Chapter 47: Ye Jingchuan Discovers the Secret Room Has Been Robbed

After being summoned away by someone from the Court of Judicial Review that afternoon, Qi Yanzhou stayed in the palace until the gates were locked for the night.

He turned the entire Xishou Palace upside down, interrogated all the palace staff, but the more he investigated, the stranger things got.

Neither the imperial guards nor the palace’s elite fighters had found any trace of an intruder.

They dug up every inch of Xishou Palace, but found no secret passage.

From the time the palace staff fainted to when Eunuch De returned, there had only been a quarter of an hour.

It was as if everything in the palace had just vanished into thin air.

Qi Yanzhou’s head was pounding from all the dead ends. After leaving the palace, he returned to the Court of Judicial Review to continue thinking things through.

Later, he heard that the Prefect of Jingzhao had taken on a case that was eerily similar to the Xishou Palace robbery.

He immediately went to Jingzhao Prefecture to get more details.

That’s when he learned that a few days ago, Ye Chutang’s Ningchu Courtyard had also been completely ransacked within the time it took to burn two sticks of incense.

And just like before—no clues, everything gone as if into thin air.

Qi Yanzhou decided to wait outside the Minister’s residence and check it out himself at daybreak.

Instead, he ran into Ye Chutang sneaking out over the wall.

Ye Chutang was dressed as a man and had covered her face with a black scarf. Qi Yanzhou didn’t recognize her at all.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Ye Chutang knew she couldn’t beat Qi Yanzhou, so she snapped, “None of your damn business!”

She deepened her voice as she said it, then flipped back over the wall and tunneled underground back into the residence.

Qi Yanzhou immediately gave chase.

He landed just moments after the thief but ended up losing them.

Though the granary was large, it was completely empty, with nowhere for anyone to hide.

That man had disappeared just like the things in Xishou Palace!

At that moment, the granary guards, hearing the commotion, came rushing over with torches.

“Who are you? What are you doing at Li’s Granary?”

The leader had barely spoken when he saw that the entire store of grain was gone.

He pointed a torch at Qi Yanzhou and shouted, “Grab him! Turn him in to the authorities!”

Qi Yanzhou looked at the approaching group and said, “I am Prince Chen, Qi Yanzhou.”

With that, he pulled out a jet-black token that signified his identity.

The group took one look at the character “Chen” and the python embroidery on the token and instantly dropped to their knees.

“Greetings, Your Highness Prince Chen!”

“Rise.”

Qi Yanzhou asked, “You were guarding this place—was there grain in the granary?”

“Your Highness, when I made rounds this afternoon, the granary was full. Now it’s completely empty. Did Your Highness see anything?”

“I saw a man in black flip out of the granary. Just as I was about to catch him, he jumped back in. Then he was gone. Go call all the guards assigned to this granary.”

The leader, understanding what Qi Yanzhou was getting at, hurried to gather the men.

Soon, all the dozen or so guards came over.

Qi Yanzhou compared each of their builds with the figure he had seen. None matched.

“None of them. Report it to the authorities.”

With that, he vaulted over the wall and left.

---

After Ye Chutang returned to Ningchu Courtyard, she took off her disguise and changed out of her men’s clothes.

Exhausted and sleepy, she collapsed onto the bed and instantly fell asleep.

At the break of dawn the next morning—

Housekeeper Chen sent a maid to report that Prince Chen had arrived and wanted to investigate the theft at Ningchu Courtyard.

Ye Chutang, still groggy and annoyed, didn’t want to get up.

Dan’er coaxed her for quite a while before she finally got up to wash and dress.

“Young Miss, His Highness Prince Chen is very capable. Maybe he really can find what was stolen.”

Ye Chutang yawned and thought to herself: Even if he were all-powerful, there’s no way he’d find anything.

“Yes, let’s hope so.” Once she was ready, Ye Jingchuan personally led Qi Yanzhou to Ningchu Courtyard.

