My Lord, your wife is spreading rumors about you again.

Chapter 10 Water Slave
However, the right hand of this male corpse was smooth and without any scars, and it was obvious that his fingers had not been cut off.

Not far from here is a mass grave with thousands of corpses. If Mingyi and Mingxin's bodies were thrown there, the chances of finding them would be slim.

Every night, countless wild dogs, lone wolves, and vultures, whose eyes are turning green from hunger, would go there as scheduled for a feast.

"Strange, could it be someone else's grave? This is information Wuwei got personally, it can't be wrong."

Zhang Zhi pulled Mingli up by the arm with one hand, "Since my information is correct, then there is only one possibility left, that it was the Ming family who did it. There is something strange about the deaths of Mingyi and Mingxin. They didn't send you an obituary, nor did they ask you to see your brother and sister-in-law for the last time. Now they have made a fake corpse, so there must be something wrong with the corpse."

He pointed at the two corpses in front of him and continued, "They guessed that you would not give up, so in order to prevent you from digging up the graves secretly, they simply created two fake corpses of similar age and body shape to cover up."

"what is this?"

Mingli had excellent eyesight, and could see easily even in the dark. She pulled out a thin silver needle from her hair, bypassed the layers of maggots, and picked up a white particle on the tip of the needle.

Zhang Zhi also moved closer and squinted to take a closer look: "White? Bird poop?"

Mingli: “.”

"It's salt."

"Salt?" Zhang Zhi didn't quite believe it. He pinched his nose and asked, "How do you know it's salt?"

"Do not believe?"

Mingli handed the needle over: "Then you try it."

"Well, that's not necessary. That's not necessary." Zhang Zhi declined again and again. He took out a white handkerchief and spread it out in his hand. Mingli put the salt particles on it. The two of them stayed together for a while, and there seemed to be a wonderful tacit understanding between them.

Mingli can now be sure that her sister and Mingxin suffered the same fate. She was so focused on exterminating the whole family yesterday that she did not carefully examine her sister's body. It was her fault.

So she now urgently wants to find Mingxin. She wants to know what kind of inhuman abuse her sister suffered before she died.

The two bodies in front of her were the only clues. She had to find out the identities of the man and woman first. Looking closely, they all had some salt particles on them. Salt belonged to the imperial court and had a very high market price. Ordinary people could not have it at home.

"Ming Li."

Mingli, who was deep in thought, suddenly heard someone calling him. He looked up and saw Zhang Zhi walking in front of him. He raised his hand and pointed it towards Mingli: "Look, does he have any fingerprints?"

"Fingerprints?" Mingli quickly picked up the tinder, and sure enough, the fingertips were smooth and without a single fingerprint. She then went to look at another female corpse, and sure enough, like his, there were no fingerprints either.

One could be a coincidence, but two?

Could it be that the sons and daughters of some minor official family in Kyoto were dragged here to be scapegoats? But their shoulders and necks all had old injuries, especially their waists, which were covered with scars and were unbearable to look at. Only their hands were unusually tender.

"There is a kind of water slave in the capital. They are forced to live in water since birth. They are trained to be like fish. They can go for a long time without breathing air and dance in the water to the music. This is for the entertainment of dignitaries. The water slaves in the capital are all from the Anxiang Tower. They are auctioned off to the highest bidder. I once saw a water slave being auctioned off for a sky-high price of 100,000 taels of silver. I heard that a lot of salt must be placed in the water that the water slaves need, and it must be replaced every three days. Otherwise, these water slaves will suffocate to death."

Mingli had never heard of such a horrifying and vicious way of playing. She frowned, "People live on land and need to breathe air. This is the law of nature. After all, people are not fish. Without gills, no matter how much you practice holding your breath, you can't become a fish. All the internal organs also need air to maintain life. If they are trained from a young age, I dare to assert that none of these water slaves can live past the age of eighteen."

"You're wrong." Zhang Zhi shook his head gently, with resentment in his eyes: "They can't even live past the age of eleven. The dance of water slaves requires a light and flexible body. Regardless of gender, once they are over the age of eleven, they will grow taller and their dance will no longer be beautiful. However, water slaves can only dance in the water all their lives. The masters don't want to waste food to feed a useless person, so they will kill the water slaves on their eleventh birthday and abandon their bodies in the wilderness."

These two corpses must be water slaves.

After hearing about the water slave's experience, Mingli did not feel much emotion.

"A lot of salt? There aren't many people willing to spend such a large amount of money, even in Kyoto." Mingli suddenly had an idea, and she looked up and asked Zhang Zhi, "By the way, what is the Anxianglou you just mentioned? Is it a restaurant?"

Zhang Zhi was stunned: "Well, I guess so."

Mingli didn't notice Zhang Zhi's discomfort. She murmured, "Not tomorrow. I heard that the old lady is going to find someone to commit adultery with me tomorrow. I have to take revenge. Then the day after tomorrow night, please take me to the Anxiang Tower."

"What? Finding someone to commit adultery with you? And you knew about it in advance?" Zhang Zhi couldn't help but laugh: "It seems that she is also a fool. Isn't she afraid that you will outwit her and end up with a ruined reputation?"

Mingli smiled coldly: "These days, people are treated like pigs."

After saying that, Mingli began to pack up his wooden box, carried the two bodies back into the pit, covered them with soil, and built the grave.

She stood in front of the grave.

Shui Nu is the only clue now. She can find Shui Nu's buyer through Anxianglou, and that buyer might be the one that the Ming family sent Ming Xin to play and serve.

Mingli parted ways with Zhang Zhi at the city gate. When she went through the side door, she found it was locked, so she walked around Ming Mansion before she found a secret dog hole.

At this time, the cocks crowed and the sky was about to brighten. Her yard was very remote and no one would pass by. As long as she avoided the guards in the front yard, no one would notice her even if she was wandering on the road in her night clothes in broad daylight.

That night she had many doubts. The Ming family was once very powerful under Ming Boyuan's hard work, so how did it fall to the point where they had to use their young daughter to please others? Why did Zhou Shu send his sister away?
After all, my sister is the legitimate daughter of the Ming family. No matter how bold the Zhou family is, they would not dare to do such a thing as sending their wife to have fun. Aren't they afraid of being exposed, damaging the Ming family's reputation, and being questioned by Ming Boyuan?

Unless this was a tacit joint decision between the Ming and Zhou families.

Mingli smiled sarcastically, what a bunch of scum!

She had lived in the mountains for fifteen years and had never seen a living person except her master. Now she felt that not seeing anyone might be a good thing.

The master always liked to use her to test drugs and make poisons. She was often poisoned to the point that her limbs became limp and she lay in bed unable to move, but she was conscious. While the master was preparing the antidote, he would tell her many stories about the officialdom and the harem from the storybooks.

But Mingli now discovered that those scripts were very similar to the current political situation in Da Qi, almost exactly the same.

But the master, like her, has never left the mountain in more than ten years. How could he know?

Psychic?
(End of this chapter)