Bi Xinqing, who took the carriage when he went out, where did he walk such a long way, while wiping the sweat off his forehead, he gasped, and impatiently asked Lao Qi, the man in black who led the way in front, how long will it take to arrive?

Lao Qi, the man in black, who suddenly stopped, stood in front of a stinky ditch overgrown with artemisia grass, and pouted forward.

"It's right there. ”

Aside from the imperial history of the person in front of him, Cheng Kang Chongqing, walked quickly to the side of the black-clothed man Lao Qi, and looked in the direction of his eyes, only to see a stinky ditch floating with moss in front of him, exuding a pungent and unpleasant smell, he couldn't help frowning, waved his hand behind him, and ordered the official to go down to search.

One by one, the officials pinched their noses and jumped into the stinky ditch and began to dig with shovels.

The slippery and foul-smelling sludge was shoveled around, and the strong smell suddenly spread out in a visible form, even in the weather of "Beginning of Winter", the hot stuff drilled into people's noses, with strong malice, constantly hitting everyone's noses and stomachs, making people want to vomit.

The officials who were red from the tip of their noses sweated like rain, and after digging in the stinky ditch for a long time, they found no trace of the nineteenth prince, and they couldn't help but suspect that they had been tricked.

The envoy of the Taiwan Academy didn't believe what the man in black said, he walked up to the man in black, glared at him, and asked him where the nineteenth prince was?

The hoarse voice of the black-clothed man Lao Qi made the authority a little patient, the body of the nineteenth prince was abandoned here by them, and it should be found soon.

With a cold snort, the authority flicked his sleeves and warned the man in black that if Lao Qi dared to play with them, he would definitely make his life worse than death.

Standing not far away, Ruicao, quietly watched the busy figures of the officials in the stinky ditch, and asked Mu Yirong if he thought the nineteenth prince was really dead?

After the disappearance of the Nineteenth Prince, there has been no news of him, Mu Yirong once guessed that he had been killed, but at this time he was reluctant to believe that the Nineteenth Prince was no longer there.

Mu Yirong, who had been thinking about it for a long time, finally shook his head and said that he didn't know.

"I don't really believe he's dead. ”

As a result, before Seocho's words fell, a shout suddenly sounded from the stinky ditch: "Found it." ”

A corpse was hooked out of the stinky water body and laid flat on the artemisia grass, and Mu Yirong and Seocho hurriedly stepped forward to check it.

The corpses excavated in the stinking ditch have shown obvious decomposition, and it is impossible to distinguish the appearance by appearance, but it can be basically concluded that it is male, and the appearance may be quite good before death.

The clothes on the corpse were so filthy that the color and fabric could not be distinguished, and they had to be washed before they could be judged.

The corpse wears a pair of black platform boots on its feet, which are ordinary and not delicate and ornate.

Other than that, the only distinguishable feature of the corpse is that the loose hair is dark black.

In the imperial history, Cheng Kang Chongqing glanced at the corpse on the ground, turned his head and asked the black-clothed man Lao Qi: "This is the nineteenth prince?"

The man in black nodded: "That's right, this is the Nineteenth Prince." ”

Bi Xinqing, who still had hope the size of a grain of rice in his heart, was really desperate this time, his legs were weak, his body staggered, and he almost fell, but fortunately he was supported by the authority of the Taiwan Yuan Envoy standing beside him.

At the beginning, when the Holy Divine Order Imperial Observatory investigated the case of the disappearance of the Nineteenth Prince, they all had a glimmer of hope, hoping that the Nineteenth Prince was really just missing.

However, reality has dealt them a heavy blow, shattering all their illusions and hopes.

The nineteenth prince is really dead, I don't know how many people there are, and they want to be buried together!

Mu Yirong, whose eyes were firmly fixed on the corpse, said that although he couldn't distinguish the specific appearance of the corpse, the clothes on his body did not look like the clothes of the Nineteenth Prince.

Hearing Mu Yirong's questioning, the black-clothed man Lao Qidao with a calm expression had no intention of killing the Nineteenth Prince at first, so they stripped the Nineteenth Prince of his clothes and boots, put them on the body of the little chopsticks who were serving him, and threw them under the stage to set them on fire, pretending to be the Nineteenth Prince.

The man in black Lao Qi said this reasonably, when he first realized that the Nineteenth Prince was missing, Mu Yirong and Ruicao had discussed in the prison that the person who robbed the Nineteenth Prince did not want to kill him.

Otherwise, when those people were using the smoke device on the stage, they directly added some poisonous powder or some combustion-supporting powder to it, which would make it easier for the Nineteenth Prince to die directly on the stage.

And the fact that he chose to take the risk of being discovered and laboriously snatched the Nineteenth Prince from the stage proves that the person who robbed the Nineteenth Prince did not want his life in the first place.

Chengkang Chongqing, who frowned at the imperial history, saw that Mu Yirong and Ruicao did not have any more questions, so he waved his hand and ordered someone to transport the body back to the Yamen of the Prison Division, and asked Uncle Qiu of Jingzhao Mansion and Lao Li of Dali Temple to come together for an autopsy.

The rest of the people continued to dig in the stinking ditch to see what else they could find.

Hearing that they would continue to soak in the stinky ditch, the officials of the prison department each had a bitter gourd face, and reluctantly jumped into the stinky ditch again to continue rummaging.

Soon, someone dug up a very delicate and clear jade hair crown in the stinky ditch, as well as a folding fan with a famous inscription.

When these two things were placed on the ground, some people who were still skeptical were completely dead.

