Taichang Ming Dynasty

Chapter 200 The Two Weis Split
Wei Chao followed Cui Wensheng across the threshold and into the courtyard. He found the corridors surrounding the compound all closed. No servants were seen moving about. Only two low-ranking officers from the Eastern Depot were squatting by the steps of the main hall, warming themselves by a fire.

The flag officer who was in charge of the case was also among them. He did not go home for the New Year, but instead followed Cui Wensheng's orders and stayed in the courtyard with his soldiers. Cui Wensheng's arrival was a surprise to him, but even if it was unexpected, he still had to follow the proper etiquette.

The flag commander tightened his robe and trotted over to the two eunuchs. He instinctively wanted to kowtow to the two eunuchs, but then he thought this wasn't the right place to say "Happy New Year." So he simply clasped his fists and bowed, saying, "Greetings, Lord Governor, and Eunuch."

"Ke Yinyue is dead." Cui Wensheng simply nodded, then turned to Wei Chao and said, "She's inside."

Wei Chao didn't push the door open immediately. Instead, he stood there blankly, saying in a trembling voice, "It's New Year's Day, you...you better not play such a joke on me!"

"I'm not kidding you." Cui Wensheng put on a sad and solemn expression. As he spoke, he walked forward and opened the door to the main hall for Wei Chao.

In the main hall stood an unsealed coffin, and before it stood an incense table. On the table were candlesticks, a mirror, a tripod, beads, glass bowls, some wine and meat, and a burning incense burner in the middle, covered in a lot of incense ash.

Seeing that the incense was almost burnt out, Cui Wensheng walked to the incense table and picked up another stick to light. He clasped his hands together and bowed, muttering a few words from a Buddhist scripture he didn't believe in at all, before inserting the incense stick into the incense burner.

"Ke Yinyue is lying in the coffin." Cui Wensheng turned around and said to Wei Chao, "The East Factory found Ke Yinyue's body almost half a month ago. But I wanted you to have a good New Year, so I kept it a secret."

Wei Chao hadn't anticipated this, but when he heard Cui Wensheng's words, tears welled up silently in his eyes. He took a deep breath and said slowly, "Open the coffin."

Cui Wensheng was silent for a moment, then shook his head and said, "The situation is quite dire. I suggest you don't watch it."

"Open the coffin!" Wei Chao didn't disbelieve Cui Wensheng, but he stubbornly wanted to see Ke Yinyue one last time. Even though he and Ke Yinyue were already separated forever.

"Oh, what a sin!" Cui Wensheng sighed, waved his hand, and said to the officers, "Did you all hear that? Push open the coffin lid."

The officers clasped their fists in acceptance of the order, then walked over with frowns on their faces and worked together to push open the coffin lid.

As the coffin lid was opened, a mildly pungent, yet still nauseating, stench of decay emanated from within. Wei Chao braved the stench and approached. Looking down, he saw a charred, curled-up corpse. His features were unrecognizable, its shape barely visible. Because the coffin hadn't been pushed down to the lower body, Wei Chao couldn't even confirm whether it was a woman.

"Heh!" Wei Chao's mouth curled up in a strange, twitching arc. "It's just an ordinary charred corpse! Is there anything that can be used to prove its identity?"

"No, the guards only found this body and some unburned clothing debris," Cui Wensheng said, shaking his head. "But this must be Ke Yinyue." When Ke Yinyue died, Wei Zhongxian threw her gold and silver jewelry into the burning bonfire, but the guards from the East Depot didn't find any of it.

"You must have found the wrong person, huh? You must have found the wrong person!" At this time, Wei Chao really hoped that Cui Wensheng had just pulled a corpse from somewhere to deal with him.

"Feng Jingping, come and tell Wei Bingbi how you found her." Cui Wensheng ordered the flag general who led the operation.

"Yes." Feng Jingping finally realized that the person they had been looking for was actually the woman of Wei Chao, the eunuch in charge of the Imperial Household Department. "Report to the eunuch. This is what happened."

"After receiving the order from Governor Cui, we first went to Keshi's family, her deceased husband's family, and her in-laws' families. We basically checked everyone we could, but in the end, we still found nothing. Keshi was gone, her son was gone, and her brother was gone. And not a single relative knew where they had gone. This was very unusual."

