All the ancestors in the capital begged me to be a substitute

Shen Huacheng kept his voice extremely low, polite and polite, and showed a hint of concern.

Shen Lingxi knew that he meant well and nodded with a smile, "Thank you for the reminder, brother."

After saying that, she wanted to turn around and leave——

"Your Majesty, stay here." Shen Huacheng suddenly said, "I have something to ask your Majesty..."

A flash of surprise flashed in Shen Lingxi's eyes.

She glanced at Xiaodouzi and Ning Fu who were following her.

The two took a few steps back.

Shen Huacheng was silent for a few moments, then Fang whispered: "My mother once said before she left that even if my father had not had an affair with Zhang Cuiniang, there would still be someone else. She hated her father... Later, my mother found out that her father had been replaced by A Yao and died. After becoming her sister, Zhang Cuiniang begged her mother to recognize A-Yao, even if she sacrificed her life in exchange. Since her mother agreed to her, it was equivalent to recognizing A-Yao as her daughter..."

He said "dead sister" to her instead of "you", which made Shen Lingxi's almond-shaped eyes slightly twitch, "brother means..."

Shen Huacheng: "My mother died of illness when A Yao was five years old. A Yao can be regarded as taking the place of my sister-in-law and living under my mother's knees for five years. I would like to ask my mother in the future, for the sake of my grandmother and my mother, if A Yao does She did something wrong. If you can, please spare her life. She is not bad-hearted, but she has trusted her aunt and father too much over the years and has been raised crookedly."

If Shen Lingxi had doubts before, hearing him say the word "sister-in-law" this time, and then thinking about his previous attitude towards her, she felt a little enlightened.

"So, brother has always known that I am not your biological sister?" Shen Lingxi asked with a smile.

Shen Huacheng did not deny, "Mojiang has been naughty since he was a child. When his mother gave birth to a younger sister, Mojiang took his two younger brothers and played in the audience. He happened to see them secretly changing people. It was also Mojiang who watched them throw away the dead baby. Mass graves.”

He paused and said, "My sister was buried by the three of us with our own hands. There is no chance that she will survive."

This made Shen Lingxi even more interesting.

"In that case, why didn't you expose me in the first place? Why did you let me dispose of my grandmother's and your father's private property?"

Shen Huacheng stood up straight and said seriously, "Because you did what you should do for our three brothers and our dead sister. My grandmother entrusted everything to you, and we should also follow my grandmother's last wish."

"I don't know what Shen Yuyao did, so I can't guarantee you that she will be spared." Shen Ling said pointedly.

"It is her good fortune to have a chance of survival. I would like to thank the Crown Princess in advance." Shen Hua bowed sincerely and thanked her.

Shen Lingxi turned sideways to avoid his salute, and kindly reminded: "It is a troubled time in the palace. Since my brothers have received the mission of the imperial army, they need to be careful in everything."

Shen Huacheng responded in a low voice, "Prince Princess, please be more careful."

Shen Lingxi looked at him tacitly, then turned and left.

After walking out of Shen Huacheng's sight, Shen Lingxi stopped and looked sideways at Xiaodouzi, "Go to Concubine Yue and ask her to do me a favor."

Xiaodouzi stepped forward lightly, heard Shen Lingxi cover her lips and whisper a few times, then took the order and left.

*
When Shen Lingxi stepped into the gate of the East Palace, it was almost noon, when the weather was hottest.

As soon as I took a look, I saw Chu Yan, tall and tall, waiting in the corridor with a cold expression.

Seeing her coming back, Chu Yan strode up to her and looked at her from head to toe, his phoenix eyes finally relaxed a little.

"how?"

He held Shen Lingxi's hand and walked beside her with his tall body, deliberately covering her from the scorching sun above her head.

As Shen Lingxi walked, she told him everything in the palace one by one.

After walking back to the main hall, she took out the purse Shen Yuyao gave her.

"I embroidered this purse with my own hands. I asked Qiao Xing to give it to Shen Yuyao the night before she got married. This time she gave it back to me." Chu Yan looked at the lotus embroidered with gold thread on it. Flowers, phoenix eyes slightly raised.

