The Imperial Coroner Season 2

Chapter 95: Spicy Pot (Part 21)

Jing Yi hesitated slightly before speaking these words. This hesitation carried a weight of careful deliberation, unlike the flippant "get lost" he'd used to dismiss the elopement remark earlier.

Leng Yue couldn't help feeling wronged by his assumption. "I know?"

In all these years, she could count on one hand how many times she'd actually seen the Late Emperor in person. If even Jing Yi - who regularly wagged his tail before the Late Emperor - didn't know about such a confidential matter, how could she possibly know?

Jing Yi gave a faint smile, one that reminded her of the little boy she'd memorized in her mind since childhood. Even with his scruffy beard, he still looked utterly pure.

With this scruffy yet innocent smiling face, he countered, "What were you looking for in my study that day?"

Leng Yue froze, the wronged expression in her eyes fading slightly, replaced by unease. Jing Yi quickly added, "No, I'm not blaming you. We agreed before - everything of mine is yours, and that still stands... I just want to know what exactly you were looking for. That thing must be more important than everything else I own, otherwise you wouldn't have married me just to find it..."

Leng Yue stared at him even more stunned, though now without unease, her eyes filled with disbelief as if she'd seen a ghost. "You... you thought I married you just to find something?"

What made Leng Yue even more incredulous was that Jing Yi looked even more stunned than her, staring blankly at her as he asked in bewilderment, "Otherwise..."

Otherwise?

If there weren't a more despicable person waiting to be dealt with, Leng Yue would have immediately and without hesitation taught him a proper lesson.

They'd married, divorced, and she'd even gotten pregnant with his child - and he actually thought she married him just to find something!

Though come to think of it, she had indeed rushed back from Liangzhou and immediately dragged him out of the Dali Temple to get married without explanation. She'd never given him a proper reason, and he'd never asked. Seeing how she deliberately sent him away before ransacking the entire house, it was natural for him to draw this conclusion.

If he'd always thought this way...

Leng Yue suddenly realized - could this be the source of his inexplicable insecurities all along?

Normally, he could tell with one glance whether she was pondering a corpse's cause of death or what to eat for the next meal when she furrowed her brows. How could he be so blind about this one thing she couldn't bring herself to say...

After staring at Jing Yi with mixed emotions for a long moment, Leng Yue steeled herself, gritted her teeth, and said as casually as possible, "I didn't marry you to find something... What I was looking for was something newly made this year, definitely not that token passed down through generations of emperors. We should think of other possibilities."

Jing Yi seemed to want to say more but stopped. Leng Yue naturally knew why he stopped - even she could feel that her face was covered with a thick layer of "no comment."

When she didn't want to do something, Jing Yi never forced her.But seeing Jing Yi press his lips, which had regained a faint trace of color under the effects of the Spirit Focusing Powder, firmly together, swallowing back the words that had been on the tip of his tongue, yet still forcing a relaxed smile in response to her, Leng Yue’s heart suddenly ached. She held back for a moment but couldn’t resist saying, "I married you... because I wanted to marry you, not for any other reason..."

Jing Yi was slightly taken aback. A satisfied smile, as if he could die without regrets, had just begun to form when, for some reason, his brows abruptly furrowed. He raised a hand to press against his chest, his expression shifting slightly.

Recalling the bowl of soup Jing Yi had just drunk, Leng Yue was startled. The blush that had risen to her cheeks instantly vanished, and she asked urgently, "What’s wrong?"

"It’s nothing..." Jing Yi exhaled slowly, smoothing out his furrowed brow. He looked up at Leng Yue, whose face was full of concern, and completed that particularly contented smile. "It’s just that my heart is beating a little too fast."

Leng Yue quickly reached out to check his pulse. "How fast?"

"Hmm..." Jing Yi let her take his pulse, thought seriously for a moment, and then replied with a delighted smile, "Just like that time you pinned me against the study wall and kissed me until I nearly ran out of breath."

"..."

If his pulse hadn’t genuinely indicated a rapid heartbeat, Leng Yue would have surely made him experience what it felt like to run out of breath.

Leng Yue kept a stern expression as she felt his pulse for a while before lightly frowning and saying, "It’s just a slightly faster heartbeat. I can’t detect anything else... Do you feel anything else unusual?"

Jing Yi pursed his lips, as if searching through every part of his body, before replying, "Writing you a divorce letter was wrong."

It took Leng Yue a moment to process what he meant by "divorce letter."

If he still had the mind to joke around like this, he probably wasn’t seriously ill. Leng Yue released his wrist and rolled her eyes in mild annoyance. "So now you realize it was wrong? Did you mistake the Spirit Focusing Powder for a pill of regret?"

"Can it work as one?"

"...No."

