The End (2)

Empress Chen gnashed her teeth as she glared at Song Caitang. “And whose fault is it that I thought it was Nanny Sun?!”

She was implying that Song Caitang had misled her into thinking so.

Song Caitang smiled faintly. “So, when was the last time you saw this supposed child of yours? Does he know how much you’ve done for him? Did Zhou Tongxing report these things to you?”

Empress Chen had never dared to ask Zhou Tongxing this question.

Even when Wen Yuansi had dragged Zhou Tongxing before her earlier, she had just vented her anger a little, but did not really say anything about this. That was because deep inside, she truly believed that while Zhou Tongxing might occasionally not listen to her, or not carry out all her instructions, or that he might think of trying to use this situation to his advantage, he would never harm her.

Because they were in the same boat!

He was the one taking care of her son, so once her son became emperor, his caregiver would definitely stand to benefit!

But now, after Song Caitang asked her all these questions she had no answers to again and again, she couldn’t help but become a little more doubtful.

Could it be…

She turned to Zhou Tongxing, her eyes slightly red and her voice trembling, “Where…where is he?”

But Zhou Tongxing seemed determined to deny everything today. He glared back at her and said, “Where is your son? Don’t you think it’s not very appropriate to ask an administrative official such a question?”

“If he won’t answer you, I will.” Song Caitang looked calmly at Empress Chen. “Actually, if you think about it from your own perspective, you will understand.”

Empress Chen frowned.

Song Caitang explained, “Clearly, it’s better for your own child to be emperor than someone else’s child, right? No matter how much effort you put into taking care of this child, the child is not yours and might not become close or feel close to you. But that’s not the same with a child you have given birth to. Empress Chen, that’s how you looked at this situation, right?”

Empress Chen’s expression changed dramatically.

She did think this way…so, Zhou Tongxing thought the same way too?

Qi Yan interjected, “I’m sure you know that Mr. Zhou has a son himself, and he was born just two months after what happened on Beiqing Mountain, so that makes him the same age as your child…”

It was easy to tell which child was a newborn and which child was already two months old, but who would be able to tell the difference once the children reached one or two years old?

Many children looked completely different as a toddler compared to when they were newborn. If a parent was not able to see their child for a long time, they wouldn’t be able to recognize them.

Empress Chen longed to see her child, of course, but she was also very scared. She didn’t dare to see the child because she was afraid that her secret would be exposed. Even after the child had grown older, she wouldn’t have the chance to see them either. The child’s status was too lowly to enter the palace, while she could not leave the palace as and when she liked. To be able to see the child even just twice a year was already very, very difficult.

“As the saying goes, while the praying mantis is busy catching a cicada, a bird is waiting to catch the praying mantis,” Song Caitang sighed. “Yeluzong wanted to make use of you to create chaos in Da’an, you wanted to help your child become emperor. Mr. Zhou…knew all of this, so why not make this wonderful victory his own by allowing his own son to become emperor instead?”

Empress Chen suddenly lunged at Zhou Tongxing like she had lost her mind. “Where is my son! WHERE IS HE!”

She suddenly became very strong and her long nails scratched Zhou Tongxing’s face so hard, his face was covered in blood.

Watching them get into a cat fight was very enjoyable to watch.

Nobody bothered to interfere and just stood by the sidelines to watch.

“Go away! Go away, you crazy woman!”
“Where’s my son? Where’s my son!”
“How do I know?”
“You’re supposed to be taking care of him! How could you not know?”
“I’m not taking care of him! He died a long time! Yeluzong strangled him immediately after he was born!”
“Impossible!”
“If you don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can do! Let go of me!”
“That’s his flesh and blood too! How could he bear to kill him? You’re lying! You’re lying!”
“Tsk, the baby’s just a piece of meat to him. If he wants one, he can find any woman to give birth to one for him! He can have as many children as he likes, so why would he care about this one?”

As they argued, they also tried to attack each other. It was very entertaining to watch.

But there was a limit. Too much would become boring and pointless. At a suitable juncture, Zhao Zhi motioned to his men to separate them.

Empress Chen was incredibly strong and the two royal guards couldn’t hold her down the first time, so she managed to lunge at Zhou Tongxing a second time. She was furious and there was some of his skin and blood under her nails. “You’re lying to me! I don’t believe anything you say! Not a single thing!”

“If you don’t believe him, then why are you so scared?” Song Caitang glanced at Empress Chen’s trembling shoulders and exposed her emotions on the spot. “All these years, Yeluzong never appeared again. His correspondence was limited to letters, and there were very few of them too. Regardless of what reason he gave, you knew very well that he never really cared in the first place.”

