Imperial City Office · Azure Heights
This was the middle stretch of West Street. Though a fine rain was falling, it was summer, and pedestrians still flowed endlessly through the streets. Shops were packed with customers, and voices clamored everywhere.
Azure Heights was not a brothel, but a shop selling precious porcelain. Thus, it had few customers. On the third floor, the room was not large, its windows thrown wide open. Anyone passing outside could see everything clearly.
Light streamed in, falling upon the man seated upright in the seat of honor. Dappled shadows played around him, the curtains stirring in the wind, while his pale, beardless face wore a dark and gloomy expression, nothing like the smiling, genial appearance he showed outsiders.
Like a statue of a god, he sat listening to the report of the blue-clad man before him.
"...Commander, that is what happened. All three were hanged on the spot. The Prince Dai's Residence stewards and servants all witnessed it with their own eyes," the blue-clad man said.
"All dead." Hearing that Granny Jia, Lu Da, and the owner of the Liu family's shop had all been hanged, Eunuch Zhao showed no particular expression. He merely said this lightly.
Those who betrayed their masters deserved to die. It was only a pity for Prince Dai—once they were dead, the trail was severed.
But on second thought, if those three had not been executed, Prince Dai likely would not have been able to seize any evidence against the true mastermind. People used for such matters were merely cannon fodder, discarded once they had served their purpose.
A fool like Granny Jia probably never would have understood that even if she had successfully harmed Prince Dai's consort without exposing any flaws at the time, she might have lived to