Jing Yi pouted dejectedly, threw off the covers, and stood up. He walked to the wardrobe and, while rummaging for clothes, muttered softly as if to himself, "I thought you only came here to look for something. After what happened, it wouldn’t be worth making you stay just to search for something. Whatever you want, just say the word, and I’ll get it for you..."

Leng Yue stared blankly at Jing Yi’s somewhat thin silhouette standing before the wardrobe. Over the past half-month, the ordeal had left him noticeably thinner. Seeing him standing there alone like this made her heart ache.

Leng Yue had always believed that Jing Yi had written her that divorce letter out of consideration for her, but she had never imagined that his reasoning was this...

If he truly thought this way, then it meant...

"You mean," Leng Yue hesitated cautiously before speaking, "if I truly wanted to marry you, you wouldn’t have divorced me?"

Jing Yi nodded without turning his head. He pulled a garment from the wardrobe and brought it to his nose to sniff. The clothes, untouched for half a month, had gathered a thin layer of dampness without any incense. Jing Yi frowned slightly and, without hesitation, stuffed it back into the wardrobe."Definitely not." Jing Yi replied more decisively than when stuffing clothes. He took another garment from the wardrobe, sniffed it carefully, and relaxed his brows with satisfaction before shaking it open. With a faint self-reproach like the subtle scent of incense, he said, "You came willingly. Since I agreed to let you come, if I want you to leave, I should at least discuss it with you..."

Leng Yue remained silent for a moment before speaking calmly, asking Jing Yi something seemingly unrelated. "Are you energetic enough to use qinggong now?"

"Hmm... almost."

Before Jing Yi finished speaking, before he could even put on the clothes in his hand, he felt a strange cold breeze coming from Leng Yue's direction. Startled, he instinctively sidestepped while raising the garment to wrap around the object flying straight toward his forehead with that eerie chill.

The moment the object landed in the soft fabric of Jing Yi's clothes, his waist and back fell into an even softer embrace.

Leng Yue wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, pressing herself tightly against his back—so tight that Jing Yi could clearly feel the rise and fall of her breathing, somewhat hurried, as if she were on the verge of tears.

Jing Yi looked down at the spoon he had barely caught in his clothes and felt even more like crying than she did.

If she wanted to hug him, she could have just done it directly. It wasn't as if he had refused her. Why did she have to use such a diversionary tactic...

Judging by the fact that she threw a small spoon instead of a soup pot, she must still care for him, right?

"I was actually looking for a pouch..."

After quietly catching her breath against his back for a while, Leng Yue suddenly uttered these words, startling Jing Yi so much that he nearly dropped the innocent spoon.

A pouch?

Generally speaking, pouches were something made by one's mother in childhood and by one's wife in adulthood. Master Jing had never expected his wife to make such things since the day he proposed, and Jing Yi was no different. So, in his memory, pouches had always belonged to other people's families.

No wonder Leng Yue, an expert at searching for evidence, had been looking since the day she married but still hadn't found anything conclusive...

But since she had come here to search, there must have been some clue leading her.

Though Jing Yi knew there was likely no such thing, he still asked seriously, "What kind of pouch?"

Hearing Jing Yi ask so earnestly, Leng Yue couldn't help but lift her slightly pointed chin and jab his shoulder blade harshly, though her arms around his waist remained tight. "At a time like this, why are you still playing dumb?"

Jing Yi felt like crying at her jab. "I'm not playing dumb—I really am dumb. Could you please just tell me clearly?"

"Princess Changning made it. Remember now?"

Leng Yue's words were clear enough, but Jing Yi only grew more confused.

"Princess Changning?"

Princess Changning was the Crown Prince's biological sister, with a docile temperament quite unlike other pampered nobles raised in the palace. Neither inside nor outside the palace had anyone ever gossiped about her. Jing Yi's only impression of her came from one or two chance encounters in his early years at the palace. They had never even properly greeted each other in their lives—even if she made a whole sack of pouches, it would never be his turn to receive one...Leng Yue released her arms from around Jing Yi's waist, allowing him to turn around. Only then did he see the full extent of anger on her face, which left him even more stunned.

"What, have you truly forgotten about this matter, or haven't you figured it out yet?" Leng Yue narrowed her phoenix eyes slightly, making Jing Yi's heart flutter inexplicably. As if possessed, he hugged his clothes protectively to his chest, looking every bit like a bullied young wife. This only fueled Leng Yue's anger further, and she decided to lay all her cards on the table. "The Late Emperor took a liking to you and wanted to summon you to become his son-in-law. But he feared you might refuse due to our engagement, so behind your back, he presented you with various items belonging to the princesses for you to choose from. Whichever one you picked would count as you accepting that princess's token. Then, without a word, he would prepare your wedding. Once the matter of the token was brought up, for the sake of the princess's reputation, you'd have no choice but to marry her... You picked Princess Changning's pouch, and inside it was a handful of red beans. Remember now?"

