In the middle of the night, the maid and the little eunuch in the weeping eagle are almost asleep, the evening breeze is slow, the reddish leaves fall into the pool, almost all the trees here are 100 years old, almost every tree has traces left by the emperors of the past dynasties, some are clumsy bark paintings, some are one or two children's poems, there is no lack of childlike fun, with the passage of time, the new skin covers the old skin, can only occasionally find some vague tree marks, the earliest can be traced back to the last two generations of emperors, Chu Xianzhao tried to avoid the fallen leaves under his feet, walked to the edge of the pool, there is a big pool at the door of the weeping eagle, almost occupies two-thirds of the courtyard, the green bamboo pipe on the side of the rockery is covered with a little water dropletsAfter the water droplets gather together, they will pour like a pool, startling the koi fish to scatter, Chu Xianzhao leaned against the tree, feeling the wind in the yard, which seemed to be able to bring his soul to the air, and this peaceful world was divided into two halves

Chu Xianzhao has been a difficult person to sleep since he was a child, when he was a child, the palace maid told him a story by the bedside, hoping that the master could lie on the bed and take a nap quietly, even if the story was told from the Great Qin Shi Huang to the rise of the Yin Kingdom, Chu Xianzhao still had purple eyes, and watched the palace maid sister fall asleep on the side of the bed by herself, so he was happy, put on his robe and quietly walked to the yard to see the koi, and waited for the palace maid sister who had fallen asleep to hurriedly carry him back to the bed from the yard, now looking back, it seems to be the most interesting thing in his life。

Now that he is sixteen years old, there will be no palace maid sister to tell him stories, sometimes he will miss that palace maid sister very much, but he finds that he doesn't even know her name, in fact, there are only a few important people in his life, father, aunt, eldest brother, sister, young slave sister, pomegranate and bamboo, those maids, ten fingers and fingers can be counted, but what if one of them is missing? Will it be like a broken finger injury, ten fingers connected to the heart.

"Lord Chen, please come to see me so late, it is a lot of offense to summon me in an instant. Chu Xianzhao turned to look at Chen Baoen, the man was scraping the sludge off the soles of his shoes with a dead branch, and bent down to salute Chu Xianzhao: "Your Royal Highness, don't be polite, forgive me for being late." ”

In fact, Chen Baoen came very early, and just saw that he was looking at the pool seriously, so he waited quietly on the side, anyway, the night was long, and he was not in a hurry.

"Master Chen, I read the letter you sent......

Chen Baoen hesitated for a moment: "Your Highness, the murderer's whereabouts are strange, he dares to directly enter the palace to assassinate His Majesty the Emperor, there must be a very strong backstage behind him, and the people who do this are extremely careful, they will not be easily followed and can hide their identities, and most of them act with money, there is no political position, and the palace is full of military attaches and guards, they can so easily disguise themselves as sword guards to enter the palace, I dare to say that there must be ghosts in the palace!"

"Inner ghost, Master Chen, do you know what you're talking about?" Chu Xianzhao's face became more and more dark.

"The husband's words are like nails in the wood, and there is no joke!"

"Your Royal Highness, just say anything, swear in the name of my Chen family ancestor, and I will never leak half a sentence!" Chen Baoen said categorically.

"The guy I asked you to investigate...... Is the intelligence information reliable?" he looked at Chen Baoen without saying a word.

"I've been collecting intelligence all my life in our business, the woman you asked me to investigate appeared in a brothel called Baiyueju outside Lin'an City eight years ago, she also has a stage name called Luobei, unlike those Fengyue places in the city, this brothel is dedicated to serving those coolies, plus the price is low, it is very popular with them, she used to be listed for sale by the bustard there on the first night, but because she is too young, and her reputation is not good, so no man has been willing to buy her. ”

"Then why did she show up in the Warm Building?"

"According to my information, she has been bullied in Baiyue Curie, men look down on her, people in brothels also bully her, most of the rough work is done by her, from laundry and mopping the floor, to helping women wash their feet and cut their nails, and she lives as well as a dog, until a man appears. ”

"Oh?"

