Chapter 6: I Belong to Your Highness Now
Seeing the Crown Prince act like this, Yang Xuanse felt his prison sentence stretching into an endless eternity.
Noticing Yang Xuanse’s despairing face, the Crown Prince was puzzled. "Why are you so sad? It is only normal that you do not know, isn't it?"
Yang Xuanse forced a stiff smile. "Haha. Then, could you please tell me what the doorway actually looked like at that time?"
"Shouldn't you know?" the Crown Prince retorted.
"Should I? I already told you, I'm not the killer. I have no idea what the situation was. I didn't even get a clear look at the dead guy's face," Yang Xuanse repeated, exasperated and utterly tired of saying it.
The Crown Prince remained silent. Just then, the attendant carrying the sword returned. The sudden sound of the door opening startled Yang Xuanse, causing him to instinctively shrink closer to the Crown Prince. At this moment, staying near His Highness was clearly a much safer bet than anyone else.
The attendant entering from outside was completely baffled to see the Crown Prince and the suspect sitting so closely together. Holding a tea set in his hands, he hesitated, unsure if he should approach.
Watching Yang Xuanse cower toward him like a coward, the Crown Prince already had a fairly good idea of whether this man was actually capable of murder. However, he still had to keep him locked up.
Releasing a suspect without concrete evidence would easily invite impeachment from other court officials. He wasn't just solving a murder case; this was one of the countless tests he had to pass before officially securing his position as the Crown Prince.
"Why are you just standing there? Give him the teacup," the Crown Prince ordered in a deep voice.
Confused, Yang Xuanse pointed at himself. "Give it to me? For what?"
The attendant quickly walked to Yang Xuanse's side and whispered, "To pour tea for His Highness."
Where in the world was there logic in making the Crown Prince pour his own tea? Did he have a death wish?
Yang Xuanse instantly caught on. "Oh, oh, oh! I'll do it, let me do it."
He quickly unscrewed the cap of his green tea bottle and took the small teacup. Muttering the old adage, "Fill tea halfway, fill wine to the brim," he carefully poured a half-cup of green tea for the Crown Prince.
This little bottle of sweet water definitely couldn't compare to the premium brews the Crown Prince usually drank, but since His Highness was interested, Yang Xuanse had to let him taste it—even if he had already drunk directly from the bottle.
Remembering the etiquette from historical TV dramas, Yang Xuanse pushed the filled cup straight back to the attendant for him to serve. That was how it always worked on television.
Watching this entire sequence of actions, the attendant felt that something was incredibly odd, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what was technically wrong. He had no choice but to pick up the teacup and hand it to the Crown Prince, who was already seated in the position of honor.
The Crown Prince lightly sniffed the cup and took a tiny sip. "This is tea?"
"Where I'm from, us common folks just love drinking something sweet." Yang Xuanse was very firm on this point: tea had to be sweet to taste good!
Customs varied by region, which was perfectly understandable. The Crown Prince set the cup aside; he really couldn't stomach something so cloyingly sweet. "Very well, I suppose I believe you. Because you do not know martial arts."
Yang Xuanse was stunned. "Huh? What kind of reason is that? A person without martial arts has plenty of ways to kill someone who does, alright?"
Looking at Yang Xuanse’s indignant demeanor, the Crown Prince had the distinct illusion that this guy was just itching to be thrown into a cell. "Do you know who the dead man is?"
This was something Yang Xuanse actually didn't know. Curious, he asked, "Who?"
"The current Minister of War. A hundred of you wouldn't be enough for him to fight. Yet, his fatal wound was clean and decisive—a one-strike kill. Even someone intimately close to the Minister couldn't have pulled that off. This proves that the killer's martial arts are, at the very least, superior to the Minister's. In the entire Great Yu Dynasty, you can count the people with such skill on one hand." This was the first time the Crown Prince had revealed any concrete details of the case to Yang Xuanse.
Yang Xuanse loved a good mystery. He crossed his arms, deep in thought. "What about traps? Is it possible the killer set up a mechanism, using a crossbow or something similar, to assassinate the official by surprise?"
The Crown Prince had never met someone so utterly devoid of common sense. He opened his mouth, decided against trying to explain it, and simply commanded, "Le Jiu, give him a crossbow."
The attendant, Le Jiu, understood the assignment. He went over to the rack of interrogation tools and picked out a small crossbow, thoughtfully accommodating Yang Xuanse just in case a heavy one proved too much for him to lift.
