"Mountain bandits? Abducted the Lan King’s legitimate grandson?"

Zhu Yu listened as if hearing some tale from an Arabian Nights or a bizarre joke. However, thinking back to how Lu Qing had just lifted the curtain to look outside, she somewhat guessed the situation and suppressed the confusion that had just surged in her heart: "Isn’t the Heir of Prince Lan skilled in horse riding and archery, a master of both literature and martial arts? How could he inexplicably fall from a horse and then be trampled to death by its hooves?"

"This matter is not fully known; what reaches our ears is merely this outcome," Lu Qing said calmly, though his expression carried a hint of irony.

"And what about the others?"

"No unusual stories have been heard about the others, but there is something peculiar about the third son who was struck by lightning," Lu Qing’s eyebrows slightly rose. "After his death, the family’s servants burned the clothes and shoes he wore at the time of the incident. Burning them revealed something strange.

After the fabrics turned to ash in the fire, the servants found that something in the furnace wouldn’t burn away. When they hooked it out, it turned out to be a lump of iron powder and iron filings fused together by the heat.

Rumor has it that the clothing and shoes worn by that third son indeed contained a large amount of iron powder and hair-thin iron wires woven into his outer robe and shoe soles. That caused a lightning strike to hit him out of nowhere while he was walking outside during the thunderstorm."

"Even if that’s the case, being struck by lightning indicates that the thunderstorm on that day was quite severe; otherwise, one would need a very tall iron rod sticking out of their head to get struck," Zhu Yu smirked and asked, "You said the Lan King’s young son was only nine when the incident happened. The third son wouldn’t be much older, would he?"

"He had just reached the age of learning," Lu Qing answered.

Zhu Yu calculated that he would be around fifteen or sixteen.

Youths at this age are shedding their childishness. It was naturally unimaginable for someone at this age to insist on going outside on a stormy day for fun.

"So who forced him to go out on such terrible weather?" Now realizing this, her question was straightforward.

Lu Qing laughed: "Rumor has it that Prince Lan asked him to do something for him. But after the third son’s death, there’s naturally no way to verify the truth, so we can only listen to hearsay."

Hearing that, Zhu Yu also laughed.

If Emperor Jin had sent someone to investigate this matter, at least they could put on a show of inquiries, but who in the Land of Lan would dare confront Prince Lan over this?!

Yet such matters the Emperor Jin would naturally have no interest in attending to, leading ultimately to nothing.

Zhu Yu increasingly felt that Prince Lan was peculiar, but thanks to her previous experience in Fan Country, she wasn’t surprised by Lan’s circumstances. She could only marvel at how the person conspiring in the shadows used these ’puppets’ skillfully—albeit the puppet roles of King Fan and Prince Lan were completely different.

Fan Country, with its reputation for voodoo and bizarre, ruthless practices, saw King Fan used not only as an unwitting test subject for poisons but also allowed the continued transport of forbidden sinister items elsewhere. In the end, he was a scapegoat to frame Lu Qing one last time.

On the other hand, due to kinship with Emperor Jin, Lan always appeared the most trustworthy among the vassal states, never having been carefully guarded.

The opposing party cleverly leveraged this natural trust from Emperor Jin, with Lan Land’s lush pastures and peacefulness serving as a perfect cover. With the excuse of planting flowers, dyes, and spices, they could manufacture a large amount of toxic incense and boldly smuggle it into the Capital and the Imperial Palace.

Swapping the roles of these puppet vassal kings might not have allowed such a plot to proceed so smoothly over the years.

"And after that, you also didn’t hear of anyone demanding gold or treasure from Prince Lan to ransom his only surviving legitimate grandson, did you?" At this moment, Zhu Yu seemed to have grasped what Lu Qing had just informed her about.

Lu Qing naturally nodded in response to her.

"I don’t believe that young grandson was abducted by some mountain bandits," Zhu Yu sighed. "Not to mention, Lan Country has always been gentle in custom, and even in the relatively more rugged territories of Shuo Land and Jie Land, no mountain bandits would dare stop looting quietly to murder the Heir’s Consort and abduct a vassal king’s legitimate grandson!

The very act of robbing quietly in deep mountains and forests might have gone unnoticed by the government due to the remote location. But kidnapping a vassal king’s legitimate grandson is tantamount to courting death.

So, you kept a low profile before, but now you’re using showy carriages and silk-wrapped wooden boxes here. You’re trying to use ourselves as bait to test whether they are mountain bandits, right?

Is this where you believe the mountain bandits that ’abducted the Lan King’s legitimate grandson’ are hiding?"

Lu Qing did not directly answer her question but instead sighed softly: "Not mentioning others, but indeed I should be grateful to the Holy Emperor for the marriage decree.

If it weren’t for that decree, I would never have dreamed of having such a wise and like-minded wife in this life."

Zhu Yu found that Lu Qing’s flattery was getting smoother, speaking so naturally without a hint of embarrassment.

But no one minds hearing good words. Hearing Lu Qing’s near-open "flattery," Zhu Yu smiled, but her face promptly tightened again, and she lightly coughed: "Also, don’t forget the Holy Emperor in the South Study Room also discussed the possibility of granting me divorce from you.

Moreover, the original marriage decree didn’t specify my name, Zhu Yu; it only told Prince Shuo to marry off an age-appropriate daughter.

So the person you married could have been me or perhaps my much-cherished elder sister—nobody can say for sure."

Lu Qing knew Zhu Yu still held some grudge against Emperor Jin, and this grievance stemmed from her empathy for him, which warmed his heart.

"You are right, so this gratitude should indeed be counted toward my father-in-law," he laughingly said, looking at Zhu Yu with a smile in his eyes, as if there were hidden ripples within.