Lu Yuzhi’s words fell, and neither of them spoke again. It was the first time he had said such things. After embracing quietly for a while, Su Muqing looked up and asked him, "Then shall we still depart this afternoon as originally planned?"
Lu Yuzhi brushed a strand of hair from her cheek and behind her ear as he replied, "Mm, since the old captain has already made arrangements, let’s follow his lead! Besides, we’ve waited so long, there’s no rush for a single day."
"Okay, once we return to Huaxia City, we’ll hurry to deploy, strive to grow stronger in a short period, and then launch an attack on Yujing City in one fell swoop!" Su Muqing said, linking her arm through his, her face beaming with excitement as she imagined it.
Lu Yuzhi gazed at her bright, small face and affectionately kissed her forehead. "Good! With you, my lucky star, we will definitely succeed."
Having adjusted their state of mind, the two then emerged from the secret chamber and returned to the vicinity of the main courtyard. When they had passed by earlier, they had seen a small courtyard called Xiangya Garden. This was most likely where Princess Yunxiang resided.
She wondered what expression the usually self-important Princess Yunxiang would have if she knew that she was not of royal blood at all, but the illegitimate daughter born from her mother’s affair with someone else.
Such earth-shattering news would surely drive her mad, wouldn’t it? It was a pity that they were about to leave, and it seemed they wouldn’t have the chance to witness her reaction.
However, she could instruct Ke Binna to bring her news from here next time he visited Huaxia City. After all, she had helped him find the person who wanted to assassinate him and had inadvertently helped him eliminate his enemy, so she had contributed something, hadn’t she?
The two passed through the front hall, walked along a long corridor, and then through a very elegant small garden. After passing through a moon gate, they finally arrived at Ke Bixiang’s Xiangya Garden.
Taking a good look at the place by moonlight, the residence of this fake princess was indeed quite elaborate, with pavilions, towers, rockeries, flowing water, carved beams, painted pillars, and auspicious trees. Everything was there.
Lu Yuzhi stood in the courtyard without entering. Guided by the detector, Su Muqing went to the second floor of the small building. The detector showed two red dots inside, which she assumed must be Ke Bixiang’s boudoir.
Su Muqing circled the small building for half a lap and found that the window was not tightly closed. This was good; it saved her the trouble of figuring out how to open the door!
She reached out and widened the gap in the window slightly, then entered her space to use her usual method, slipping in with two fingers. After entering, she quickly jumped out of her space and habitually observed her surroundings.
The boudoir was quite spacious. There was a small living room outside, and after turning, there was the bedroom. Behind a screen, there was even a dedicated cloakroom, and on the other side, a partition separated the bathroom. If one had to shower in the room, wouldn’t it be a lot of trouble to carry hot water up and down?
Su Muqing walked towards the bedroom. From afar, she saw a small maid sitting by the bed, already asleep, leaning against the side of the couch. The person on the bed had also fallen into a deep sleep, and she could occasionally hear faint snoring sounds.
Su Muqing carefully surveyed the entire bedroom and found that Ke Bixiang had quite a lot of private savings. She must have accumulated this wealth from her dowry when she married and from almost extorting all of her husband’s assets when they divorced, which allowed her to have such a fortune.
No wonder her demeanor was much more arrogant than other princesses. It turned out she had money in her pocket! However, starting tonight, this money would change owners!
Su Muqing’s lips curved upwards as she began to move around the room. Wherever she passed, it was like locusts descending, leaving nothing behind except for dust dancing in the air!
Frankly speaking, among Ke Bixiang’s possessions, besides gold, silver, jewelry, antiques, and jade that could be exchanged for money, she didn’t fancy anything else. However, this didn’t prevent her from taking it all.
After all, as a princess, her food, clothing, and daily necessities were all top-notch. These clothes and dresses were all eight or nine new. Anyway, they would be going to retrieve the transferred assets later, and then they could give these items to the impoverished people outside the city.
After collecting all the items, only a bed and two people remained in the room. Su Muqing collected both of them and the bed into her space, and then casually placed them on the bare ground.
The maid slept in her clothes, which at least offered some protection against the cold, but Ke Bixiang was only wearing a layer of inner clothing. Fortunately, the Tianzhao Kingdom was hot all year round. If it were somewhere else, at this time of year, a single layer of clothing would have already woken her up from the cold.