"Generally speaking, there are only two possibilities. The first is that the three of them got together and were robbed and killed by robbers on the way. The second is that they were murdered. The possibility of the three of them being robbed and murdered together is very small, because when Ke Shi was granted permission to leave the palace, Ke Guangxian was not in Beijing at all. He was farming in his hometown. There is no reason for him to be robbed and murdered and disappeared with Ke Shi and her son Hou Guoxing. And if it was a robbery and murder, the case would be impossible to investigate."

"So we continued to investigate based on the suspicion of murder. We checked all the taverns and teahouses in Beijing, big and small, and finally found that someone had set up an extremely luxurious banquet with a hundred dishes in a luxurious restaurant called Anhualou. The servant who served the banquet clearly remembered that among the people who had the banquet, there was a very charming woman, whose features were highly similar to those of Keshi. Later, through this restaurant, we checked a carriage that drove out of Chaoyang Gate. The officers guarding the gate said that the carriage went there and returned on the same day. It took only about an hour to go there and come back." Feng Jingping omitted the part about the Imperial Household Department.

Feng Jingping's mouth was dry from talking so much in one breath, but he didn't dare to go get some water. He paused, swallowed, and continued, "Afterwards, following the factory supervisor's instructions, we searched all the houses within a 20-li radius of Chaoyang Gate, centered around it. We received testimonies from several farmers. Some reported seeing a carriage, while others reported seeing unusual flames. Following these testimonies, we found a burning scene. There were traces of freshly turned earth nearby, and after digging up the dirt, we found the charred body of the woman."

Wei Chao did not interrupt Feng Jingping during his speech. He only spoke after he finished speaking. Then, in an unusually calm tone, he asked, "Who did it?"

Feng Jingping didn't say anything, but tilted his head slightly to look at Cui Wensheng. He didn't dare to investigate the Imperial Household Department, and he didn't.

"It is very likely that Wei Zhongxian did it." Cui Wensheng's face still maintained that "I share your sorrow" expression.

"Wei Zhongxian!?" Wei Chao's suppressed anger immediately turned into disbelief. "How is this possible? You can't be... You can't be lying to me!"

"How dare I talk about such things? Sigh!" Cui Wensheng sighed, and then sent Feng Jingping and other East Factory officers away. "You all go out, go outside the yard."

"Yes." Feng Jingping felt as if he had been pardoned. He didn't want to get involved in the love and hatred within the Imperial Household Department at all.

After the officer left, Cui Wensheng spoke up, "The military officer guarding the gate that day not only remembered when the carriage came and went, but also remembered that the person riding in the carriage had a sign from the Imperial Household Department hanging around his waist."

If Cui Wensheng of the Imperial Household Department said that the carriage carrying the sign of the Western Depot was in fact a carriage, Wei Chao would not believe him. This was because when Ke Yinyue disappeared, the Western Depot had not yet been rebuilt and there was no sign to hang.

"I went to the Imperial Household Department to check the carriage dispatch records and discovered that there was only one person who dispatched the carriage that day." Cui Wensheng paused, then walked over to Wei Chao and said with regret, "Unfortunately, that was Wei Zhongxian."

This record was actually a fake. Wei Zhongxian never used the Imperial Household Department's carriage, so there shouldn't have been any record of it. Cui Wensheng was able to find this record because Wang An had tampered with the book. After reading this record, Cui Wensheng was so overwhelmed that he didn't even consider it a forgery. But even if Cui Wensheng insisted on digging deeper, he couldn't find any evidence. This was because the eunuch in charge of the carriage had left the palace to retire, along with other previous Imperial Household Department eunuchs.

"Why would he do such a thing?!" The investigation process and the cause and effect of the incident were so detailed and comprehensive that Wei Chao couldn't help but believe it. But Wei Chao couldn't figure out Wei Zhongxian's motive for doing so.

"Hmm," Cui Wensheng's expression suddenly became subtle. "Their relationship might be a little abnormal."

"You're talking nonsense!" Wei Chao cursed, a rare occurrence. "Kebaba is a good woman."

"Although I don't want to say this, it's the truth." Cui Wensheng said with some envy: "Wei Zhongxian didn't have a clean circumcision when he entered the palace. He must have used that thing down there to get together with this woman." As he spoke, Cui Wensheng patted the coffin.

"What?!" Wei Chao almost suspected that there was something wrong with his ears.

