The Plum Garden was located on the east side of Qilin Pond, separated by a small path. Evergreen trees were planted along the path, making the scenery pleasant. However, the area near the water was inevitably windy, chilling one’s cheeks.
As Wen Ze began to speak, Yin Zheng was still pondering the probability of her marrying the Prince in her previous life solely for her appearance. Hearing Wen Ze’s voice addressing her, she turned to look, meeting Wen Ze’s handsome profile.

Yin Zheng was accustomed to looking at people when speaking to them, as she knew it was a sign of respect. Even if she didn’t truly care, it would still give the person she was talking to the illusion of being valued.

But seeing that Wen Ze wasn’t looking at her, Yin Zheng also withdrew her gaze. The two of them were clearly close, yet they seemed like strangers who happened to be traveling the same path, separated by an invisible barrier.

“What does Your Highness mean by this?” Yin Zheng wasn’t sure how much Wen Ze knew, so she simply feigned ignorance.

A faint smile hung on the corner of Wen Ze’s lips, which not only didn’t make him seem kind but instead added a touch of coldness. “You don’t need to pretend to know nothing in front of me. I’ve heard that there are also people in the Yin Residence who have contracted the ‘strange illness.’ You should understand what that strange illness is all about, and you should have realized that your plan has already been exposed. The person who knows that you were the one who planned the bombing of Sitian Tower will eventually appear.”

Yin Zheng listened calmly, deducing that Wen Ze himself wasn’t a reborn person. The reason he knew that she was the mastermind behind the bombing of Sitian Tower was likely because someone close to him had been reborn, and that person didn’t know much, otherwise Wen Ze wouldn’t have come to ask her this question.

Yin Zheng felt a bit of regret.

From Guo Jie’s understanding of her and the Prince, it could be seen that although these reborn people had memories from their previous lives, they weren’t the parties involved, so what they saw wasn’t comprehensive and was tainted with their own interpretations.

But at the same time, Yin Zheng was also grateful that the Prince, like her, didn’t fully understand what had happened in their previous life, and didn’t intend to treat her differently because of what others said about the “previous life,” which gave Yin Zheng, who had been suffocating for a long time, a bit of relief.

However, what needed to be done still had to be done. Yin Zheng never understood what it meant to show mercy—

The Jin Bu, which made a colliding sound with every movement, suddenly fell silent. Wen Ze stopped and turned to the side, seeing Yin Zheng stopping, lowering her head to look at the ground, her hands tightly gripping her skirt, so forcefully that her knuckles turned white,

as if she was trying her best to endure something.

The servants and maids trailing behind them also stopped, maintaining a certain distance from them.

“I just wanted revenge.” The suppressed voice came from the girl’s mouth, devoid of any intense emotion, heavy like a stone falling to the ground.

Wen Ze wasn’t surprised. After all, the various causes and effects in the world were mostly the same, it just depended on who had a more tortuous path.

The cold wind howled, and Yin Zheng’s body trembled slightly. Regardless of whether Wen Ze wanted to investigate, she spoke on her own, “The National Preceptor once said that Daqing would have a ‘Hu’ disaster. His casual words terrified all the ‘Hu’ people in Yongdu, and even my birth mother had no choice but to commit suicide after giving birth to me, just to preserve my life. He harmed people with his words like that, he deserved to die long ago!”

It was as if she finally couldn’t bear the surging hatred, and tears fell.

But Wen Ze seemed to lack empathy. He withdrew his gaze and looked at the surface of the Qilin Pond in the distance, wrinkled by the wind, and asked her another question: “Do you know that the National Preceptor is making medicine for my imperial father? If he dies, my imperial father will be in danger.”

Yin Zheng blankly raised her head, her eyes red-rimmed, like a rabbit that had bumped into a tree.

Wen Ze didn’t hide his indifference. His beautiful eyes turned from the Qilin Pond in front of him to Yin Zheng at his side, the corners of his eyes slightly raised: “What you have done is the crime of regicide, punishable by the extermination of nine generations of your family.”

Yin Zheng’s eyes widened, and she unconsciously took a few steps forward, grabbing Wen Ze’s sleeve and shaking her head as she argued for herself: “I didn’t think that much!”

Wen Ze pulled his sleeve out of Yin Zheng’s hand: “Oh?”

“What I said is true! I only wanted to kill the National Preceptor for revenge, I didn’t want to commit regicide!” To prove herself, Yin Zheng took out a Jin Nang embroidered with a lotus pattern from her sleeve, and then poured out a circular piece of jade from the Jin Nang, handing it to Wen Ze: “Didn’t you arrest my people? This is the jade pendant I use to contact my subordinates. Use this to ask them, they will definitely tell the truth, and you will know that I am not lying.”

Wen Ze lowered his eyes and looked at the jade pendant. After a while, he reached out and took it.

Yin Zheng felt as if she had been granted amnesty, as if she was certain that as long as she gave the jade pendant to Wen Ze, she would definitely be able to escape the charge of regicide.

Wen Ze didn’t put the jade pendant away, he only held it with the side of his index finger and thumb, and said to Yin Zheng: “Go back, use your brain and make my mother give up the idea of marrying you to me.”

Yin Zheng bowed her head and said in a trembling voice, filled with lingering fear: “Yes.”

……

Yin Zheng wiped away her tears and returned to the Plum Garden. The high walls of the Plum Garden blocked the wind blowing from the Qilin Pond, making

Yin Zheng feel much more comfortable—she had almost been frozen to death just now.

