Housekeeper of the Hundred Blossom Palace

And so, it was decided that Yui Mei would also be taken to the palace.

The man agreed to wait until she finished putting away her cleaning paraphernalia before going, but when she returned to their meeting place, there was no trace of the other men from the Ministry of Justice.

They had already taken Xu away first, apparently.

“So, where should we go now?”

“To the palace, we’ll have you go to our place.”

Yui Mei asked, but the man just gave a clipped reply before striding away. She chased after him.

‘Eh, so I’m going to enter THE imperial palace!?’

Perhaps, other people would consider this supposedly memorable first visit to be in bad taste if they’re going to the Ministry of Justice, but Yui Mei didn’t care one bit about it.

The Ministry of Justice was located at the outskirts, even though it was still within the imperial palace.

Perhaps this location was chosen because of the nature of work being carried out in this place? Maybe they needed a place where they could maintain some degree of confidentiality, particularly regarding the identity of the people entering its premises?

These questions crossed Yui Mei’s mind as she tried to follow the man without getting lost.

They finally entered the building. It was eerily quiet, but the silence was broken every now and then by shrieks from far away. Yui Mei couldn’t help but jump whenever that happened as they moved indoors until they finally reached a room and she was urged to enter.

It was an inconspicuous, ordinary room at first glance. There were no suspicious looking windows or hanging scrolls, so it was a bit of an anticlimax for Yui Mei who had been expecting something weird to happen.

However, she couldn’t linger on this.

“Ahm, what’s happening to Miss Xu?”

This was the reason why she followed them in the first place, so Yui Mei asked.

“Nothing.”

The man shortly replied after taking a seat beside the table inside the room.

“She’s too agitated. We couldn’t hold a calm conversation, so we had her sleep for a while.”

“Is that so…”

Yui tilted her head when she heard what the man said.

Xu didn’t look like she was agitated a while back, so what happened?

‘Is Xu a drug addict, too?’

Yui Mei thought it would be sad if that was true. The man glanced at her.

“She kept on insisting that she’s the criminal, apparently. Then, you suddenly butted in, so she wanted us to arrest her there and then based on her claims that she’s the culprit. She kept on kicking up a fuss. As if the Ministry of Justice do their jobs as sloppily as that.”

Based on the man’s words, he didn’t seem to think that Xu was really a criminal.

“Then, is Miss Xu alright?”

Yui Mei asked boldly, and the man replied to her while picking up a piece of paper on the table.

“I cannot say that for sure. However, we can also view it as refusal to readily agree with the death wish of a person who desperately wanted to die.”

Yui Mei’s eyes widened in shock when she heard what the man said.

‘So this person also noticed?’

Indeed, Yui Mei could also see the gestures and expressions of a suicidal person in Xu.

There were times when those people would do anything to die if left alone.

Yui Mei thought that if they didn’t have the courage to take their own life, this dangerous mental state would be aggravated, and they would look for other people who could kill them.

Both Yui Mei and the man appeared to have the same line of thought.

“As for Xu, she seemed to know what’s going on after all, so we decided to take her into custody…Still, it seems like she’s underestimating the Ministry of Justice big time. We know how to distinguish whether a person must be condemned or not, and considering such, she doesn’t have the characteristics peculiar to those who dabble in doing evil. People like her can only leave a clean life.”

The man explained.

‘So Xu isn’t at fault?’

In that case, did Xu just really wanted to get captured by the Ministry of Justice, even voluntarily writing a letter for that? Based on the detective dramas she watched in her previous life, she must surely be covering for somebody else.

Yui Mei groaned while deep in thought.

“Sit down over there, we can still serve you tea. It’s not delicious, though.”

The man said before sitting on one of the chairs across the table, so Yui Mei also obediently took a seat.