After saving the Empress, I became the top scholar in the imperial examination.

The prison cell was always dimly lit.

However, since Qian Sijin revealed his identity, the Imperial Guards followed him all the way. Under their cold gaze, the jailer carefully lit torches outside his cell, making the passageway bright and the inside was covered with dry grass, so the cell no longer had the dark, damp, and rotten smell of the other rooms.

Ning Nan glanced at Cui Cui's wife, his voice slow and deliberate, with a hint of bitterness in it.

He lowered his eyes, somewhat puzzled. He had been diligently preparing for the imperial examinations, yet his mother had encountered this inexplicable situation.

When I dealt with Wen Liang yesterday evening, I was still thinking that it would be too passive to just sit and wait for others to make a move.

Unexpectedly, by evening, they had fallen into a situation far beyond their expectations, becoming extremely passive.

Ning Nan's chest heaved, his eyes were dark, and he slowly exhaled a breath of stale air.

There is no doubt that someone wants to harm him.

I thought about it all night, but I still couldn't figure out who this enemy hiding in the shadows was.

Yesterday, Wen Liang confessed that the Northern Dynasty's Sticky Rod Office wanted to kill him, and Qian Sijin has already investigated this.

If the person behind the scenes is from the Northern Dynasty, then things don't make sense.

If the Northern Dynasty wanted to kill him, they could have just killed him directly; there was no need for them to frame Li Baoxin by killing him.

The authorities said that the person who killed Li Baoxin was Erlai, but Li Baoxin sent someone to summon him; it was just that the person who came was Erlai.

If he were to go there, he would probably be the one to kill Li Baoxin... Thinking of this, Ning Nan's eyes became somewhat dazed and confused.

Li Baoxin... he's actually dead.

It took him a long time to accept this fact.

Li Baoxin is a rigid and bad-tempered man. He always glares at people, meddling in everything and cursing. For so many years, he hasn't been able to get a household registration or a road permit for him to leave the village. But no matter how he or Erlai have been at odds with Li Baoxin since childhood, they have never thought of killing him.

Every household in Lijia Village owes Li Baoxin some favor, and the Ning family is no exception.

The last time my mother was sick, it was Li Baoxin who took Sanzhuang in the middle of the night to drive a cart to Hangezhuang to fetch a doctor, and even dragged the doctor back to the village.

I remember when I was a child, I was sick once. My mother was so anxious that she almost cried herself blind. At that time, Li Baoxin was still in good health, and he carried me to Hangezhuang.

Therefore, no matter how dissatisfied he was with Li Baoxin, he would never kill him.

The Lai family is in a similar situation.

As far as he knew, when Er Lai's grandparents passed away, Er Lai's father was an outsider who had married into the family and knew nothing about funeral arrangements. Li Baoxin presided over the funeral, which was held in a grand and impressive manner. Li Baoxin also introduced Uncle Donghu to the pig slaughtering business in Han Gezhuang, which helped Er Lai's family recover.

No matter how much Erlai hated Li Baoxin, he would never kill him. Ning Nan's heart and eyes fell silent.

"Are you hungry?" Cui Cui squatted down, opened the food box, and steaming food came out. "Eat first, then we'll talk."

Her fair hands took out dishes of food and handed them in through the opening at the bottom where rice was placed.

Ning Nan took a bowl of white rice and chopsticks, sat down on the ground, tasted a bite of the dish, and said, "Hmm, it tastes good."

"It wasn't made by Chef Xu; it was bought from a restaurant outside." Cui Cui squatted on the ground, watching the man inside eat.

"What about Erlai..." Ning Nan asked.

Cui Cui nodded and said, "I also bought one for Er Lai. San Zhuang and Li Xing delivered it to him, so don't worry."

Ning Nan nodded and slowly ate his rice, stuffing his mouth full.

"I brought Mother here and settled her in the mansion. She cried a lot, but thankfully, she's recovered. Uncle Fu, the coachman, and Mother's two maids have also come over... Oh, and Uncle Ping, who drives your carriage, has also returned."

As Ning Nan listened to Cui Cui's rambling, his eyes suddenly stung. He lowered his head to eat, but gripped his chopsticks tightly, and his jaw occasionally clenched as he chewed. With this force, the lines of his profile became even more defined.

He realized that he and Erlai had been framed. He chewed on a mouthful of rice, and after a night of reflection, he figured he should be able to come to this conclusion.

Everything happened so coincidentally last night.

