Chapter 563 Who Told the Truth?
“How did she kill my dear concubine?” Ao Chenyi asked, locking his dark, bottomless pupils on Commandery Princess Xianyun’s face.
“I don’t know either. When we came in, we hadn’t gone very far before this lady suddenly screamed and collapsed while clutching her chest. And Sister Ning… She was also scared. This dagger fell from her hand,” the Princess immediately replied, looking disturbed.
Whoever had experienced such a thing would have such an expression.
“What… say you?” Ao Chenyi looked up and stared at Ning Xueyan calmly.
“Your Highness, please get her out of here for treatment first. If she can still speak, I won’t have to go through the trouble of explaining myself,” she replied nonchalantly.
Ao Chenyi raised his hand noncommittally and an imperial physician hurried over. He squatted down and immediately treated the veiled woman.
The moment the imperial physician felt the woman’s pulse, he exclaimed with joy, “Your Highness, she’s, she’s still alive.”
Alive? Commandery Princess Xianyun’s expression changed ever so slightly. Even so, she moved so quickly earlier that she didn’t think the concubine would be able to tell that who stabbed her.
The physician inserted a needle into the woman somewhere and the unconscious woman who had been lying on the floor, whose life or death was unknown, suddenly moved and cried, “Your… Your Highness.”
“She… She… She… Why isn’t she dead? Shouldn’t… Shouldn’t she be dead?!” Xiangrong cried in panic. She had knocked into a pillar in the chaos earlier. At that moment, she was so terrified that she kept retreating as she pointed at the concubine.
Ao Chenyi walked past the Princess and squatted down in front of the veiled woman. “Tell me who hurt you.”
The woman waved a trembling hand in the air, pointing at Ning Xueyan. Just as the Princess watched on with a smug expression, she suddenly turned her finger toward the former instead.
“Your Highness, it was the Princess. She… She stabbed me and stuffed the dagger into Consort Ning’s hand,” the veiled woman said with difficulty, but her every word was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with resentment.
Ao Chenyi brought quite a lot of men with him. Not only were there eunuchs, but there were guards as well. They stood in two lines opposite each other after coming in, leaving the door ajar. Several concubines were leaning on the door, trying to peek inside. When they heard that it wasn’t Ning Xueyan but the Princess who stabbed the woman, they were stunned.
The Princess was also shocked, looking as if she had seen a ghost. She stared at the woman on the floor in astonishment. She never expected the woman to say this.
She… She… Shouldn’t she be clueless? Shouldn’t she believe that Ning Xueyan was the criminal after waking up? Everything had happened so quickly earlier, and Ning Xueyan collapsed on her as well. How could a frightened person remain so clear-headed in that short span of time?
How could this woman pinpoint her involvement so accurately?
“Wasn’t it the consort?” Ao Chenyi’s gaze fell on Ning Xueyan’s face before turning to the Princess.
“It… It was the Princess. Only the Princess could do it from her position,” the woman replied, speaking intermittently and difficultly.
“Your Highness, my master and I ran into a woman in white when we were in the garden earlier. The woman insisted that she was this… and even said she would ask you to throw my master out. Then, the Princess said she wanted to plead with this woman for my master, so my master agreed to come here. Who knew that the Princess would try to kill this woman and frame my master? I can stand witness. The woman that we met in the garden wasn’t this woman.”
Qingyu gave an eloquent answer before the Princess could even speak, explaining the cause and effect of the matter.
The Princess felt a bad premonition after hearing Qingyu speak. How could Ning Xueyan’s maid be so daring as to speak the truth so plainly? Wasn’t she afraid that Ao Chenyi would be increasingly sure of Ning Xueyan’s crime?
Ao Chenyi stood up and said coldly, “Men, go find out… if there was anyone in the garden wearing white clothes and a white veil today.”
“Yes!” the two guards at the door answered. They turned around and disappeared outside the door.
The Princess felt cold all over and for the first time, there was a frightened expression on her face. However, she quickly concealed her emotions. Her second sister must have changed out of the clothes by now and wouldn’t be captured. If the guards couldn’t capture her second sister, then Ning Xueyan would be seen as lying. She could argue that Ning Xueyan was saying nonsense to avoid being convicted of her crime.
Having calmed down, she got up from the floor and walked toward Ao Chenyi. She persuaded him in a calm voice, “Your Highness, Sister Ning is scared out of her wits. No matter what she has done, she’s still the daughter of the Lord Protector’s Manor. She’s not someone that… this woman can hold a candle to. We can’t very well let Sister Ning compensate the woman with her life!”
She acted as if she hadn’t heard Qingyu’s testimony at all and continued to try to speak up for Ning Xueyan. In reality, she was reminding Ao Chenyi that he could directly kill Ning Xueyan to avenge his concubine. In the past, Ao Chenyi had sent County Princess Yuanyun away for this woman’s sake. After such a major incident, he would never let Ning Xueyan live.
When the guards fail to find her second sister, Ao Chenyi could then choke Ning Xueyan to death.
