Housekeeper of the Hundred Blossom Palace

“Ahm, did I get in your way?”

Yui Mei asked the moment they left the room.

The interrogation ended without getting any information regarding the incident from Xu. Yui Mei thought that it was an important conversation, but she couldn’t help but feel guilty for that.

“Nah, that’s not true. It was an interesting story.”

“Is that so?”

Yui Mei was perplexed because the man looked satisfied about something.

Xu didn’t talk about anything else other than her life story, so did he glean something related to the incident this time?

Yui Mei was baffled.

“It’s the matter about where the heck did this expensive poppy juice medicine that’s supposedly hard to get come from, right?”

Libin, who was beside Yui Mei, interjected, and the man nodded in reply.

“It’s worthwhile investigating that merchant who entrapped Xu’s family.”

Based on the man’s words, there are many merchants in the city of Kyou, but only a handful of them would be allowed to enter the Hundred Blossom Palace.

However, those merchants would have their own backing support, so they wouldn’t be able to squeeze any information from them.

The Ministry of Justice had set their eyes on one of those shops.

“There’s a merchant who isn’t qualified to enter the imperial palace, but he was suddenly allowed to enter the palace and be around the Empress Dowager. It’s a widely known fact that merchants’ can rapidly rise or fall, but even so, this guy’s meteoric rise is suspiciously fast.”

The number of merchants who could enter the Hundred Blossom Palace was already fixed, so if this new merchant was granted entry then that means the merchants who were already settled were no longer there.

Was Xu’s family among them, perhaps? — this thought crossed the man’s mind.

“…Er, I feel like it’s bad for a lowly court lady like me to listen to this, right?”

Yui Mei felt that such a potentially important intel garnered from the investigation was revealed just like that to her, so she subconsciously muttered.

The man raised a brow in response.

“We heard the same story, you can easily guess it if you think a bit, though.”

“Oh.”

The man acted as if it’s so easy, but Yui Mei wasn’t particularly good at deduction and solving mysteries, albeit being a fan of the detective and mystery genre in her previous life.

She only felt resentment, thinking that “there are such bad guys in the world” after listening to Xu’s story.

“Besides, your face obviously lacks a sense of danger, so aren’t you suitable since you’ll probably just sneak around after listening to a disturbing story, no?”

The man then commented further.

‘A face that lacks a sense of danger — what kind of face is that!?’

Yang had also warned her about the same thing previously.

Did she really look so nonchalant like that?

“Stop that, you’ll look more idiotic if you keep on doing that.”

Yui Mei squeezed and pinched her face, so Libin warned her.

“Being in the penitentiary makes your shoulders stiff, huh.”

“If somebody thinks the penitentiary is a comfortable place, then he’s a weirdo.”

Yui Mei grumbled about her impression regarding that place, so Libin commented.

‘Well, that’s true, I guess.’

 If the government office that deals with the custody of criminals had a cheerful and pleasant atmosphere and was easy to enter, then that itself would be a problem.

“Libin, don’t you feel that it’s somehow connected to Dong’s region? I can’t help but think about it recently.”

Yui Mei asked Libin when they reached a spot that was a bit further away from the penitentiary.

“Yeah, I might say it’s impossible, but then, that Dong that Ming took in, isn’t he around the same age as Xu?”

As expected, Libin was also thinking about Dong who was now dependent on Ming.

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