Yu Yue looked surprised at her mother, then glanced at Yu Yi.
Yu Yi suddenly understood that her mother probably thought she and Meng Qing wouldn’t come to the main courtyard, so she didn’t wait for them to eat first. Her face turned red, and she glared at Meng Qing.
Meng Qing responded to her reproachful glance with a shameless laugh, then sat down and said: “Madam Yu, it’s our fault for coming so late. Even if there was no food, we’d deserve it.”
Madam Yu laughed: “Young Master Meng, as long as you don’t mind.”
Chapter 86: Yu Yi’s Spacetime (21)
Three days later, Guan Yue visited Xiye Mountain Villa.
Yu Yi invited him in and served tea in the hall. Guan Yue took a sip of tea, put down the cup and laughed: “Today’s reception seems different from before.”
Yu Yi said: “I hope Captain Guan won’t take offense.”
Guan Yue said: “It’s because I asked too many questions. Madam Yu shouldn’t be blamed.”
Yu Yi said with a light smile: “May I ask why Captain Guan has come today?”
Guan Yue said: “Regarding the retrial of the Loyal and Brave Marquis case that Madam Yu inquired about earlier, I’ve found out that after a year, the rebellious scholar and his followers have been executed. However, two of his subordinates, who held high positions among the conspirators, were not executed due to their revelations and instead were exiled. The Ministry of Justice has issued a document to bring these two criminals to Beijing for retrial.”
Yu Yi had somewhat expected Guan Yue to come for this matter, so she served good tea and let him sit to explain the review progress in detail.
She hadn’t expected such good news after only three days since her last inquiry!
Excited, her face showed an anticipatory expression as she looked at Guan Yue and asked: “When will the prisoners be escorted to Longdu?”
Guan Yue thought for a moment: “The Ministry of Justice sent an urgent document a few days ago. By calculation, the prisoners should be on the road now, but it will still take more than ten days for the prisoner transport to reach Longdu.”
“This is wonderful!” Yu Yi couldn’t help but laugh.
Her father’s case originally lacked substantial evidence, and it was difficult to convict based only on a few poems and articles. The emperor’s determination of her father’s treason relied heavily on the testimony of the scholar and his followers. Now, with these two prisoners being brought to Beijing for trial, without Chen Gao and others fabricating testimony, the Ministry of Justice might clear her father’s name in just a month or two.
She smiled at Guan Yue: “Thank you, Captain Guan, for inquiring about my father’s case. I’m grateful.”
Guan Yue looked at her happy expression, privately thinking that in previous meetings, though she smiled, her eyes always held hostility. This time, she truly smiled at him. But then he thought, does it matter if her smile is genuine?
He self-deprecatingly smiled, stood and cupped his fists: “Madam Yu is too kind. I’ve done nothing, just asked a few questions among acquaintances. I can’t accept rewards without merit. Being served a cup of good tea by Madam Yu is already enough. I have official business, so I’ll take my leave.”
Yu Yi stood and returned the courtesy: “I’ll see Captain Guan out.”
As she saw him off, Yu Yi noticed his blue-spotted horse was not tied to the hitching post but stood obediently outside waiting. She smiled: “Captain Guan’s horse is quite intelligent. Even without being tied, it knows to wait here.”
Guan Yue laughed heartily: “Madam Yu hasn’t seen the ground’s hay, has she? Have you forgotten last time it ran into the forest? Today it’s so ‘well-behaved’ only because there’s hay to eat.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Guan Yue realized he had trapped himself in his own words and laughed awkwardly.
Yu Yi pretended not to understand, saying apologetically: “I didn’t notice.” She was just playing dumb and praising the horse – she had discovered from the first time that praising the horse was better than praising Guan Yue himself.
The two exchanged a few laughs. Guan Yue mounted his horse, pulled the reins, and nodded to Yu Yi, saying, “Guan will take his leave.”
“Safe travels, Captain Guan.”
Guan Yue spurred his horse, raising dust as he departed. Shortly after, Meng Qing came out from the house and walked to Yu Yi’s back, asking, “Captain Guan didn’t give you a hard time today, did he?”
Yu Yi shook her head: “He came with good news today.” She then repeated Guan Yue’s previous conversation to Meng Qing.
Meng Qing thought for a moment: “Captain Guan is not from the Ministry of Punishment, so he can only know some rough details. Tonight, let’s go to the Ministry of Punishment and secretly install monitoring and surveillance equipment to understand their interrogation process in detail.”
Yu Yi agreed: “Okay.”
In recent days, she had been accompanying Yu Xin and had been considering how to ensure her safety without constant supervision. Therefore, when Meng Qing proposed this suggestion, she dared to agree.
Sun Youzhao waved to signal Peng Laoqi to come closer and whispered in his ear: “What’s there to be afraid of opening the door? Wait and see, brother…”
Peng Laoqi chuckled.
Yu Yi listened to the conversation between the two guards from outside the window, her eyes revealing a look of disgust. Another guard seemed to be new, and she had not heard his voice before, but she was familiar with Peng Laoqi. Early in the year, when she and her mother and sisters were at the Ministry of Punishment’s prison, Peng Laoqi had frequently harassed them, especially during the middle of the night. Although he had not actually opened the door and done anything, his language was extremely obscene and vulgar, which only made the already painful and frightened state of the Yu family women worse.
Meng Qing noticed her expression and guessed she was recalling her previous experience in the Ministry of Punishment’s prison. He reached out and gently touched her shoulder. Yu Yi smiled at him to indicate she was fine.
Soon, the changing guards returned, and Peng Laoqi entered with Sun Youzhao.
Meng Qing, using the light from the window, mouthed: “Begin.”
Yu Yi heard a sound in her earpiece and nodded, putting on a gas mask.
Meng Qing tore a small hole in the window paper, then took out a thin, long gray tube, opened the cap, pulled out the fuse, inserted one end of the tube into the small hole, and gently placed the other end on the windowsill before putting on a mask like Yu Yi’s.
Soon, a faint, silent mist began to emerge from the tube’s end inside the window.
The two guards, who had been patrolling most of the night, became drowsy after sitting in the duty room for a while. They yawned, their eyelids growing heavy. One guard slapped his own face, mumbling, “Why am I so tired tonight…”
Before he could finish speaking, both collapsed onto the table, unconscious.
Meng Qing put away the tube, and he and Yu Yi quickly entered the prison. They had nearly two hours to act.
Wearing night vision goggles that could switch between normal view and infrared thermal imaging, Yu Yi and Meng Qing avoided the patrolling guards in the Ministry of Punishment’s prison and first found the interrogation area. The area was divided into inner and outer sections, with the outer rooms used for interrogating ordinary prisoners and the inner rooms for serious criminals.
But to be safe, Yu Yi and Meng Qing placed surveillance cameras in all the rooms inside and outside.
The door to the serious criminal interrogation room was extremely heavy and thick, with iron plates nailed to both inside and outside. To avoid detection, Meng Qing applied lubricating ointment to the hinges and pushed it open extremely slowly.
