“Because Third Miss Yuan has been taking and boiling medicine all year round, her maidservant also smells like herbs, so much so that the clerks at the post station have a memory of it!” The surveillance officer stood in front of the two people and said what he had seen during these days of surveillance. “They haven’t done anything during these days. Even the herbs were brought from Jiangling! They eat and live in the inn, except when they go out to send letters home!”

“The clerk said that they had sent a lot of letters to the post station these days. Besides the fact that the maids who came to send the letters always smelled of herbs, what they found even more strange, was that the addresses of these letters were actually in Chang’an City!” The officer said, “Although they have seen such letters sent in the city, they are very few. After all, it is faster to send letters to Chang’an City by yourself than to find a post station to send them! Only men and women who have feelings for each other would do this when they send love letters and there is no one to help deliver them!”

“But even if it’s love letters, they don’t send them so frequently. Sometimes there are as many as five or six a day!” When the officer said this, he thought of the expression of the clerk at the post station, and his face was a little strange. However, facing Lin Fei and Liu Yuan, he still coughed and continued, “The clerk said that there is only one possibility in this situation, that is, the sender must be a playboy, sending letters to many people and having multiple relationships. Seeing that the address on the letter kept changing, they thought it must be so, so they remembered the maid who smelled of herbs!”

“According to the clerk, the maid started sending letters long before the Mid-Autumn Festival,” the officer said. “According to the date, Miss Yuan started sending letters home after the Yuan brothers and sisters came to Chang’an!”

“Most of the time, the letters were sent home, and only two were returned!” The officer said this with a serious look on his face. “I heard that when the courier delivered it, there was a rental sign outside the house. After asking around, we found out that the owner had already moved out!”

The officer said as he lowered his head to look at the two letters that were returned. The address on them made him shudder: “Isn’t that the address where Second Master Yuan hired someone to find someone to replace the life of her sister?”

After they captured Second Master Yuan and interrogated him that day, they went to look for these people but found nothing. After asking, they learned that the people who had rented the house had just moved out.

“The clerk wanted to tell the maid about the two letters being returned, but every time the maid left the letters and money and ran away!” The officer said, “One time the clerk wanted to stop the maid to tell her about the family letters, but the maid ran away very fast and replied from a distance, asking him to send the letters back to Jiangling and not to ask any more questions! The clerk glanced at the address of Chang’an City on the letter and felt at a loss whether to laugh or cry. Only then did he realize that the maid was illiterate and must have been running errands for someone else!”

“But they didn’t think it was strange. It’s common for young ladies to send love letters without telling their families. If they hire an illiterate maid to run errands, they don’t have to worry about the secret being leaked!” said the officer. “The post station was busy, so he threw the letter aside. He didn’t remember it until we went to look for it!”

The two returned letters had been picked out at this time. Liu Yuan looked at Lin Fei: “Shaoqing Lin?”

Lin Fei hummed, opened one of the letters, took a look, and then said, “It’s an acrostic poem! This one is ‘Second Master Yuan was arrested’!”

Liu Yuan quickly picked up the remaining letter, opened it, and exclaimed, “This one says ‘Everything remains the same’!”

The words “Second Master Yuan was arrested, everything remains the same” really made people tremble! Who would have thought that the weak and fragile Third Miss Yuan was one of the culprits behind the scenes?

…

…

The interrogation in the hall came to a stalemate. Bai Zhu and Third Miss Yuan looked at each other with calm expressions.

Both sides knew what the other was thinking, but they had no evidence.

Just at this moment, Lin Fei and Liu Yuan walked in from outside and threw the two returned letters directly in front of Third Miss Yuan.

Third Miss Yuan’s indifferent face flashed a moment of panic. Before she could speak, Liu Yuan said, “Don’t bother to quibble. It’s an acrostic poem! Second Master Yuan has been arrested, and everything remains the same!”

What does “Second Master Yuan was arrested, everything remains the same” mean? The two maids kneeling on the ground beside them flashed a look of surprise!

Although they were illiterate, they had been delivering letters for so long, so they at least knew that these two letters were undoubtedly sent by them.

Didn’t the young lady say that the letter was a letter sent back to Jiangling? Why did it say “Second Master was arrested”? And what does “everything remains the same” mean?

The pale and weak face that was so familiar in the past suddenly became unfamiliar.

“Miss…” The two maids opened their mouths and murmured.

Looking at the letter thrown in front of her, Third Miss Yuan lowered her eyelids. After a long while, she raised her eyes again and looked at the few people.

“When did you start to doubt me?” Her smiling face was calm and indifferent, and she didn’t even bother to glance at the maidservant who grew up with her on the ground.

Third Miss Yuan hugged the stove and said, “I think I’m good at pretending. For so many years, no one in the clan has ever doubted me. How did you find out?”

“How did we find out?” Lin Fei repeated her words, moved his feet, and walked to her in two steps. Then… he suddenly stretched out his hand and lifted her hand through the thick coat.

The sleeves of the autumn shirt under the coat slipped down, revealing a small part of the arm.

The dense red dots on the white arms were a bit scary.

Liu Yuantong and Bai Zhu were momentarily stunned. Just as the two maidservants were about to speak, Lin Fei spoke first: “It’s heat rash! Caused by being covered up too much!”

This Third Miss Yuan was not as afraid of the cold as she appeared!

As soon as these words were spoken, the two maidservants exclaimed in shock, “How is that possible? The doctor… Miss… clearly…”

Seeing the two maidservants so shocked that they could barely form a sentence, Lin Fei withdrew her hand and said calmly, “She was indeed born with an illness, but what was merely three parts sickness, she has deliberately made to seem like eight!”

Facing the astonishment of the crowd, Third Miss Yuan lowered her head and chuckled, slowly put down the heater in her hand, and unbuttoned her heavy coat. When she had thrown both coats aside, she breathed a sigh of relief, wiped her sweaty neck, and said, “It’s really hot wearing these two coats in this weather!”

As she spoke, she raised her head and looked at Lin Fei: “Shaoqing Lin is really amazing, do you know why I did this?”

This… Bai Zhu thought of what she said before and said hurriedly: “You hate the people of the Yuan family and think that your congenital illness is caused by them!”

Third Miss Yuan chuckled when she heard this and nodded, “I do hate them, but not just for this reason!”

What else could be the reason? Everyone was puzzled.

Lin Fei glanced at her and said calmly: “If that was the only reason, you will only stir up trouble within the Yuan family and make life extremely difficult for others…”

Some people in this world were like this. If they didn’t live a good life themselves, they would make others live even worse to satisfy their wishes.

“But after that engagement with Young Master Jiang from Qiandeng Shop was called off, your mindset changed. You realized that stirring up trouble within the Yuan family was far from enough!” Lin Fei said.

(End of this chapter)

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