novelraw Chapter 701 Lighting the Fire Basin
Chapter 701 Lighting the Fire Basin
Chapter 701 Lighting the Fire Basin
After some whispering, the old guards, who had initially been somewhat skeptical, now seemed to believe Lin Kun's earlier explanation more readily.
"This head is the one we painstakingly retrieved from the tomb of the 'miracle doctor' who was buried with great honors. Now, after my reconstruction, you can probably see what he looked like in life." Zhu Yu pointed to the head on the low table. "The dead don't lie; only the living can use lies to deceive people."
Now that I've reconstructed the deceased's appearance to this extent, it's not hard to guess who died in the first place.
The guards' gazes slowly shifted from the severed head to the Prince Lan, who was slumped in a chair, unable to move. Their suspicion and anger steadily increased.
"You bunch of idiots..." The Prince of Lan's eyes also showed a hint of panic, but after all, he had been in this position for so long, so he was still able to maintain a facade of composure. He even deliberately used an angry tone to say to the crowd, "It's just a clay sculpture! Whatever he made it into is what it is. How could you believe such a thing?!"
If that's the case, then how could the artisans in the village who make statues of gods out of straw molds create the likeness of the mountain god because the straw mold itself is the mountain god?!
Admittedly, given the circumstances and the influence of a guilty conscience, the fact that this imposter could still utter such words was enough to make Zhu Yu look at him with new respect and realize that this guy was indeed quite intelligent.
If they don't have a backup plan, this questioning might actually diminish the effect of all the groundwork they've laid.
Unfortunately, what they wanted was precisely this questioning of the fake product, so that they could achieve the "suppression" effect of praising by first criticizing.
Faced with the imposter Lan Wang's accusations, Lu Qing calmly turned around and nodded to the people behind him.
A young man with an unfamiliar appearance walked out from among several tall men, followed by Lin Kun, who had already removed his fake skin.
If the imposter Lan Wang's questioning of the clay sculpture had made the guards a little uneasy, seeing Lin Kun sitting there without any disguise made all their doubts vanish.
Lin Kun was once the loyal chief bodyguard of Prince Lan, someone who followed and protected Prince Lan from beginning to end.
Even if they hadn't seen each other for more than a decade, if the person on the throne was truly the King of Lan himself, how could he not recognize his old subordinate who had followed and protected him for so many years?
Unless, of course, he genuinely didn't have a deep impression of Lin Kun's appearance, and after more than a decade, he was even less likely to recognize him.
Coincidentally, after that divine physician became a confidant of King Lan, for some unknown reason, King Lan stopped allowing the guards who used to follow him to protect him closely. After the divine physician suddenly died and was hastily buried, King Lan's personality changed drastically, and he stopped allowing any of his former guards to approach him.
So if King Nalan was an imposter, then all of this makes sense—he was afraid of being discovered by the old guards, so he didn't want them to get close to him, and for the same reason, he was unfamiliar with the appearance of those old guards.
Later, when Prince Lan specially brought in a new batch of guards to the palace, the old guards were excluded, while the newcomers were allowed to serve in the inner palace. These things that were originally hard to explain suddenly became clear.
However, Lin Kun was not the main focus.
Under the watchful eyes of the old guards, the young man calmly raised his hand, touched the edge of the fake skin on his cheek, and carefully tore off the disguise, revealing his true face. The old guards were immediately shocked, their faces showing astonishment.
The face under that fake skin looked exactly like the prince back then, as if they were made from the same mold!
Lin Kun stepped forward and stood behind Chang Yu, loudly addressing the guards around him: "Brothers, I was worried that the Crown Princess and the young master would be harmed by that villain when they traveled, so I led my men to disobey that villain's orders and secretly left the mansion, following them all the way. As a result, we actually ran into the assassin that villain had arranged on the way."
Unfortunately, we had too few people to save the Crown Princess. Fortunately, we were able to save the young master from the bandits and hide him away to raise him to adulthood.
This time, we've gone to such great lengths to expose that imposter's disguise and lies, so that the young master can return and inherit the rightful place!
Chang Yu's face was so convincing, and coupled with the skull that Zhu Yu had just restored to its original appearance, the guards who had previously harbored some doubts were now completely convinced.
All eyes turned once again to the "Lan King" slumped in his chair.
“But… if his face wasn’t a disguise… why…” A guard who was close to Zhu Yu and the others frowned, still looking puzzled.
After all, Zhu Yu had just sent people to remove the imposter's disguise, but they found nothing.
This is probably the only remaining question in the minds of everyone present.
Lu Qing listened to the other party's words with a smile. It was all within his expectations. After the guard finished speaking, he gestured to Lin Kun and Hong Liu'er: "Have someone bring a few braziers."
Hong Liu'er and Lin Kun accepted the order without hesitation and immediately instructed the people next to them to fetch the brazier.
One of these two men was a former head guard, and the other had been working in the Prince's mansion for a long time. The people around them were very cooperative with their orders, and several people immediately turned around and left to go to the kitchen to light the brazier.
“The climate in Lan Di right now is really not warm at all.” After the others left, Lu Qing said to the others who looked puzzled, “Everyone else is wearing warm clothes. Even if they stay indoors, they probably need a brazier to warm up the cold and damp air in the room.”
But look here.
The so-called retainers in the courtyard were nothing more than test subjects for the medicine. They had long been thoroughly tainted by the various bizarre and potent poisons in the hands of this imposter Prince Lan. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call them walking corpses. They had lost all their sensitivity and become numb. So it was somewhat understandable that they could drink and make merry in the courtyard without feeling cold.
But what about him?
He pointed at the imposter Prince Lan, who was slumped in a chair with a fierce look in his eyes: "You are dressed so thinly, and you are sitting in the hall, yet you refuse to use even a brazier or something to keep warm. Don't you think that's very strange?"