Chapter 55

The Crown Prince was extremely filial, and even when he went out, he would send letters back to the capital every few days, sent by special personnel.

Qi Zhaodi was happiest when receiving his son's letters, usually driving away all the attendants and reading them happily by himself. After reading them a few times, he would hide them in a secret compartment in his bedroom and treasure them like treasures.

Therefore, even his closest Grand Eunuch didn't know the content of the Crown Prince's letters.

Especially this letter, it was the last letter sent by the Crown Prince before the accident. Just yesterday, when Qi Zhaodi couldn't sleep in the middle of the night, he took the letter out to read again. Reading to the moving part, the old Emperor was in tears.

"How on earth do you know?" His eyes were full of vigilance, and his body subconsciously moved backward.

Lin Qingyue, however, was in a relaxed and natural state, as if she were the monarch who controlled the world, and no one was worth mentioning in front of her.

"If I say it was told by the Crown Prince himself, does Your Majesty believe it?"

"What did you say?" Qi Zhaodi was a bit surprised, "The Crown Prince told you himself? When?"

So, Lin Qingyue simply told Qi Zhaodi how she met Xiao Hua and why Xiao Hua became her cat.

Qi Zhaodi was surprised at first, then happy, and finally moved to tears:

"My son indeed has great fortune, fortunate! Fortunate!" He stood up excitedly, "Bring the Crown Prince back to the palace, I want to personally bring the Crown Prince back to the palace!"

He suddenly stopped his steps again and asked suspiciously: "Since the Crown Prince's soul has returned, why didn't he follow you back to the palace to see me?"

Lin Qingyue said: "Because what returned was only one soul and one spirit. If he is to recover as before, he needs all three souls and all physical bodies."

"And only one soul?"

Now that things had come to this, Qi Zhaodi naturally had nothing to hide anymore, so he told Lin Qingyue truthfully:

"After the Crown Prince encountered the accident that day, fortunately, I had sent secret guards behind him. The secret guards rescued him and sent him back to the capital, but discovered that only one soul remained in his body."

"Therefore, although his physical body could be maintained intact, he was like a living dead person, sleeping all day long. I was afraid of being schemed against by people with ulterior motives, so I didn't make the Crown Prince's true situation public to the outside world."

"In order to find the Crown Prince's lost soul, I successively sent out several batches of people to search, but unfortunately, they searched everywhere to no avail..."

Humans have three souls, which are: Heaven Soul, Earth Soul, and Human Soul.

What returned with the physical body was the Human Soul, what was in Xiao Hua's body was the Earth Soul, and the only thing missing was the Heaven Soul.

The Heaven Soul is the most important of the three souls, representing the innate original soul and also determining the length of life. If the Heaven Soul is lost, even if other souls return to their places, life will not last long.

Lin Qingyue asked: "Did the people sent by Your Majesty have no harvest at all?"

Qi Zhaodi said: "It's not that there was no harvest at all. The Crown Prince last appeared in Chi Xia Jun, Chi Xia is located on the border of Qi Guo, and across the border is the Chiying Land. The Crown Prince's soul is very likely to have gone there, otherwise, it would be impossible to find no trace in the country."

"I have, of course, sent people to sneak into the Chiying Land. But all the people sent, not one returned."

He looked at Lin Qingyue, his eyes containing a bit of hope: "Princess Jin, do you have any way? If you can help me gather the Crown Prince's three souls and make the Crown Prince resurrect, I can promise you anything you want, even if you want to support Prince Jin as Emperor, I can immediately issue an edict to make Dongfang Yan the Crown Prince. After you save the Crown Prince and return, I will abdicate to him."

"I am already old, I don't want the white-haired person to send off the black-haired person!"

That high and mighty Emperor, at this moment, had red eyes, looking like an old father in an ordinary family, worrying about his son's life and death. He was even willing to use the throne as an exchange!

At this moment, the Emperor's feelings were sincere. But if Lin Qingyue took it seriously, then she was the stupid one!