The miniature crossbow wasn't too heavy. Yang Xuanse held it with a look of pure novelty. In the modern world, such highly lethal weapons were strictly banned. Only a few ethnic minorities still crafted them, occasionally using them to hunt escaped livestock. But the innate constitution of his people was such that, even if they had never played with a weapon before, they became naturally adept the second they got their hands on it.
Yang Xuanse held it up happily, knowing enough to ensure the arrowhead wasn't pointed at anyone. "Is this a gift for me?"
The Crown Prince’s face was expressionless. "Hold it. Shoot him."
"Huh?" Yang Xuanse was terrified. "No way, even if you are the Crown Prince, isn't this treating human life like dirt?"
"Hey, how dare you speak to His Highness like that—" Le Jiu stepped forward to teach Yang Xuanse a lesson, but the Crown Prince stopped him.
The Crown Prince pointed at Le Jiu and said, "If you can even tear his clothes, from today onward, you will be my personal attendant, with a yearly salary of one thousand taels of silver."
Yang Xuanse instantly understood the Crown Prince's point: Which was stronger, martial arts or traps?
All the explanations in the world couldn't compare to seeing the truth with his own eyes.
Given the Crown Prince's guarantee, Yang Xuanse lowered his head, seeming to consider the offer. Le Jiu paid him absolutely no mind. Yet, to everyone's surprise, the seemingly hesitant Yang Xuanse suddenly and without warning raised the crossbow, pulled the trigger, and fired three bolts in rapid succession.
The sharp sound of the bolts piercing the air rang right next to the Crown Prince's ear. He sat completely unmoving, apparently unconcerned that the novice Yang Xuanse might miss his mark and skewer him instead.
Le Jiu hadn't taken Yang Xuanse seriously from the start. Although he was startled by the sudden attack, he easily dodged two of the bolts and effortlessly caught the last one right in his hand.
Yang Xuanse had looked up the moment he fired. He only saw Le Jiu intercept the bolt at a speed nearly invisible to the naked eye, while the other two bolts embedded themselves deeply into the wall—at least five centimeters deep. Le Jiu had actually blocked a weapon with that much stopping power!
"Bro, are you Iron Man?" Yang Xuanse was dumbfounded.
Le Jiu gave a disdainful snort. He turned, pulled the embedded bolts out of the wall with his bare hands, and placed them neatly next to the Crown Prince.
The Crown Prince asked, "Now, do you understand the reality of Great Yu?"
---
Yang Xuanse could only mentally recalibrate the power scaling of this world. "So, you believe that whoever killed the Minister of War must be a martial arts master? And they had to launch a surprise attack so he wouldn't have time to defend himself?"
"That is the coroner's current deduction. Based on the fatal wound, his posture, and the state of his clothes, everything was pristine—except for the areas you touched," the Crown Prince said, pointing at Yang Xuanse.
Hearing this, Yang Xuanse set the crossbow aside and paced back and forth. "Then there is one detail that doesn't make sense. If the Minister of War was highly skilled, who could have completely sealed the door without alerting him? I tried that door; it wasn't just locked, it was completely sealed shut."
Given ancient technology, if a door was merely locked, it could still be pulled ajar slightly. But when Yang Xuanse first crossed over, that door hadn't budged an inch, as if it had been firmly nailed shut with wooden planks from the outside.
The Crown Prince's eyes glinted with interest. "However, according to your own words, by the time you arrived, the Minister had been dead for at least a shichen (two hours). That is more than enough time to seal a door."
Yang Xuanse froze. He still knew far too little about the current situation. After a moment of silence, he asked cautiously, "Could I take a look at the case file?"
"Our written characters are different; can you even read them?" the Crown Prince asked, surprised. It wasn't that he couldn't show the file to him, but Yang Xuanse was treating the Supreme Court like his own home, acting entirely too familiar.
"Let me try first. I have to clear my name somehow, right? Otherwise, you could just release me, and I'll remain on standby in the capital 24/7?" Yang Xuanse rubbed his hands together with a flattering smile.
The Crown Prince gave a slight nod and instructed Le Jiu, "Give him the file." Since they had no leads anyway, perhaps this outsider could offer a fresh perspective on the case.
Hearing this, Yang Xuanse pursed his lips in displeasure, inwardly cursing this damn feudal dynasty.
The case files were kept on hand during interrogations. Le Jiu quickly retrieved the freshly written scroll and even kindly untied the string, assuming Yang Xuanse wouldn't know how to undo the knot.
Seeing his action, Yang Xuanse bristled. "I'm just a foreigner, I don't have brain damage!"
With that, he snatched the file away to read it himself.
The record was highly concise and written in Classical Chinese. The only part Yang Xuanse could fully comprehend was the coroner's autopsy report, because even in Classical Chinese, that section required incredibly detailed descriptions.
