Secret House? Secret Affair?

The place where Zheng Fangquan died was rather unique.

Zhao Zhi and Wen Yuansi checked every nook and cranny of the place and found that there wasn’t a single person inside or outside the house. Just one street down was the busy city area, but the house itself was right at the end of the dark street. Very few people would walk into this alley, and nobody would walk in for no reason.

This was a house that was situated in a very convenient location within the bustling city, but was also extremely private at the same time.

Nobody would walk past, so nobody would know anything about the house. There would be no eyewitnesses, it would be hard to find anybody connected to the case, and it would be near impossible to figure out the timeline.

It was going to be hard to crack this case…

Wen Yuansi looked around the house. “The interior is clean and spacious. I believe someone specially built the house here.”

Zhao Zhi walked into the study and saw that while the room was clean, it had a number of things. “It’s a private house, but it had guests for sure.”

It was very obvious whether a house had been lived in or not. The small details would make it clear.

A new house with nobody living in it, regardless of whether it was clean or not, would have simpler furnishings. The longer one lived in a house, the smaller the house seemed. Humans enjoyed buying all sorts of things that they fancied, which might change over time, so the number of things in the house would keep increasing.

This house didn’t have inhabitants who stayed here daily, but someone would be here at least once a month.

His gaze landed on the matching teacups on the table. It was clear that two of them were often used. The brush, inkstones and other accessories also came in a pair. The rest of the things were like this too…

Zhao Zhi raised his eyebrow. “And there were at least two people here.”

Why was this house built?

For secret rendezvous?

Also, the entire house was extremely clean.

There were two things one could glean from this observation.

“Who cleans this place?” Wen Yuansi’s lips curled upward slightly. “If we find this person, we’d have someone to give us a timeline.”

Since it was a secret house, very few people would know about this place. The person tasked with cleaning it would be someone greatly trusted by the owner and would have some clues, no matter how few.

Zhao Zhi narrowed his eyes. “One more thing. There’s a woman.”

Men and women prioritized different things, had different hobbies and habits, and used different things. The rooms were plainly furnished, but there were a few things that were a little too intricate and dainty, so they didn’t look like something a man would have chosen.

The beddings, in particular, had floral patterns and sweet colors. There was effort placed in the selection of these beddings. Usually only women would do such a thing.

So…

This was a place for secret flings?

Zheng Fangquan was having an affair with a woman?

“Brother Zhi! Brother Zhi, look what I found!”

While the two men were silent, Qi Yan came bounding toward them with some papers in his hand as he waved excitedly at them. “Letters! Love letters! It’s a woman’s handwriting!”

Zhao Zhi grabbed the letters from him and started reading them with Wen Yuansi.

The strokes were gentle and connected, while the characters were very pretty and charming, which exuded a womanly resilience and girlishness. This was definitely written by a woman.

As I looked out of the window at the rain, I thought of the day you put a coat around my shoulders, your hands warm, your gaze gentle. I’ve waited so long but you still haven’t come. My heart is wavering and I miss you so. When… will you come?

Images of your robe’s collar keep replaying in my head. I’m not able to come to you, but why won’t you leave me any message?

The passing days and nights are how long I’ve been longing for you. You are a long way off from me – I wonder when you can come back?

When I saw you again after such a long time, it felt like the joy I had when I first met you

………

The letters were all messages of longing and yearning. Some were simply descriptions of her emotions at that time, but some were poems that described how she felt.

“There’s definitely something going on here!” Qi Yan glanced at Zheng Fangquan’s body in the distance. The corners of his eyes turned upward like a sly cat, “This man definitely died because of this fling! He was having an affair with the woman who wrote these letters!”

But… who wrote these letters?

He pointed at the end of one letter. “Is this her name?”

Wen Yuansi’s gaze flickered. “Zhenyu.”

Zhao Zhi scoffed. “Madam Wang.”

They couldn’t recognize the handwriting, but they knew the name Zhenyu. After investigating the case over the past number of days, they had found out that Zhenyu was the nickname she was given as a child.

Most women did not tell others about their childhood nicknames. And if they did, the person they told was definitely someone close to them.

So, Madam Wang was indeed involved with someone!

“If that’s the case, Madam Wang’s the one who built this house?” Qi Yan scratched his head. “Then why did Zheng Fangquan come here? And end up dead here?”

It seemed like they had solved one question, but that only led to more questions.

Zhao Zhi read each letter carefully, then got a subordinate to keep them properly. “We’ll find out after we investigate.”

All houses had a title deed registered with the authorities, no matter who built it and for what purpose.