Lin Qingyue smiled indifferently: "Whether Dongfang Yan becomes Emperor or not has nothing to do with me. I just hope Your Majesty can promise me one thing after the matter is done."

After coming out from Qi Zhaodi's side, Lin Qingyue ran into Dongfang Yan, who had just finished the political discussion of the Six Ministries.

Dongfang Yan looked at Lin Qingyue, walked over quickly, and asked: "The Emperor branched me off and left you alone, what did he say?"

Lin Qingyue laughed: "Your Imperial Uncle asked me who is suitable to be the Crown Prince. He also said, if I fancy someone, he will make that person the Crown Prince."

Dongfang Yan's face sank, and he lowered his voice and said: "This is the Imperial Palace, stop talking nonsense! If the censor hears it and impeaches you, this Prince won't protect you!"

Lin Qingyue shrugged and said helplessly: "Look, you insisted on asking, and you don't believe me when I say it."

Seeing her playful and disrespectful appearance, Dongfang Yan guessed that the Emperor wouldn't tell her anything important either.

So he instructed: "This Prince still has to report the government affairs of the Six Ministries to the Emperor. You go back first, those crazy words just now must not be said randomly again!"

Lin Qingyue responded with a smile: "Good."

Being so obedient suddenly, Dongfang Yan couldn't help but frown: Is she scheming something again?

Lin Qingyue didn't go directly back to the Prince's mansion, but went to the Xuanjing Division again.

In the Xuanjing Division, Xie Shouzheng was assigning work to his subordinates:

"Dami, you organize the information collected recently into a report, this official wants to look through them one by one."

"Xiao Qi, the matter of the Treasure Pavilion owner being possessed by a ghost, why hasn't it been handled well yet? The obsession isn't resolved? If it makes trouble again, it's just being unreasonable! Just take a willow branch and whip it!"

"Xiao Liu, didn't you take people to perform a funeral for the Gu family's young lady early this morning? Why are you back so soon—hey, Deputy Envoy Lin, you're here? I heard you went to meet the Emperor, I thought you wouldn't come to the Xuanjing Division today."

Lin Qingyue said: "The Emperor is busy with government affairs, and after playing a few games of chess with me, he went to get busy. Magistrate Xie, I came because I have something to tell you."

Xie Shouzheng said: "You wait, I'll arrange the subordinates' affairs and then talk to you—Xiao Liu, what exactly is the situation with the Gu family, look at how anxious you are, sweating profusely."

Xiao Liu was a man in his twenties, slightly fat, who grew up following his grandmother who was a Taoist woman, and also learned some skills. Later, he was recruited into the Xuanjing Division by Xie Shouzheng to do some funeral, exorcism, and other religious rites.

The Gu family's eldest daughter hanged herself at home, fearing it was inauspicious, so they invited people from the Xuanjing Division in advance to perform some rites today when the funeral was held, to let Miss Gu rest in peace.

Xiao Liu took a few people to the Gu family early in the morning. After the rites were done, the Gu family was about to hold the funeral and bury her, but the coffin wouldn't move no matter what.

Xiao Liu went to ask the spirit, only to hear the sound of crying vaguely coming from the coffin. Opening the coffin to check, he saw blood-stained scratch marks everywhere in the coffin, scaring a group of people.

Xie Shouzheng was also startled after hearing this: "Could it be that the person wasn't dead and was sealed in the coffin?"

Xiao Liu said: "Before the encoffining, the person was already dead. The Gu family said that Miss Gu died by hanging herself from the beam seven days ago. They confirmed that the person had already stopped breathing before encoffining. The coffin had been parked in the mourning hall for seven days, and it was only today, after the parking period expired, that they prepared to bury her. Furthermore, generally, there are people watching at night, if she were really sealed in the coffin, it's impossible that no one would have discovered it."

Xie Shouzheng nodded: "Then there is only one possibility, it's a corpse-jumping disturbance after death."

Xiao Liu said: "This subordinate also thinks so, so I immediately came back to report. Magistrate, what should be done about this?"