"I didn't pay attention to the man's specific name, plus he was dead, it was not worth exploring, I only knew that he was a loose official in the city, mainly in charge of some things like disputes between the neighbors, the official was not big, and he was already in his early forties, so he thought about buying himself a wife, but it was so easy to buy a clean girl. The really clean girls in the Qinglou in Lin'an City are often not cheap, and the Qinglou holds extravagant activities such as flower appreciation from time to time, and it is sold to a sky-high price, and he can't look down on those cheap women in Baiyue Curie, and he is in addition to the bustard, so he bought her at a low price, a middle-aged man bought a young prostitute, this kind of thing is not very special, but on the night he brought her home, the house was bizarrely on fire, and the man was burned alive in his room, three months later, the warm building recruited a group of new prostitutes, including her...... One of these things is not difficult to guess, maybe Luobei didn't want to marry that man and set fire to his house, or maybe it was an ordinary fire incident Luobei escaped and sold himself to Qingnuanlou, so many years have passed, plus she was just a child back then, and there is no point in pursuing it now. Chen Baoen shook his head,

Chu Xianzhao felt a chill in his heart, those magnificent purple eyes seemed to flicker in the dark, he turned his back to Chen Baoen, no one knew what he was thinking.

Chen Baoen sat on the stone steps of the courtyard with a horizontal knife, looking at the back of His Royal Highness the Third Prince and yawned, he didn't know why Chu Xianzhao suddenly became interested in a Qinglou Qinji, and actually used the Rose Division to investigate this woman's background, but he had served as a guard in the palace for many years, and he knew that if he wanted to live a stable life in the Dayin Palace, it was not what you did, but what you didn't do.

"Now the situation in the city is different from the past, and the murders are one after another, please be careful with His Royal Highness. He added.

"Murders?Have there been a lot of murders in the city recently?" Chu Xuanzhao turned around and looked straight at him.

"Hmm......" Chen Baoen was frightened by the sudden widening of purple pupils, as if he had been stung by a scorpion lurking in the shadows, making him hairy.

"Two days ago, the imperial envoy Lord Zhang married his daughter-in-law, but that night he died in his thatched house, with a sword wound in the neck, apparently attacked by assassins. Chen Baoen didn't know whether she should tell him about it or not, but under the gaze of those eyes, she couldn't help but say it.

Chu instantly summoned Zhengse and said, "Where is Lord Zhang's body now?"

"In the autopsy room of the yamen, I was watched by the servant, and he was not yet buried. ”

"Take me to see the corpse! now!" he commanded, suddenly pulling a rose jade plaque from his bosom.

Chen Baoen looked at His Royal Highness the Third Prince, who suddenly became serious, and suddenly wanted to beat himself with a big mouth, it seemed that he couldn't stop tonight.

......

......

Chu Xianzhao squinted his eyes, examining the corpse covered with white linen, a pungent stench rushed straight to his nose, Chen Baoen stood aside and covered his nose and looked helplessly at His Royal Highness the Third Prince, Chu Zhaozhao stepped up with an arrow and uncovered the linen cloth on the corpse's face, revealing an extremely pale old face, his eye sockets were deeply sunken, and the bridge of his nose that was originally erect had collapsed into a ball, and it was almost difficult to identify his true face.

Chu Xianzhao is not the first time to see the dead, the weight of human life, difficult to live and easy to kill, when he was a child, whenever there was a criminal who committed a heinous crime or the corruption of officials in the court, the father would always lead himself and his eldest brother to see the prisoner for execution, the execution place is often in front of the Lotus Square in the city, on weekdays, this square that can accommodate hundreds of thousands of people has specially set up a seat to watch the execution, at this time the father will replace the face of the father, put on the emperor's mask, sit on the high platform above 10,000 people and look at the prisoner in the air, in most cases, the prisoner will be very silent before the execution and wait for the executioner's axe to fall on his head, of course, there are some people will scold all the ancestors of the Emperor Yin, but Emperor Yin was still silent, his gaze had already passed through the body of the prisoner, which was the gaze of a dead man.

