A few days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, in the dark night, Li Mansion.

The maid Ah Tao was holding the freshly stewed soup and walking towards the study of Li Zhuo, the eldest prince of the Li Mansion.

Not long ago, Li Zhuo secretly promised her that he would accept her as a concubine after the Mid-Autumn Festival. Ah Tao has been waiting for this day all the time since he was broken by the eldest prince that day.

She thought to herself, as long as she worked hard enough to give birth to a son for the Li Mansion as soon as possible, she could be promoted to be an aunt, so what did it matter if she was a wife or not? Thinking of this, the corners of Ah Tao's mouth quietly raised.

A Tao's family has been poor since childhood, her parents have given birth to five daughters in a row in order to give birth to a son, she ranked fourth, she was sold out when she was very young, and went to several large households, she was thin when she was young, she looked yellow and thin, and she was often either scolded by her mother or bullied by the people around her, she secretly swore at that time that she would rather be a concubine of a large family than a wife of an ordinary family, and she would never let her future children live the same life as her.

Thinking that the man he was going to marry was the son of Master Li, the right servant of Shangshu Province, the corners of Ah Tao's mouth were secretly raised again, and there was a hint of pride in his eyes.

However, Ah Tao can't tell her little sisters yet, because, Childe has explained, this matter should not be publicized.

When Ah Tao stepped into the courtyard of the eldest son, she found that there was no one around, not even the little girl who followed the prince on weekdays, the surrounding silence was terrible, and she faintly smelled a strange smell of spices.

Based on Ah Tao's short sixteen years of life experience, this is absolutely abnormal. She immediately extinguished the lantern in her hand, hid herself in the corner of the courtyard, bowed and quietly walked towards the childe's study, and took out a handkerchief and covered her nose, she crawled out of the mud pile, she has seen too many dirty and dark things in large families, these are the rules of survival.

The road at the foot of Ah Tao is a small road, and both sides of the road are covered with tall plantains, which is very difficult to be found.

There was a dim candle in the study, it looked like there was some scorching shadows, Ah Tao was in a corner outside the window of the study, quietly poked a small hole in the paper window with his hand, and looked inside with one eye, a man in a maroon robe was lying on the desk with his back in the direction of her to write something, she would not admit that this back was the eldest prince Li Zhuo, but the strange thing is that his movements looked very clumsy and difficult, not at all like his usual chic appearance.

Ah Tao suddenly saw a man in a black robe walk out next to Li Zhuo, his hands were all wrapped in black cloth, and he took out something similar to ink clay, Li Zhuo seemed to listen to him very much, and hurriedly covered the ink with his fingers, and after he finished covering it, the man in black robe picked up the paper with some satisfaction and looked at it, at this time Li Zhuo pulled the sleeves of this person with both hands, and his expression looked very painful.

The black-robed man seemed indifferent, and took out a black pill from his sleeve without hurrying, Li Zhuo saw that he hurriedly swallowed the pill into his mouth, and just after swallowing it, he collapsed on the chair, his face turned over, and he kept foaming at the mouth.

Ah Tao was so frightened that her whole body trembled, she covered herself with both hands, not daring to make any sound, for fear of being discovered by this person, in the blink of an eye, the black-robed man quickly disappeared.

Ah Tao looked inside again, and thought that he had seen it wrong, and a long black worm suddenly crawled out of Li Zhuo's nose, and this long worm crawled out with its head tilted up, like an inspection, swaggering.

Ah Tao immediately hid in the grass, thinking to herself, "No, I have to leave quickly, in case the suspicion comes to me, it will be bad." She was crouching almost all of her body, carefully moving towards the outside of the courtyard step by step.

The next day, Ah Tao wanted to pretend to be sick and refused to get up while lying on the bed, but what made her feel strange was that if she couldn't get up if she was lazy on weekdays, Mother Gui would immediately rush in and beat her with a feather duster.

She couldn't hold back her curiosity, crawled out, and walked towards the outside of the courtyard, when she found that all the maids in the Li Mansion were either in a hurry, or hurriedly packing up their things, as if they were about to run away, Ah Tao hurriedly stopped a passing maid, "This brother, what happened, why did everyone become like this?" ”

The little guy seemed to have just arrived, and called him unlucky, saying that the Li family's father and son all committed suicide by poisoning last night, and now the people in the house are busy running for their lives.