To be honest, Leng Yue admitted that the Late Emperor was a wise ruler, but that didn't stop her from also seeing him as a scoundrel.

Leng Yue was grateful she worked in the government office and understood the importance of priorities and the bigger picture. Otherwise, she couldn't guarantee she wouldn't use her martial skills to do something even more insane than what Xiao Zhao Ye had done.

"Don't think that just because I haven't studied much, I don't know the tricks you scholars play. What does giving a handful of red beans mean? It means Princess Changning has been thinking about you for a long time..." Leng Yue watched Jing Yi's dazed, foolish expression and couldn't help rolling her eyes at this usually clever man having a momentary lapse. "Luckily, Eunuch Zheng had a few too many drinks when he came to Liangzhou to deliver the decree. In a moment of tipsy enthusiasm, he spilled the whole story to me and urged me to hurry back and 'cook the raw rice' before the red beans turned into bean paste buns."

Jing Yi listened quietly until Leng Yue finished, his lips pressed together as if hesitating before he spoke gently, "I'm going to tell you the truth, but please don't get angry."

"Go ahead."

Jing Yi subtly took half a step back, creating some distance between them, then offered a wry smile. "That kind of nonsense could only fool someone like you..."

"..."

Before Leng Yue could throw something else at him, Jing Yi took another step back, looking both amused and exasperated. "I know you've probably never looked into how emperors marry off their daughters... But think about it now - there are only so few princesses, and the Late Emperor needed to save them for the Crown Prince to use for political marriages and to control court officials. How could marrying a princess ever fall to someone as obedient as me, right?"

Leng Yue stared at Jing Yi wide-eyed, as if she'd been struck hard on the head by a hammer.

She had to admit that what Jing Yi said seemed much more reasonable than what Eunuch Zheng had told her. At the time, she had been too afraid - afraid that if she missed this chance, she would never get it back. And Eunuch Zheng had spoken with such earnest concern that it never occurred to her that this kindly, gentle old man in his sixties would play such an elaborate joke on her...

She had married him simply because she wanted to marry him.

But...Leng Yue took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the urge to tear down the house. "I have no grudge against Eunuch Zheng. Why would he lie to me about such a thing? He even fabricated such a complete story, repeatedly urging me to find that pouch and destroy it as thoroughly as possible. He sounded so convincing..."

"Wait..." Jing Yi frowned slightly, cutting off Leng Yue's nearly frantic complaints as he thoughtfully said, "This sounds somewhat familiar."

"...Familiar?"

Jing Yi set down the spoon he had just caught, draped the clothes in his hand over himself, turned to another cabinet, rummaged through it, and pulled out a stack of neatly arranged papers. After flipping through a few pages, he sighed. "I thought I'd heard it somewhere... Eunuch Zheng used a plot from the second half of The Biography of Nine Immortals. I was planning to send it to the teahouse next spring. After the Late Emperor read the first half, he kept urging me, so I only showed it to him..."

Jing Yi muttered under his breath, "He promised not to spread it, yet he copied my story to deceive my wife..."

Leng Yue's mind was already a muddled mess from the pent-up anger with no outlet, so she didn't hear Jing Yi's muttering. With a dark expression, she gritted her teeth and squeezed out, "Then, does your The Biography of Nine Immortals say what benefit he gains by tricking me like this?"

Jing Yi put away the stack of manuscripts and shook his head matter-of-factly. "No, in this story, it's real. The mouse spirit found the cat immortal's token at the Heavenly Emperor's place, and then they got married."

"..."

Leng Yue felt that no matter how popular the second half of The Biography of Nine Immortals became, she would never go to listen to it.

While Leng Yue was sorting out her complicated feelings, Jing Yi had already finished dressing. Perhaps the medicine had taken effect. Though his face was still somewhat pale, he was clearly much more energetic and upright.

"You can go ask the Crown Prince about this. It's likely that the two of them discussed it..." After offering this suggestion, Jing Yi lowered his voice slightly and said, "While you're at it, give the Crown Prince a heads-up and have him make some preparations."

Leng Yue was momentarily stunned, pulling her mind back from the happy life of the cat immortal and the mouse spirit. Realizing that Jing Yi was already planning their next move, she asked seriously, "What preparations?"

"He knows his own affairs best."

Leng Yue had deeply realized that when it came to court politics, she was truly powerless. If the Crown Prince knew how to handle his own matters, that was naturally for the best.

"Alright... Then what are you going to do?"

"Find Xiao Zhao Ye and settle a score."