If the man didn’t care and didn’t think it was a big deal, he wouldn’t give it much attention. Or worse still, he might do something to hurt the other person.

Women were naturally more sensitive creatures, so even if there were many things they didn’t understand, most of them would know if they were important to the other party or not. Of course, knowing was one thing, and accepting it was another.

Empress Chen’s lips trembled as she shook her head repeatedly. Her face was pale and she looked like she was losing her mind. “No…I don’t believe it…I don’t believe it…”

Zhou Tongxing’s hair was a mess and his face was covered in blood, but when he saw the state that Empress Chen was in, he smiled to reveal his bloodstained teeth and looked very pleased with himself.

But Song Caitang did not let him remain pleased for too long. She turned to look at him. “Mr. Zhou, this show you’ve starred in and directed has been truly impressive. What a fantastic plan you came up with.”

Zhou Tongxing was immediately wary. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Song Caitang glanced at Empress Chen.

Empress Chen was still having a hard time processing all of this, but she would slowly come round after Song Caitang explained further.

Song Caitang had all the time in the world.

She was going to piece together all the truths and mysteries from the past and reveal them today!

“As the man who’s supposed to be taking care of the baby born back then, you became the most important and most relied upon man to Empress Chen, the man she would suspect the least,” Song Caitang kept her eye on Zhou Tongxing. “The child was growing day by day and you couldn’t wait much longer. At the same time, Empress Chen was going to make a move, so you decided to just go through with the whole thing and become the ultimate winner. In fact, you didn’t even need to do too much. You just had to allow Empress Chen to lead the way and get everything done, then just when she was about to gain the victory, you could make your move and all of this would be over.”

“Unfortunately you underestimated Empress Chen. A woman’s instinct is very frightening – all you did was to do something small to benefit yourself and she immediately suspected there was a traitor in her team. You had no choice but to find the loopholes and silence those in between. But once you start silencing people, you can’t stop. The more you try to hide, the more you end up exposing. Finally, in order to deal with Empress Chen, you had to find a good way to get rid of the suspicion around yourself and stay alive, to find her a suitable “traitor” that nobody expected.”

Song Caitang looked straight at Zhou Tongxing, “The drowning in the river around the city gates on that stormy night. You set that up on purpose, didn’t you?”

She was talking about the day the authorities received a report that Zhou Tongxing, an official from the Ministry of Rites, had his head pushed underwater and died from drowning. The team had rushed to the river where it happened, but no matter how hard they tried, they simply couldn’t find a body in the river. After that, the supposedly dead Zhou Tongxing suddenly arrived at the scene and said everything was just a happy coincidence and he was actually perfectly fine.

Zhou Tongxing stared back at her with a sinister look on his face. “I don’t understand what you’re saying at all, Miss Song. I was the victim in that case. If I hadn’t taken pity on that beggar and gave him my clothes, the man drowned in the water that night would have been me!”
“So, because you were the “victim”, the authorities had no reason to suspect you,” Song Caitang narrowed her eyes. “Just because he was wearing your clothes, the beggar got himself killed, therefore, the killer’s target was you and not the beggar. That would have been an easy and logical conclusion. You’re one of Empress Chen’s, so what would Empress Chen think after finding out about this incident?”

“She would suspect that the traitor in the team had tried to kill you.”

That was a really impressive move. It had caused a huge stir, so it had really garnered a lot of attention. He was able to get rid of any suspicion that Empress Chen had, and he was also able to make the authorities think he was a victim who needed to be protected.

At that time, Song Caitang and her team had limited information and didn’t see through this ploy.

“The smartest thing you did was to act this entire show out yourself. That beggar you talked about doesn’t exist at all, so regardless of how hard Prince Ping and Mr. Wen tried, they simply couldn’t find him. He was supposedly dead but we had no proof of it, so we had to take your word for it.” Song Caitang took a step forward. “But you forgot that a supposedly dead man but no dead body found is suspicious in itself.”

Zhou Tongxing narrowed his eyes. What had these people discovered?

Qi Yan was more impatient, so he leaped forward and said gleefully, “Since we couldn’t find the dead beggar, we went to look for the killer! Did you think we wouldn’t be able to find him just because he covered his face? Brother Zhi did a thorough investigation – that masked man wasn’t a murderer at all, he was just a random hooligan on the streets who took your money and ran as far as he could. Then again, you’re really smart for choosing such a person, because you thought we wouldn’t think of it, and if we didn’t think of it, we wouldn’t be able to find him. But Brother Zhi still found him!”

“The clothes too,” Wen Yuansi added. “The clothes you gave the beggar disappeared because you actually burned them, right? Your servants said they saw you burning something later that same night.”