No matter how one looked at it, Commandery Princess Xianyun behaved like a kind and magnanimous legal wife.
Ning Xueyan glanced at the Princess in disgust. She couldn’t believe that the Princess was refusing to give up even at this point. The Princess kept insisting that she was the murderer and provoking Ao Chenyi’s anger, reminding him to kill her. If the woman lying on the floor was indeed Ao Chenyi’s beloved concubine, then she would really die here.
“Princess, I wasn’t the only one who saw the woman. The other concubines did, too.” Ning Xueyan smiled at the Princess who was working hard at putting on a show with her red-rimmed eyes.
“No way. Sister Ning, hardly anyone ever visits your place. How could anyone see her? If you really have witnesses, please point them out.” The Princess could barely conceal the smugness in her eyes. She had prepared those people for precisely this moment.
If something went awry and Ning Xueyan claimed she had witnesses, Ning Xueyan would be playing right into her hands. Those concubines from the palace had been arranged by her. They would deny it, refusing to help Ning Xueyan prove her words. That would make Ning Xueyan a certified liar.
Otherwise, why would the concubines coincidentally visit Ning Xueyan’s Pear Flower Garden?
“Men, bring all the concubines here,” a stricken-faced Ao Chenyi said.
This place was close to the other three courtyards that housed the rest of the concubines. The guards returned soon enough, bringing in the concubines who were watching the show nearby and making them kneel in the garden.
Ning Xueyan looked up and stared at the plethora of plump and thin beauties here. One could find any type of woman he liked here. They were all gorgeous; a few could even be considered great beauties.
“Qingyu, go down and take a look. Point out the women you saw,” Ning Xueyan ordered Qingyu.
Qingyu clenched her fists and nodded before walking down the steps. She deliberately paid attention to the concubines when she was in the garden because her master had told her to memorize their faces lest she couldn’t point out the women after the incident. There were so many women that recognizing the ones she saw was quite hard.
She slowly pointed out each and every woman she saw in the garden. There were five in total. The women knelt in a row in front of Ao Chenyi.
Eunuch Zhu walked out from behind Ao Chenyi with a cold face and asked in his high-pitched voice, “Did you visit the garden earlier today?”
“Yes… We… We went together.” The matter could no longer be concealed. Quite a few people saw them on their way there.
“Did you see Consort Ning getting into an argument with a white-veiled woman?” Eunuch Zhu continued to ask with a stern expression.
The women glanced at each other before saying in unison, “We didn’t.”
A smug look appeared on the Princess’ face but was quickly replaced with a dignified, virtuous one. She glanced at Ning Xueyan before sighing softly. “Sister Ning, how could anyone believe what you’re saying? The more you lie, the angrier His Highness will be. You should just admit to it. I’ll definitely plead with His Highness for your safety.”
She continued to act the very picture of a magnanimous legal wife, refusing to give up any chance to demonstrate her virtuousness. She insisted that Ning Xueyan was lying to get herself out of this crime.
“I’ll ask again. Did you see Consort Ning arguing and even fighting with a white-veiled woman?” Eunuch Zhu snorted coldly, his sharp voice sounding sinister. “Your testimonies will be reported to the Emperor and Empress later on. You’re digging your grave if you dare to lie.”
His sharp-pitched voice resounded far and wide in the courtyard, sounding so sinister that everyone in the packed courtyard felt a chill.
After serving his master for so long, Eunuch Zhu had learned to sound like his master. The concubines looked around; a few of them even looked up at the Princess. When they saw her composed and graceful expression, they gritted their teeth and replied again, “We didn’t see it.”
“We really didn’t see it.”
“We stayed upstairs the entire time. All we saw was Consort Ning walking around with her maid. We didn’t see anyone else…”
The Princess had given them a promise. If they were to stand on her side this time and insist that they didn’t see anyone, she would think of a way to give them a proper t.i.tle. It had been a year or more since they entered Prince Yi’s Manor. Never mind meeting Prince Yi, they would be chased away even after seeing him from afar. There was no chance for them to serve him at all.
They weren’t given the opportunity to please Prince Yi. If this continued, they would die from old age in this manor. They were still young and beautiful now, but after a few years, Prince Yi wouldn’t fall for them even if they get the chance to meet him.
Since the Princess had given them a promise, they would surely hold onto this chance. No matter what, they wanted to find a chance to have the prince look at them. They were all so beautiful. Given the chance, the prince would surely dote on them. They refused to be neglected forever and die of old age in this place.
Even if they couldn’t win Prince Yi’s favor, they could still aim to get close to him. If they could hear some news from him, they would be able to earn rich rewards from their original masters.
In a nutsh.e.l.l, all they had to do was frame an unfavored consort. Looking at the current situation, the Princess had the upper hand and there was no better time than now to get on her good side. Thus, they became surer of their words as time pa.s.sed.
“Men! Get them to write down their testimonies and sign off on them!” The smile on Ao Chenyi’s face grew increasingly sullen. In the eyes of the concubines, his smile looked like the blood-colored red spider lilies blooming on his black robe.