“A Zheng… did you cry?” Back at the Empress’s side, the Empress, as expected, noticed Yin Zheng’s red eyes.

Yin Zheng smiled, her eyebrows and eyes soft, without a trace of grievance: “The wind outside was too strong, I got sand in my eyes.”

The Empress wouldn’t believe that. She only felt that her son had bullied Yin Zheng, and she felt extremely sorry for her. She quickly pulled Yin Zheng to her side to comfort her, and even scolded her son in front of Yin Zheng.

Yin Zheng listened to a few words, and then persuaded the Empress to stop being angry. She also actively changed the topic, making the Empress feel even more that Yin Zheng was considerate.

On the other side, Wen Ze had already reached the East Palace, but for some unknown reason, he suddenly wanted to go to the Court of Revision.

Jia Yuan, who had been sent out to run errands and had just returned, quickly followed. Hearing a buzzing sound in his ear, he waved the duster in his hand and mentioned the Plum Garden to Wen Ze in a roundabout way: “It seems that the plum blossoms in the Plum Garden are blooming well, even attracting bees.”

Wen Ze recalled that the flowers were indeed blooming nicely, so he told Jia Yuan that he didn’t need to follow him, and instead should go to the Plum Garden and transplant a plum tree to the side of his bedroom window.

Ordinary people who loved flowers would pick a good branch and put it in a vase, but when it came to the Prince, he directly changed it to transplanting an entire flowering tree.

However, Jia Yuan didn’t feel that there was anything inappropriate. He only heard Wen Ze mention plum blossoms, without mentioning Miss Yin Er at all, so he knew that the Empress’s plan had failed.

Before Jia Yuan left, Wen Ze also asked him a question: “Did the National Preceptor ever mention the ‘Hu’ disaster?”

Jia Yuan thought for a moment and replied: “In reply to Your Highness, this servant’s godfather once told this servant that about seventeen years ago, the National Preceptor had predicted the ‘Hu’ disaster.'”

Wen Ze got the answer and sent Jia Yuan away to plant the tree.

Wen Ze went to the Court of Revision and casually threw the jade pendant to the people there, telling them to use the jade pendant to interrogate the prisoners that Pu Qianjun had brought back from Sitian Tower earlier.

As a result, the prisoner was still the same as before, not saying a word, not explaining things clearly as Yin Zheng had promised.

Wen Ze frowned, feeling that the direction of things was a bit strange.

He left the Court of Revision with his men and rode his horse back to the palace. On the way, he happened to meet his younger sister, Eldest Princess Rui Jia, who had run off to Dan Nan before the New Year and had only returned to Yongdu today.

Rui Jia and Wen Ze were born to the same mother, the Empress. On the surface, she seemed like a flower on a high mountain that was impossible to reach, but in reality, those who truly understood her knew that she was a Princess who was very easily confused and extremely timid. The reason why she was misunderstood to be cold and aloof was because her eyesight wasn’t good, and she easily couldn’t see clearly from a slightly further distance, thus often giving people the impression that she was “looking down on everyone.”

The siblings greeted each other and returned to the palace together.

At the palace gate, Rui Jia got out of the carriage and chased after Wen Ze, asking him about the Yin family’s second daughter, saying that the Empress had written her several letters and she was about to die of curiosity.

Wen Ze also happened to be looking for Yin Zheng, and was too lazy to waste words, so he had Rui Jia go to the Plum Garden with him.

However, before the two of them had left the palace gate, someone from the Court of Revision chased after them: “Your Highness the Crown Prince!”

That person didn’t dare to ride his horse wildly in Yongdu City, so he had rushed over all the way. After dismounting, he ran straight towards Wen Ze.

The palace gate guards stopped the person, and Wen Ze recognized that the person was the Court of Revision official he had seen earlier. Remembering that he had given the jade pendant to the other party earlier and hadn’t taken it back, he thought that the other party had come to return the jade pendant.

He didn’t expect the other party to be flustered and say the following: “Those two prisoners are dead!”

……

The Court of Revision’s prison was no different from ordinary prisons. They were all dimly lit, with humid and musty air. Coupled with the ghost-like prisoners in the cells, it looked like a living hell.

Since entering, Rui Jia didn’t know how many times she had been startled, which annoyed Wen Ze, so he directly told her to leave: “Go back.”

“I won’t.” Rui Jia persevered, leaning towards Pu Qianjun, who had come to the side, trying to absorb some of the righteous aura from the martial man to give herself a sense of security.

Seeing this, the Court of Revision clerk following behind them only felt that Eldest Princess Rui Jia wasn’t as unattainable as the rumors said. Instead, she was a bit like his little daughter, clearly timid but especially fond of reading strange tales. She would scare herself so much that she would scream wildly, but she would stubbornly refuse to put down the book in her hand.

The Court of Revision Minister leading the way to the left of Wen Ze recounted everything that had happened: “After Your Highness left, the prison guard locked the prison cell door. Not long after, the two prisoners began to shout. When the prison guard unlocked the door and entered, the two prisoners were already unable to speak. Then, in less than a quarter of an hour, they died.”

Wen Ze asked expressionlessly: “What did they shout?”

The Court of Revision Minister paused, looked back at the shivering Rui Jia, and then at Wen Ze, who didn’t care at all that his younger sister was about to be scared to death, and said: “In reply to Your Highness, what they shouted at the time was: ‘Don’t come over.'”

Rui Jia was so frightened that she let out a loud burp, with an echo.