Jiangning County received word that Zhang Darui, the notorious bandit from Yunhu, had led his men ashore and was about to massacre Lijia Village.

Upon hearing this, County Commandant Lin Tao led two constables and thirty constables from Jiangning County, fully armed, to ambush at Yaoshan early in the morning.

They waited until nightfall, but Zhang Darui didn't come. Instead, they heard someone shouting "Murder! Murder!" and running out of the village in a panic.

The county magistrate ordered his men to go down and ask, and the man cried out that the village head of Lijia Village had been killed!

Lin Tao led his men over and saw Li Baoxin lying in a pool of blood, while Er Lai stood in front of the corpse with a bloodstained knife.

Lin Tao sent men to arrest Er Lai. Er Lai confessed without hesitation, saying that he killed Li Baoxin and that he was acting on Lin Tao's orders. He then collapsed and fainted.

That's all the information Ning Nan had learned from Qian Sijin. She picked up a round lion's head meatball and took a bite of the juicy meat.

Based on this alone, the evidence that he and Erlai committed murder is already irrefutable.

It was precisely because this county magistrate was there last night, with so many constables with him, that even with the Embroidered Uniform Guard by his side, there was no room for maneuver.

He was either to surrender or to kill officials and rebel. But if he were to threaten to kill officials and rebel without any preparation, Qian Sijin and his men would probably arrest him first.

I might as well spend some time in jail while the Embroidered Uniform Guard is still around.

Qian Sijin and the others' reaction was beyond his expectations. If he hadn't spoken up yesterday, they would have actually planned to use knives to prevent the Jiangning constables from taking him away... Well, they're all good brothers, so it wasn't a waste of a hundred taels of silver.

He didn't know if it was because he was full, or because Cui Cui's wife came to see him immediately and quietly squatted beside him, but Ning Nan felt that his physical and mental state had become more energetic.

He picked up the bowl of old chicken soup that Cui Cui's wife had brought him, blew on it to dissipate some of the heat, took a sip, and smacked his lips... The chicken soup was fresh, fragrant, mellow, and rich.

He tilted his head back, gulped it down, let out a satisfied burp, wiped his mouth, and smiled at his wife, saying, "It tastes pretty good, huh?"

Cui Cui's wife remained silent and began clearing away the bowls, chopsticks, and plates; her fair wrists were as white as frost.

"Did you bring paper and pen?" Ning Nan asked, then reassured his wife, "Don't worry, your husband still has some influence."

He tilted his chin up.

"Qin Qianhu and Qian Xiaoqi are already investigating this matter. Shangguan Xiu just rushed over and said he would be here soon to get me out of here... I don't know if it will work, but we're still loyal to each other. However, I still plan to write a letter to Grand Tutor Gu. Could you please deliver it to me later?"

He slowly spoke to Cui Cui's wife.

Among the people he knew, Shangguan Xiu and Madam Jia were of the highest status, while Qin Yuanyao's status was relatively lower. However, Qin Yuanyao's title as Commander Qin was actually very useful when dealing with county officials and clerks.

I myself should be able to save my life this time. But it's uncertain whether the two culprits who were framed will survive.

Grand Tutor Gu was a rather special person he knew. If possible, he didn't actually intend to have too much to do with him, given the other's high official position.

These high-ranking officials are all extremely shrewd and calculating. If you accept their help, you might become a pawn to be manipulated at will, losing control of your own destiny.

As things stand, Commander Qin can ensure his and Erlai's safety in prison, Xiuxiu might be able to use her privileges to bring him to the army for resettlement, and the old man Liu and other renowned figures can also put pressure on the county government to demand that the officials handle the matter impartially.

However, if he wants to get to the bottom of things, it seems that the only person who can help him this time is Grand Tutor Gu.

Cui Cui frowned slightly, her eyebrows as pale as distant mountains: "You want to write a letter to the Grand Tutor?"

Her original plan was to visit the young doctor and then issue an imperial decree to replace him with one of her own people as the county magistrate of Jiangning... and preferably replace the county magistrate as well.

Then, the new magistrate and the new county constable will investigate the case together and clear the name of the young doctor and Li Erlai.

She could keep her marriage a secret from many people, but she didn't actually try too hard to hide it; quite a few people in the royal family had heard about it.

Upon hearing that the young doctor had been imprisoned, the first thought was that some members of the royal family, who were still unwilling to give up, had set their sights on the young doctor since their succession to the throne was already a certainty.