kai to Hou Family Village in the southwest of Baishajue to lie low.”

Cen Boqing said coldly, “You can just grab any peasant from some village and let him slander me like this? Go ask around all over Baishajue, who can prove this man has any connection at all to my estate?”

“And where is Wu Kai?” Fushan Yue smiled. “Have him come out and confront him.” 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

“Four years ago, his grandson fell into the water. In the dead of winter, Pang Denian jumped into an ice hole to help pull the boy out. Afterward, Wu Kai gave him two small gold bars. This story spread all over Pang Denian’s old home, Bai Township. Ask at random in any household there, and they’ll know.”

Cen Boqing kept his face stiff and expressionless. “I’ve never heard of any such thing. If the people of Bai Township want to spread rumors, that’s none of my concern.”

He Lingchuan suddenly asked, “Where exactly is Wu Kai?”

He swept his eyes over the scene of the confrontation and did not see Wu Kai anywhere. The man was Cen Boqing’s confidant and was always at his side. Why had he disappeared at such a critical moment?

And whenever Fushan Yue brought up Wu Kai, Cen Boqing either talked around the subject or avoided answering altogether.

Cen Boqing sneered. “He’s just an old servant. No need for the Crown Prince to concern yourself over him.”

Fushan Yue cleared his throat. “Now even Lord Zhongsun has been abducted. The two cases have merged into one, and it has become a major case, an important case, a grave case! I, the Crown Prince, will investigate it personally and get to the bottom of it. I also hope Lord Cen will cooperate properly. Men, help Lord Cen carry his bedding back into his residence!”

That meant, dead or alive, he was not being allowed to leave.

While they had been speaking, one squad after another of fully armed soldiers had arrived, surrounding the Cen Residence layer upon layer.

County Magistrate Tian had come too. Fushan Yue crooked a finger at him, and he hurried forward at once, nodding repeatedly as he listened to instructions.

With the Crown Prince present, what reservations could the soldiers still possibly have? They went right up, seized horses, and unloaded trunks, a stark contrast to their earlier hesitation.

Some of the ones who had suffered while forming the human barricade earlier now even dared to step on the other side’s feet a couple of times to vent their anger.

Anyone could see that this time, the Crown Prince was absolutely determined to deal with the Cen Family.

Cen Boqing’s face turned dark, and he flicked his sleeve as he turned to head back inside. In the end, he had still been one step too slow and had failed to escape Baishajue.

Commander Lu, County Magistrate Tian, and the others had all been constrained by fear of consequences and simply could not stop him. But Fushan Yue was different. The man was famously reckless and unruly. He would not care even if the Son of Heaven himself came down. He dared to knock someone flat first and talk later.

At that moment, County Magistrate Tian stepped forward half a pace, coughed lightly, and said, “Arrest Wu Kai. Hold him in prison pending trial.”

1. Last mentioned in Chapter 353: Zhu Erniang’s Gifts. ☜