Chapter 126 - 100: Major Clues in Prince Qi’s Mansion!

Chapter 126: Chapter 100: Major Clues in Prince Qi’s Mansion!

"Ziqing, my efforts to write poetry and make hair dye for you weren’t in vain! Best brothers for life!" Zeng Anmin thought.

CLOP CLOP CLOP. The sound of hooves echoed as the procession arrived before an extremely luxurious residence.

Prince Qi’s Mansion. The three large characters gleamed, though under the dim moonlight, they lacked their usual dazzling luster.

"Halt!"

Two Imperial City Guards were already stationed at the entrance. Seeing Bai Ziqing’s procession, they barked the command with expressionless faces.

Bai Ziqing threw them a mild glance and waved his hand without a word. Seeing this, Huang Shi stepped forward, pulled a document from his chest, and handed it over.

"Hmm." The guard at the door glanced at it and stepped aside.

"Move in!" Huang Shi waved his hand.

Thirty Imperial City Guards filed through the main gate. Zeng Anmin dismounted and followed behind Bai Ziqing, making his way into Prince Qi’s Mansion as well.

"Wait!" The two guards at the door noticed Zeng Anmin’s incongruous attire and stopped him with cold expressions. "Who are you?"

"He is my newly appointed clerk. Is there a problem?" Bai Ziqing’s gaze sharpened. His voice was lazy, but a fierce aura surged from him, pressing directly onto the guards at the door.

"Cough." The guard’s face flushed red. Not daring to say another word, he bowed to Bai Ziqing.

"Hmm." Bai Ziqing didn’t elaborate, merely waving his hand. "Enter!"

A short time later, inside the outer courtyard, at least twenty Imperial City Guards could be seen carrying crates of all sizes outward. From time to time, someone would call out the inventory, "Five thousand taels of silver! A pair of Jade Bodhis! A pair of Golden Toads! Rouge Red Blood Coral!"

Hearing these declarations made Zeng Anmin’s eyelids twitch. Right now, all he had to his name were the few thousand taels of silver notes Shen Jun had given him before he left Liangjiang Commandery. Yet, just listening to the items being shouted out, any single one was worth no less than tens of thousands of taels.

"Could a mere Prince Qi’s Mansion, even accounting for the revenue from its fief, fill an entire outer courtyard to this extent? How much of the people’s blood and sweat has he exploited to amass this?" he wondered. Zeng Anmin narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Let’s go," Bai Ziqing’s voice rang out, prompting him.

Zeng Anmin snapped back to reality and silently followed him into the inner courtyard. Before long, the two arrived at a large compound. Right in the center stood an ancestral hall.

"Do not touch anything in the ancestral hall. Start working!" At Huang Shi’s command, everyone followed him toward the various rooms in the courtyard.

In an instant, only Zeng Anmin and Bai Ziqing were left in the courtyard.

"Ziqing," Zeng Anmin spoke up.

Bai Ziqing slowly turned his back, looking outside the courtyard, and said, "Go on."

"Understood." Zeng Anmin bowed to his back, took a deep breath, and walked deeper into the courtyard.

First, he followed Huang Shi’s team to search the main house, which served as Prince Qi’s usual living quarters. These Imperial City Guards worked incredibly fast. Their raiding process was exceptionally disciplined. They pulled out absolutely anything that wasn’t nailed down. Even with blankets embroidered with gold threads, they managed to carefully extract the threads without breaking a single one.

"Badass," Zeng Anmin thought, feeling a surge of profound respect. He knew that professional tasks required professional hands.

Despite his inward amazement, his gaze remained as sharp as a falcon’s, meticulously scanning every possible hiding spot. While he might not match the Imperial City Guards in raw raiding efficiency, when it came to actually searching for hidden items, Zeng Anmin was by no means inferior.

He combed through every single room but failed to find a single trace of Emperor Xi’s Map.

"According to the Marvels Record, the physical form of Emperor Xi’s Map is very similar to the Dragon Inspection Map," Zeng Anmin thought solemnly.

He reasoned that with something so large, even if it had been deliberately hidden, it should have been impossible to conceal during such an exhaustive, leave-no-stone-unturned search. However, after half an hour passed, Zeng Anmin still hadn’t discovered anything suspicious. He furrowed his brows tightly. Had he missed something? Or did Prince Qi’s Mansion have an undiscovered secret room?

