"Consort Hua?" Liu Shengming was utterly baffled. Why were they looking for Consort Hua now?
The streets teemed with traffic and crowds. With his hands clasped behind his back, Meng Qi strolled forward as if he were wandering through his own courtyard. The space around him seemed strangely empty; passersby instinctively moved aside as they came near. "Longnan Zhang Clan does have a problem, but the circumstances are also a little too coincidental."
"Coincidental? You mean we just happened to catch them silencing a witness?" Liu Shengming followed half a step behind, like a personal attendant.
Meng Qi gazed at the distant palace buildings and spoke as casually as if making conversation. "If the Zhang Clan really did silence Feng Zheng, the chief eunuch of the palace, don't you think they made several mistakes?"
Liu Shengming had served among the Eight Divine Constables for many years. He had not read as many detective novels and comics as Meng Qi, but he had plenty of experience solving cases in his own right. After a moment's thought, he said, "The first round of investigation had essentially concluded that the emperor died suddenly from backlash while practicing an art of dual cultivation. If Chief Constable Sima hadn't gone missing and the situation hadn't become so tense, Feng Zheng would have been released long ago. So he wasn't being watched that closely. Given how the Longnan Zhang Clan and the Pingjin Cui Clan have infiltrated the imperial palace year after year, they had plenty of ways to kill him, then have a hired killer commit suicide and sever every lead. Why go to the trouble of making a big show of taking him home for questioning?"
"Even if they wanted to question him, they could have acted on the way and cleared themselves of