Su Muqing should be grateful that she was not a person of corrupt morals. Otherwise, considering how Ke Bixiang had been targeting and mocking her all along, if it were someone with a bad temper, they might have already stripped her naked! They might even have slashed her face or thrown a man onto her bed!
After having thus looted the Prince Ping’s mansion, the two left happily. It was already past two in the morning. They avoided the soldiers and hidden guards monitoring outside Prince Ping’s mansion and climbed over the wall from a corner of the backyard.
Behind Prince Ping’s mansion was an open space. Lu Yuzhi blew his whistle to summon the eagle and jumped onto its back, continuing towards their next destination. According to the man’s tone, there was a secret passage from Prince Ping’s mansion leading outside the city.
Su Muqing maximized the detector’s scanning range, and instantly, the screen was filled with golden exclamation marks! Good heavens! This was so spectacular! These people were indeed wealthy, but it was normal for the residents here to be officials and nobles with money.
She held back her restless hands, telling herself internally, No! You are the princess of Tianzhao Kingdom. Although you are taking money for the good cause of benefiting the people, unless the other party is extremely wicked, or unforgivable, or it is ill-gotten gains and windfall, you must absolutely not illegally occupy other people’s property! Otherwise, you will lose your bottom line!
Su Muqing directed the eagle to fly to the area where ordinary people lived. At this time, there were fewer exclamation marks on the screen. The eagle continued to fly towards poorer areas. When they reached the outskirts of Rongcheng, which was the living area of the lowest class of people, there was only one exclamation mark left on the screen.
Upon reaching the vicinity of their destination, the two leaped off the eagle’s back and landed at the entrance of the only brick house in this area. Su Muqing immediately ran to the back of the house to check.
The house was a blue-brick tiled house, and behind the house was a dry well. The surroundings were rather desolate, and it seemed that the place the man mentioned should be here.
The two jumped directly into the courtyard. The surroundings were covered in dense weeds, indicating that the house had likely been abandoned for a long time. Perhaps because Ke Biping was still alive, they hadn’t transported wealth here for a while.
According to the hints on the screen, they walked to the杂物房 (storage room), which was next to the kitchen. The detector indicated that the wealth was hidden within the wall between the two rooms. Su Muqing searched the storage room and finally found a switch on the storage shelf.
The secret door was opened, revealing a hidden secret chamber within. The secret chamber was irregularly shaped, estimated to be less than ten square meters in total. It was filled with boxes of various sizes. Upon opening them, they were all filled with gold, silver, fine jewelry, and many precious medicinal herbs. Su Muqing collected all these items into her space, and then they began to explore the vicinity.
The geology here was very strange, a combination of sandy and barren land. Such terrain was unfavorable for cultivation, so the people living here had no farmland around them.
Apart from the blue-brick tiled house they had just seen, the houses inhabited by others were mostly built with mud mixed with dry grass, and the roofs were simply made of wooden planks, covered with the large leaves unique to the Tianzhao Kingdom. Very few households had tiles on their roofs.
Su Muqing had originally thought of distributing the items collected from Prince Ping’s mansion to these poor people. However, Ke Bixiang’s bed alone was larger than the rooms where many common people lived.
Coupled with those antique ornaments and the like, these people wouldn’t recognize them at all. Moreover, many of them were items that had flowed out of the palace. If they took them to sell and were mistaken for thieves, then she would be doing more harm than good.
Finally, she decided to give each family some money instead of causing more trouble. As for those antique items, she would use them to trade with others, perhaps selling them for a good price in modern times.
Thus, Su Muqing and Lu Yuzhi then shuttled frantically through this area. They placed one gold coin and two silver coins at the entrance of each household. Depending on the situation, if a family was particularly dilapidated and miserable, they would give an extra silver coin.
By the time they finished all this, the sky was already dawning. The two directly sat on the eagle’s back and flew back. They arrived at the palace around five in the morning.
As soon as they landed, Lu Yuzhi was about to return to the guest courtyard, but Su Muqing pulled him into her space. The two first washed up briefly, then lay on the spacious sofa in the courtyard and began to catch up on sleep.
Perhaps because they had been traveling back and forth all night, they slept quite soundly. It was almost seven in the morning outside the space when they groggily woke up from their dreams.
