Nan Shiying turned her head and looked at her.
"You mean, with this face, I unhesitatingly gave poison to your man right in front of you?" Nan Shiying pointed to her own face, such a distinctive handsome face, doing bad things while wearing it, the risk of being identified would be too great.
"I saw it secretly!" the woman argued.
Nan Shiying said "oh," and then looked at the man who had not spoken a word. His right wrist had a blood hole as thick as a brush handle, and his left hand had been directly severed. There was also a trace of blood on his neck, and his body was trembling slightly due to excessive blood loss.
Nan Shiying took a breath and asked Zou Chengyi, "Lord Zou, you're even torturing people for confessions here!"
Zou Chengyi's expression turned cold: "The right hand was self-inflicted, and the left hand was severed because he wanted to commit suicide."
"Self-inflicted?"
"He said he refined the poison himself, so I had him write down the formula. As a result..."
Before Zou Chengyi finished speaking, Nan Shiying understood.
"So, these two people, one pretending to protect, the other directly framing, one playing the good cop and the other the bad cop, treating your courtroom as a playhouse?"
Nan Shiying found it interesting: "Lord Zou, aren't such witnesses more credible!"
"Sun Bing, this is the person you risked your life to protect. Is she worthy?" The woman suddenly roared at the man who had not spoken a word from beginning to end, "Look at him, he's making you a scapegoat!"
The man slowly raised his head, his bloodshot eyes churning with unspeakable emotions. He looked at Nan Shiying, opened his mouth as if to speak, but ultimately lowered his head.
The woman continued to scold, "You still refuse to speak, how long will you protect her? Don't you see? She doesn't pity you or your sister at all. She's just deceiving you and using you."
"Sun Bing, you scoundrel, fine, if you don't speak, I'll smash myself to death on this hall today." As the woman spoke, she got up and lunged towards a pillar.
A bailiff was quick-handed and grabbed the woman.
"Let me go, let me die, let me die!" The woman struggled violently, trying her best to hit the pillar.
The two bailiffs could barely hold her.
Nan Shiying stood with her arms crossed and said sarcastically, "Let her go, let her hit it!"
"Young Master Feng, don't be too presumptuous!" Zou Chengyi's face darkened, his voice filled with anger. If it weren't for Feng Luan's special status and backing from the Regent, he would have locked her in jail long ago instead of letting her confront witnesses in court.
"Alright, alright!" Nan Shiying was quite accommodating. Seeing that Zou Chengyi seemed furious, she didn't say anything more, but calmly watched the woman attempt to smash herself against the pillar.
"I'll say it!"
In her ears were the woman's heartbroken cries like a cuckoo's song, and Feng Luan's almost indifferent cold words. The man raised his head, his face pale and almost transparent from blood loss. The stubble hidden beneath his skin had a faint green hue, and his bloodshot eyes were rimmed with dark circles. He looked at Nan Shiying with a gaze that was a complex intermingling of countless emotions.
Nan Shiying gave him an "It's your turn to perform" look.
The man gritted his teeth, his voice low and panting, "That day..."
He recounted the entire process in detail.
After listening, Nan Shiying asked, "So, you mean, all these things I did were just to kill that trash Liu Ling?"
"He's not even worthy!"
Nan Shiying spoke the truth, but this truth was like a dull knife twisting in Liu Yujing's heart. He was overcome with grief, and his anger turned into a venomous intent to kill.
Liu Yujing, who had been hiding behind the hall since Nan Shiying entered, rushed out.
Feng Quan grabbed Liu Yujing. Nan Shiying's silver needle was only 0.01 meters from his neck. If it weren't for Feng Quan, Lord Liu would have already been pierced through the neck by the needle.
Nan Shiying's eyes flashed with a sinister cold light, and even the smile that curled her lips carried a hint of sharpness, "The needle is poisoned. If Lord Liu dies, don't blame me."
"You..." Liu Yujing's face showed horror, and he retreated several steps, trembling. His wide eyes were filled with flames of anger, wishing he could devour Nan Shiying on the spot.
Nan Shiying ignored his ferocious gaze and slowly put away the silver needle. "Lord Liu, do you know how many poisons there are in Medicine King Valley, and how many colorless, tasteless poisons leave no trace? If I truly wanted to kill Young Master Ling, I would have a hundred ways you couldn't detect, and why would I go to such lengths to use someone else's hand?"
"What would I gain?"
"Besides, his testimony is full of loopholes. Setting aside other things, let's talk about motive. Do I have a reason to make Liu Ling die?"
"What benefit would Liu Ling's death bring me?"
"If I simply wanted to kill Liu Ling, would I choose such a clumsy method?"
"Of course, there's the most important point, Lord Zou..." Nan Shiying turned and grinned, "When I wrote the formula that day, I had a sudden whim and wanted to change my handwriting. That is to say, the handwriting on the formula you have is what I wrote casually. What's laughable is that someone used my casual handwriting as a model to forge this piece of evidence."
"You see, isn't it laughable!"
"What's even more laughable is that because of this forged evidence, these people concocted such a complete story. Did the girl who was forced to die back then really have a brother? Is the brother truly this person? Is the woman desperately wanting to die beside him truly his wife?"
"And Lord Zou, not many people should have come into contact with the formula I wrote, right? Shouldn't you now consider carefully who took my casually written characters as the master template to set up this trap?"
"Speaking of which, this trap was set quite well. If it weren't for my sudden whim that day, I suppose I wouldn't have been able to clear my name even if I jumped into the moat today."
Zou Chengyi was taken aback. He looked at the evidence in his hand and then at the voluble Nan Shiying, his brow furrowed. "You're saying this handwriting is different from your usual style? What proof do you have?"
"Proof?"
"Your Lordship can go and see the prescriptions I've written for patients in the past."
"Of course, if Your Lordship feels that recent prescriptions might be intentionally altered by me, you can also go to the Imperial Hospital and ask Imperial Physician Zhang and Imperial Physician Li. We treated disaster victims together in Yuzhou back then, and I believe they are familiar with my handwriting."
After Nan Shiying finished speaking, she squatted in front of the man and looked at him, "Do you have anything else to say now?"
"It's you, it's definitely you. I don't know about handwriting or anything, but this bag of poison was given to me by you." The man stared directly at Nan Shiying, stubbornly sticking to his story.
Nan Shiying nodded and turned to Zou Chengyi, "Lord Zou, actually, torture for confessions is permissible!"
"For example, skinning her alive!"
Nan Shiying pointed at the woman, her smile like a spring breeze, but her words sent a chill down one's spine.