Gu Shenwei put away the roll of paper and said to her, “Yes, this is exactly what I want.”
Then, he stared at the Princess as if she was a pretentious suspect who tried to get away with murder, while the latter calmly stared back.
They stared at each other for a long time, and then she calmed herself down and started to think about the top priority. “Is there anything I need to do?”
“You would do anything?”
“Yes, since I’m your Queen.”
Gu Shenwei nodded in satisfaction. Indeed, this was the Queen he needed. “Come on, let’s go.”
The Dragon King’s warm invitation startled the Princess—even in their most intimate moment, he had not talked to her in such a tone. She was about to ask where they were going, but in the end, just bit her tongue. She got up obediently, wiped her tears away, and got ready to leave. She was prepared to make a joint appearance with the Dragon King.
Gu Shenwei set the royal palace’s Council Chamber as a courtroom, and sat at one end with the Princess. A dozen Stone Kingdom ministers and high-ranking military officers sat on both sides of the table. There were burning candles on the table and walls, making the room as bright as day.
The gate opened, and for the first time, the people were allowed to stand outside and listen as observers.
The audience was lined up from the Council Chamber gate to the streets outside the royal palace. Every move in the chamber would be quickly spread by mouth.
The Dragon King, who was the prime suspect, conducted a public trial at night himself. It had stirred up quite a sensation. Before the Dragon King could speak, some people had already changed their minds and thought that the murderer had to be someone else.
“The Princess… the Princess came with the Dragon King.” Everyone became excited upon hearing this news. Those standing at the gate stared at the Princess, looking for some clues on her face that would give away her thoughts. They all wanted to know which side she was on—her brother’s or her husband’s.
In the bright room, the least amount of candles were in front of that couple. And the people outside could not make out their faces at all.
The tall Long Fanyun spoke as the messenger of the Dragon King. “As we all know, last night, there was a murder in the royal palace. The victim was cruelly murdered; it has been an unforgivable outrage…”
“Unforgivable outrage!” Someone echoed from among the people outside sarcastically, drawing a round of applause.
Long Fanyun ignored him and continued, “The Dragon King has decided that it must be looked into immediately, and be explained to all of our people.”
“Immediately!” More voices echoed. They were sure that the murderer was the Dragon King, and the trial was just a play.
The Princess tilted her body slightly to take a glance at the Dragon King, which then calmed her down. No matter what, the man sitting beside her was more like an Emperor than her brother was. However, it troubled her that, up until this point, she was still unaware of her role in this play.
The first witness called into the Council Chamber was the elderly woman. She had stayed in the outer room and was an experienced midwife.
She was really frightened and had been interrogated by countless people on that day. She had repeated the same statement many times and those words were already on her lips. Kneeling down, she quickly confessed them before anyone could ask.
“It was during the third watch, I heard the maid in the inner room scream and I thought that the pregnant woman was having another stomachache. As you know, sir, she was not in good health, was not able to leave the courtyard, and the food was bad…”
The elderly woman started to complain about trivial things. One of the ministers frowned and turned to look at the Dragon King, and then coughed. “Well, those things are irrelevant. You heard the scream and went into the room… What did you see?”
The elderly woman paused a little and then continued, “Yes, I went into the inner room. I saw the maid sitting in bed, screaming. Blood was all over her.”
“What about the pregnant woman?” asked Long Fanyun.
“She… was dead, sir. Her stomach was cut open, sir, and blood was all over her, sir. I haven’t seen so much blood before in my life. It was flowing down like a stream, sir. The maid was sitting in the blood.”
The horrible scene described by the elderly woman made the people inside and outside the hall tremble. The candles flickered and no one spoke for a while.
It was true that the pregnant woman had her stomach cut open. The observers bore so much anger that just a little spark could set them on fire.
“If the pregnant woman had her stomach cut open, why didn’t she call for help?” Long Fanyun first asked. He appeared a little pale, though he had been an experienced soldier.
“Sir, she was already dead by then, sir. Her throat had been pierced through, sir, and that didn’t shed much blood, sir.”
The elderly woman stumbled over and repeated “sir” many times, but no one paid attention to this. There were many legends about the Dragon King, one of which was that he usually killed people by piercing through their throats.
On both sides of the table, the civil and military officials refrained from turning their heads in the direction of the Dragon King, forcing themselves to look at the elderly woman kneeling on the ground.
Meanwhile, the people at the gate did not hide their suspicions. They all stared at the Dragon King. If it were not for the guards, the people in front would probably have rushed in.
The Princess again took a peek sideways at the Dragon King and was amazed by his composure. For the first time, she had some doubt. “Isn’t he the murderer? Is he really good at acting?”
Long Fanyun asked a few more questions, and the elderly woman answered him truthfully. Every sentence of her description of that horrible scene would provoke anger in the crowd outside the hall.
Long Fanyun felt that the situation was about to get out of control, so he stopped questioning. He had the elderly woman stand by while he summoned the maid who had served the pregnant woman.