By this time, their stomachs were rumbling with hunger. Lu Yuzhi went to make something to eat. They had a simple meal, and then they left the space.
When the palace maids came with water for washing up, Lu Yuzhi had already changed and was waiting in the courtyard. Coincidentally, Leng Ren and Leng Feng also arrived from the guest courtyard around the same time. The palace maids were confused and thought they had just arrived and were waiting specifically for the princess to wake up.
Seeing that the palace maids had brought water for washing their faces, Su Muqing wiped herself briefly and then, along with Lu Yuzhi, went to Empress’s Fengyi Palace to have breakfast with the Emperor and Empress. Since they had many things to do later, the little milk bun was temporarily entrusted to Leng Ren and the others to take care of.
After having breakfast with the Emperor, Su Muqing told him about her nighttime visit to Prince Ping’s mansion and also took out some gold bricks for the Emperor to examine.
The Emperor摸索着 (felt) the gold brick in his hand, his face extremely grim. "I never imagined that my second brother would dare to violate the national law and mine gold privately! No wonder he had no shortage of money to bribe officials over the years. It turns out he had the mine in his possession!"
Su Muqing thought for a moment and then expressed her thoughts. "Your Majesty, I think you should immediately interrogate Prince Ping’s confidantes. He didn’t tell Princess Ping about the gold mine, but with so many things, it’s impossible for him to manage it all alone. Therefore, we must hurry to find the location of this gold mine."
The Emperor nodded and handed the gold brick in his hand to Su Muqing. "What you said makes sense! There is no time to delay, I will issue a decree for an interrogation immediately."
Su Muqing suddenly remembered the gold in her space. Although she was somewhat reluctant, this was, after all, gold from the Tianzhao Kingdom. "By the way, Your Majesty! Find me another room. I’ll get that gold out for you."
The Emperor stopped writing, thought for a moment, and then smiled as he said to Su Muqing, "How about this? You help me interrogate and find out the location of the gold mine, and the gold you received last night, along with all of Ke Biping’s assets, shall be considered my reward to you. What do you say?"
Su Muqing’s eyes widened, and she looked at the Emperor with surprise and joy. "Really? Do you know how much gold I confiscated from Ke Biping’s private vault? That’s an incalculable fortune! Aren’t you reluctant? Just now, my daughter was just thinking about taking out the money, and I was already feeling the pinch!"
The Emperor laughed heartily and then tapped her face with his brush handle. "Hahaha! You, you! What do I have to be reluctant about? In the end, all this money was discovered by you. If it weren’t for your ability to find it, I would probably never have known about the existence of this gold. So, to me, obtaining this money is just adding flowers to the brocade, but in your hands, it can be used for more meaningful things."
After hearing the Emperor’s words, Su Muqing gave him a thumbs-up. "Generous! You truly are a ruler of a nation! Your daughter will go and help you interrogate those people immediately, and I guarantee I’ll dig out the remaining gold mine!"
The Emperor handed the imperial decree with his seal to Su Muqing. The two took the imperial decree and headed straight for the imperial prison.
Last night, Ke Biping believed he had control of the situation, so he brought his right-hand men and the steward of the mansion with him. As a result, after he died, the rest were apprehended and all imprisoned.
The two arrived at the interrogation room of the prison. Su Muqing had people bring over the people from Prince Ping’s mansion. When those people saw that the one interrogating them was the killer of the prince, they immediately became nervous, wondering what evil scheme this demoness was planning, and even dismissed the director of the Ministry of Justice!
Lu Yuzhi and she sat above. Su Muqing looked at the analysis panel of her space detector. The emotions of the nine people kneeling below were fluctuating greatly, with anger being the most intense. It seemed these people were quite loyal, otherwise, they wouldn’t have looked at her as if she were their father’s killer!
Looking at their indignant expressions one by one, Su Muqing felt amused. As the saying goes, the winner becomes king and the loser becomes a bandit. Ke Biping attempted rebellion but failed. How could all the mistakes be attributed to her in the eyes of these subordinates?
Not wanting to waste time with these minor characters, Su Muqing went straight to the point. "Who among you knows about the gold mine?"
As soon as she spoke, the faces of the nine people kneeling below changed drastically. Well, there was no need for her to ask them one by one now. At least all nine of them knew about the gold mine, so this matter would be much easier to handle.