Bad News Keep Coming (1)

Yinyue observed in silence while Ronghe assessed the scene before her. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and her lips formed a thin line under the mask as she studied Ronghe's features.

The youthful look around Ronghe reminded her of Hushiyi. Yinyue guessed their ages were similar. His features, like a woman's, are soft and pleasant, especially his gentle eyes that resembled a docile doe. Despite lacking military training and being a scholar, he possessed a well-built and tall physique.

Good family, good looks, good manners — all those attributes made him very attractive as a marriage candidate to families of high standing.

'TROUBLE!' a voice screamed inside Yinyue's head. She wrinkled her nose at the stench of death acting like an ominous sign. The innocent Ronghe, oblivious to her thoughts, continued pouring over the layout of the scene.

She watched as Ronghe gingerly picked up a twig to lift the hair off the faces for an examination. His movements seemed rehearsed, hesitant and cautious about disturbing the accident site.

Yet, each detail of Ronghe's demeanor and movement grated on Yinyue's nerves. The thought of the young boy fleeing from his carriage fueled the growing sense of disgust within her, which repulsed her so much that her stomach felt twisted.

Appearances are deceiving, a lesson she learned from her first life. Yinyue's husband in her first life was a good-looking man, a flower who attracted women to him easily, like bees and butterflies. Or perhaps like horseflies to the dung. That included the dung of the troublesome Shoula, her half sister. Yinyue never forgot how she died at their hands.

As Ronghe examined the bodies, Yinyue's disgust only intensified. She was leaving this case and even the town of Bian to a man with questionable tastes. All of it made her stomach churn further with revulsion.

Despite her efforts to maintain her composure, 02 sensed Yinyue's disdain for Ronghe despite her facade of calm authority. He didn't know what Ronghe did to displease her. Still, she never expressed her deepest thoughts, leaving them simmering beneath the surface like a dormant volcano. Until it overflowed to an eruption.

02 coughed politely, hoping to distract her from her thoughts. Yinyue glanced at him.

"Should I get the physician?" He asked, following Ronghe's request for a physician. She nodded.

02 signalled to another guard who scurried in front of him. "Get the town physician. Say it's the Grand Prince's order."

The guard took off after he finished giving instructions.

Another two guards came up and reported to 02, not daring to go near to Yinyue. "We caught the boy. Knocked him out, but he is still breathing. We have another problem."

"What was his state? And what's the other problem?" Yinyue suddenly spoke up.

"Thrashing wildly when we caught him. He was saying something…" one guard exchanged looks with the other, unsure if he should continue.

"What did he say?" Yinyue rotated the cuff of her wrist, curious if any usable accusation popped out of the boy's mouth.

"It isn't so much of what he said. It's the place he brought us to," the guard paused while looking at his companion, hesitant to report. "We left the others there…"

"It is a broken shelter or hut near a former village, from our best guess," his companion replied. "Hidden among the pines and shrubs."

"Former village?" Yinyue glanced at 02 for answers.

She knew the villages which surrounded her residence and the details of their village head, their location down to their population. No one ever told her of any abandoned village in the area, only movements of villages. In the past, they surveyed the whole area for defensive and personal safety purposes.

02 pulled out a folded cloth map of the area and bade the reporting guard to pinpoint the area. The guard took a look at the map carefully, and pointed to the middle of the primeval pine virgin forest, instead of the villages marked on the map.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. That's the place near our hunting area. None of us ventured in, because it's quite dense inside," the guard replied very frankly, which gave rise to no doubt in his honesty. Both guards had no reason to lie.

"An isolated one. We found charred human bones in the ruins of that village near the place," he said, looking at 02, who nodded for him to continue speaking. "If he didn't bring us in there, we wouldn't know the village once existed there."

Charred bones. How old is that village? Yinyue bit her lips, deep in thought. The bad news kept pouring in. First the carriage with three bodies and now one village, which no one seems to have any idea of. She looked up at the skies. It wasn't even mid-afternoon yet.

"Your highness, he was shouting things like leaving his mother and sisters alone…. and then he went screaming not to kill his parents," the guard grimaced, awkward.

She needed the background of the boy to determine how old the village was.

"Then he screamed at us not to touch him," the other added. "Called us filthy murderers and rapists."

Yinyue narrowed her eyes. That boy witnessed what had happened to that village. During her time in Bian, there were no mass murders reported. Let alone a whole village razed to the ground. A fire would have spread rapidly with the pine trees around. They exploded easily in a fire.

"What about the surrounding pine trees?" She asked.

"It's a large clearing. So there is some distance between the trees and the land, which people may have used for crops. Some broom millets are still growing on it."

A secret village, and why were they there? Yinyue wondered about the identity of the villagers. Could they be bandits themselves? She purged most of the bandits in Yandi, but with the heavily forested areas, she could only wait for banditry reports to guess their location.

"Oh and we chased him to an abandoned hut which fell into ruin…," one of them added. "Found him curled up there. The surroundings are just empty dilapidated remains with burnt marks on the remaining earthen foundations."

"Yeah, he looked like he knew the area," the other added.

"When the town physician comes, get him to assess the boy too," Yinyue ordered and her eyes turned to Ronghe, who was behind the carriage doing whatever she didn't care.

"Bring that coachman to me. He looked like he lived in the area for a long time."

02 nodded to both of them and they went to the magistrate's carriage to fetch the coachman.

Ronghe's head popped up from the other side of the carriage, blissfully unaware of what had transpired. "Can we see where the carriage fell?"

His eyes shifted to the mountainside. Yinyue gave 02 a slight nod, and he beckoned Ronghe to follow him.