36 Good or Bad

"Alright, I'll meet you again next week on the same day today. I'll leave now." Jiao Yu once bowed slightly towards him and turned to leave but before she could go through the screen, she heard him hushedly saying.

"Ah, I forgot to ask her how was she related to the villagers in the Xiangli village."

After having met Jiao Yu, Yu Jie Xing thought of something before heading towards the innermost of the corridors and open a door.

"You've made me wait."

Sitting down on the mat was a youth in his prime with his casual smile plastered on his mouth, it was none other than, Xu Kun.

"Met an acquiantance and it turned out to be a good one." Yu Jie Xing said as he sat down across him.

Xu Kun stared at him, slightly curious who that 'acquaintance' was. However, Yu Jie Xing did not seem to bother telling him who it was and only sipped the tea Xu Kun had served him. Indeed it was a good one, he thought.

Earlier that day, before Yu Jie Xing had gone outside to roam around, he had been preoccupied dealing with matters inside the court. As a high rank official that outranked most of the officials, one had to live up to its name.

Yu Jie Xing had been accompanying the emperor since he had joined the expedition to drive out and eliminate the rebels in the northern border and since then one had to be right by the emperor's side to watch out and protect the heaven's son from any harm that one would face in the future.

And three years ago, an incident happened in a small village which caused great trouble to the emperor. If it had been just a small village then, the emperor would not care what happens to it and just forget about it once the issue is done however, the village was not just an ordinary village as it holds something that could create chaos to the entire kingdom and to the empirial family.

As the only trusted confidante of the emperor, Yu Jie Xing had embarked his way to find that 'something' to put the empirial family's mind at ease. But what happened was that, not a trace was found as the small village had turned from a beautiful scenery to a horrifying scenery of burning fire.

With everything turned into ashes and dusts, Yu Jie Xing had no choice but to find an alternative way to find it.

After further investigation, Yu Jie Xing found out that it seems like the villagers were hiding some facts behind the fire, particularly, the red dress and the shoes that his subordinates have found and behind the village's benefactor's sudden visit. After getting few leads, Yu Jie Xing lead himself to the qinwang, who also gave him a some pointers to look for, which was a young girl. However, under the heavens, how many young girls were living on it

It would have been easy for him to solve the matter in a short time but because the thing he came for was not something one could just half assedly investigate and because of the fact that one was a prime minister and along with it was plenty of works to carry on one's shoulder, Yu Jie Xing had to slow down the investigation process.

As of the moment, Xu Kun separated from Yu Xing Han's group to their journey in keeping watch over the eastern border and decided to stay in the capital to aide Yu Jie Xing.

Seeing that the man sitting across him seemed to be lost in his thought, Xu Kun became more curious who this 'acquaintance was. However, if he found out that the 'acquaintance' would be no one else but Jiao Yu whom he had met before, Xu Kun did not know if it could be considered as a good thing or a bad one.

"Yu Xing Han must have already told you about the matters we had dealt with during that flower hunting incident." Xu Kun retracted his inquisitive look.

"Hm."

Last time, Yu Jie Xing had told his big brother Yu Xing Han to look into a certain brothel where some gruesome things occurred and after everything was done, the occurence later became the Flower hunting incident where several people who have influence across the empire enjoyed torturing and hunting females as a past time.

And the brothel was also where the pair (Yu Xing Han and Xu Kun) had met Jiao Yu during her mission with Hua.

Speaking of Jiao Yu, the pair had not gone to the Liu residence to look and ask her some questions and Xu Kun was not able to retrace anything that could get Jiao Yu involve in it. Also her appearance in that brothel was still something they could not dig into as if one was just a part of a play but was forgotten because of the bigger matters overlapping her appearance.

Xu Kun asked, "Anyway, have you already found out what the heaven's son was looking for?"

Yu Jie Xing shook his head and said, "Not at the moment."

"Won't they get impatient and blame you for that?"

"It has been three years already and they would not have waited for so long just to blame me after, when they can easily have done it after one had come back with nothing but little knowledge of what happened that time."