Heading back to the estate, Peng Mingzhu could not but to continuously sigh.
"Is something wrong?" Mo Nianzu asked when he saw her constant sighs.
"I thought I'd try to live a secret life here, but it seems that I'll be quite public," Peng Mingzhu answered while shaking her head, disappointed at herself.
"That's because you are naturally a great person," Mo Nianzu told her. "Since you are natural, even if you don't want to be famous, you'll be famous."
Hearing his words, Peng Mingzhu smiled, "How do you know such things?"
"Mother taught me," Mo Nianzu answered with his straight face.
"Ah, we're here already," Peng Mingzhu stated, an apparent sad expression on her face.
"Peng Mingzhu!" she heard someone call out her name worryingly.
Knowing who the voice belonged to, Mo Nianzu immediately made himself non-existent and disappeared from the scene, leaving the two persons by themselves.
"Wei Kangnuan! Don't scream my name so loud!" Peng Mingzhu scolded when she saw the person responsible for shouting her name loud enough to be heard at least all the way down the street.
She was about to scold and lecture him even more, but before she could, Wei Kangnuan gave her a tight hug without letting her go and breathed out, "Ah, thank goodness you are fine. My brother told me that there was a murder happening near the area where Mo Nianzu was taking you."
Pushing him off from her body, Peng Mingzhu stated, "If I have enough strength to push you away from me and not know how to use it to protect myself then I am worse than a turtle."
"Huh? Why a turtle?" Wei Kangnuan asked, confused at her metaphor.
"A turtle knows how to use its hard shell to protect itself," Peng Mingzhu answered, not explaining any further since she knew that he would understand the moment she said such a thing.
Just when Wei Kangnuan was about to say something back to her, a subordinate that he knew ran to him.
"Second Prince," the subordinate greeted.
"Crowned Prince is in the study," Wei Kangnuan immediately told the subordinate, knowing that the subordinate belonged to his older brother.
"Who's that?" Peng Mingzhu asked with a raised brow.
"The subordinate of my older brother," Wei Kangnuan answered.
"The crowned prince?" Peng Mingzhu asked even though she knew that it was the crowned prince.
"Mm," Wei Kangnuan hummed to answer that she was correct.
"What's his name?" Peng Mingzhu asked.
"You're interested in him?" Wei Kangnuan asked back, jealousy clear in his tone.
"What do you think?" Peng Mingzhu questioned him with a raised brow.
"Don't tell me the reason you don't want to marry me is because I'm not the crowned prince?" Wei Kangnuan asked with a frown and dark face.
"Who the hell wants to marry a prince?!" Peng Mingzhu immediately scolded the bastard. "In fact, I don't even want to marry at all and if I were to marry anyone, it'd be my best friend. It's too bad that he's a cut-sleeve though!"
Wei Kangnuan did not expect her to explode like that. His expression was full of shock and surprise.
"You have a cut-sleeve friend?" Wei Kangnuan asked, interested to know who this friend of hers was.
"Oh shut up. Just tell me your brother's name," Peng Mingzhu told him.
"Wei Li," Wei Kangnuan gave her the information that she wanted.
Heaving a sigh to calm her angry nerves, she walked inside the estate vigorously, leaving behind Wei Kangnuan by his lonesome self.
The moment that she did so, she headed towards her room while Wei Kangnuan headed towards the study to discuss with his brother about the murder that happened in the capital. Though murders were common, murders that were explicitly in the out in the public, in the daylight, was rare, so the emperor wanted the two princes to work together to figure out the motive behind the murder.
Upon entering his study, the crowned prince immediately asked, "Xiao Nuan, is there a woman named Peng Mingzhu living in your estate right now?"
"Hm? Yes. Why do you ask, Brother?" Wei Kangnuan answered with a frown on his face.
"Well, I just received the information from my men that the person who stopped the incident from growing wilder was her," Wei Li told him. "So, I need her here if she is living in your estate. She has the most immediate answers to my questions and probably knows more about the situation than anyone."