Today, the emperor was returning from Qingyun Temple, and all military officials were expected to greet him at the city gate around 9 a.m.

Eunuch De had already announced that morning court would be canceled for the day.

Ye Chutang bowed to Qi Yanzhou. “Greetings, Your Highness.”

“You may rise.”

Qi Yanzhou noticed the dark circles under her eyes. “Miss Ye, did you not sleep well last night?”

Ye Chutang nodded wearily.

“There was too much on my mind yesterday. I was restless, kept waking up, and even had nightmares.”

Just as she finished speaking, Jin Zhi burst out barefoot, hair a mess.

“Miss, come inside and go to sleep!”

Seeing Jin Zhi in her underclothes, acting crazed, Ye Jingchuan shouted at Dan’er, “Get this madwoman out of here before she offends the prince!”

He had once worried Jin Zhi was only faking madness, but now it seemed real.

Dan’er had just responded when Ye Chutang gently took Jin Zhi’s hand and coaxed, “Jinzhi, let’s go rest, be good.”

“Okay, Zhi Zhi will be good.”

Qi Yanzhou wasn’t interested in the Ye family’s domestic drama. He got straight to the point and asked about the theft at Ningchu Courtyard.

Ignoring Ye Jingchuan’s warning glance, Ye Chutang revealed how Kong Ru had drugged her with muscle-weakening powder, which had made her leave home in a rage.

“Your Highness, I wasn’t here at the time. I only found out about the theft when I returned the next day. At first, I thought my father had staged a break-in to steal from me.”

Ye Jingchuan’s face stiffened. “Chuer, stop talking nonsense!”

Ye Chutang continued, “Later I thought, while my father is stingy, he wouldn’t stoop so low as to rob his own family. So I came up with another theory.”

Qi Yanzhou asked with interest, “What theory?”

“My mother couldn’t stand seeing me bullied anymore, so she took everything from Ningchu Courtyard as a warning. Otherwise, how could an entire courtyard’s worth of stuff disappear within two incense sticks’ time?”

“Miss Ye, that’s unlikely. If it really were your mother, she should’ve taken things from Minister Ye’s study instead.”

Ye Chutang cast a meaningful glance at Ye Jingchuan.

“Well, that’s true too.”

“May I inspect this courtyard?”

“Please, Your Highness, go ahead.”

As Qi Yanzhou began his thorough inspection of the courtyard, Ye Jingchuan sat on pins and needles.

Some things are said without intention, but heard with meaning.

Now he deeply regretted not checking the secret room when he had gone to the study a few days earlier.

“Your Highness, I have official matters to attend to.”

“Go ahead, Lord Ye. I’ll leave on my own after I’m done here.”

Ye Chutang sat by the stone table in the courtyard, yawning nonstop.

“Dan’er, go to the kitchen and ask for some food. Just say Prince Chen will be having breakfast in Ningchu Courtyard. You’re still injured, so don’t do it yourself—just send a cleaning maid.”

“Yes, Young Miss.”

While Dan’er headed to the kitchen, Ye Jingchuan hurried to the study.

He went straight to the secret room.

As he descended the steps, he noticed that the familiar green glow from the night-luminescent pearl was gone.

A sense of dread rose in his heart.

So much so that he missed a step—and nearly got killed by an arrow trap shooting out from the wall.

In a panic, he dodged and ended up tumbling down the stairs, which inadvertently saved his life as he rolled into the secret room.

In the darkness, he fumbled for a long while before finally finding the oil lamp and lighting it.

Looking at the now empty secret room, he rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

“I must be too tired. My eyes are playing tricks.”

Muttering to reassure himself, he blinked hard and looked again.

Still empty.

He lit every oil lamp in the room, but the place was completely bare.

The gold, silver, jewels—gone. The secret letters—gone. Even the grain and weapons—gone.

And with that, the terrifying possibility that his support for the Crown Prince and Second Prince had been exposed struck him—and he fainted on the spot from sheer fear.