"Don't you know about this?" Cui Wensheng asked back.

Wei Chao shook his head. Of course he didn't know. Wang An had issued a silence order regarding the matter. By the time Wei Chao was appointed as the Imperial Household Department's scribe, Wei Zhongxian had already recovered, so no one had specifically told him about it.

"If you don't believe me, you can ask our ancestors. It was he who ordered the removal of Wei Zhongxian's remaining egg." When Cui Wensheng saw Wei Zhongxian's name in the ledger, he immediately thought of his recastration. "I think Wei Zhongxian was rebelling, and they were afraid his affair with this woman would be exposed, affecting your relationship, so they killed him to silence her."

"Wei Zhongxian!" Wei Chao's heart surged with uncontrollable rage. "I treated that bastard as a brother, but he cheated on me with my woman! And he even killed her! Fuck his legs!" Wei Chao furiously wanted to throw something, but when he looked around, he only saw the offerings on the incense table.

In a place that Wei Chao could not see, a flame shot up from the ground into the sky and blossomed into a bright firework in the dark sky.

Bang! A loud explosion shattered Wei Chao's last bit of strength. He fell over the coffin and burst into tears.

------

Barefoot, silver bells ringing, dancing in brocade clothes and embroidered belts. Accompanied by the flickering of flames, Western Selectwoman Li Zhulan performed a solo dance for the emperor in the Qianqing Palace, a dance that belonged only to him.

The flames flickered, the music ended, and the dance ended. The musicians faced the emperor and withdrew. Only the emperor and his concubine remained in the vast Qianqing Palace.

"Good dance!" Zhu Changluo cheered and praised.

"I thank the Emperor for his mercy." Li Zhulan placed her hands on her waist and bent slightly. She breathed softly, and beads of sweat appeared on her forehead.

"Come here." Zhu Changluo patted his thigh and motioned her to sit on it.

Li Zhulan smiled shyly, stood on tiptoe, spun, and collapsed completely into the emperor's arms. Her body was healthy, not too light, but her control of strength was impeccable, so this collapse was filled with a spring-like charm. "Your Majesty," she said, lying on her back, her eyes reflecting a captivating aura.

Li Zhulan's shyness wasn't a facade, for she sensed a strange, yet deeply alluring, mysterious charm in this familiar face. Zhu Changluo had quit drinking in August and recovered by September, and had been practicing self-discipline for three months now. Long-term exercise and a regular diet had eroded his body fat, especially the puffiness on his face, giving him a commanding and capable look.

In Li Zhulan's view, her husband has transformed from a gloomy boy who often loses his temper but still has wisdom into a strong-willed and aggressive man. This man is emotionally stable, never hysterical, and seems to have everything under control.

"You are such a beautiful fairy." Zhu Changluo leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips, as if setting a charming and gentle tone for today's meeting.

"Your Majesty." Li Zhulan put her arms around the emperor's neck and responded with a more passionate and deep kiss.

Like her body, her lips were soft and fragrant. This wasn't due to any metaphysical factors, but rather because she bathed every morning and evening and used all sorts of expensive fragrances to scent every inch of her skin.

After a long time, Zhu Changluo let her go. When their lips parted, his reluctant tongue pulled a thin and crystal clear silk thread.

"She is about to be crowned as a concubine. I would like to hear your opinion." Zhu Changluo suddenly said.

Li Zhulan was still immersed in the sweetness of the kiss, and she thought that the emperor's next move after releasing her would be to strip her from head to toe, leaving only the silver bell hanging on her ankle, and then carry her to the bed to have sex. She didn't expect the emperor to ask this question so suddenly, so she didn't react for a moment.

In the past, Li Zhulan would have imagined the Emperor would make her his successor and would have pressed her to voice her opinion. But now, she simply said, "Matters of grace and conferral are not for me to weigh in on. I beg Your Majesty to make the final decision."

Zhu Changluo continued to smile, his face showing no further satisfaction or tentativeness. "I intend to make you a noble concubine. What do you think?"

"Thank you, Your Majesty, for your mercy." Li Zhulan was actually a little disappointed: it would be fine if she couldn't become the next empress, but now the emperor is not even willing to give her the title of Imperial Noble Consort.

Thinking of this, there was a little more emotion in her eyes.

(End of this chapter)