But Ning Yi had already stretched out his hand, pointed at him, and burst out with a shout. 

“Take him!”

The guards rushed forward without any hesitation. 

…inisde, Liu Ma Ma removed the screen, and put the now disguised Shao Ning on the ground. Feng Zhi Wei quickly stuffed a small tri-color porcelain cup into Shao Ning’s arms. 

Outside, Wu Wenming’s face turned pale with shock as he protested loudly “Your Highness, you have gone crazy! You dare to arrest a first-ranking official?!” 

“I dare to arrest a high-ranking official who had an ulterior motive and colluded with assassins!” Ning Yi grinned grimly, pointed to the direction of the emperor’s badchamber, and yelled, “The assassin clearly appeared near His Majesty’s bedchamber, but you and this palace maid conspired together to say that the assassin appeared in Jingshen Palace. You then use that as an excuse to come waste time here so you can give the assassin time to finish up whatever was needed to be accomplished! You had nefarious ambition and plotted to kill the emperor!”

Wu Wenming’s face instantly drained of all color. 

He understood in that very moment Ning Yi’s ruthlessness. 

He had went along with situation and pulled the rug out under them!

The so-called assassin was nothing more than a made up story from the very beginning, to give them the excuse to search Jingshen Palace in order to frame Wei Zhi for the crime of assaulting a princess. But Ning Yi’s response was ruthless. He went along with the situation and simply created an assassin close to His Majesty’s bedchamber. Since the assassin is over there, then there would be no assassin over here. With that fact established, it leaves him, Wu Wenming’s action of coming all the way over here to conduct a search highly suspicious, looking very much like he had purposefully tried to create an alibi of not being close to the emperor’s bedchamber. 

Prince Chu then interrogated the palace maid and got her to admit that he was the one who had suggested Jingshen Palace. With those “facts” in place, even if he can shake off the crime of attempting to assassinate the emperor, he won’t be able to get away from the crime of “conspiracy and harboring ulterior motives.” He might even get saddled with the crime of attempting to frame an important meritorious official. Instead of thinking about how far his career will take off after this matter is done, he is now worrying about how he can come out of this with his neck intact. 

Wu Wenming had come with complete confidence and felt fully in control, but now, after the thunderbolt Ning Yi had dealt him, his mind had gone utterly blank. 

This matter had only taken a quarter of an hour. He came extremely fast, certain that Ning Yi would not be informed in time, and even if he did he would not have time to respond, but who would have guessed this person could come up with a counterattack in such an unbelievably short amount of time!

No wonder he came a step behind him but then struck with lightening speed!

The Changying Guards rushed forward with the spears, their faces stone-cold, without any hesitation. These men belonged to Ning Yi’s personal guards anyway so it made sense that he would choose to use them instead of the Imperial Palace Guards. (All the princes would have a team of their own guards and it wouldn’t be a small number unless the prince is particularly disliked by the emperor and has no support from his maternal clan whatsoever.) Wu Wenming had only brought a small number of palace guards and a few eunuchs with him, all of them of course dare not to go against a prince. 

Such a perfect plan, is it really going to fail at the last moment when they are only a step away from success? And this might very well cost his future and life as well? 

No, there is still a chance to turn this back around!

It just needs…

The expression in Wu Wenming’s eyes hardened.

Ning Yi’s eyes flashed and he yelled, “Take him quickly!”

But Wu Wenming had already slammed backward hard! 

The door burst open. 

Wu Wenming shook the dagger in his hand and let out a cold sneer– while he was conversing with Ning Yi, he had already used his dagger to silently lift the door latch of the door, allowing him to easily get the door open with one single hit. 

Ning Yi, you might be ruthless but that’s okay. As long as Wei Zhi is caught, the outcome would remain uncertain!

There were no rear windows in this room other than the window in the front. Wei Zhi and the princess are still inside, so it would be pointless even if they are fully dressed by this point. As long as the princess is there, then Wei Zhi would be guilty. 

With the sneer still on his face, Wu Wenming turned around to look inside, waiting to see the panicked Wei Zhi frantically trying to hide, waiting for the surprised exclamation from hundreds of people, waiting for the confident Ning Yi to be made speechless and dumbfounded. 

Dumbfounded indeed. 

But it was just himself. 

