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Gu Chengfeng kicked the other party to the ground and asked, "Who sent you here?"
“"Who are you people?" The servant boy asked back instead of answering.
Yo, this guy still got the nerve to ask them who they were when he was about to die?
Well, he wouldn’t be here to a.s.sa.s.sinate Tang Ming if he lacked guts.
Gu Chengfeng cleared his throat, folded his arms, and said while looking at him from a commanding position, "We are the dark guards sent by the Supreme Commander to secretly protect the young master."
"Young master?" The servant boy laughed, "His Lord never calls him that, he let us call him young lord."
Each household had its own custom and appellation, for example, Marquis Ding"an Estate used to call the sons of the family ‘young master’, so Gu Chengfeng used the same address.
Gu Chengfeng felt a twitch at the corner of his mouth. His guise was busted so quickly? Could he not even let the number one thief in the capital have a taste of being a dark guard for a second?
The servant boy sneered, "No matter what you ask, I won"t spill anything. You can kill me and cut my flesh all you want. If I spill a word, you can consider yourselves capable!"
Gu Chengfeng felt his teeth ache. This was his first interrogation, yet he encountered such a tough nut to crack! Could he not be a bit more reasonable?
Without saying a single word, Gu Jiao directly walked up to the front of the servant boy, and with a wave of her hand, a syringe slipped from her sleeve, which she pierced into the back of the other party’s shoulder without any warning.
"What’s this? Gu Chengfeng asked, his eyes widening.
"Hallucinogen." Gu Jiao answered.
There was also something else added in it, which was something used by her organization in the previous life to train agents or interrogate enemies. It was just that it didn"t work for everyone.
For some people, their hallucinations were too strong for them to communicate with the outside world, so they couldn’t get anything out of them.
But the effect of the drug on this servant boy seemed not that serious. His eyes turned hazy, but he could still hear the voices of the two people.
"Who sent you here? " asked Gu Jiao.
"Mas, Master." Answered the servant boy dully, and then he began to giggle.
"So effective." Gu Chengfeng stared wide-eyed and struck while the iron was hot, asking, "Which master?"
Servant boy: "First... First Master."
Who else could be called first master by the servant boy of the Tang Estate?
Gu Chengfeng was stunned. Wasn’t Tang Ming his own son though? How could a father do this to his own son?
Gu Chengfeng himself had deeply experienced his own father"s partiality, but Marquis Gu would never harbor any ill intentions towards his own sons no matter how biased he was. As the saying went, even the tiger wouldn’t eat its own cub. Was First Master Tang insane?
When he went to see Tang Ming on the bed, he saw that he had fainted at some point. He probably didn’t hear what the servant boy said.
Gu Jiao"s reaction was calmer than Gu Chengfeng"s. After all, she had already died once before, and her parents in her previous life were also people who could push their daughter into h.e.l.l.
She went over and picked up the dagger from the floor.
Gu Chengfeng still felt incredulous, "Did he make a mistake? Or is there something wrong with the drug you gave him?"
Gu Jiao replied, "The drug is fine, and I think he’s not mistaken either."
How could he be wrong about this kind of thing? He was a servant of the estate, and First Master Tang was paralyzed in bed. He and First Master Tang were definitely meeting in First Master Tang’s courtyard. The fact that he was able to see through Gu Chengfeng just by the words ‘young master’ showed that he wasn’t someone easy to fool.
Gu Chengfeng was perplexed, "But why does First Master Tang want to kill his own son?"
"Who knows?” Gu Jiao showed no interest in the infighting within the Tang Family, all she cared about was where this dagger came from. In her dream, she remembered that it belonged to Gu Changqing.
"Does this dagger look familiar to you?" She handed the dagger to Gu Chengfeng.
Gu Chengfeng took it and observed it carefully, "Oh, isn"t this eldest brother"s dagger? Why is it here? He... Was he going to use this to kill Tang Ming?"
Too terrible! His eldest brother wasn’t in the military camp at this moment. If his eldest brother’s dagger appeared in the crime scene right now, no matter how you looked at it, this would make it impossible for his eldest brother to prove himself innocent ah!
“Who gave this dagger to you?" He asked the servant boy.
The servant boy murmured, "Master..."
"Does your brother always have it with him?" Gu Jiao asked Gu Chengfeng.