Even now, whenever the giant axe falls, his eyes can't help but look away, even for a moment, he can't be as calm as his father and eldest brother, the first time he saw the execution, he sat on the high platform and fainted, and then hugged his sister and cried for a long time, he didn't understand why people were so happy at the moment when the head rolled off, isn't death a thing to be afraid of?

He forced himself to calm down, he gently removed the white gauze scarf on the corpse's neck, revealing a fierce sword wound, the edge was gray and black, like a mark of being burned by fire, he used his fingertips to slightly open the flesh inside, the flesh cut was smooth, the assassin killed Master Zhang with only one sword, a foul smell hit the neck, Chu Xianzhao was almost vomited, he tried not to be so ugly.

Chen Baoen explained: "The wound is caused by a soft sword, bending it like a hook, longitudinal and sonorous, straight as a string, the soft sword is not suitable for cutting and stabbing, but it can be cut, it can easily cut the throat artery to kill, the lethality is extremely strong, it is generally a weapon used by assassins, the soft sword is not suitable for practicing martial arts, cultivating temperament or dancing sword is OK." ”

"That's what my lord said. The servant on the side bent down and nodded, revealing a thin face, and he rubbed his hands and walked in front of Chu Xuanzhao. I've been doing it for more than ten years, and I haven't seen any kind of wound, but if you want to cut into the carotid artery with a sword, you can't do it by brute force, the assassin's technique is skillful, and he wants to be familiar with the neck structure of a person like a cow, and he instantly bleeds to make the other party incapacitated, you see that the wound is neat and smooth, and the blade of the sword turns a slight arc when it is not in the neck, and the vocal cords are also cut off, so that he can't call for help, and the blade used by the assassin is extremely thin, and the wound is not rolled, if it is an ordinary soft sword, it can't do this. ”

Chu Xianzhao nodded, he continued to check the corpse, feeling that he was approaching the truth step by step, he gently uncovered the white linen cloth under the corpse, kept examining it, and said with a sneer: "Isn't the son afraid?"

"Someone told me that I was afraid to be brave, what's so terrible about a mere corpse, aren't you used to it" Chu Xianzhao's gaze wandered over him, trying to find any clues related to her.

"Hehe, there are not many brave young people like Childe in the city, you know that it is very hard to inspect the corpse, almost all of our business is taught by our fathers, my grandfather is a man, my father is also a man, they examine the body in great detail, from hair to nails, never let go of any details, a corpse always has to be searched over and over again, looking for suspicious places. For those corpses that have decomposed, there are also ways to verify them, and even determine what kind of poison was in the middle of the original according to the color of the root of the tooth. He chattered, as if pleased to have two guests with him during the long night.

"Ahem, Your Highness, it's been three shifts now, and the clues have been almost checked, if there is any new progress in the follow-up, I will report to Your Highness in time." Chen Baoen gave him a look, and he stopped his mouth.

Chu Xianzhao squatted on the right hand side of the corpse, and in those extremely dry hands, he suddenly found a small strand of hair wrapped around his tail finger, he gently removed the strand of black silk, and kept looking at it, his face expressionless.

"Your Highness, have you found anything?" Chen Baoen noticed his strangeness.

"It's nothing, don't tell my sister about tonight, don't let anyone know that I've been here, Mr. Zuo, let's dispose of the body as soon as possible, there is no value to search for." His voice was filled with a chill that made people palpitate, and Chen Baoen knelt down on one knee and said, "Yes, Your Highness!"

He walked out with his hands behind his back, hid his hair between his fingers, and when he left the autopsy's room, he put a silver dollar on the corpse table, and with a smile on his face, he tucked it into his sleeve, and turned his back to them to start the princess again, as if nothing had happened.

Chen Baoen followed him out of the autopsy room, and the corpse on the desk seemed to glow with a glimmer of light in its slightly open eyes, and then it was covered with a white linen cloth, and no one knew.