Chapter 1298: Chapter 1300 About to Move Head_1
"Oh right, you didn’t mention it and I had forgotten, I haven’t seen her all morning, and I didn’t see her yesterday afternoon either." Yet she ran off to deliver tea to Ye Zi’an’s study?
"Madam, what does she intend to do?" Mingcui actually wanted to say that the little wench might have taken a liking to the young master, but she didn’t dare to say it outright.
"What does she want to do? She’s got quite the audacity. Come here, I’ll have a word with you."
After Mingcui listened to what Yang Chuxia had to say, her eyes were round with disbelief.
It took her a long while before she blinked and responded, "Hmm, Madam, I understand."
As for Ming Yu, having encountered Mingcui outside the study, she had been a little worried for a moment, fearing that Mingcui would stir things up with the madam upon her return, which could cause the madam to trouble her, but unexpectedly, upon her return, the madam cheerfully asked her to tell the kitchen what to prepare for dinner.
When she returned, seeing no change in the madam’s expression, she let go of her worries, but upon crossing paths with Mingcui, she glared at her twice, not without a warning in her eyes.
Mingcui huffed several times in response.
That evening, perhaps due to his concern over the matter of the two boats, Ye Zi’an stayed in his study the whole time.
Meanwhile, Ming Yu went to deliver tea once again, and upon learning of this, Yang Chuxia snorted coldly and simply instructed Mingcui to keep watching.
~~~~~
Ye Er returned with his men just before dawn.
"How did it go?" Ye Zi’an asked.
"Young master, it wasn’t two boats but four. Two of them were kept at another dock. Supposedly, they sailed out at night and slipped back during the day, but in fact, it was just the boats from the other dock sailing here, and our dock’s boats sailing there. The boats were empty, there was nothing on them, however, there was a strong smell of blood."
"What about the boatmen?" Ye Zi’an inquired.
"Dead!"
"Dead?" Ye Zi’an was not pleased with this outcome; to think that they were dead! "Did you find anything on them?"
"Nothing, absolutely nothing. They looked like ordinary citizens."
Hearing this, Ye Zi’an fell silent for a moment, "You go rest. Have Ye Liu look into these people’s identities."
"Yes!"
After Ye Er left, Ye Zi’an got up and went to the government office.
By midday, as he was planning to leave the office, someone came to report that two sisters from Qingjiu Town had gone missing. These girls had never gone out before, and people vanished as if into thin air.
The next day, there was news that three girls had disappeared from Fushui County.
While Ye Zi’an was incessantly busy trying to crack the case, Yang Chuxia was also trying to find clues in every possible way.
But there was no lead to follow.
When April arrived, they finally found an entry point.
However, it was also at this time that an edict from the prefecture, as well as an imperial decree from the Capital City, arrived.
The prefect’s edict was straightforward; demanding him to solve the case by May or face the consequences.
As for the imperial decree, it first reprimanded him and then urged him to solve the case quickly, warning that he should be prepared to "move his head" if he failed, with the same deadline of before May.
Ye Zi’an received the imperial decree and edict, his expression still relatively calm, but Yang Chuxia was far from calm.
If the case wasn’t solved, his head would "move"? Of course, she couldn’t remain calm; after all, the County Magistrate of Quanya County had never received such an imperial decree.
What Yang Chuxia didn’t know was that having one month to solve the case was already quite generous. Some in the court had proposed to immediately imprison and execute Ye Zi’an, with more than half supporting the idea. It was only after much effort from Baili Yan and others that they came up with this compromise.