Even though Wei Kangnuan did not want his older brother and Peng Mingzhu to meet, he did agree with his brother. With only one choice, he could only order Butler Cui to bring over the woman that he loved.
Naturally, when Peng Mingzhu heard that she was being summoned for the chaos back at the bookstore, she became annoyed.
'Goddangit! I shouldn't have gone to the bookstore straight away when I just came to the capital!' Peng Mingzhu scolded herself internally.
Still, she calmly followed Butler Cui to the study.
"Your Highnesses, Miss Peng is here," Butler Cui announced, standing behind the door to the study.
"Come in," Wei Li ordered. "Butler Cui, you can excuse yourself."
"Yes, Your Highness," Butler Cui bowed and left the study.
"Miss Peng?" Wei Li first asked.
"Yes, that's me," Peng Mingzhu answered, identifying herself.
"According to my men, you were at the scene of the incident, stopped the murderer from continuing to harm more civilians, and also helped the injured victims that were harmed by the murderer, is this information correct?" Wei Li began to question her seriously about the case.
"Yes, that's correct," Peng Mingzhu plainly answered.
"Can you explain to me why you were at the scene and why you decided to stop the murderer when you yourself could have been harmed?" Wei Li questioned while motioning his subordinate to note down everything she was going to say.
"I was at Verbatim Bookstore to purchase books since I wanted to learn more about the continent and country. When I was finished purchasing my books and was about to leave however, I heard screams and shouts coming from the entrance of the bookstore. That was when the manager of the bookstore called me over to tell me that his men reported that there was a crazy man murdering random strangers for no apparent reason. The manager invited me to head upstairs as he deemed it to be a safe spot for me. I believe that the other workers of the bookstores also headed upstairs as I saw no workers during the incident, nor were there any workers that were harmed," Peng Mingzhu first started to answer.
"So, you went upstairs?" Wei Li continued to question.
"No," Peng Mingzhu shook her head. "I declined the manager's offer since I wanted to head back to the estate. At the same time, Mo Nianzu was with me and since I didn't know how safe upstairs was, I did not want to risk his life. That's why I decided to stop the crazy man. Also, for your previous question about how I could have been harmed, that's impossible. It's been over twelve years since someone has managed to harm me."
'Well, physically at least,' Peng Mingzhu internally remarked.
"Miss Peng is skilled in martial arts?" Wei Li asked with a serious face.
"Self-protection mostly," Peng Mingzhu humbled her answer. "To be honest, if you guys examined the murderer, you'd realize that most of his energy came from the drugs he was taking."
"Drugs?" Wei Li questioned with an even more serious face.
The coroners and physicians have yet to give him information about the murderer or the victims, so he did not know that the murderer was not in the right state of mind.
"As long as you looked at the murder's eyes, you could tell that he was on drugs," Peng Mingzhu told them. "Besides, his fingernails were a shade of dark blue, almost black, which means he probably took a drug that would slowly poison his body if he were to overdose on it."
"I see… I shall wait for the coroner's response first then," Wei Li stated. "Then, do you always carry medical supplies with you all the time? Though, if I am to be brief, I want to know everything about your medical skills."
"My skills are pretty basic if you really want to know. Just enough to know how to save myself in emergencies. And yes, I always carry some type of medicine with me just in case I have injuries," Peng Mingzhu answered while humbling her skills a lot.
"There were a lot of people who said that you identified four people as dead without examining their bodies closely. You might-" Wei Li started saying, but was interrupted by Peng Mingzhu.
"I wouldn't have been able to save them," Peng Mingzhu told the crowned prince with a flat stare. "As long as a person has even one breath left in their body, I can save them. However, those four people had long died. They didn't even die due to excessive blood loss. They died because the murderer managed to stab them in essential body parts."
"Miss Peng, just who are you?" Wei Li questioned, looking at her straight in the eyes.