Pei Ye fell silent for a while, then said, "Did none of the people from back then know?"
"Yue Muzhou said my mother took her own life, but he didn't know where she died. Even by the time of her burial, no one had found her body."
"..."
Li Xizhou quietly ate her evening meal. The bright moon rose, and the sky turned from dim to cold white.
"Do you know who I suspect was the person plotting behind the scenes?" she asked.
Pei Ye paused for a while. "King of Yan Yongbei?"
"Yes."
"..."
"Has anyone told you about him?"
"Your Highness, no."
"'Yong' isn't one of the Five Surnames, and the King of Yan isn't truly a master of Great Tang," Li Xizhou said. "Yongbei wasn't born into an aristocratic clan or a military family. Even now, among Great Tang's upper ranks, 'Yong' is a solitary surname. He rose from the wilds, from precisely the bottom rung of the Jianghu that the Five Surnames despise most. There's a painting in Lingyan Pavilion now, The Sovereign, General, and Chancellor Know Each Other, painted when the present Sage was twenty-two. At that age, he was killing Wilderness People on the northern battlefields, and Yongbei stood behind him. Both were bloodstained, bearing spears, swords at their waists and bows on their backs. Behind them were a lone plume of smoke over the dusky desert and a battlefield that had just fallen quiet."
"He has a faint scar beneath his left eye. You've met Yong Ji-he looks very much like Yongbei did when he was young. Only, by that age, Yongbei had already spent years in the Jianghu. He had a heavy air of dust and grit about him, like a lurking bird of prey, whereas this heir wears his sharpness openly,