When the investigation reached this point, it was no longer within her control.
Private mining of gold mines was in itself a crime punishable by execution of nine generations of one's family, especially since this matter also implicated the imperial official sent by the court. The waters ran too deep, and one could easily drown if one was not careful.
This kind of matter still had to be handled by professionals.
After Jiang Yuqing left Daizhou City, she flew straight to the Capital City.
Taking advantage of the time when the Emperor left to eat dinner, Jiang Yuqing used her spiritual power to briefly seal the five senses of the guards of the hall.
She quietly and unknowingly placed a piece of gold, a map she had drawn herself, and the letters seized from the blue-clothed steward on the Emperor's desk.
When the Emperor returned and discovered the things on his desk, he was greatly surprised. After carefully reading the contents, he was even more furious.
He immediately summoned the Minister of Justice, the president of the Supreme Court, and several cronies, including the Duke of Zhenguo, who were at home eating tangyuan at night, to discuss matters in the palace.
The discussion lasted until late at night.
After the ministers left, the Emperor called out all the guards and questioned them carefully. During the time he went to eat, did anyone enter the imperial study?
The guards all said no one had entered and there was nothing unusual. These things seemed to have appeared out of thin air.
Seeing that he couldn't get any useful information, the Emperor could only wave his hand to let the guards leave. But he felt quite upset in his heart. The only comfort at the moment was that this "peerless master" did not seem to harbor any malice towards him.
After Jiang Yuqing left the palace, she did not stay on the crowded streets, but flew directly back to Huichun Yard.
She had promised to come back to accompany her master to celebrate the Lantern Festival, but was delayed for so long because of the gold mine incident. Fortunately, she could still make it in time to eat tangyuan with the old man.
Huichun Yard.
Doctor Qiu had just sent away the servant who delivered the tangyuan and closed the yard door when he turned around and saw his precious apprentice and her deer appearing in the yard. He was overjoyed immediately.
"You little rascal, I thought I had boiled the tangyuan tonight for nothing!"
Jiang Yuqing smiled and jumped into the old man's arms, snuggling up to Doctor Qiu's neck coquettishly: "I would never do that. I would certainly not go back on my word about accompanying you to celebrate the festival."
Doctor Qiu dissatisfiedly poked her forehead: "Then why did you come back so late?"
Dumpling said: "I set off early yesterday morning, but something happened on the way which delayed me until now."
Doctor Qiu did not ask in detail, only said: "You didn't get hurt, did you? Have you resolved it?"
Dumpling boasted: "Of course, how could your precious apprentice be so smart yet unable to resolve it?"
"Well, as long as it's resolved. Are you hungry?" Doctor Qiu stroked his apprentice's little head, full of affection.
"Hungry." Dumpling touched her flat stomach. Having rushed out of the mountain in the morning and only eaten two small snacks in Daizhou City at noon, her stomach was now growling with hunger.
She thought that one day when she had time, she should study alchemy, such as refining a fast pill or something. It would save a lot of trouble during busy times to simply take one pill.
Doctor Qiu pushed a bowl of tangyuan to her: "Eat while it's hot!" So Dumpling picked up a spoon and started devouring it with gusto.
There were two kinds of tangyuan fillings, one with peanut and sesame stuffing, and one with red bean paste stuffing. Both tasted very good.
While eating, Dumpling asked her master: "Where's Third Senior Brother?"
The old man snorted coldly: "He's accompanying his wife to see the lantern lights. He's really forgotten his master after getting a wife. How unfilial!"
Jiang Yuqing's eyes immediately lit up: "So you mean I'll have a Third Senior Sister soon?"
"Far from it!" Doctor Qiu said, "He's willing, but his stubborn family wouldn't be willing to let him marry a woman of Jianghu."
"Why do you say so?"
Doctor Qiu said, "Your Senior Brother probably hasn't told you about his background, right?"
Jiang Yuqing shook her head, her eyes shining brightly, just waiting for you to tell me.
So Doctor Qiu slowly told the story.
It turned out that her casual Third Senior Brother Lu Yi was actually born in the prominent Lu family of Yunzhou, and was of the main line. One of the four great academies in Da Xia, the "Yunzhou Academy", was opened by his family. There was an abundance of talented people in his family.
It was from such a prestigious literary family that an oddball like Lu Yi was born. He did not like to read, but strangely liked medicine and some peculiar things.
And at the age of eleven, he successfully sneaked away from home and traveled thousands of miles to worship under Doctor Qiu at Bianque Valley, becoming Doctor Qiu’s third apprentice.
As for his prospective Third Senior Sister, named Gongsun Zishu, she was the young miss of "Wanjian Villa", another prestigious Jianghu family. This was the same Wanjian Villa that Lu Yi had told her to go shake people down with her plaque if she couldn't win a fight.
What Doctor Qiu meant was that Wanjian Villa was also an eminent family. If the Lu family objected due to differences in status, the Gongsun family would not marry their daughter off either. In short, the two still had some grinding to do.
But Jiang Yuqing felt it might not happen.
Although her Third Senior Brother looked casual, he was ambitious and had breadth of mind. At the age of eleven, the Lu family was already unable to control him. Now that he had been an adult for many years and had made a resounding name for himself in Jianghu, there was even less reason for the Lu family to restrain him.
That night, Lu Yi found out that Jiang Yuqing had returned.
But because of Jiang Yuqing’s special identity, the master and apprentice both subconsciously concealed the news of Jiang Yuqing’s return to the capital. Therefore, although Gongsun Zishu was temporarily staying at the manor’s guest house, she did not know that the manor’s real young mistress had already returned.