While the three men were discussing the scene of the crime, Song Caitang was done with her initial examination of the body and came back with some preliminary conclusions.

“Most of the signs are similar to Madam Wang, but some things are different. The victim died last night between 9 and 11pm. He had taken some drugs, then the back of his neck was struck, he was dragged across the floor, his hands and legs bound, then smeared with some filthy substances…”

“The difference is, Zheng Fangquan doesn’t look like he was poisoned at all. It seems more like he had been given drugs that made him dizzy and unable to fight back, but he was still conscious and could struggle to a certain degree. The strike to the back of his head was what killed him, but he did not lose a lot of blood immediately, so it took quite a while for him to die. He suffered quite a bit before dying.”

After she had finished describing the body, she frowned slightly as she pointed to a chair and table at the side. “The killer was very relaxed throughout this murder and seems to have sat here for a while to enjoy the pained look on the victim’s face…”

The tea set did not look like it was touched and the chair was not moved out of place. But there were some tea stains on the table cloth, so that person must have accidentally dropped a bit of tea onto the cloth.

If a person were not seated here and facing the victim, the tea stains would not be in this position.

Qi Yan gasped after hearing these words. “That’s terrifying! If this wasn’t a serial murder and that Madam Wang was still alive, I’d say she’s definitely the killer!”

The problem was, Madam Wang was already dead. They couldn’t question her even if they wanted to!

“The fact that she’s dead is a problem in itself.” Song Caitang furrowed her brows slightly. “Madam Wang was having an affair with someone. Who was that? Who would know about that? Zheng Fangquan was her father-in-law. Why would he come here?”

These were all questions that needed answers.

Qi Yan looked surprised. “How did you know that? Weren’t you busy examining the corpse?”

Song Caitang rolled her eyes at him. “You guys were talking so loudly.”

She wasn’t deaf. Of course she overheard their entire conversation.

Wen Yuansi said, “Madam Wang’s love letters are all about longing and yearning, the paper and ink are not old either, so she must have written them recently…”

Whom she was having an affair with seemed rather obvious now, and it would make perfect sense in this scenario too.

Song Caitang thought the same way too. She glanced at Zhao Zhi. “Perhaps it really was…”

Zhao Zhi shut his eyes. “Zheng Fangquan.”

This was a bold guess and they could be wrong, but one had to consider that given the current circumstances.

Qi Yan clamped a hand over his mouth. He could barely speak. “That… that’s insane! That’s… crazy!”

If there was something going on between a father-in-law and a daughter-in-law, that would make it one of the biggest scandals among the rich and powerful!

But if all of this was true… then the fact that there was a secret house with no long-term residents but with regular visitors, Madam Wang’s love letters and Zheng Fangquan’s visit to the house alone… Everything would make sense.

When Madam Wang was alive, Zheng Fangquan would come here to meet her in secret. Now that Madam Wang was dead, Zheng Fangquan would be worried that this might come to light and affect his reputation, so he would come over to clean the place up.

“But Madam Wang just died and her death is still being investigated, so he would have been extra careful in making his way here.” Song Caitang frowned hard. “How did he still end up getting killed?”

There was obviously a problem here too.

It was pointless trying to answer questions when they had so few clues, so Zhao Zhi waved a hand and said, “Let’s keep looking.”

Since it was a secret house for secret rendezvous, there were definitely other things to look out for. Surely there were more letters than these.

Perhaps there was a hidden compartment in the wall or something.

Zhao Zhi raised it as a possibility, but they ended up really finding one.

The guards gently knocked on every inch of the walls in the house to check and discovered a secret room between the study and the bedroom.

A huge number of letters were found inside. None of them had anything to do with Zheng Fangquan. They were all Madam Wang’s.

Some were written by her, some were not, but they carried her stamp. As the daughter-in-law of the head of the Salt Department, Zheng Fangquan, what had she been doing? She had been receiving bribes, buying and selling licenses, and making decisions about the salt shipping business. She even bribed other officials and managed her own network!

She had a hand in almost everything Zheng Fangquan was in charge of, and she was doing a pretty good job of it too…

Qi Yan was so shocked, he dropped the letter in his hand. “This woman was incredible!”

But Song Caitang noticed something else. “Madam Wang was a woman with no position in government at all. How could she have had such a crucial say in the Salt Department?”

Zhao Zhi shook his head. “That would be impossible.”

Someone must be supporting her and allowing her to do this.

And it was obvious who that person had to be.

Wen Yuansi sighed quietly. “I didn’t expect our guess to be confirmed so quickly.”

They were from the same family, were sleeping together, shared the same secret, trusted and admired each other’s capability. That was definitely a reliable alliance.

