The name Chu Jiuling was not unfamiliar to the two people in the room.
Is she Chu Jiuling?
But Chu Jiuling is already dead.
In the stillness of the night, a living person suddenly claims to be a dead person.
Zhu Zan's face turned pale, Xue'er was filled with terror.
The room was deathly silent.
This wasn't the first time she said such a thing.
Zhu Zan thought, and long ago, he once grabbed her like this.
Because in an unfamiliar town never visited before, faced with an unknown girl he would never see again, she suddenly called his name.
"Who are you?" he asked her.
Why did she recognize him?
At that time the girl did not gasp or blink as she spoke.
Her story was flawless, but her words were not true in the slightest.
Two years later, she finally answered his question.
I am Chu Jiuling.
You're Chu Jiuling?
How can you be Chu Jiuling?
Zhu Zan looked at the woman in front of him, and the woman looked at him as well.
Her eyes had a misty aura, seemingly deep yet seemingly clear.
"Ling Jiu?"
"Why do you call yourself Ling Jiu?"
So the question was because she also called herself Ling Jiu?
"Is your father okay? Has his winter cough healed?"
Because she recognized his father, she asked about the hidden illness outsiders didn't know.
So when Prince Huai fell ill, she risked her life to treat him.
So Lu Yunqi entangled with her because only she resembled Chu Jiuling more.
So she stood by the courtyard wall outside the Duke of Chengguo's residence because she had been there before.
So she helped his mother.
So she defended the country because it was her father's empire.
So she risked danger entering the Jurchen Territory to rescue her father.
So when he said it was none of her business, she smiled faintly and spoke.
"I am Princess Jiuli."
The inexplicable familiarity, the inexplicable closeness without doubt or guard, the inexplicable assistance.
It turns out...
Zhu Zan trembled all over, unable to breathe; he suddenly let go of her and stepped back, his eyes full of terror and disbelief.
No, impossible, how can this be possible?
"You're very strange, you, to me, to our family, are very strange."
"Yes, I am different to your family."
"The reason."
The woman before him thought for a moment, then shook her head.
"I cannot say," she said.
Cannot say, does it mean that no one would believe it? That's indeed unbelievable, too absurd, how could it be?
Zhu Zan gasped, looking at Miss Jun.
Miss Jun steadied herself, reached out to adjust her twisted collar, standing gracefully and quietly in the night yet frighteningly agitating.
"Xue'er." She looked at the servant who was trembling and covering her mouth, "Is what Bing'er told me true?"
Xue'er let out a piercing scream, unable to support herself and slumping to the ground.
Miss Jun slowly walked towards her, Xue'er tried to back away but lacked the strength, watching the woman stand before her.
"Jiang Yanbao, is he really not dead?" she asked.
Jiang Yanbao.
Xue'er seemed to see that man, standing restrained and terrified in the room, before him sat the prince below one person and above ten thousand.
"What is your name?" the prince asked gently.
"My name is Jiang Yanbao," he answered tremblingly.
Xue'er gave a cry and bowed low.
"Princess... Princess..." she could only cry, unable to speak.
"Don't shout now," Zhu Zan's voice rang out.
Miss Jun looked at him.
Seeing her look over, Zhu Zan instinctively took a step back, his expression wary, not like the previous exaggerated jesting.
"How can you prove it," he said deeply.
Miss Jun smiled and shook her head.
"I have no way to prove it," she said, "Zhu Zan, you don't know me well."
She looked at Xue'er again.
"Xue'er doesn't know me well either, I am not at home for many years."
She lifted her head with a bit of yearning.
"You don't know me, and even if I tell you my story, you won't know; besides, I don't know you, and I don't know your stories, so I can't speak on them."
The room fell silent once more.
"So when you went to Guan Temple, it wasn't an accident?" Zhu Zan asked.
Miss Jun knew which time he was talking about.
"You weren't either?" she asked.
Zhu Zan's eyes were dark, and he didn't speak.
"How did you know?" Miss Jun continued to ask, "Bing'er said she never told anyone, was she discovered after I died?"
Zhu Zan glanced at her and looked away.
"You mean the palace maid who got sick and died," he said.
Miss Jun frowned.
"You don't have to frown." Zhu Zan said, glancing at her and looking away again, "She might have been discovered, but not many people found her, probably only Lu Yunqi and the emperor know."
"Then Xue'er..." Miss Jun asked, frowning.
"I don't know about Xue'er." Zhu Zan answered, looking at the trembling palace maid kneeling on the ground, "Lu Yunqi surely knows because there were Jinyiwei men monitoring at Guan Temple, but when I took people away, the emperor seemed completely unaware, there wasn't a large-scale search, only a few Jinyiwei members were looking privately."
That's odd.
Miss Jun pondered silently.
"Xue'er said nothing." Zhu Zan continued, "I don't know about what you said before."
Ah? He doesn't know? Miss Jun looked at him, then how did he notice Xue'er?
Zhu Zan did not look at her.
"Just guessing," he said.
Guessing? Can it really be guessed? Miss Jun was even more confused.
"Once you suddenly died, I felt there must be a problem." Zhu Zan spoke while looking at the wall, "Then watched for anything unusual, examined and investigated until a palace maid died, checked her identity, found she used to serve before the former Crown Prince, and then searched that her sister lived in Guan Temple, discovered Jinyiwei monitoring her, Jinyiwei people never act without profit, if they're monitoring there must be a problem, regardless of what kind, I just took the person first."
He said this as he glanced at the palace maid trembling on the ground.
"I asked her what was going on, she said she didn't know, didn't even know someone was monitoring her, and since that's the case, I didn't ask anymore."
"That's it."
Sounds quite simple, that's all.
But doing it...
Miss Jun looked at him.
A fallen princess had died, that's it, yet someone still paid attention, even sought to investigate the cause of her death.
The emperor surely did everything to conceal her cause of death, yet to find clues from it, and within those clues locate a crucial yet inconspicuous palace maid, it isn't as simple as it's said.
He trekked from the northern lands thousands of miles away, not just to lay a flower on her grave.
"Why did you want to do this?" she asked.
"Nothing much." Zhu Zan stammered a bit, didn't look at her at all, seemed afraid of this unknown creature whether human or ghost, "My father said, maybe there's something strange about her death, I happened to be going to the capital, so I checked, it's just a casual thing."
A casual thing? This casualness bears the risk of extermination.
Miss Jun sighed lightly.
"Thank you and Duke of Chengguo." she said, "You've treated us very well, thought of us, thank you."
"Thank what, it's mutual." Zhu Zan said sullenly, turning away, "You also helped my father so much."
The room fell silent for a moment.
Miss Jun suddenly thought of a question.
"So does that mean you believe what I said?" she asked, "You believe I am Chu Jiuling?"
Zhu Zan still looked aside.
"It seems apart from believing, there's no other way to explain this matter." he said.