The Prime Minister’s Darling - Chapter 1426

Chapter 1426: 694 National Master Returns (Two Parts)_2 Chapter 1426: 694 National Master Returns (Two Parts)_2 Xiao Hen had made a special effort to take Little Jingkong to this place, indicating that he must have an important task to handle.

Gu Jiao’s guess was not wrong, Xiao Hen indeed had matters to attend to.

Gu Chengfeng was also there.

Xiao Hen first took Little Jingkong to Gu Jiao’s side, leaving him in the care of Mistress Nangong and Master Lu, before heading to Tianxiang Pavilion and then returning to the inner city with Gu Chengfeng.

Gu Jiao actually hadn’t told anyone about her plan to assassinate someone in the Imperial Palace, but Xiao Hen was able to guess it.

The two people in this world who understood Gu Jiao the best were one, Gu Yan, and the other, Xiao Hen.

The moment Nangong Li left the city to find Gu Jiao, the two of them had already started monitoring him.

Gu Chengfeng followed his carriage all the way, while Xiao Hen first took Little Jingkong to Mistress Nangong and Master Lu’s place.

After leaving Tianqiong Academy, Nangong Li headed straight for the Imperial Palace.

Gu Chengfeng and Xiao Hen did not dare to follow too closely, fortunately, Nangong Li, in order not to be discovered, did not dare to stop his carriage too close to the Imperial Palace.

Nangong Li contacted a eunuch in the palace, and secretly entered the Imperial Palace hidden in a box used for transporting food ingredients.

Nangong Li’s trusted guard stayed in the carriage waiting.

The news of Nangong Li’s death did not spread so quickly, and it was not until evening that his trusted guard heard from passersby that General Nangong had been killed in the palace.

Others might not know the details, but how could his trusted guard not know?

Nangong Li had gone to kill that student from Tianqiong Academy. If something had happened to Nangong Li, it must have been the student who had caused his death!

The trusted guard hurriedly drove the carriage, intending to report the news to the Nangong Family.

It wasn’t safe to take action on the Avenue.

Spreading out the map of the inner city, Xiao Hen said to Gu Chengfeng, “Go east.”

As Gu Chengfeng drove the carriage, he said, “Don’t you make a mistake!”

Xiao Hen replied, “There won’t be one.”

They went east through an alleyway and happened to run head-on into the trusted guard’s carriage. The trusted guard seemed to sense that he was being watched and turned to another alleyway to pass through.

Xiao Hen looked in the direction of the alleyway and said, “Turn around, go to Nanyu Street.”

Finally, at the corner of Nanyu Street, they cornered the trusted guard.

After dealing with him, no one else would know why Nangong Li entered the palace that day.

…

The death of Nangong Li caused a great uproar in Shengdu, with three major doubts arising from the incident: first, why was Nangong Li present in the Imperial Palace? His name was not on the palace entry logs at the Palace Gate, which meant that he entered the palace surreptitiously.

The servants of the Nangong Family said he had left the residence with a guard named Liu Dong.

The Judicial Department immediately dispatched people to search for this guard named Liu Dong, only to find him dead on the streets.

He had been assassinated with a Hidden Weapon that struck his vital spot, killing him instantly.

The murderer clearly possessed strong anti-investigation capabilities, leaving no trace at the scene, and no eyewitnesses were found nearby.

The case just made a breakthrough when it hit a standstill.

The second major doubt involved the three eunuchs who died at the crime scene.

Two of these men were from the Imperial Kitchen, and the other was from the Central Harmony Hall. Privately, these three had no intersection, and they did not appear close in public either, leaving it a mystery how they all ended up at that location together.

Beside them were sacks and ropes, looking as if they were going to catch something.

Moreover, after the coroner conducted the autopsy, it was deduced that they had been killed by the shockwave of Nangong Li’s internal energy.

“Why can’t it be the killer’s internal energy?” in the morgue, the minister of Dali Temple asked the coroner.

The Minister of the Judicial Department was also present, and was quite curious about the coroner’s conclusion.

The coroner said, “I also conducted an autopsy on General Nangong. General Nangong did not suffer from internal injuries. I dare to speculate that the killer did not have internal energy.”

The minister of Dali Temple furrowed his brows and said, “Without internal energy, yet able to kill the illustrious General Nangong with just a branch, Old Sun, do you realize what you are saying? Couldn’t you have made a mistake in your examination?”

The coroner replied with neither servility nor arrogance, “I’ve been conducting autopsies for decades, and I can’t claim I’ve never made a mistake. If the minister does not believe me, another coroner can be summoned to examine General Nangong.”

The minister of Dali Temple naturally did so.

The result confirmed Old Sun’s findings.

“If the killer didn’t use internal energy to kill General Nangong, then there would be even less need to use it on the three eunuchs.” Based on this reasoning, the coroner deduced that the internal energy that killed the three came from Nangong Li himself.

So, the third major doubt emerged–who was capable of killing Nangong Li with such ease, without internal energy or by completely concealing its use?

The minister of Dali Temple, Yang Chang, and the Minister of the Judicial Department, Dong Wei, investigated for a full day and night with no results.

Minister Yang Chang said, “Clearly, Liu Dong was the best breakthrough point. If we could have gotten him to tell us what Nangong Li was doing in the palace, the truth of the case would have easily unraveled.”