Gu Chengfeng shook his head, "Not really. This dagger was given to eldest brother by grandfather when he was twelve years old. Eldest brother treasures this very much and it has always been in his study all day long. He rarely used it, but third brother and I would occasionally go to borrow it to play with it."
"How do you remember that it was when he was twelve?" Gu Jiao was purely curious when she asked this question..
"Because there’s a birthday celebration during the twelfth birthday!" Gu Chengfeng answered.
In the State of Zhao, not every birthday was celebrated in a grand manner. In addition to the first birthday, the next grand birthday celebration was during one’s twelfth birthday, then the third one would be the coming of age for both genders which were during the fifteenth birthday for women and twentieth birthday for men.
Gu Jiao went ‘oh’ then thought that since the original owner of this body didn’t celebrate her twelfth birthday, she didn’t remember this custom.
Gu Jiao said, "First Master Tang has been paralyzed in bed for so many years. How did he get his hand on this dagger?"
It wasn’t surprising that he could boss around a servant boy from his own estate, but Gu Jiao didn’t think he had the ability to reach his hand into the Marquis Ding"an Estate.
"You mean there"s someone else behind it?" Gu Chengfeng knit his brows into a frown.
Gu Chengfeng could not guess the other party’s motive for Tang Ming"s murder. However, some people cooperated with First Master Tang to pin the blame of his death on Gu Changqing, so the purpose was obvious.
Someone was deliberately driving a wedge between the Marquis Ding"an Estate and the Supreme Commander Estate.
The Marquis Ding"an Estate was His Majesty"s left arm while the Supreme Commander Estate was Empress Dowager Zhuang’s right arm. In other words, someone wanted to see His Majesty and the Empress Dowager go at each other’s throat.
Gu Jiao found a dagger that belonged to Tang Ming in the room and put it in the servant boy"s hand, "Let"s go."
Gu Chengfeng looked at the servant boy and said, "Just like that? What about him?"
Gu Jiao put away Gu Changqing"s dagger and responded, "The effect of the drug will last for another hour or two. Let Tang Yueshan discover him himself."
Gu Chengfeng thought this was feasible and planned to leave with Gu Jiao, but as soon as he opened the door, he had to hastily close it again.
He whispered nervously, "Someone"s coming!"
Gu Jiao looked around, "Go into the closet."
Tang Ming"s closet was big enough for the two of them to crouch inside.
The closet had a hollowed-out pattern and they could watch the situation inside the room through these openings.
They saw First Madame Tang arrive.
It was very late by now, but her son was gravely injured, and as a mother, she couldn"t fall asleep due to worry, so it was normal for her to come and check on him.
When she entered the room, she saw the servant boy kneeling on the ground with a dull expression on his face and holding a dagger in his hand, mumbling about something.
Her complexion changed at once, and her first reaction was to throw herself on the edge of the bed to see if Tang Ming was alright.
Tang Ming had pa.s.sed out and couldn’t respond to her.
Instead, Tang Yueshan, who had just returned to the estate, heard her scream and rushed over.
When he entered the room, First Madame Tang had just s.n.a.t.c.hed the dagger from the servant boy"s hand.
Tang Yueshan"s eyes trembled when he saw First Madame Tang holding a dagger. He almost instinctively rushed to the bedside and shielded the unconscious Tang Ming, "Ming’er is your son! What are you trying to do?!"
Gu Chengfeng frowned.
Tang Yueshan"s reaction was quite strange. There were two people in the room besides First Madame Tang: Tang Ming and the servant boy.
First Madame Tang was holding a dagger in her hand at the moment. Even if Tang Yueshan suspected that she wanted to kill someone, why did he suspect she wanted to kill her own son instead of the servant boy?
References
1. — Here, the word Gu Chengfeng used is "gongzi", which can be translated as young master or young gentleman depending on the ident.i.ty of the person. I used young master to translate it if the person is from a wealthy, high ranking family, etc. and young gentleman otherwise. As for the servant boy, he used the word "shaoye", which is also translated as young master but mostly used by people within one"s household, servants, close friends and relatives, unlike gongzi that can be used by anyone. I decided to translate "shaoye" to young lord in this instance just to make a distinction. Tang Ming would be addressed as young lord from now on within the Tang Estate. I originally used young master to refer to Tang Ming, and if there’s any instance that I failed to edit, please do let me know. Many thanks. Raz P."s Thoughts
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