The elderly woman had only been frightened, but the maid had lost her mind. She was shaking and ignored Long Fanyun’s questions. Every time she spoke, she always began by shouting, “Blood! Blood…!” and then started to answer in broken words.
The maid had been sleeping next to the pregnant woman, but did not notice the murder at all. She woke up from her sleep and felt something moist, then she touched it and screamed. Except for the blood all over her, she did not remember anything.
Even the cruelest person would find it torturous to interrogate this badly shaken maid. Thus, Long Fanyun quickly went through it and had her stand by as well.
The third witness was the imperial guard Ju Chi, who had survived the murder. He had been wounded on his left shoulder, next to his throat. He was supported by two other guards and was allowed to sit in a chair. He spoke weakly and deliberately avoided the eyes of the Dragon King.
In his account of the scene, there was the late night, the quiet assassin in black, and his lightning-fast strike. He did not see the pregnant woman, thus, he did not have much to confess. He was only constantly blaming himself for not having saved her.
There was one key thing that he was missing.
Long Fanyun exchanged glances with the Dragon King, and then asked, “What weapon did the assassin use?”
Everyone was surprised that the Dragon King’s man would come up with such a question. Ju Chi’s voice was low, the people outside the hall were eager to hear him. A dozen guards stood in front to stop them from rushing in.
Ju Chi hesitated and then quietly said, “A saber.” After which, he dropped his head even lower.
“What kind of saber?”
“The… the Golden Roc Fort kind.”
“Did he carry only one weapon?”
“No, I saw… I saw around his wast—” Ju Chi looked up and quickly glanced at the Dragon King, “there was a sword.”
This stirred the crowd up. Their whispers resounded like a gale, signaling an imminent storm.
Long Fanyun did not get any hint from the Dragon King. He had had nothing to say up until now. Just when he did not know what he should do, the Dragon King rose up.
The storm that had been brewing in the crowd weakened immediately, and the guards at the gate all breathed a sigh of relief.
The evidence was compelling, so what else did the Dragon King have to say? Did he think that he could compel everyone present with his saber and sword? Most people thought like that, while very few of them worried about the Dragon King and considered conducting a public trial so urgently the wrong strategy.
However, Gu Shenwei knew what he was doing.
The Dragon Army had yet to gain full support in Xiaoyao Lake, and meanwhile, the war was imminent. The Dragon King did not have much time to win the people over. However, this murder provided an opportunity for him to win more support in a dramatic way.
Ever since he entered the Great Snowmountain and acquired the title of Dragon King, he knew that dramatic events were more effective than regular measures. Even if it did not solve the fundamental problem, it was the best ways to quell an immediate crisis.
Gu Shenwei walked along the table toward Ju Chi. Standing beside him, Gu Shenwei ignored him and turned to ask the elderly woman, “Did you see the dead?”
The elderly woman did not expect this. She shivered with fear and cringed. “Yes.”
“And then? What did you do after you saw her?”
“I… I ran out to call for help. I saw that the guard was lying on the ground, so I ran along the valley and shouted. Then… people came to help.”
“You didn’t go to help the maid?”
“No, no, I was too frightened. You don’t know, the blood…”
“I know.” Gu Shenwei interrupted her. “So you were running with a candle?”
“Candle? There was no candle. I got up from the bed as soon as I heard the scream in the inner room. How would I have had the time to light a candle?”
“But you saw the blood on the bed, and the fatal wound on the pregnant woman’s throat.”
She froze, but then continued. “I saw that afterward. A lot of people came when they heard my shout. They lit candles, that’s how I saw it.”
Gu Shenwei nodded as if he had nothing to say. Suddenly, he changed the subject. “What’s the name of the pregnant woman?”
“Hai Tang.”
“Identity?”
“A court maid.”
“Whose child was she carrying?”
The questions were all detrimental to him, which puzzled many people, including the elderly woman. She hesitated for a while before answering, “She was carrying the Emperor’s child.”
“Which Emperor?”
“The King of the Stone Kingdom.”
The rumors were proved true one by one. More commotion was stirred up in the crowd outside the hall. The guards at the gate remained vigilant, but they still feared that they would not be able to stop the angry crowd.
Gu Shenwei was silent for a moment and then asked, “Did you just learn these things, or did you know about them all along?”
“I knew all along.” The elderly woman whispered, as if she was afraid that those words would provoke the Dragon King. “When His Majesty had Hai Tang live there, I knew that it was his child.”
“So, you knew that the court maid was carrying the child of the King of the Stone Kingdom, but you didn’t check on her after the scream? You didn’t try to save her, but ran to call for help? Why?”
Gu Shenwei questioned the elderly woman. However, he did not look at her. He was staring at Ju Chi.
“I, I…” The elderly woman was at a loss for words.
All of a sudden, all the ministers and the crowd were waiting for a reasonable explanation from her.
The Princess was feeling proud, and never did she expect that she would be called by the Dragon King at this time.
“My Queen, it’s time to tell the truth.”