Ah Tao said "Weng" in her head, could it be that Master Li was also dead, why did he commit suicide by taking poison, she hurriedly asked, "How do you know that you committed suicide by taking poison, and you may have been poisoned." ”

The little guy was afraid of getting into trouble, so he hurriedly pulled Ah Tao to a corner where there was no one on the side, and said in a low voice, "I heard the big housekeeper say that the suicide note was written on the table when the two of them died, and there was no trace of anyone entering the room. After saying that, he left in a hurry.

If it was an ordinary maid, she must have been scared on the spot, and she ran as far as she could, for fear of having something to do with herself, but Ah Tao was a very unusual girl, she was calculating quickly in her mind, and Li Zhuo died suddenly, which completely disrupted her plan.

Ah Tao is sixteen years old this year, if he goes to a big family to be a maid again, he doesn't say that he will accept it or not, even if he accepts it at most as a maid who does chores, not to mention that his own body has been broken, I am afraid that it will be difficult to promise a good family again, even if he gets back his deed of sale, he has nothing to do, and he will definitely live on a low life forever.

In that case, why not give it a go?

As far as she knows, in a small garden in the Li Mansion, there lives a concubine daughter of Lord Li, named Li Zhu, nicknamed Jiang Er, until now, this Miss Jiang Er must be scared of the six gods, Jiang Er's mother in her early years because of some physical problems when she gave birth to her, and died in a few years, so Jiang Er has been cowardly since she was a child, and almost stayed in her own small yard and refused to come out.

There are many wives and concubines in the Li Mansion, but for some reason, there is only one boy in Li Zhuo, and the others are daughters, the Li father and son died tragically, presumably the backyard has become a mess, someone will definitely take the opportunity to bully her, if she takes the opportunity to stand up for this Jiang Er girl at this time, then she will immediately be a personal big girl, with the identity of this big girl, it will be much more convenient to do a lot of things.

It's not that she suddenly wanted to help this Jiang Er girl, but she has long heard that this Jiang Er girl's uncle is named Wu Shu, who used to be a tattered reader, but now he has become a member of the household department.

Things are as she expected, Miss Jiang Er is simply six gods at the moment, crying and crying alone in the small courtyard, the maid and woman around her ran away, and took away a lot of her jewelry and clothes, and Diao Nu even wanted to pull out the jewelry on Miss Jiang Er's hair, after Ah Tao arrived, she was scolded away by Ah Tao viciously.

Ah Tao not only comforted this Jiang'er girl, but also took her to the eldest son's small kitchen to get a few snacks, this small kitchen is extremely hidden, and most people in the house don't know the location.

When Miss Jiang'er was grateful to Ah Tao for a while, Ah Tao finally hinted that she could go to her uncle, although she hadn't been in touch for many years, but she was also her own uncle, wasn't it?

In the middle of the night, when Ah Tao was taking Miss Jiang Er to secretly rush to the mansion of Wu Shu, a member of the household department, he was walking halfway and was stopped by a group of men dressed in black and wearing ghost masks, these people were Jing Yu and his men.

Originally, Jingyu didn't want to meddle in this matter, the Li father and son were important ministers in the court, so naturally there were people from Dali Temple to try it, and this case was personally responsible for Yang Kai, the secretary of Dali Temple, and they controlled the Li Mansion early in the morning, but due to the lack of manpower, the entire Li Mansion turned on their backs and complained. As a forbidden army, he intervened in it, which was really not suitable.

But thinking of so many cases in Jingshi recently, Jing Yu was still not at ease, and personally stepped on the scene, and found two unusual places, first, although the notes in the suicide note were written by the Li father and son themselves, and the two of them took a common poison in Jingshi, but he still carefully found some mucus in the nose hair of the two of them, which seemed to be the traces of some insects. This method of suicide may be unconvincing.

Second, outside the study of Li Zhuo, the only son of the Li Mansion, he saw a secret path, which left some women's footprints, which happened to drizzle last night, these footprints were very obvious, and the footprints still stayed outside the study window for a while, that is, there are very likely eyewitnesses in this case.

Through a day's secret investigation, he was almost certain that the person who left his footsteps was this maid named Ah Tao.