Relying on a foundation of Classical Chinese that he had almost entirely returned to his high school literature teacher, Yang Xuanse managed to grasp the gist of the document.
Autopsy Summary:
The deceased is Wang Jianfeng, Minister of War. Hair loose, clothing neat and unwrinkled. The wound is everted, suspected to be caused by a thin sword less than an inch wide, which pierced the lungs and heart, causing death. There is blood in the mouth, likely welling up from the lungs. Arms hung naturally at the sides, no foreign matter under the fingernails. No signs of struggle before death; a single-strike kill.
The washbasin and tea set in the room contained no poison. Inspection revealed no hidden mechanisms modified into the room. The window showed signs of being opened and closed multiple times.
The frame of the guest room door had indentations from nails driven in once, with no overlapping holes. The wooden planks used to seal the door did not belong to the inn.
Because so little time had passed, the coroner and the crime scene investigators had only managed to uncover this much. Further details would require a meticulous re-examination.
To sum it up, the sequence of events in the room went roughly like this: The Minister of War checked into the inn. After sleeping until dawn, he was suddenly assassinated by a highly skilled martial artist who broke in through the window. The killer then brought in outside planks and nails to seal the door to delay discovery. As they were preparing to leave, they spotted the suddenly arriving Yang Xuanse, shoved the murder weapon into his hands to frame him, and successfully fled the scene.
---
Yang Xuanse slowly rolled up the file. He asked, "What was the Minister of War doing at an inn? Who knew he was going to stay there for the night? As a Minister, why would he stay at a public inn in the first place?"
"These matters are still being investigated. The information won't arrive that quickly, which is why I came to interrogate you first. Tell me, you don't seem to agree with the contents of this file," the Crown Prince noted, very curious about what kind of answer Yang Xuanse would provide.
"It's not that I don't agree. I just feel like... something is missing..." Yang Xuanse frowned and unrolled the scroll once again.
The Crown Prince sat up a bit straighter, pressing, "Missing what?"
Scanning the file once more, Yang Xuanse replied, "Classification. The nature of the case. Criminal behavior always has a motive. Even indiscriminate killings can be classified as such. But killing the Minister of War—why? Political rivalry? Factional disputes? Or... was he silenced?"
The identity of a victim and the method of murder often hint at the motive behind the killing. While not always perfectly accurate, it provides a crucial direction for the investigation. This is why forensic pathologists are an indispensable presence in modern cases.
But looking at this case file, it was incredibly hard to tell what the coroner was trying to convey. Yang Xuanse guessed this was due to a lack of experience and the low social status of coroners in ancient times. The coroner acted merely as a tool to catalog the physical traces at the scene.
He couldn't provide the investigative insights or comprehensive deductions based on past cases that a modern forensic expert could, nor could he request advanced or more complex testing methods.
This was a strict limitation of the era and its technology. Yang Xuanse couldn't expect a feudal dynasty to treat scientific investigation with the same respect as modern society.
Thinking of this, Yang Xuanse spoke again before the Crown Prince could. "Of course, it could just be that there's insufficient evidence right now. But in my opinion, instead of interrogating me, finding outside clues is much more important—like looking into the Minister's family or his political enemies."
"That makes sense. Then you can go back and continue chatting with the rats," the Crown Prince said, quite disappointed. He felt Yang Xuanse was just spouting obvious nonsense and decided not to waste any more time on him.
Since Yang Xuanse couldn't offer anything genuinely useful, his mysterious identity could be dealt with later. He wasn't going anywhere anyway.
The moment Yang Xuanse thought of that cramped, oppressive cell and the flesh-eating "Rat Bro," he threw himself at the desk with alarming speed, desperately trying to keep the Crown Prince from leaving.
"Your Highness, I really don't want to live with Rat Bro! They'll eat me alive at night! Please let me follow you! I have experience, I swear! If you just let me see a few more clues, I can definitely help you find the killer!"
The Crown Prince looked slightly repulsed. "You have not found any evidence to clear your own name. Therefore, until the next suspect is locked up, you cannot leave."
This sentence was clearly meant to be a polite refusal, but to Yang Xuanse, it was a sudden lifeline.
"I understand! The person you arrested is the foreigner, Yang Xuanse. What does that have to do with me, a local boy named Se Laoliu? From today onward, I am Your Highness's man! You can't abandon me!"
"..."
The Crown Prince suddenly felt a suffocating sensation, as if he had merely given this guy an inch and now he was stuck to him like a piece of stubborn plaster.
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