The delicately carved jade hair tiara is made of exquisite and precious materials, and comes from the hands of the craftsmen in the palace, which is the hair crown that the nineteenth prince used to tie his hair every day.

The folding fan that depicts the masterpiece of the landscape, although the bamboo bones of the fan that were originally coiled very round have been completely destroyed, it can still be discerned, this is the iconic equipment that the 19th Prince often holds in his hand when he goes out regardless of autumn and winter.

For a long time after these two things were salvaged, the officials of the prison department were still struggling in the stinky ditch, and then scattered in the stinky ditch that became more and more stinky, fished out some small pendants, all of which were the ornaments that the nineteenth prince would often pin to his waist, including the peiyu that fell on both sides of the waist, as well as the Nanmu seal, the inlaid beaded sachet, the hollow smoked ball, the auspicious beast and the gold waist hanging, one after another, all of which were listed on the ground.

Seeing these things, even Mu Yirong, who had always felt that the Nineteenth Prince was not dead, had to admit that the corpse salvaged from the stinky ditch might indeed be the Nineteenth Prince.

Lao Qi, the man in black, who did not have any expression change on his face, told Mu Yirong without guilt or fear that they really did not want to kill the Nineteenth Prince, and thought that after putting the body of the little chopsticks under the stage and burning it, they would transport the Nineteenth Prince out of Shangjing and send him to a secret and safe place, so that the Nineteenth Prince could not return to Shangjing, and he could continue to live a life of being served by someone and worry-free about food and clothing.

It's just that they never expected that the man in black who stayed at the scene of the fire to watch the wind heard the conversation between Mu Yirong and Ruicao, and knew that the two didn't believe that the person under the stage was the Nineteenth Prince, and they were worried that the matter would be exposed, so they immediately notified the other accomplices.

The sixth man in black and the seventh man in black decided to kill the nineteenth prince to get rid of the troubles after agreeing with the adults they served.

In the imperial history, Cheng Kang Chongqing didn't want to listen to what the man in black said anymore, so he asked the officials to escort the man in black back to the prison department, and temporarily detained him to wait for the results of the autopsy.

After the beginning of winter, the sun has almost lost its warming effect.

The group braved the cold wind, like soulless walking corpses, accompanied by a lingering stench, and returned to the prison division in despair.

The autopsy of Uncle Zuoqiu and Lao Li went quite smoothly, and a preliminary autopsy report has been obtained, and the deceased is a middle-aged man, about five and a half feet tall. On the left shoulder of the corpse, there was an old scar.

During the autopsy, the two of them found something very strange, that is, the food in the stomach of the corpse was not a little rotten.

I don't know if it's because of the special environment of the stinky ditch, or because of some special reason, Uncle Qiu found incompletely digested shrimp and sea cucumbers in the stomach pouch of the corpse.

These foods are not edible by ordinary people, and it can be preliminarily inferred that this corpse is either rich or expensive.

However, this point may also be deliberately faked!

If someone wants to borrow someone else's corpse to pretend to be the Nineteenth Prince, before killing him, he can also feed him some precious ingredients, so that when he is dissected, this can be used as specific evidence to succeed in the scheme.

If this hypothetical conjecture is true, it is really chilling and terrifying for a person whose mind can be calculated to such a point!

Mu Yirong, who was staring at the scar on the corpse's shoulder, remembered that after the Nineteenth Prince killed the demon Taoist who made fake pills and poisoned the current holy dragon body, he went to Jiangnan to travel and became attached to Zhang Xiaoxiao, a famous prostitute in Jiangnan at that time.

At that time, Zhang Xiaoxiao was being targeted by Xu Liang, a very famous flower thief in the rivers and lakes.

The flower thief Xu Liang was born in the mountains, full of guts, only the emperor was far away, and the nineteen princes who left the capital were dragons who jumped into diving, and they couldn't make any splashes, and they didn't put the nineteen princes in their eyes at all, and they still planned their own flower-picking actions as usual.

The Nineteenth Prince did not have the ability to kill the cow with one punch, but the four guards he carried with him were powerful, and Xu Liang, the flower thief who misestimated the strength of the Nineteenth Prince, was beaten away, but the Nineteenth Prince was hung up because of this, and his shoulder was slashed by a short knife, and he almost lost an arm.

Later, after returning to Shangjing, the Nineteenth Prince showed Mu Yirong the scar on his shoulder, showing off his heroic deeds over and over again.

The scars on the corpse's shoulders had become less noticeable because the corpse had swelled and decayed slightly. But it can still be distinguished, and it almost matches the old scar on the shoulder of the Nineteenth Prince.

The scar on the corpse's shoulder, after the firmness of Uncle Qiu and Lao Li, was not a new injury recently.

Seocho also conducted a re-examination and determined that it was an old injury, not a new one!

Judging from the age and height of the corpse, as well as some vaguely identifiable physical features, plus the salvaged hair crowns, pendants and other objects, it can almost be concluded that this corpse is the nineteenth prince who has been missing for more than half a month.

But Mu Yirong, who was skeptical, still asked the man in black, Lao Qi, to do a full set of acts, when they pretended to be the nineteenth prince, why didn't they replace the hair crown with the small chopsticks, didn't they worry that someone would find out that something was wrong from these small mistakes and omissions on the corpse?

The man in black, Lao Qidao, was pressed for time at the time, and these things would not survive under the fire, so he didn't care.

This answer is quite reasonable, Mu Yirong wanted to ask something, but he didn't know what to ask, and finally just stared at the corpse of the nineteenth prince and fell silent.

It seems that he has already believed that the corpse in front of him is the Nineteenth Prince!