What he didn't expect was that this maid was very clever, and after knowing that something had happened to the Li Mansion, she immediately went to seek refuge with Jiang Er, a concubine of the Li Mansion, and took her to join the concubine's uncle, Wu Shu, a member of the household department.

Miss Jiang'er was already timid and afraid, but at this time, she saw a group of men wearing masks and swords hanging from their waists surrounding them, and immediately fainted on the spot. ”

Jing Yu secretly brought Jiang Er, the young lady of the Li Mansion, and her maid to Jia Yun's house for trial, and Jia Yun was the only one in this residence, which was quite quiet. If she is brought back to the Jin Palace, this Miss Jiang Er has not yet left the cabinet, and it is inevitable that she will be used by someone with a heart.

During this time, Jing Yu knew that Jiang Bing and Liu Qi were trying their best to find the lair of this "Hades Monarch", and wanted to find out the whereabouts of this person before the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Chen Guming, the abandoned prince of the previous dynasty, was implicated for no reason because of his uncle's embezzlement of silver, and was deposed as the crown prince by the last emperor of the previous dynasty, Chen Shi, and instead supported the son born to a woman from Xirong as the prince. They also sent people to hunt down this Chen Guming.

When Chen was destroyed, it can be said that it was full of internal and external troubles and decay, and it can even be said that it was precisely because of the decline of the Chen dynasty and the failure to choose a good heir that the Great Song Dynasty was able to unify the Central Plains at such a fast speed.

This Chen Guming does not know what means to use, disappeared from the Central Plains, when Chen died, there are still legends that he was martyred, Chen Guming, the prince of the Chen family, was originally gifted and intelligent, and was praised as a prodigy since he was a child, he was open-minded, learned things very quickly, and there are many ideas of governing the country that are also applicable today, so he was rumored to be martyred, and was secretly missed by many people.

Now it seems that this person has been dormant around the Jingshi in recent years, waiting for an opportunity to restore his kingdom.

Jing Yu suddenly sneered in his heart, people who can't recognize the situation are the saddest.

The people below spread the word that Ah Tao, the maid of the Li Mansion, took the initiative to see him, and Jing Yu asked her to take her to a secret pavilion on the Jiayun Mansion, perhaps because she was in Jingshi, not Jianghu, and Jing Yu did not wear a mask today.

Seeing that the man who interrogated her was so handsome, Ah Tao thought to herself, this person is the son of a noble family at a glance, if she can get his favor, then she can't help but have a hint of joy in her heart, even Li Gongzi can be taken down by him, I believe this person is not a problem.

She secretly pulled her clothes down a little, pretending to be weak and pitiful, and when she came up, she wanted to pull the corner of Jingyu's clothes, "Childe saves Ah Tao, Ah Tao doesn't know anything." After saying that, a strand of hair still fell from her head, and a pair of watery eyes attracted her even more pity.

If it had been normal times, Jing Yu would have been angry a long time ago, and he regretted a little that he didn't wear a mask, and the disgust on his face was not hidden.

Seeing Childe's expression, Jia Yun and Jia Bei hurriedly pulled this person away, "If you take another step forward, don't blame me for being polite." Jia Yun said even more sharply.

Thinking that this woman was likely to be the only eyewitness in this case, Jing Yu suppressed the anger in his heart and whispered, "You, are Li Zhuo's maid Tao?" ”

Ah Tao saw that Jing Yu had found out her identity, and replied cryingly, "Ah Tao is just a maid who does chores, she doesn't know anything, Ah Tao took Miss Jiang'er to escape for her life, just to have a place to stay, and the son spares his life." ”

Jing Yu didn't want to talk nonsense with her, "Ah Tao girl, I know that you are clever and quick to react, and you have found a home for yourself at a critical moment, even this is very admired, Ming people don't say secret words, tell me, what did you see outside Li Zhuo's window that night, this son gave you a hundred gold, and sent someone to send you to Wu Mansion, and promised that no one would use this matter to harass you in the future." ”

Jing Yu saw Ah Tao lower his head, his eyes were desperately calculating, Jing Yu continued to speak, "But if you don't say it, or if there is a lie to be said, I guarantee that you will sleep in Dali Temple tonight, there are more than a hundred kinds of torture in Dali Temple, each one is different, you shouldn't want to experience it." ”

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