Chapter 737: A wild imagination, and it hit the mark

"Warden Chen, are the hundreds of us in the Nanshan Marquis's mansion doomed this time?"

The Nanshan Marquis looked ashen. He no longer cared about status or decorum, squatting directly on the ground. He didn't care if the floor was too cold or if squatting like this would make him sick.

"It's possible!" Chen Guanlou had never known how to comfort people.

Hearing this, the Nanshan Marquis was beyond tears. "If His Majesty truly wants to vent his anger and have hundreds of us in our mansion buried with him, I won't accept it!"

"I understand!" Chen Guanlou nodded, showing a bit of sympathy.

The Nanshan Marquis didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Warden Chen, you really don't know how to comfort people."

Chen Guanlou raised an eyebrow slightly. "Do you need comfort? What you need right now is a clear head. Whatever you do, don't hold onto any wishful thinking. Regardless, I believe the palace definitely won't issue an edict to kill your whole family before the New Year. If they really want to kill you, they'll wait until after the first lunar month, after the second day of the second lunar month. So, your whole family can live for at least another month. Cherish this time well; it might be the last time you spend in this world. As for your ancestral graves, I'll have the brothers from the Six Shanmen Sect go over and take a look. The silver will be deducted from the confiscated assets."

"If my ancestral graves have truly been looted, what then?" the Nanshan Marquis asked urgently. This seemed to be his last straw, and he had to grasp it tightly, never letting go.

He didn't even realize himself that at this moment, he completely believed in Chen Guanlou's wild speculations. As the saying goes, make bold assumptions and verify them carefully.

Chen Guanlou pondered for a moment. "If they really were looted, are the journals, lewd poems, and songs written by your ancestors still preserved? If you have them, hand them all over. Including your family genealogy, hand it all over; perhaps you can fight for a glimmer of hope."

"Just a glimmer of hope?"

"Having a glimmer of hope is already not bad. Don't dream of too much. Your Xuanzu ancestor lived over a hundred years ago; nowadays, you can't even find anyone familiar to ask. What do you call this? This is 'a clever housewife cannot cook without rice'!"

Chen Guanlou snorted coldly; he wouldn't indulge the other party.

"Is it certain that something went wrong with my Xuanzu ancestor, Mao Gong?"

"I already said, wait until I send someone to your ancestral graves to take a look, and then we'll know. If you remember any other details, notify the prison guard to call me, and I guarantee I'll put your matter at the very top of the list. If you don't remember, just spend the New Year peacefully in the Heavenly Prison. With so many imprisoned officials accompanying you, you won't be lonely. When the weather is nice, I'll have the prison guard take you out for some air and sunshine. Alright, that's it."

"Warden Chen's great kindness, this old man will never forget!"

The Nanshan Marquis suddenly stood up, bowed deeply, and performed a grand salute.

Chen Guanlou accepted it calmly.

"Just for this salute, I will urge people to clarify the situation of your ancestral graves as soon as possible. Don't be too anxious; there might be a turn for the better. Until the very end, never despair!"

The Nanshan Marquis nodded heavily. "As long as His Majesty isn't truly venting his anger, I imagine my family still has hope."

Chen Guanlou:...

Oh no!

He forgot to remind the Nanshan Marquis that he was a famous jinx, whose good predictions never came true, but bad ones always did.

It's over!

It is highly likely that Emperor Taixing issued the edict to arrest the Nanshan Marquis's family precisely to vent his anger. He hated that the Nanshan Marquis's ancestors had hidden the secret, making the imperial family search for it year after year. He hated that the Nanshan Marquis's ancestors had deceived everyone, leaving generation after generation of emperors to die in despair.

A normal person who discovered a long-sought clue would surely be overjoyed; how could they vent anger?

But an emperor is not a normal person; emperors are all perverts. Don't try to guess a pervert's mind; you'll never guess it right!