Qi Yan scoffed. “Mr. Zhou is a meticulous but bold man. You decided to play the “beggar” yourself, but you weren’t afraid that this random hooligan might actually kill you by accident!”

“Well, he wouldn’t be afraid of that, actually. After all, Mr. Zhou is from Jiangnan,” Song Caitang glanced at Zhao Zhi, then turned back to Zhou Tongxing with a smile. “Being able to hold their breath to swim is something that those from Jiangnan become experts at from a young age.”

This incident became well known in the city and every official present knew about it because it happened on a day when the weather was terrible and the victim was a court official.

But nobody really knew the details. After listening to the team talk about it, they could put it together.

Zhou Tongxing was one of Empress Chen’s to begin with, but he decided to betray her and began to plan how he was going to profit from this situation. Empress Chen discovered there was a traitor in the team and wanted to kill them, so Zhou Tongxing came up with this plan that would get him out of this sticky situation without having to face any complicated consequences.

First, he drank with other people in public and many people remembered seeing him. After that, while nobody was noticing, he purposely made a mess of himself, or at least messed his hair up and dirtied his clothes, before running to the river and put up a show of being drowned by this “masked killer” he had already hired beforehand, and made sure someone witnessed it.

The “beggar” that had been drowned and sank to the bottom of the river had actually held his breath and managed to swim far, far away before resurfacing.

And because it was raining so heavily, everything had gone smoothly.

And after the authorities received the report and Zhao Zhi’s men began to search the river in the heavy rain, he slowly reappeared…

Even if that “masked killer” had not acted well enough, he could say that perhaps the killer realized the man he was trying to kill was a beggar and not his target. That would still achieve the same aim.

Once everyone realized what had happened, they couldn’t help but stare at Zhao Zhi in admiration.

It hadn’t been long since the incident, yet he had managed to dig out the truth and find out that Zhou Tongxing was on Empress Chen’s team. At the same time, he had also guessed what Empress Chen might be up to, so he had been prepared for today’s attack and managed to quell the rebellion…

What an amazing man! How did he do it!

Zhao Zhi remained expressionless. “I would also like to thank Miss Song for her help.”

Miss Song? What did this have to do with her? Wasn’t this a case without a corpse? How else could she have contributed?

“Despite being trapped in a dangerous place, you still sent us a message.” Zhao Zhi bowed politely toward Song Caitang. “I’m truly impressed.”

Qi Yan was in disbelief. Brother Zhi, I know you’re happy that this dangerous situation is under control and you’re even happier to see that Tangtang is safe and well, but don’t get all carried away now! A lot of people are watching! Be more serious!

Empress Chen turned stiffly to stare at Song Caitang. “You…were held in captivity, but you were still able to send a message?”

Song Caitang smiled faintly but remained humble, “I just left some clues for His Highness. He’s the clever one who managed to guess more than the clues I left behind.”

She had been held captive by the empress, so bribing a servant or sending a note would have been completely impossible, but reading a book or two was fine, as long as it was a book that was already inside the room. If she asked for a different book, Empress Chen would have said no.

She didn’t know what might happen next and definitely did not know she would be moved to a different location. She just felt that even if the worst case scenario happened, she had to leave something for Zhao Zhi.

Nobody noticed that she had torn the books in the room.

She tore the words that she wanted, rolled them into tiny balls and placed them in a discreet corner of the room… Others might not notice them, but if Zhao Zhi came by, he would definitely notice them!

And just like she had expected, Zhao Zhi did. He never disappointed her.

But why did she suspect Zhou Tongxing and tell Zhao Zhi to take note of him? It was because of what she went through inside the palace, as well as the body of that senior eunuch, Li Qi.

“The senior eunuch, Li Qi, was indeed killed by poison, and the poison used was also a special one that is only available in the palace. The stab wound in the chest was also used to deliberately distract anyone from thinking it could be poison. The marks left on a body will never be wrong, but the special angle of the stab wound was not necessarily because the killer was shorter than the victim, but there was another possibility…”

Song Caitang looked at Empress Chen. “Before Li Qi stopped breathing altogether, he could have fallen to the floor. The angle of the stab wound shows me where the killer would have been stooping over Li Qi.”

Empress Chen pointed a finger at her. “You…you…” She had guessed correctly! “You lied to me!”

“Did it really matter whether I lied to you or not?” Song Caitang narrowed her eyes at the empress. “Back then, you were certain that Nanny Sun was definitely the traitor. If I said that the traitor was someone else and hinted at Zhou Tongxing, would you have believed me?”

Empress Chen glared at her as though she was going to gobble her up.

