Chapter 58 - Catch the Mole
Chapter 58 Catch the Mole
“Girl… Do you want to kill me?”
Qinghu, who had gone to the bathroom for over ten times, collapsed in Lin Mengya’s room.
Looking at the man lying on her bed, Lin Mengya put on a false smile and didn’t even want to give him any hypocritical sympathy.
“No one forced you to eat it. Well, stay in my room quietly. I still have something to do.”
Lin Mengya had already sent away all the servant girls and maids in her courtyard.
Baishao and Baiji were busy. So there were only Qinghu, Baizhi, and Lin Zhongyu in the courtyard after Lin Mengya had left.
“Please get out of here. I want to have a good sleep.”
Qinghu was weak and tired and didn’t even want to open his eyes. After driving away Baizhi and Lin Zhongyu, he went to sleep alone in Lin Mengya’s room.
Lin Zhongyu didn’t like this effeminate man. But Sister Princess had told him to stay away from Qinghu. So he had to follow her orders.
Lin Mengya left the Qinglan Courtyard and went to the Qinwu Courtyard of Long Tianhao.
Steward Deng had already prepared a clean little room and had chosen more than a dozen clever and strong guards for her. All of them were in plain clothes and waited in the courtyard for Lin Mengya.
“Princess, I follow your orders and choose the room and guards personally. No one else knows the inside story.”
“Thank you. You’ve done a good job. I hope everyone can stay awake between now and tomorrow morning.”
Lin Mengya smiled gently and looked charming.
More than a dozen guards looked respectfully at the Princess standing in front of them.
“Yes! Princess!”
The guards deliberately lowered their voices and a moment later, they disappeared at the same time.
Lin Mengya talked to Baishao and Baizhi secretly in the little room.
“Master, you guessed right. I put the hair in between the pages. And it disappeared after Qinghu came here.”
Baiji was very careful. She was the best person to finish this task.
In fact, Lin Mengya had already told Baiji to put a hair in the tenth page of several books on her desk after she went out.
After she came back, Baiji would check the books carefully when others were not looking.
They found that the hair in the book would disappear every time when Qinghu appeared.
Today was no exception.
“This is not a surprise. I’ve already seen him through. He’s cunning and crafty and would never be willing to work for me to get the weird antidote.”
To cooperate with Qinghu was like asking a tiger for its skin.
She would be killed by him if she was careless.
She didn’t know his purpose now. What was he looking for in her room?
“Master, the clothes are ready. Baiji and I will help you to change clothes.”
Baishao was wearing a tight black suit and holding a bright red dress. There was an expectant look on her beautiful face.
“Oh, where did you borrow this dress? It looks great!”
Baishao held the red dress in her hands and Lin Mengya looked at it carefully. Its color was magnificent and its style was simple.
Its fabric was good and the dress looked flowing and graceful. It would certainly have a good effect at night.
“I borrowed this from a fellow villager. She is a dogsbody in a theatrical troupe. This is their costume.”
Baishao explained to Lin Mengya earnestly as if it was a treasure. She was bold and became excited at the thought of going out and pretending to be ghosts with her master at night.
“Well, I want to try it on. I’m not sure whether I can look like a female ghost in red after wearing it.”
It was absolutely a new experience for Lin Mengya to frighten people.
The idea was also inspired by her experience in the haunted teahouse. The murderer threw the body of the old woman into the well to destroy all traces of its crime.
Actually, it would be safer to carry the woman’s body out of the mansion. However, there were many guards at the entrance and exit of Prince Yu’s Mansion. The murderer might be discovered if it was careless.
If she deliberately leaked the information and told others that she had found some clues on the corpse, the murderer might be desperate and anxious.
But if she wanted to catch the one behind these attacks, she must hedge its bets by making two plans.
“When I came back in the afternoon, I asked you to go out and spread the information. Have you finished?”
While Qinghu was rushing in and out of the washroom, Lin Mengya asked Baishao and Baiji to quietly spread a piece of news in the mansion.
This piece of news was simple and brief. Baishao and Baiji told others that Lin Kui would take some guards to pull down the haunted teahouse in the evening. But the two servant girls didn’t explain the reason for this move.
Even this teahouse made of gold became the property of Prince Yu, she believed that the people behind the scenes would not be so confident and didn’t take any actions.
Moreover, the Prince had just bought the shabby courtyard while the butler clearly knew that there was an abandoned icehouse in it. There must be something wrong with the butler.
But now she was not sure whether this butler was the one who had killed the old woman. However, the murderer must be very good at dealing with the details because it changed its looks and pretended to be an old woman without being noticed by anyone else.