Chen Guanlou seized the time to run to the Ministry of Justice and coordinate with Sun Daoning.

"Are we really going to send people to check the Nanshan Marquis's ancestral graves?"

"I suspect the problem lies in his ancestral graves. Especially the tomb of that Xuanzu ancestor, Mao Gong; it's very worth checking. If the Nanshan Marquis's mansion really has clues, it must have an inseparable connection with this Xuanzu ancestor, Mao Gong."

Sun Daoning pondered for a while. "Sending people to check isn't impossible. But if His Majesty is really as you guessed, just venting anger, will we have trouble afterward if we check like this? If we accidentally stumble upon the truth and His Majesty gets angry out of shame..."

"What kind of person is His Majesty? He is a person who cares most about face. If we really stumble upon the truth, he will be angry out of shame, but not at you, but at..."

"At whom?"

"Naturally, the Embroidered Uniform Guard next door. If the tomb of that Xuanzu ancestor, Mao Gong, was really looted, this matter is eight or nine out of ten, definitely related to the Embroidered Uniform Guard. The Embroidered Uniform Guard didn't handle things securely and left traces; hehe, the unlucky ones will definitely be them, it won't be the Ministry of Justice's turn."

Sun Daoning was not as optimistic as the other party. "I hope it's as you say, and it won't be the Ministry of Justice's turn to take the blame. No time to lose; arrange for people to leave the capital today and head south immediately to seek the truth. This matter must be done in secret."

"Let's use the excuse of taking leave to visit relatives and handling cases along the way." Chen Guanlou suggested.

Sun Daoning shook his head. "The other way around; it must be the excuse of heading south to handle cases and visiting relatives along the way. It just so happens that a case in the prefecture next to the Nanshan Marquis's ancestral graves has been submitted to the Ministry of Justice; it's a ready-made reason."

Hehe!

The two looked at each other and smiled, quite in sync.

As for the remaining matters, it was not Chen Guanlou's place to worry; he could enjoy the New Year in peace.

This New Year had been too busy and too tiring, with every day feeling like rushing from one appointment to another, eating at one host's home after another. If not for his high tolerance for alcohol, he would surely have been drunk to death this New Year.

In the blink of an eye, the seventh day of the first lunar month had passed.

The Six Shanmen agents who had gone south to investigate the case had sent a messenger back.

The ancestral grave of the Nanshan Marquis Prefecture indeed showed signs of having been excavated and looted. They had ventured down into the tomb chamber of the Progenitor Mao Gong to take a look; it had been almost completely hollowed out, leaving only some broken pottery jars and scattered copper coins. Anything that had a written record on it was gone.

Fine!

Chen Guanlou's bold conjecture and careful verification had been validated once again.

His wild imagination had been spot on.

He said it had been looted, and indeed it had been looted.

Sun Daojing was speechless, "How did you manage to guess it right?"

"What do you mean guess! This is a deduction based on reason and evidence; it's the power of the brain, a brainstorm. It's about eliminating all impossibilities, and even if the remaining one seems incredible, it is highly likely to be the truth. Although life is often without rhyme or reason, lacking cause and effect, when a matter that has been pursued for hundreds of years suddenly has new developments, logically, there must be new clues. Following this line of thought, it just so happens to involve the Nanshan Marquis Prefecture. We all know that this generation's Nanshan Marquis has no real ability and no secrets. Therefore, the problem must lie with his ancestors."

Chen Guanlou was extremely smug.

He hadn't expected that his bold assumptions, inspired by the suspense novels and various suspense dramas he had watched in his previous life, would actually turn out to be true.

People these days really have no creativity in how they do things!

However, this could also be considered reaching the same goal by different paths.

Because he had been searching for grave robbers, digging up graves to find clues.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard, however, had long since walked ahead of him, having no idea how many ancient tombs they had already pried open.

Sigh, one step too late; I'm afraid I won't even get to drink the soup.