A Warning to Jin Mulan

Di Renjie said, "Let us count that as one explanation. Now for the second question: the Thousand Ox Guards are the Emperor's personal elite guard. Whatever they were guarding must have been connected to the Emperor. So why was it not kept in the imperial palace, but in an earthen kiln?"

Li Yuanfang thought for a moment. "Then they were not looking for an object."

Di Renjie asked, "If they were not looking for an object, then what were they looking for?"

Li Yuanfang blurted out, "Could it have been a person?"

Di Renjie nodded approvingly. "Good! That is another hypothesis. But the same question remains: if they wanted to rescue this person, they could simply take them away. Why burn down the earthen kiln?"

Li Yuanfang shook his head.

Di Renjie continued, "There is only one explanation: they wanted to create the appearance of an accidental fire. They used the blaze to burn all the corpses beyond recognition, leaving investigators unable to identify them by their faces. That way, no one could determine whether the mysterious person had been rescued or burned to death."

Li Yuanfang nodded. "That makes sense."

Di Renjie smiled. "It is logical. Good. Now let us combine the two hypotheses. These people used the delegation's identity to achieve their goal, and that goal was to rescue the mysterious person in the earthen kiln."

Li Yuanfang nodded. "It all fits. Without the false delegation's identity, even if they attacked the earthen kiln and successfully rescued the person, they would have had no way to get that mysterious person out of Chang'an."

Di Renjie asked, "One final question. Why did they murder the Princess?"

Li Yuanfang frowned and muttered, "Right..."

As though suddenly recalling something, Di Renjie said, "If the earthen kiln incident had occurred and the