Chapter 167: Testimony and the Culprit

The next afternoon, Wanyan Lü indeed arrived at the Prince Xuan Manor as agreed.

Hearing the servant's report, Shen Qianmo, who was dozing and basking in the sun on a recliner in the back courtyard garden, sat up. With a gentle smile, she said to Baili Xiao and Ye Qinglan beside her, "You two, accompany me to meet the Crown Prince of Beidi."

Baili Xiao stepped closer and asked with a puzzled expression, "Brother Xie, surely you don't actually intend to treat the injuries of that ill-intentioned Wanyan Lü?"

Such precious saline and distilled water used on that malicious Beidi Crown Prince—he truly found it somewhat hard to part with them.

Supported by Ye Qinglan, Shen Qianmo rose from the recliner, glanced at Baili Xiao, but only smiled without a word.

Entering the reception hall, they saw Wanyan Lü already seated upright within. He wore a black veil hat on his head, with a layer of black gauze draped beneath the brim, obscuring his features and making them indistinct and hard to recognize. Two Beidi guards in martial attire stood on his left and right. Both were tall, burly, and possessed sharp gazes, showing at a glance that they were men of formidable martial arts and profound inner strength.

At the sudden sight of Wanyan Lü's attire, Baili Xiao could not help but chuckle out loud. He said to Ye Qinglan, "Senior Sister Qinglan, what is wrong with the Crown Prince? Why is he wearing a veil hat even indoors? Could it be that he is too ashamed to show his face?"

Ye Qinglan raised her eyes to glance at Wanyan Lü and flatly uttered a few words, "His face was wounded by venomous bugs."

"Pfft..." Baili Xiao spat out the mouthful of tea he had just swallowed. Coughing a few times, he looked at the veiled Wanyan Lü opposite him and said with a suppressed smile, "Bitten by venomous bugs... what a truly wonderful place to bite, haha..."

Wanyan Lü clenched his hands into tight fists. Although his expression could not be seen beneath the veil hat, Shen Qianmo could well imagine that this Beidi Crown Prince's facial features must be twisted and his eyes breathing fire at this moment.

Yet Shen Qianmo had no intention of stopping Baili Xiao's deliberate mockery. She remembered every single detail of how he had publicly attempted to humiliate Meng Yuanheng at the wedding banquet on that day.

When it came to holding grudges, she was actually worse than Meng Yuanheng. She was never polite to those who intended to harm her loved ones or those who touched her principles and bottom line.

"Senior Sister Qinglan, the toxicity of these evil beetles is extraordinary. You didn't see the arm of the Prince of Yanping; all the skin and flesh on it were completely rotted away. If the flesh on this Crown Prince's face were to rot away entirely, what kind of sight would that be?" Baili Xiao deliberately shivered and said, "Tsk tsk, terrifying just to think about it..."

"A faceless monster," Ye Qinglan stated deadpan, pronouncing the four words with utmost solemnity.

"Pfft..." Baili Xiao could not help spitting out another mouthful of tea. Slapping his thigh, he laughed, "Exactly, those four words precisely, haha..."

The two guards standing behind Wanyan Lü had their tightly pressed lips twitching, and their indifferent facial features slightly distorted, clearly struggling hard to hold back their laughter. Wanyan Lü, however, could no longer endure it. Clenching his fists tight, he gritted his teeth and said through them, "Princess Xuan, this Crown Prince did not come here to listen to this brat spouting nonsense!"

Shen Qianmo raised a delicate eyebrow and smiled, "Oh, so the Crown Prince has truly come to the Prince Xuan Manor to seek treatment for your injuries? In that case, please remove your veil hat so this Princess may examine your wounds."

Wanyan Lü let out a deep breath, as if forcibly suppressing the raging fire within his chest. After a moment of silence, he said in a deep voice, "I wish to speak with Princess Xuan in private."

Shen Qianmo smiled and said to Baili Xiao and Ye Qinglan, "It seems the Crown Prince is rather shy. Since that is the case, you two should step outside first."

"Brother Xie..." Baili Xiao looked entirely ill at ease, just about to raise an objection, when Ye Qinglan pulled him right out.

Even outside, they could still keep watch by the door. Besides, this was the Prince Xuan Manor, filled with secret and shadow guards everywhere; surely that Wanyan Lü could not pull off any malicious tricks.

The two guards brought by Wanyan Lü also took their leave accordingly. Only Shen Qianmo and Wanyan Lü remained inside the reception hall.

Seated in the primary host's chair, Shen Qianmo was in no rush to speak. She simply lowered her head to take a sip of tea, placed the tea bowl on the table beside her, and then raised her eyes to look at Wanyan Lü, who sat on the left with his face veiled in black gauze. She calmly said, "I wonder if the Crown Prince has ever heard this saying: An open person does not act in secret, and a truthful person speaks no falsehoods."

"What does Princess Xuan mean by this?" Wanyan Lü's tone was sharp, yet inexplicably tinged with a hint of tension.

Shen Qianmo chuckled softly, her lips curling in disdain, "The hibiscus mugwort on the Crown Prince's person can repel venomous bugs. You were never bitten by the evil beetles at all, so the Crown Prince need not put on such a facade before this Princess."

