"Has Your Highness ever eaten at a street stall?" Lu Zhenghai asked with a smile, then walked towards a wonton stall not far away.
Beneath her veil, Princess Mingzhu's beautiful eyes flashed with a hint of curiosity and anticipation.
She had truly never eaten at a street stall.
"Boss, two bowls of wontons, with extra cilantro and dried shrimp!" Lu Zhenghai called out after sitting down at the wonton stall.
The boss was a little scared, his face full of fawning smiles: "Yes, yes, yes..."
Lu Zhenghai's flying fish robe was too intimidating for ordinary commoners.
Princess Mingzhu approached and sat opposite Lu Zhenghai.
After the wontons arrived, Lu Zhenghai ate happily, but Princess Mingzhu only took a few bites before stopping.
The taste could only be described as barely acceptable.
To say that street stalls were more delicious than the imperial chef's dishes in the palace was pure nonsense, or at best, an extreme rarity.
Princess Mingzhu was very picky, and after a few bites, she put down her chopsticks.
"Wasting food is not a good habit," Lu Zhenghai said.
"You don't need to tell me."
Princess Mingzhu glared at Lu Zhenghai, but in the end, she reluctantly finished the bowl of wontons.
Lu Zhenghai felt a little regretful, thinking that Princess Mingzhu wouldn't finish it and he could eat the rest.
Ahem, he didn't want to eat Princess Mingzhu's saliva, okay?
Don't misunderstand, he just purely liked to eat wontons.
"Is this how you investigate cases?"
Princess Mingzhu was somewhat displeased.
Shouldn't a brilliant detective investigate in person? Why hand everything over to his subordinates?
"Otherwise?"
Lu Zhenghai was incredibly leisurely, and even Princess Mingzhu seemed more pleasing to his eye.
After all, he didn't save her for nothing; she actually repaid him with a "Black Flood Dragon." Princess Mingzhu was generous.
"My Imperial Father is paying close attention to the escort agency case. If you can't solve it, hah, your Embroidered Uniform Guard will probably be punished." Princess Mingzhu couldn't stand Lu Zhenghai's smug and confident appearance.
"The case will be solved today."
Lu Zhenghai became even more languid, his eyes involuntarily sizing up Princess Mingzhu.
Heaven is unfair!
It gave Princess Mingzhu the status of a legitimate princess, and also gave her such an amazing appearance, and then... her figure also seemed very good, though not ambitious, it was certainly well-endowed.
"I really want to gouge out your eyes. You already have Mu Wan, isn't that enough?" Princess Mingzhu snorted.
"If I truly ignored you, you wouldn't be happy. If I look at you a couple more times, you get angry. You're really difficult to serve."
"Shut up!"
Beneath her veil, Princess Mingzhu's exquisite face showed a hint of blush, due to shame and annoyance.
She thought no one had noticed her contradictory, tsundere psychology.
Lu Zhenghai actually knew it clearly? How embarrassing.
"See, you're getting agitated again."
"Lu Zhenghai, I am Your Highness, the Princess. Why do I not feel any awe from you towards me?"
An ordinary person, let alone a Jinyiwei Banner Commander.
Even a Commander of the Jinyiwei would show immense reverence upon seeing her.
However, Lu Zhenghai showed not a trace.
"You guess!" Lu Zhenghai blinked, thinking to himself:
When your status is not as formidable as mine, I believe in "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" and enjoy feudal dregs. I am your master, you are my Maidservant, you must respectfully serve me and warm my bed, for example, when facing Gao Yunran.
When your status is more formidable than mine, then I am someone who grew up under the red flag, believing in equality for all. Deep down, I don't believe I am inferior to you. What if you're a princess? I'm still a Transmigrator with a System... "I can't guess!" Princess Mingzhu snorted.
Next, there was silence. She seemed to want to use silence to tell Lu Zhenghai: This princess is angry, answer quickly.
Unfortunately, Lu Zhenghai didn't fall for that.
After a short while, Princess Mingzhu could only suppress her anger and change the subject: "How exactly did you manage to make Mu Wan fall so deeply in love with you in such a short time?"
As her best friend, she knew Pei Muwan too well.
Mu Wan was extremely cold-hearted!
To put it this way, even when facing Grand Tutor Pei, Mu Wan spoke very little.
Princess Mingzhu felt that Mu Wan could easily live a life of solitude, devoted solely to studying the Literary Dao.
Yet, Lu Zhenghai managed to win over such a Mu Wan in just a few days, and even made Mu Wan his concubine.