But they didn’t know if the two parties started with working together then sleeping together, or the other way round.

“I thought of another question…” Qi Yan quietly raised his hand because he found his question very frightening, “Zheng Fangquan’s wife passed away early and so did Madam Wang’s husband. Was that an accident? Or… that Zheng Kanghui… is he Zheng Fangquan’s grandson? Or son?”

These questions were so scary, he could feel goosebumps all over his skin. He wished he wasn’t able to think at all.

The room fell eerily silent for a long time.

“That’s not an important question right now, I’ll get my men to investigate that. More importantly, the relationship between Zheng Fangquan and Madam Wang was very strong,” Zhao Zhi broke the silence. “Were these two the victims of a serial murder, or was someone taking the chance to wipe them out?”

“A large part of these letters are all about salt.”

The Salt Department was about to give out licenses for the year, so a lot of people were watching the situation closely. Who the licenses were given to and who was hoping to get the licenses were key. People were willing to kill each other when huge money was at stake.

Song Caitang fell into deep thought. “Are the people connected to Madam Wang’s case all related in some way to power and status?”

Wen Yuansi nodded. “Marquess Anyang’s case is obvious. He’s the empress’ older brother, so he dare not take any role with real power, and so wealth becomes something he can hope to accumulate. Being in the salt business could earn him a small fortune, so it’s impossible for him to be uninterested in it. Everything he’s done and said so far has proved that.”

Marquess Anyang had tried to butter up to Zheng Fangquan because he was hoping to get close to him and gain more in this aspect.

“It’s even more obvious for Jiang Shaoyuan. He’s Zheng Fangquan’s subordinate, which makes him an official within the Salt Department and he has some power, so a lot of eyes are on him too. But it seems Zheng Fangquan doesn’t like him and even embarrassed him in front of others.”

It wasn’t hard to imagine how he must feel.

As for Zhao Zhong – he was from Prince Ping’s residence.

Wen Yuansi glanced at Zhao Zhi and didn’t say anything, but everyone knew what he meant

Zhao Zhi had no interest in doing business and had no intention of getting involved in the salt line, but the same could not be said about Consort Ping. To manage the residence, she not only needed energy, but she also needed a lot of money. Enough money to make people listen to her.

But she was a woman, so it was inappropriate for her to do certain things. But Zhao Zhong was loyal to her… Zhao Zhong’s appearance at the Zhengs’ might have been her arrangement. And it would have something to do with salt.

“There’s also Ji Bo.” Others were not familiar with him, but Zhao Zhi was very familiar with him. “He works for Prince Ling.”

The fight between princes to become the emperor was always a big and nasty one in every palace. This palace was no exception.

The crown prince of Da’an had been chosen very early on, so he received an emperor’s education and had power in the royal court. But Prince Ling was also a royal prince, except that he was a little younger than the crown prince, so he was no worse off and he had the aptitude for it too. But as he grew older, a strange rumor started spreading in the royal harem that said he wasn’t born to one of the concubines but to the empress herself. But because the empress wanted to give way to the crown prince and keep her son safe, she registered him under one of the concubines instead. All these years, she had carefully kept her distance and was afraid to show him too much concern.

Regardless of where these rumors had come from, whether they were falsely started by others, or whether anyone would believe them, Prince Ling believed it. He had been making trouble for the crown prince over the past few years and even after he was punished, he was always forgiven after that. Of course he was going to fight for the salt business.

Ji Bo was a subordinate of his that he could use to his advantage.

In the end, everything was about the salt.

The case seemed harder and harder to solve. They simply didn’t have enough clues to do anything.

Zhao Zhi let out a low hum. “We’ll just continue according to procedure. There is a lot of information to process, some lacks detail but looks suspicious, so I’ll need to chew on it later. We’ll have to bring Zheng Fangquan’s body back for a proper autopsy and we also have to find out who owns this house… There’s a lot to do, let’s all work hard together.”

The work was split and everyone got busy.

The owner of the house was found quite quickly. It belonged to one of Zheng Fangquan’s most trusted and loyal servants. It was obvious that the house was not built by Madam Wang but by Zheng Fangquan.

Zhao Zhi quickly summoned the servant to question him. The servant said that Zheng Fangquan got him to go down to the house every two days at around noontime to clean the house, and make sure nobody knew about it. The servant only knew if Zheng Fangquan had gone to the house over the past two days based on what he could see when he cleaned the place, but he had no idea what his master did there and who he was with. Zheng Fangquan never told him either.

The existence of this house was also a secret, so the servant was most probably the only person in the family who knew about it.