The punishment of the female imperial court

Chapter 290 Entering the game
Yu Qiansi gestured to the imperial guards outside the door to kick it open.

Sure enough, everything unfolded before everyone's eyes just as they had witnessed.

Yu Qiansi stepped back into the room and bent down to pick up the scattered beads from the ground: "The wood is hidden in the forest. Back then, when Empress Mingde woke up, she noticed the beads all over the ground."

Most people assumed that the prayer beads had been scattered during the argument between the two, and naturally would not associate the scattered prayer beads with such a sleight of hand.

"But why would Empress Mingde enter Empress Mingdao's room for no reason?" An official realized the key point and asked.

Yu Qian Si turned to the person who asked the question: "Then why do you gentlemen want to enter this room?"

What does this mean? Could it be that Deming is falsely conveying the imperial edict?

"We have come following His Majesty's decree, so naturally we are."

Yu Qiansi pushed open the green gauze curtain connecting to the inner room, and the light from the outer room illuminated a corner of the inner room. She turned around and asked everyone again, "Gentlemen, why do we need to enter this room?"

They clearly saw the bloody handprints on the inner window before entering the room, which is why they went inside.

But now, the window is covered in a gray haze; where did the bloody handprints come from?

Everyone was stunned.

"The actual crime scene is located in another room."

Before they arrived, Empress Zheng ordered the eunuchs to cover the original bloody handprint with gray silk and to paste a black silk handprint on the window of the inner room of the house.

After everyone went inside, the Imperial Guards outside tore down the original coverings.

The three halls of the Prayer Hall are so indistinguishable from the outside without a specific reference point that it is impossible to tell which are the doors and windows, let alone the adjacent rooms.

"You mean to say that Empress Mingde didn't come to see Empress Mingdao back then, but rather, she thought she had returned to her own room?"

How can this be.

How could she not recognize her own room?
One of the imperial concubines hesitated and asked, "Back then, all those who participated in the prayer ceremony were noble ladies. Although the houses were the same and the furnishings were the same, most of them adjusted the positions according to their own preferences. I remember that the Noble Consort placed her dressing table by the window with the best light. But in the Empress's room, that spot was a desk."

"The Empress Dowager is right, the furnishings in each room are indeed different,"

Yu Qiansi glanced at the several concubines who were either chanting Buddhist prayers or looking at themselves, and continued, "I heard that this was done back then to treat everyone equally. But these rooms are too similar, so in order to make it easier for the servants who come in to serve at Chenshi (7-9 AM) to distinguish the rooms, everyone puts different flowers and plants on the wooden rings outside the doors to mark the different door locations."

"Why go through all this trouble? Why not just put your name on it?" Jiang Jiqing was quite curious about this.

A sudden silence fell over the room. One of the imperial concubines, seeing no one answer, sighed and slowly said, “It’s unreasonable to hang up the names. Besides, the Three Palaces house not only the women of the inner palace, but also many noble ladies whose birth dates are compatible with hers. Servants come in every morning to help them with their grooming; what if they disturb the women of the inner palace?”

Jiang Jiqing realized this too late.

Of all those involved, only he hadn't considered this. It's likely that people often use such opportunities to curry favor; they're used to this kind of behavior.

Yu Qiansi, too lazy to care about other people's opinions, continued indifferently: "These plants are easy to move. Just change the furnishings in the outer room and replace the sign plants outside the door, and it will be easy for people to walk into the wrong room on a dark night. The murderer only needs to move the furnishings so that Empress Mingde does not realize that she has gone to the wrong room the moment she enters the room, and then take the opportunity to drug her with the sleeping potion that fills the whole room."

What followed was exactly as you have just witnessed.

Yu Qiansi turned around with her hands behind her back and looked at the door. She seemed to see someone push the door open and enter, first extinguish the sleeping incense, ventilate the room, place the murder weapon in Empress Mingde's hand, then smear blood all over her body, and then put the furnishings back in their places.

Before leaving, he left a bloody handprint on the window of the inner room.

Next, break the wooden bolt in the corner of the wall and wed it behind the door. Scatter most of the prayer beads on the ground, leaving one or two on the string. Use the beads to wed the broken part of the bolt, then pull the string to close the door and pull the string away, all in one go.

Next, all you need to do is wait until everyone has gathered, and if you can't find the Empress and the Imperial Concubine, you can watch the show from among the crowd.

"But why would the murderer kill Empress Mingdao and frame Empress Mingde?" Su Fengcha cleared her throat and couldn't help but ask.

Back then, only Mingde and Mingdao had sons in the harem. If one was killed and the other framed, who would benefit?
“Not bad,” Yu Qiansi said, feeling a little unfamiliar with Su Fengcha, who was not glaring at her for the first time.

"The method used in this case was indeed simple."

Everyone was ashamed.

No one could see the "simplicity" that Yu Qiansi was referring to, making the matter an unsolved mystery.

"The difficult part is finding the murderer," Yu Qiansi continued.

"Because the two people involved were of high status and the incident happened suddenly, no one would have been able to conduct a thorough examination or autopsy, which gave the murderer an opportunity. Fortunately, the place still exists, and because of the sudden death of the late emperor and the chaos on the border, Empress Mingde committed suicide in the Zhaixing Tower. To avoid making a scene, the murderer only did some simple cleanup work, and no one else has been here. So, all the traces are still there."

Yu Qiansi stepped out first and gestured for everyone to move to the actual crime scene.

“When I first arrived at the scene, I found a lot of strange, old bloodstains. These bloodstains were most prevalent in the inner room, which indicated that the primary crime scene was in the inner room. But strangely, there were also many scattered bloodstains on the tables, chairs, and cabinets in the outer room. These bloodstains were formed around the same time as those in the inner room, but the fatal wounds on the body would never have allowed the deceased to move around and touch those objects. So, there is only one possibility left.”

The group followed Yu Qiansi into the house where the crime scene was located. The bloody handprint on the window was very strange.

Yu Qiansi patted the cabinet beside her and said slowly, "The blood on the tables, chairs and cabinets in the outer room was left by the murderer."

The courtiers wanted to see the so-called bloodstains clearly, but the outer room was lit only by a few candles, and the remaining tables and chairs still stood silently in the darkness. They could only stay as far away as possible from those things that were said to be stained with blood.

"Therefore, a contradiction arises. As far as I know, Empress Mingde had no wounds. Even if there was blood on her hands and body, it would seem more like the murderer deliberately rubbed it on her after she fainted. The reason I believe that Empress Mingde is not the real culprit is based on this."

"How could you know that Empress Mingde had no wounds?" A concubine who had been resting with her eyes closed spoke up, her eyes filled with caution.

Yu Qiansi looked over and saw that it was Shang Fu's aunt, Consort Shang.