The door opened, and everything inside looked normal as usual. Wei Zhi, his clothing looking neat with nothing amiss, stood to one side frowning. On the other side stood a middle-aged woman. Judging by the color of her outfit, this is a Ma Ma that has a high status. She is also frowning, staring at a young eunuch under her foot as she angrily scolded, “You good-for-nothing scoundrel that had embarrassed all of Yu Ming Palace!” 

The young eunuch was half kneeling on the ground, seemingly having fainted already. His face was facing outward, and thanks to all the torch lights, everyone could see clearly that it was a young eunuch with a round face, brown skin, with many pockmarks. 

Wu Wenming’s eyes widened, his eyes searching all around at the obviously empty room– where is Princess Shao Ning?

Someone let out a low “Huh?” and muttered “Isn’t this Yuming Palace’s Xiao Jizi (an eunuch’s name)? And that’s Liu Ma Ma. Why are they here in the middle of the night?” 

 Ning Yi raised his eyes and met Feng Zhi Wei’s gaze. There was no nervousness or shock when their eyes met, just a hint of a faint smile. 

They are the same kind of people and their mutual effort to deal with the same crisis caused them to share a hint of a smile. 

Ning Yi then turned his gaze to the young eunuch, a look of surprise flashed across his eyes, as he then looked at Liu Ma Ma. 

However, Liu Ma Ma was not looking at anyone. After casting a bitter glare at the young eunuch, she turned to bow to Ning Yi and said, “Your Highness, this old servant is here to plead guilty.”

“This is Liu Ma Ma of Yuming Palace?” Ning Yi said offhandedly, “Why are you here?”

A look of shame appeared on Liu Ma Ma’s face, seemingly unable to get the words to come out of her mouth. 

Feng Zhi Wei smiled and said, “It’s like this, this young eunuch somehow stumbled into my place tonight. I saw him and mistakenly thought he was an assassin so I caught him for some questioning. But who would’ve guessed that he was simply a sweeper eunuch from Yuming Palace. I was just about to let him go when Yuming Palace’s Liu Ma Ma came searching. Upon seeing her, this young eunuch fainted from fright. I had not had the time yet to invite the two guests to take their leave when Official Wu showed up. I figured it was not appropriate for Liu Ma Ma and this eunuch to appear at my place in the middle of the night and it would be on me if they got in trouble because of this. That’s why I hesitated for a bit there. I apologize for causing Official Wu to wait.” She bowed toward the now very pale Wu Wenming and then smiled, “But there really isn’t any assassin that Official Wu had said was at my place. This is something Liu Ma Ma can testify to. Or else, does Official Wu think Liu Ma Ma and this young eunuch can be counted as assassins?  

She spoke softly and respectfully, but everyone could hear the sarcasm in it. Liu Ma Ma and Xiao Jizi could never be assassins. Everyone there has spent enough time in the palace to understand the deeper meanings of Official Wei’s words–  Jingshen palace used to be empty and thus had very few guards around. Lately, because Official Wei had moved in to recuperate from his injuries, His Majesty had sent over a lot of rewards until there are piles of them everywhere. Official Wei will naturally have to eventually take all these out of the palace with him so the eunuchs had not summoned people to move these rewards into safe storage for him. This young eunuch from Yuming Palace probably saw a chance for easy money and snuck out secretly to steal some goodies. He most likely figured that since Official Wei is injured and there were so many rewards, he would not notice if a few went missing. Who would’ve thought he would end up getting captured by Official Wei? Official Wei didn’t want to make a big deal out of it and called over Ma Ma Liu from Yuming Palace to come to deal with it, but then Official Wu showed up at an inopportune time.

There was no need to explain all the ins and outs of what happened since everyone could easily come up with their own explanations in their mind. Besides, there was that tri-color porcelain cup still in the young eunuch’s arms, it seems to be something that was bestowed by the emperor. 

A captain of the Imperial Palace Guard who had come with Wu Wenming gave his men a silent tilt of his head and moved slightly back. 

Wu Wenming looked around in disbelief– where did the princess go? Why is Liu Ma Ma here?

His gaze fell on the face of the young eunuch. Just now, he heard that someone knew this eunuch. His heart sank further but a thought still crossed his mind, is it possible…

“His Majesty has arrived—— “ 

All text copyright @ www.Ninja-Reflection.com

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