Song Chuyi had no idea that at this very moment, Chen Mingyu had already learned before her where the blade hanging over her family’s head originated from. At the same moment Chen Mingyu was hiding in her family’s study eavesdropping, Song Chuyi was troubled over whether or not to go to the Lion Tower.

“Since they entered the Lion Tower and never came out again, perhaps the Lion Tower itself is their den. If we rashly go over there, we’d only be alerting them to our presence.” Song Jue shook his head. “Why not first investigate who’s actually behind this Lion Tower?”

The Lion Tower had been open for so many years and had made a name for itself in the capital. How many households hosting banquets liked to directly hire head chefs from the Lion Tower to supervise at home, or simply order dozens of tables of food from the Lion Tower to be delivered home for their banquets—saving both time and effort.

For such a grand establishment that had always operated smoothly, there had to be powerful backing behind it. Old Master Song nodded in agreement and told Song Jue to handle this matter: “In any case, you and those Imperial Forest Guard lads haven’t exactly been strangers to these places. If you go out asking around, no one will find it suspicious.”

Song Jue looked at the sky, estimating that at this hour his colleagues were probably still entertaining themselves at Swallow Cove, so he said: “Then I’ll make a trip to Swallow Cove now. They repeatedly invited me today, but I declined. Going over now won’t seem abrupt either.”

Old Master Song nodded. After Song Jue left, he watched the flickering candlelight and asked Song Chuyi: “Do you have any vague suspects in mind?”

Song Chuyi knew what suspects he was asking about—suspects who would frame Cui Shaoting or even drag down the entire Cui clan. Just as Old Master Song had said before, there were no more than five people in the current court with the ability to arrange such a scheme. Chief Minister Chang had to be excluded first—Cui Shaoting was someone he had personally recommended and promoted. If anything happened to Cui Shaoting and the Cui clan, he couldn’t escape responsibility either.

Of the remaining candidates, Elder Du represented Prince Gong’s faction. He truly might do such a thing to eliminate the Crown Prince’s supporters, after all, the Song family had been bound together with the Eastern Palace too tightly in recent years. The Cui clan also had an ambiguous relationship with the Eastern Palace because of Princess Duanhui’s connection to the Crown Prince.

The newly appointed elder had always followed closely in Chief Minister Chang’s footsteps and hadn’t been heard to have close relations with any faction. His friendly colleagues were just those few fellow townsmen. Even if he wanted to do this, he probably had the will but lacked the means.

That left Elder Chen.

Song Chuyi shook her head: “At present, your granddaughter dares not make a definitive judgment, but I believe the answer will come soon enough.”

As long as something in this world was done by human hands, it was impossible to leave no trace whatsoever. Otherwise, how would Lai Chenglong have known? Since both Lai Chenglong and Ye Jingkuan could receive wind of it, she didn’t believe she couldn’t find an entry point.

Song Chengru looked at Song Chuyi and slowly nodded, his heart increasingly satisfied with her performance. Neither anxious nor impatient—before, one could say she had confidence because of the experiences from her dream providing support. But facing an opponent even she didn’t know about while still maintaining such composure was truly rare indeed.

He picked up his brush and wrote several names on paper, showing them to Song Chuyi: “I discussed with those gentlemen all night and felt these few people are highly suspicious.”

Song Chuyi knew that Old Master Song had previously consulted with his protégés, old connections, and some trusted advisors in the residence. Hearing this, she took the paper and examined it carefully. She had some impression of both Wang Ying and Fang Xiaoru listed on it.

Wang Ying seemed to be from the Censorate. He had once been a surveillance censor in Yangzhou. As for this Fang Xiaoru, there was no need to elaborate—at the beginning of this affair, he had schemed to have Old Master Song accompany him to Jiangnan to raise disaster relief funds, then later “assisted” Old Master Song in supervising the Yangzhou corruption case. While still in Yangzhou, he had pulled up the radish and brought out the mud, unearthing a whole string of Yangzhou officials.

“Can’t figure out why these two are specifically mentioned?” Song Chengru glanced at her. Seeing her brow tightly furrowed with a completely puzzled expression, he pointed at Fang Xiaoru’s name and told her: “Wang Ying has always had a very good relationship with Fang Xiaoru, and they’re also related by marriage. This Wang Ying recently wrote a memorial that hasn’t been submitted yet. He first showed it to Li Ru, who happens to be my protégé. The content of his memorial accuses me of negligence and abuse of power in the Yangzhou corruption case, going so far as to knowingly fail to report that criminals had escaped.”

Song Chuyi suddenly understood. She raised her eyes to look at Old Master Song and asked: “This so-called escaped criminal—is it a female relative?”

What an exquisitely crafted scheme this was! Link after link, tightly connected. As long as one link matched up, a large number of people would die.

When Cui Shaoting’s matter was exposed, this Yangzhou magistrate’s “adopted daughter” would be branded as a convicted criminal. And what would Cui Shaoting be doing sheltering a convicted criminal? Naturally, he’d be inextricably entangled with the previous Yangzhou corruption case. Old Master Song was the one who supervised this case. Since he knowingly failed to report this, naturally it would be abuse of power and harboring criminals.

Even without Cui Shaoting submitting a memorial to second Yang Xuan’s report, he might already be mired in trouble. If he really did submit that memorial, His Majesty wouldn’t even give him a chance to plead his case and would very likely have him executed on the spot—probably wouldn’t even let him return to the capital. Even if he were allowed to return to the Ministry of Justice or the Court of Judicial Review for trial, those people wouldn’t let him return to the capital alive.

Old Master Song nodded, tapping a dot above Wang Ying’s name: “But above Wang Ying is Fang Xiaoru, above Fang Xiaoru is Elder Chen, and above Elder Chen is the Eastern Palace. If this affair truly was done by the Eastern Palace, then…”

Then it could only mean that Consort Fan and Zhou Weiqi’s abilities couldn’t support their ambitions, that they were shortsighted and couldn’t plan for the long term, and it would show their control over the Crown Prince had reached an unprecedented level—that the Crown Prince was willing to listen to them even in such major matters.

He watched Song Chuyi lower her head, then changed his tone: “However, until matters reach their final conclusion, one can never easily make definitive judgments. After all, I’m only making inferences based on common sense. Wang Ying may not necessarily be following Elder Chen’s orders.”

Regardless of anything else, this was at least a lead they could follow up on. Song Chuyi nodded and sat with Old Master Song for about another half hour before hearing that Song Jue had returned.

“I’ve investigated it clearly.” Song Jue didn’t even bother to drink any water. As soon as he entered, he looked at Old Master Song and Song Chuyi: “The Lion Tower was part of the dowry of Lord Wang Ying’s wife from the Censorate. It’s now been given to their daughter as part of her trousseau and is being managed by their daughter’s steward.”

This matched up perfectly. Old Master Song and Song Chuyi exchanged a glance, both seeing in each other’s eyes the words “just as we thought.”