Such people were generally suspicious and thoughtful. And the murderer must have fought tooth and nail to stay in Prince Yu’s Mansion.
So the murderer would never allow a corpse to destroy all its fruit.
Tonight, she was ready to become Zhongkui (a deity supposed to chase off demons) and warded off evil spirits!
All the people in Prince Yu’s Mansion and in this small courtyard were ready.
As the day darkened, they lit the candles in the small room.
Lin Mengya put on the red dress and her long black hair scattered on her shoulders.
She put on good jasmine powder on her beautiful face. She really looked a bit weird at first glance.
“Master, Childe Yu told me that Qinghu thought that we didn’t know and slipped away quietly.”
Baiji secretly came here from the Qinglan Courtyard and delivered the message from Qinghu to the Princess.
It seemed that she guessed right. The major reason why Qinghu wanted to visit her was that he needed to fish for information.
But she was always careful. She usually recorded important things in English or in symbols and codes that only she could understand.
It was impossible for Qinghu to steal something valuable from her.
“Well, I see. You can go back. Ask Baizhi and Xiaoyu to shut the door and then you can go to bed.”
Lin Mengya nodded and Baiji slipped away once again.
After a while, Lin Kui appeared in Lin Mengya’s small room.
“Princess… Oh! What are you doing?”
Under the dim light, Lin Kui found that the Princess was dressed in red and had a white face, which looked creepy.
Lin Kui was bold and daring, but he was still frightened by her.
“I’m about to catch the ghost. Well, what’s the current situation?”
Lin Kui calmed himself down. He came from the teahouse.
“It appeared. I asked more than a dozen workers to tear down the house. But all of them fainted after entering the room. Now, the workers believe that there are spirits of those who were wrongly put to death and none of them dares to enter the room and tear down the house. I asked someone to supervise the butler and he said that the butler went to bed early after dark and he didn’t do anything else.”
Lin Mengya smiled faintly and said, “Go to bed? It’s impossible. You man must have been discovered by the butler. If you don’t believe me, you can have a look now. The butler must have already left the room.”
Sure enough, they all got hooked!
Lin Mengya sneered silently. Greed was the original sin that mankind could never avoid.
No matter how smart a person was, he would definitely have shortcomings if he had a desire.
The mole must have stayed in Prince Yu’s Mansion for a long time.
Now, it was time to drag him out!
“Let’s go!”
It was late at night. Long Tianhao, who was wearing a black robe, was standing in the small yard in front of the study room and looking in the unknown direction.
“Prince, the Princess is already on her way. But is this a good idea? I’m afraid that the Princess might be in danger.”
Steward Deng stood behind the Prince respectfully. In fact, Steward Deng felt much closer to the Princess after they had survived the fire.
Maybe it was because they had shared life and death with each other.
Therefore, Steward Deng would obey all the orders of the Princess.
But Long Tianhao acquiesced in this change, which was contrary to the way he usually behaved.
“No, Night will follow her. If there is an accident, he must first save her. Her safety is of uppermost priority.”
Lin Mengya was an extraordinary genius. He was a man who cherished talent. Therefore, no one could take her life!
“Prince, don’t you want to have a look? There are many haunted places in the world, but this is the strangest way of catching ghosts I’ve ever seen.”
But Long Tianhao shook his head and turned back to his study room.
She could do whatever she wanted as long as she could dig the mole out.
He was not interested in other things.
In the night, the small teahouse looked weirder and more horrible.
More than a dozen workers had fainted and they were lying in the courtyard now.
A few sober workers were taking care of them.
Two bright red lanterns kept coming towards them from the depths of the lane.
An alert man rubbed his eyes and screamed and immediately hid in the courtyard. Then he slammed the backyard door with a bang.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Other men looked at him with doubts. His face instantly turned deathly pale and he pointed to the door with trembling fingers.
“Ghost! Ghosts!”
All of them were afraid. They did not enter the small building because they needed to take tools.
But they didn’t expect the workers fainted just after entering the teahouse and Steward Lin asked them to pull the workers out.
Now, these strong workers didn’t wake up yet and they didn’t believe that there were any ghosts outside the teahouse.
“Where’s the ghost? The ghosts are all in the building. Well, don’t try to frighten us. If there’s a ghost, I think it will catch you first.”
They sat together, waiting for the orders of Steward Lin.
They were afraid, but they were also brave young men. A man was sitting in the corner and kept talking about ghosts to himself while others were telling jokes or chatting with each other.
Suddenly there came a rat-a-tat on the door. They thought that it was Steward Deng who had come back.
But they didn’t expect that it was still dark outside and they didn’t see anyone after opening the door.