The faint wisps of sandalwood-like scent she had caught in Wanyan Lü's room yesterday, though elusive and very faint—clearly Wanyan Lü had tried his best to deliberately eliminate it—had nonetheless been detected by Shen Qianmo, who was exceptionally sensitive to scents. Last night, she had searched through Old Man Duan's medical text and finally remembered that this scent belonged to a medicinal herb called "hibiscus mugwort" which Old Man Duan had once cultivated in the Hundred Herb Hall on Infinite Island.

And hibiscus mugwort was the premier herb for repelling venomous bugs.

Hearing this, Wanyan Lü's body visibly stiffened. After a brief struggle, he finally raised his hand and slowly removed the veil hat from his head.

A face with deep and sharply defined features now appeared mottled with blue and white, looking exceptionally unsightly.

Just as Shen Qianmo had anticipated, there were no bite marks or ulcerated wounds from venomous bugs on Wanyan Lü's face. However, three fine, scabbed bloody scratches ran horizontally across his left cheek, making them extremely conspicuous.

Seeing this, Shen Qianmo raised a delicate eyebrow and smiled even more serenely and nonchalantly, "The person who released venomous bugs in Fengming Mountain to secretly harm the Prince Consort of Nanzhan... is you."

"Nonsense! You make groundless accusations out of thin air to defame the crown prince of a sovereign nation. Who would believe such talk if it got out?" Wanyan Lü glared at Shen Qianmo with sinister eyes, his face twisted and filled with venom.

He was no fool, and naturally knew in his heart that this woman, who always wore a gentle, shallow smile yet was exceedingly difficult to deal with, had seemed to see through his secret back at the guest estate yesterday.

If not for that, why would he have come to the Prince Xuan Manor today, willingly subjecting himself to humiliation here as a proud crown prince!

Yet now, the Nanzhan Prince Consort had died suddenly, the Prince of Yanping was in a coma, and his own smiling-tiger sixth brother kept picking faults with him. The development of events had far exceeded his original expectations, so he could absolutely not admit to it lightly.

He should not have revealed any flaws; perhaps this woman was merely putting on a bluff. Up to this moment, Wanyan Lü still clung to a shred of wishful thinking.

Shen Qianmo smiled with amused tolerance, "I say this naturally because I have evidence. The Prince Consort's entire body was blue-purple; apart from the wounds left by the venomous bug bites, other injuries were indeed not easily discernible to the naked eye, but they can be detected. If there is subcutaneous bleeding and damage, that area will swell and bulge, feeling hard to the touch, and the shape of the damage will reflect the surface contours of the object that caused it. From this, the shape of the weapon can be deduced. I examined the Prince Consort's body, and in the bend of his left leg, there was a crescent-shaped hard swelling. The shape of this wound... matches the toe of the boots the Crown Prince is wearing right now."

During her examination of the body yesterday, she had been unable to figure out what kind of weapon could have caused the half-moon-shaped wound in the bend of the Nanzhan Prince Consort's left leg, until later when she saw those boots placed by the edge of the couch in Wanyan Lü's room, and everything suddenly became clear to her.

Hearing this, Wanyan Lü let out a few cold laughs and said contemptuously, "Ha... simply absurd! Just on the account of a minor wound, Princess Xuan concludes that this Crown Prince is the murderer. Isn't that far too hasty?"

Shen Qianmo's expression remained unchanged as she calmly replied, "I have already sent people to verify that among those who ascended Fengming Mountain that day, neither the Nanzhan Prince Consort nor the Prince of Yanping wore pointed long boots, while the boots worn by the guards were all round-toed short boots. Therefore, the only person at the foot of Fengming Mountain wearing pointed boots that day... was the Crown Prince."

Wanyan Lü's expression shifted, and just as he opened his mouth to argue, Shen Qianmo did not give him the chance, continuing on her own: "Inside the cave on Fengming Mountain that day, taking advantage of the Nanzhan Prince Consort's lack of preparedness, you kicked him in the back. That kick landed precisely in the bend of his left leg. The Prince Consort was sent flying, crashed against the cave wall, and bounced back, which is why his elbows, forearms, and palms had large areas of bruising. Caught completely off guard and kicked to the ground by you, you seized the opportunity to plant the venomous bugs on him. Unable to get up immediately because his knee was struck, the Prince Consort flailed his hands in panic and accidentally scratched your face."

"You plotted to use the venomous evil beetles in Fengming Mountain to secretly harm the Nanzhan Prince Consort for three reasons: first, to absolve yourself of blame; second, to provoke a conflict between Xiliang and Nanzhan; and third... naturally, to smear and disrupt the Northwest. The Crown Prince's strategy can truly be described as killing three birds with one stone."

"Having achieved your goal, you hurriedly left Fengming Mountain and returned to the guest estate, only to find unexpectedly that the Prince of Yanping would also be bitten by venomous bugs. Thus, your clever scheme to frame Xiliang fell through. To avoid arousing suspicion and simultaneously conceal the wounds on your face, you fabricated the lie that you too had been bitten by venomous bugs and refused to see any visitors."

Without any superfluous words, nor giving Wanyan Lü any chance to defend himself, Shen Qianmo narrated everything calmly and composedly, as if she had witnessed it all with her own eyes.