Of course she wouldn’t have believed Song Caitang. She would even have suspected that Song Caitang and Nanny Sun were in the same team, or that even Lu Yuxue had come clean and joined them to betray her, or that she had some other motive for purposely trying to drive a wedge between herself and Zhou Tongxing.

After all…it was impossible for Song Caitang to have known that Zhou Tongxing had been secretly raising her child during that time.

“Also, there’s the fact that you had a child before!” Qi Yan pointed at Empress Chen, “You’ve killed a lot of people from back then and it’s hard to find evidence, but the secret whisperings among people have never stopped. As long as one patiently gathers all of these and sorts them out, you’d be able to confirm all of this!”

Wen Yuansi added, “There’s also your father’s illness. I’ve personally visited your father to observe his health more than once. Even if his condition was caused by poison, his poor health was real. If he was just poisoned and then quickly given the antidote, he would probably recover. But to say that he would immediately be healthy again after years of suffering from failing health and diminishing muscle and bone? I wouldn’t believe that.”

Zhao Zhi also stepped in, “One more thing. The date Zhou Tongxing’s son was born is rather suspicious too. While nobody else knows, there’s a rumor within the Zhou household that Mrs. Zhou actually gave birth to a pair of twins. Unfortunately, the elder one was too weak and died at birth. Mr. Zhou even erected a gravestone for him.”

All of these incidents didn’t seem connected when the details were looked at separately. But once they were put together and the dots were joined, everything made perfect, logical sense.

Putting everything together based on just conjectures had been hard.

Unfortunately, the team didn’t have enough evidence and they couldn’t be sure if Empress Chen was going to stage a coup. That’s why Zhao Zhi ended up secretly reporting all of this to the emperor and the crown prince so that they could come up with a plan and were able to pretend they were unprepared long enough for the empress to walk into the trap laid for her.

Also, time wasn’t on their side. The information they had was enough for them to figure out the truth, but before they could get more concrete evidence, the day of the ceremony had arrived. Zhao Zhi had no choice but to send Qi Yan to the palace during this time to rescue Song Caitang and confirm the rest.

And that was why, after Song Caitang left the palace, she did not immediately head to the royal cemetery with Qi Yan. They went elsewhere to confirm some matters before coming over.

Being able to guess this much required much intelligence and a clear head. And to actually carry out something like that required boldness and good coordination between the team members.

If any part of this had gone even the slightest bit wrong, like if they had guessed Empress Chen’s thoughts wrongly, Song Caitang might not have come out safely. Zhao Zhi might be able to handle the battle at the cemetery, but not what was happening in the palace, so he could have lost her. But if he had focused too much on rescuing Song Caitang and not spent enough effort on stopping Empress Chen, that would have allowed Empress Chen to gain the upper hand and take control of the country. If that happened, the country would have been lost.

Thankfully, they managed to make it in the end!

Nobody seized the chance to be the hero, nobody had to give up one for the other. Everyone had each other’s back, everyone trusted each other, supporting and believing in each other’s character and capability. That’s how they made it so far.

Everyone working on this case was each other’s hero!

“A gravestone…” Empress Chen felt like her world was spinning. “No, it can’t be my son’s…you can’t prove it, you have no evidence…”

“I can tell you right now, very confidently, that the one buried there is your son.” Song Caitang took a step forward and burst Empress Chen’s bubble once more. “You were worried for your son’s safety, so you didn’t really dare to ask to see him, especially the first year the child was born. You probably barely even saw him twice and you wouldn’t say with confidence that you’d definitely still be able to recognize him, right? But mothers would definitely remember something special about their children. There was a little bump on the bone below his right thumb knuckle, right?”

Empress Chen stared at her in shock. How did she know that!

Song Caitang went on, “After the child was born, you were filled with love for him and you must have inspected every part of your baby for a long time. That bump was very obvious, so you must have noticed it. But later on, when your child grew older, you noticed that this special part of his hand had disappeared, didn’t you?”

Empress Chen suddenly turned to stare at Zhou Tongxing.

Song Caitang nodded. “That’s right. The boy couldn’t possibly have had that special characteristic, because the boy you saw wasn’t your son, but Zhou Tongxing’s! My guess is that you were shocked about it, but Zhou Tongxing just needed to say that the child had grown older and taller, so he was more muscular and his bone structure had changed, and you wouldn’t suspect a thing. After all, nobody knows for sure exactly how a child’s bones would grow as they matured…”

“But today, I went to the grave that Zhou Tongxing dug for his supposed older twin son, and found a tiny, tiny body inside. There was a roundish bump on its right hand bone…Who do you think this body belongs to?”