Jiang Yuqing spent the whole day practicing in her spirit space. As her cultivation level increased, she needed more and more spiritual energy. She had now reached the eighth layer of Qi Condensation realm. For her age, this level of cultivation was already considered a genius among geniuses in the cultivation world.
Therefore, she was in no hurry to improve her cultivation level, but calmed down to start learning Talisman Drawing instead. In between, she even went to Three Purities Temple specially to get a stack of talisman paper from Huayang Zi.
She could now proficiently draw Light Body Talismans and Teleportation Talismans. After failing several times, she had also successfully drawn Explosion Talismans.
Looking at the light piece of paper that caused a huge crater when thrown out and exploded, it worked even better than the grenades she had used in her previous life, and was also environmentally friendly.
As a result, a certain arrogant dumpling, after preparing piles of talisman paper and altar dishes, recklessly went to Demon Beast Mountain for training due to overconfidence.
As luck would have it, she bumped right into a group of fourth-grade frenzy wolves in heat.
The frenzy wolves were originally named gale wolves. They liked to eat a kind of toxic ore.
Over time, the toxins from the ore would accumulate in their bodies, damaging their brains and causing them to behave uncontrollably, as if they had rabies.
Especially during mating season, the already muddled minds of the female wolves would become extremely crazy under the stimulation of hormones in the body. They would eat the male wolves when they were weak after mating.
If it felt unsatisfied, they would even eat their own underage cubs. Hence they were also called “kin-unrecognizing wolves” or “frenzy wolves”. Their personalities were extremely sinister, cruel and vicious. Jiang Yuqing’s universally effective Charming Melody had no effect at all against this group of kin-unrecognizing frenzied wolves.
Moreover, they were extremely fast with great fighting power. They were not afraid of death, were selfish and vindictive. She could only flee for her life when encountering them.
Therefore, after exchanging blows with them for just a short minute, Jiang Yuqing had used up all her Explosion Talismans, exhausted all her spiritual power. If not for Little Bramble being helpful and Bai Xiaoshi running fast enough, her dozen-odd jin of premium tender meat would have almost been delivered here.
Still shocked by the narrow escape, Jiang Yuqing sprawled by the edge of the Spirit Spring Pool, panting heavily. Looking between the transparent barrier here and the one connected to Zhengyuan Hall over there, she felt particularly intimate with them. These things were really——so reassuring!
She felt that before building her foundation, she'd better not go looking for trouble at the Yaoshou Mountain Range again.
Damn it, they scared her to death!
Jiang Yuqing stayed in her spirit space until after the second day of the second lunar month before finally "returning to the capital" again.
Upon her return, she heard about a big event.
Daizhou Prefect Bi Jieli was executed by slow slicing along with nine generations of his family members for illegally mining gold in collusion with remnants of the former dynasty in an attempt to rebel. His wife's natal family, the Fang family of Pingdong Earl's Mansion, and his senior maternal aunt Concubine Fang, who was also the birth mother of the Third Princess, were implicated.
The former were demoted to commoners with family property confiscated and exiled. The latter was demoted to a lower ranked concubine by the Emperor. It was said that the Third Princess cried every day, and the matter of selecting a son-in-law that was already prepared was also cancelled.
It was said that just the gold seized from Bi Jieli's mansion amounted to over seven hundred thousand taels, not to mention other treasures like jewels, antiques, paintings and calligraphy, etc. Just the double carriage wagons needed to transport them numbered a full thirty eight.
It was more than the national treasury of Da Xia.
Not a small amount of gold, silver, pearls and jade were copied from the Fang family, which can be imagined that Bi Jieli did not give less filial piety to the Yue family when he was in Bijie City.
The bigger melon is yet to come. Mrs. Bi, Mrs. Fang, was not Bi Jieli's original spouse, but his stepmother.
Originally, Bi Jieli was born poor and relied on his wife's dowry to support him all the way to passing the imperial examination.
He looked down on his wife's merchant family background. In order to ingratiate himself with the nobles in the capital to pave the way for his own career, he tried every means to attract Miss Fang, the second daughter of Fang House at that time, who later became Mrs. Bi, Mrs. Fang. He lied to her that he was unmarried.
In order to make room for Miss Fang, Bi Jieli even went so far as to hire a murderer on the road when his wife and son came to the Capital City, killing his wife and son, creating the illusion that his wife and children died accidentally.
This slutty operation can be called the Song Dynasty version of Chen Shimei.
Later, he married Miss Fang as he wished, and with the support of the Yue family, he rose to great heights.
It’s a pity that there are no walls in this world that are airtight. The dirty things he did were still known to those with ulterior motives, and they used it to blackmail him into being their umbrella for illegally mining gold.
Bi Jieli had no choice but to agree. At first he was nervous every day, but seeing so much gold being moved into his own house, he gradually lost himself in that piece of bright gold, became willing, and even took the initiative to facilitate convenience for that person.
Until that day Jiang Yuqing accidentally caught a glimpse of the mine pit guard chasing and killing the miner, this secret was finally revealed to the world.
The emperor was furious. Bi Jieli also got what he deserved. After the imperial court took over the gold mine, those miners were also rescued.
The imperial court took over and uniformly took care of them, giving each person thirty taels of silver as compensation.
As for those who had already died, if their families could be found out, the imperial court also gave their families compensation. As for those whose families could not be found, the imperial court could not do anything and they were lost in this world forever.
The mass grave with 10,000 corpses was permanently sealed off with a stone tablet erected.
In the future, on every first and fifteenth day of the month, sacrifices will be offered which can also be regarded as an account of these lives lost tragically. As for the remnants of the previous dynasty who caused this tragic case, I heard they are still under investigation.
These, then, no longer concern Jiang Yuqing.