Seeing the raid nearing its end without any clues turning up, a sense of urgency began to rise within him. He stepped back into the courtyard. Bai Ziqing still had his back turned to him.

"Is there something on my back?" Bai Ziqing reached around, patted his own back, and muttered to himself.

Huh? Hearing this, Zeng Anmin’s eyes instantly lit up. His gaze shifted toward the ancestral hall behind Bai Ziqing, which housed the spirit tablets of the royal family’s past generations. And the largest tablet right in the center belonged to the Grand Ancestor Emperor of the Holy Dynasty.

"Could it be..."

Without any hesitation, Zeng Anmin strode straight into the ancestral hall. He looked around. The hall wasn’t particularly large.

"Here?" He touched the floor, frowning as he tapped lightly on the ground.

THUD THUD THUD.

The dull sound proved that all the blue bricks were solid. He ran his hands over everything in the vicinity that could be moved. There were no mechanisms, no secret passages. Zeng Anmin rubbed his chin, his brow furrowed in a tight knot.

What should he do now? Was it possible that Emperor Xi’s Map wasn’t in Prince Qi’s Mansion at all? Once this thought surfaced in his mind, his train of thought began to drift.

The fact that Count Zhongyuan’s family possessed Emperor Xi’s Map back then must have been a deeply guarded secret. How did Prince Qi find out about it? Was Prince Qi not the one coveting Emperor Xi’s Map? If not him, who could it be? Imperial City Director Ji Qing? Or Chief Eunuch Si Zhongxiao?

He pondered silently. No, even if the person coveting Emperor Xi’s Map wasn’t Prince Qi, Prince Qi was still the one who led the raid on Count Zhongyuan’s estate back then, so he definitely had to possess clues regarding the map.

Taking a deep breath, Zeng Anmin focused his gaze on all the spirit tablets resting on the altar.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

He tapped on every single tablet. They were all solid. He was especially meticulous when checking the Grand Ancestor’s tablet.

"Your Majesty, Grand Ancestor, please forgive the offense. If you want to blame someone, blame your disgraceful descendant... Who told him to be so brainless..." he prayed silently in his heart, setting the tablet back down.

Nothing! There were absolutely no clues. Zeng Anmin’s patience was slowly wearing thin.

"This doesn’t make sense..." he thought. "Even without clues about Emperor Xi’s Map, is Prince Qi really that clean? Besides his wealth, is there absolutely nothing else?"

He closed his eyes, thinking slowly. Suddenly, the details his old man had recounted about the court session from two days ago echoed in his ears.

"The Agarwood is right in the hidden compartment in my home."

Those words sparked a flash of inspiration. That was right! Prince Qi’s Mansion definitely had hidden compartments! The only reason he hadn’t found them was that he hadn’t been careful enough.

Zeng Anmin took a deep breath, slowly walked over to the cushion directly in front of the altar, and sat down. Closing his eyes, he began to mentally review everything he had observed since entering the mansion. The inner courtyard, the various rooms...

The Imperial City Guards were already master raiders. They were extremely professional when it came to hidden compartments, mechanisms, and secret rooms. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find anyone more professional in the entire world. Therefore, the chances of an undiscovered hidden compartment or mechanism in the rooms they had just searched were incredibly slim. This meant that if there was a secret to be found, it absolutely had to be in this ancestral hall.

Zeng Anmin opened his eyes. Sitting on the cushion, he scrutinized every single object in the ancestral hall, inch by inch. One breath, two breaths... His mind raced through a storm of thoughts.

"Where exactly did I miss something?" he wondered, slowly standing up.

Time was running out. He had to gather enough clues within this limited window.

"Could I be blind to the obvious?" he muttered to himself.

Suddenly, his gaze froze. His eyes trailed downward, inch by inch, until they landed on the very cushion he had just been sitting on. In the entire ancestral hall, this cushion was the only thing that hadn’t been moved!

Could it be...? Taking a deep breath, he squatted down. He reached out, his fingers trembling slightly. Finally, he touched the cushion. He lifted it. It didn’t budge.

A sharp gleam flashed in Zeng Anmin’s eyes. Instead of brute force, he applied a subtle technique, slowly twisting the cushion.

CLICK.

An almost imperceptible sound rang out. Zeng Anmin’s eyes erupted with brilliant light!

"This is it!"

He immediately snapped his head up, looking toward the source of the sound. Just behind the left side of the Grand Ancestor’s tablet, a fist-sized square opening had been revealed!