It was simply a hundred thousand times more potent than using Gu.
Princess Mingzhu was incredibly curious.
"Perhaps it's because of a spiritual connection," Lu Zhenghai said with a half-smile.
"You're being perfunctory."
"Alright, stop messing around, let's take a walk," Lu Zhenghai said, "Just to aid digestion."
Princess Mingzhu said nothing, obediently following behind Lu Zhenghai.
Lu Zhenghai walked along this bamboo sea avenue... it took him over an hour to complete the entire 25-li journey and return.
Princess Mingzhu followed along with ease, not feeling tired at all.
Are you kidding? She was a Grandmaster Realm existence.
Lu Zhenghai's trip was to determine the name of that Human Flesh Inn, just to have it in mind.
The Human Flesh Inn was named: Yuexin!
The name was quite refreshing.
Two or three hours later, Huang Xiu, Liu Quan, and others returned one after another.
"Place all the papers with recorded information on this table," Lu Zhenghai said.
Saying that, he shouted to the wonton stall owner: "Another hundred bowls of wontons."
If there wasn't enough space to sit, they could eat standing.
The Embroidered Uniform Guard had been without a drop of water since leaving the Imperial City today and were hungry.
Next, Lu Zhenghai began to examine the information recorded on each piece of paper.
Princess Mingzhu was equally curious, looking at each paper one by one.
However, she looked for a long time and found no clues.
Half an hour later, Lu Zhenghai spoke:
"Why do I want to know which inns or restaurants have good business?"
"Because, if I were the murderer, and I opened an inn or restaurant..."
"I would focus on being cheap and affordable, even if there was no profit."
"After all, my true main business would be the escorts carried by the dart people, and even the escorts themselves."
"Because focusing on being cheap and affordable would naturally lead to very good business."
"Inns and restaurants with very good business are relatively suspicious."
"As for why I need to know which inns and restaurants are newly opened?"
"Because the cases all happened recently, there's a certain probability that the murderer only recently settled in the Tianmu Bamboo Sea."
"Through the filtering of these two pieces of information, the restaurants and inns I've selected are..."
"Jiufu, Anlu, Delicious Fragrance, Kanglin, Tingzhu, Sanbei Zui, Yuexin, Tianwei!"
"A total of eight!"
...After Lu Zhenghai finished speaking, all the Embroidered Uniform Guard present looked at him with admiration.
Although most of the Embroidered Uniform Guard could think of these deductions by Lu Zhenghai.
But no one could, based on these deductions, directly produce a list of eight suspects; that was the most amazing part.
Huang Xiu's face flushed even more: "Brother Lu, amazing."
However.
The truth was.
If Lu Zhenghai didn't know the answer was Yuexin, he wouldn't have been able to extract a list of eight suspects based on these deductions at all.
But who made Lu Zhenghai know the answer was Yuexin?
Knowing the answer and then reverse-engineering the investigation process was truly simple.
Seriously, as long as one of those papers filled with various information mentioned Yuexin... he would dare to find a reason to put Yuexin on the suspect list, and then find the other seven to accompany Yuexin as decoys.
Haha... pure cheating and bluffing.
But it didn't prevent Huang Xiu and others from thinking Lu Zhenghai was incredibly amazing!
Lu Zhenghai thought to himself, eight seemed too many, and searching would be too tiring, so he'd find another reason to narrow down the scope.
He continued to look at the information on these papers, and after a long time, he said again:
"Several courtesans mentioned Delicious Fragrance, Tingzhu, and Yuexin, these three places."
"The owner of Delicious Fragrance once boasted in front of a courtesan that he was a Jianghu wanderer, had joined a large Sect, and was very powerful."
"The owner of Tingzhu, on the other hand, is mysterious, likes to wear purple-red clothes, and there are rumors that the owner of Tingzhu is a Demonic Path apostate."
"And Yuexin, despite its own inn having such good business, according to these courtesans, the owner of Yuexin has never visited a brothel, which is truly abnormal."
...In fact, if he wanted to, he could also find what was special about the other five places from the courtesans' words.
But knowing the answer was Yuexin, he specifically picked these three.
Why three, and not directly pinpoint Yuexin? Because in that case, it would seem too divine, almost fake.
One out of three is already a miracle!
"You mean, the murderer is one of these three?"
Princess Mingzhu was a bit confused, completely taken in by the deception.
She had also looked at the information on these papers, but how could she not see anything?
Only chaos and complexity!
Could this be the difference between herself, an ordinary person, and a brilliant detective?