"Twins, did you want to use brotherhood to remind her not to go astray?"

Shen Lingxi nodded, "Since it was the queen who granted the marriage, Shen Ji dared to ask Shen Yuyao to marry him as a substitute. He must have been sure that even if the queen and the Shen family knew about the substitute marriage, they would turn a blind eye and admit it. It can be seen that the Mu family is so stubborn Even if Mu Huaian asks for a marriage, it is not a good match."

"If Shen Yuyao thought about the love between brothers and refused to marry, I would find another solution and would not let her jump into the fire pit. In the end, she still chose to marry."

"Later, I met her from a distance at the Mid-Autumn Festival banquet. She seemed to be quite resentful of me."

Having said this, Shen Lingxi lowered her eyes, rubbed the smoothed corners of her purse, and said thoughtfully, "I just didn't expect that she still kept this purse."

Chu Yan was used to seeing such people. He took the purse from Shen Lingxi.

The heavy feeling in his hand made him raise his eyes slightly, opened the purse directly, and poured the contents into the palm of his hand.

It is a Pisces jade pendant tied with a red rope.

Shen Lingxi picked up the jade pendant in surprise and looked at it carefully.

It was the piece that Mu Huai'an asked her to bring to the Queen when she left Yunjiang.

"The Queen has already accepted this thing, so how could it be in Shen Yuyao's hands?" Shen Lingxi murmured strangely: "Why would she secretly give this thing to me?"

Chu Yan was also looking at the jade pendant.

Suddenly, he seemed to notice something, his eyes darkened slightly.

"Why she gave you this jade pendant, I don't know." His slender fingers pointed at the red rope hanging behind the jade pendant, "I can only see that there is something wrong with the rope."

"Rope?" Shen Lingxi gave him a confused look. Seeing the look of disgust in his eyes, Fang picked up the rope and took a closer look, then put it to the tip of his nose and sniffed it, and his expression changed instantly.

The red color of the rope is not paint, but human blood!

Shen Lingxi picked up the jade pendant, walked quickly outside the palace, and looked at the jade carefully in the sunshine.

At a glance, I found that there was a faint hint of pink in the carved lines on the jade.

There is no doubt that not only is there blood on the rope, but also this piece of jade has probably been soaked in human blood.

It seems that things are getting more and more interesting.

*
Shen Lingxi knew that Shen Yuyao would not give her the Pisces jade pendant for no reason.

No matter what her purpose was, finding out where the human blood on the jade pendant rope came from was the only thing she could do at the moment.

The embroidered clothes envoy investigated very quickly. In less than half a day, he found out the origin of this jade pendant.

"This jade pendant was given to General Mu as a Zhou Zhou gift by the old Duke Cheng'en when General Mu was one year old. It is of great significance to the Queen and General Mu."

"I heard from the maid serving beside Shen Yuyao before she entered the palace that this jade pendant was given to Mu Huaijie by the Queen Mother more than four months ago after she asked Aunt Liu to take it out of the palace."

"Mu Huaijie always wore that jade pendant when he was alive. It was very precious. Once when he was having fun in a flower shop, a blind thief took the jade pendant away. When he found it, he beat him half to death. . Not long after, the thief died."

"The wife of the thief was also a shrewd woman. She hired someone to carry the thief's body and went to the door of Mu's house to ask for money. She also threatened to sue the officials and sue Mu Huaijie for taking someone's life."

"Although the Mu family has been demoted to common people, the Queen's face is still there. If this matter breaks out, the Queen's face will be shameful. The Mu family originally planned to spend money to eliminate the disaster, but who would have expected that that night, Mu Huai Jie suddenly died suddenly, and the wife who stole the son was so frightened that she didn't even want the body and ran away overnight..."

Speaking of this, the embroiderer who came to report had a strange look on his face, "It's very strange to say that at that time, many people in the flower shop died of hemorrhage. It was spread throughout the capital, right? The current epidemic... the Imperial Hospital also sent people to take a look, but nothing could be found. But fortunately, no one died again, and the blood disease incident was put aside..." (End of this chapter)