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

On the full moon night of Mid-Autumn Festival, the bright moon hangs high.

Although the East Palace is now an abandoned palace with few people, there are still lighted palace lanterns hanging high along the road.

The vermilion palace walls covered with glazed gold tiles stand on both sides of the long corridor, and the night wind blows through the hall, shaking the palace lanterns, and the shadows of the trees cast on the palace walls also cast shadows. .

Shen Lingxi held a palace lantern in his hand, followed the snow ball around the mottled palace wall, and came to the easternmost corner outside the wall.

"Meow."

It turned around in front of a clump of weeds and motioned to Shen Lingxi.

Shen Lingxi came to the front, squatted down, pushed aside the weeds, and saw a dog hole that only one person could crawl through, hidden behind the weeds.

Shen Lingxi: ...

She looked at the dirty dog ​​hole, and then looked down at her current attire.

"Forget it, let's go through the main entrance." Turn around decisively and walk towards the main entrance.

The main gate of the East Palace is unguarded, and the east and west side gates are each fastened with two copper locks.

Shen Lingxi took out a pearl hairpin from her hair, and in the dark fiddled a few times in the lock cylinder of the copper lock on the east side door.

With a "click", the copper lock opened.

"Meow..." Xue Tuan let out a shocked cry.

Shen Lingxi smiled. In the past two years, she has learned a lot of strange skills of burying people's corpses.

She pushed open the side door, hung the lock back, closed the door, and then walked into the courtyard.

The entire palace must have been untended for a long time, and it is covered with tall grass. The night wind blows through the grass, and there is a rustling sound, which makes people feel desolate and lonely.

Shen Lingxi let Xuetuan lead the way, carrying the palace lantern, and followed behind it.

The ice cellar where the body was hidden was very remote. She walked through the vermilion corridor, along the path covered with weeds, and through layers of courtyards. After walking for half an hour, she finally reached the easternmost corner of the entire palace. In front of the small courtyard.

The gate of the courtyard was chained and locked by someone.

A little bit of doubt arose in Shen Lingxi's heart. I passed by so many yards just now, and I didn't see any yards that were locked, but this most remote yard was locked...

She took a palace lantern and took a careful look at the lock, and found that the surrounding area of ​​the keyhole was very smooth, without any trace of rust, and someone should have opened it recently.

Shen Lingxi took off the pearl hairpin, skillfully unlocked it again, and pushed open the courtyard door.

The small courtyard used to be a kitchen. Although the doors and windows are dilapidated, the weeds in the courtyard are much neater than the outside, and it seems that someone has taken care of them.

"Meow, meow." Xue Tuan walked to the door of the main room, and called out to Shen Lingxi twice, motioning her to follow.

There is a row of large stoves inside, and on the ground next to it, there is a locked cellar door.

Another lock.

"How did you get in with such layers of locks?" Shen Lingxi murmured towards Xue Tuan while unlocking.

"Meow." Xue Tuan let out a whimper from his throat, and there was an unspeakable grievance in those mandarin duck eyes.

Shen Lingxi opened the door of the cellar, carried the palace lantern, and walked down the steps of the cellar.

Perhaps it was because of the ice storage, the cellar was dug very deep, and the further you went down, there was a shady chill blowing over your face.

Shen Lingxi is no stranger to this kind of chill, such as the ice cellar in Fu'an Hall.

However, Fu'an Hall is taken care of every day, unlike this cellar, which has been unused all year round, and it has just passed a midsummer, and there is an unspeakable fishy smell faintly.

Shen Lingxi walked into the ice cellar with a lantern, and saw black water tanks neatly lined up in the ice cellar.

There are passages between each water tank.

Xuetuan jumped to the innermost water tank and called out "meow" to Shen Lingxi.

Shen Lingxi took the nearest passage, walked to the water tank, held up the palace lantern to shine a light on it, and saw Xue Tuan's body frozen on the ice surface of the water tank that was one person high.

It lay there relaxed, as if it had accidentally fallen asleep.

No wonder King An, after seeing it, would say that it "accidentally overslept and froze to death inside."

Shen Lingxi frowned, she was most familiar with various forms of death, Xue Tuan's body was surrounded by extremely thick ice, if he broke into this place by mistake, even if the body was condensed with frost, it would not be so thick.

The only explanation is that it must have been soaked in water after death and frozen here on purpose.

But there is only one explanation for the relaxed state of death...

"Did you die from poisoning?" Shen Lingxi looked at it and asked, "And then you were frozen here?"

Xuetuan rolled over, "Meow..." called out to her.

Approved her guess.

Shen Lingxi subconsciously wanted to ask "Who is the murderer", but after thinking about it, even if it knew, how could it say the murderer's name if it didn't understand human language.

Its body was frozen deep in the vat, and she wanted to get it out, but she had no tools.If you do it rashly, you will not be able to embalm, and the corpse will rot soon if you take it out of the ice cellar.

Now that it involves someone deliberately killing Yumao and throwing away the corpse, and in this abandoned small courtyard of the Eastern Palace, everywhere is locked and the corpse is frozen here, which is actually a kind of evidence.

"When I go back to Empress Dowager Bingming, I will properly bury your body." Shen Lingxi discussed with it.

"Meow." Xue Tuan rolled at her.

Shen Lingxi observed carefully again, she knew what she knew, and turned around to leave——
"Meow...meow..."

At this moment, Xuetuan yelled at Shen Lingxi twice again, and jumped to another big vat far away from her.

As Shen Lingxi approached the big vat, a strong bloody smell rushed towards his face.

She covered her mouth and nose, lifted the palace lantern in her hand and looked inside, only to see half a vat of scarlet blood frozen inside.

It's human blood.

The vat contained human blood, but no corpse.

Shen Lingxi frowned, and took advantage of the dim light of the palace lantern to look around the water tank, and suddenly found that there was a mass of things in a corner not far away.

"Meow..." Xue Tuan jumped directly onto the ball and yelled at Shen Lingxi again.

Shen Lingxi approached, knelt down and took a closer look.

It was a blood-stained indigo robe, and beside the robe, there was a green jade hairpin thrown around in a mess.

Shen Lingxi is no stranger to this robe and jade hairpin. When she sewed up Yuzhu's body a few days ago, the spirit of Yuzhu's dead body, which was illuminated by Xizhaoxiang, was wearing this robe and hairpin.

Shen Lingxi's eyes widened in astonishment, and she looked at Xuetuan in disbelief, "Is this the scene where Yuzhu was murdered?"

"Meow."

Xuetuan walked to the corner of Shen Lingxi's skirt, and rubbed it affectionately, indicating that she was right.

Shen Lingxi didn't know what to say.

Unexpectedly, the first scene Mu Huai'an wanted to find was actually here.

Although the East Palace has been abandoned, it is in the imperial city after all.

Some people dare to kill, let blood, and dismember corpses here.

What audacity.

"Let's go and report to the Empress Dowager."

Shen Lingxi knew very well that the matter was of great importance, so she stepped forward and walked out.

Just about to walk up the steps——
"Meow!"

Suddenly, Xue Tuan didn't know what to notice, his back suddenly arched, and he called upward vigilantly.

Shen Lingxi subconsciously blew out the palace lantern in her hand and held her breath.

Hearing a "squeak", someone opened the wooden door at the entrance of the ice cellar and walked down lightly...