Allure of a Country Maiden
Chapter 1143 - 1140_1

Chapter 1143: 1140_1

As soon as Shangguan Xuanyi left the wedding venue, he went to the private room he and Xiao’er frequented at the Four Seasons Restaurant.

He penned several letters swiftly and then retrieved several homing pigeons from his ring, making use of the Pigeon Post to send the letters out.

Though he had no idea how long ago Shangguan Wanru had been kidnapped, a ground search would certainly not be as fast as a pigeon post, hence why he utilized it in the first place.

After arranging all of this, Shangguan Xuanyi hastily left the Four Seasons Restaurant and hurried towards Prince An’s Mansion.

He needed to see the scene for himself, to find out just how they managed to kidnap Shangguan Wanru!

A mighty mansion guarded by hundreds! Kidnapping someone was certainly no small feat!

Plus, this incident did not even happen in the middle of the night!

By the time Shangguan Xuanyi arrived at Prince An’s Mansion, Shangguan Ruixi was already questioning the soldiers on how Shangguan Wanru had been easily kidnapped.

The head of the guards was kneeling on the ground, his heart pounding in fear. "We were all drugged and lost consciousness. When we woke up, we found out that the Princess had been kidnapped!"

"You all? How many of you exactly, were there no others who noticed the robbers?"

"Almost everyone in the mansion was knocked unconscious," the guard leader replied, bowing his head even lower as he finished speaking.

"All of you?! Are you playing a joke on me?!" Shangguan Ruixi lost his composure and shrieked.

There had to be hundreds of servants in the mansion. The robbers must have possessed superhuman abilities to be able to knock them all unconscious!

The leader of the guards lowered his head even further, not daring to speak.

"How long did you all lose consciousness for?"

Shangguan Xuanyi approached them, sat down and asked.

"We were unconscious for about 15 minutes."

Fifteen minutes? It’s not a very long time! But if everything went smoothly, fifteen minutes was enough for the robbers to kidnap their target and escape the Imperial City!

"Fifteen minutes is a long time. You said that everyone was knocked unconscious, does that mean there were others in the mansion who weren’t? Did no one notice the Princess being kidnapped?"

After saying this, Shangguan Xuanyi turned to Shangguan Ruixi, "Are all of your mansion’s guards just eating without doing any work? Not everyone can be as useless as you, right?"

Shangguan Ruixi’s face darkened at these words, but he had no retort, so he could only vent his anger on his subordinates, "What about the people who didn’t faint? Where did they go? It took fifteen minutes before they realized the Princess was kidnapped!"

"Replying to you, my Lord, the few who did not faint were all killed by the robbers," the guard chief replied.

"So, you have no idea who the robbers are or who came?" Shangguan Xuanyi asked.

The guard chief lowered his head again in shame.

"A bunch of idiots!" Shangguan Ruixi couldn’t help but curse.

"Do you know how they drugged you all?" Shangguan Xuanyi asked again.

"Replying to Prince Rui, due to the Fifth Princess’s wedding today, there were no masters in the mansion, so naturally we servants wouldn’t check our food and water for poison. The robbers drugged all the food and water. The drug doesn’t take effect immediately after being ingested, but about fifteen minutes later. The guards and servants in the mansion eat in two shifts. Normally, in a fifteen-minute time span, all of the servants would have just finished switching shifts, so the first batch of people who were poisoned were on duty, and the others had all gone to the dining hall to eat, so they also didn’t know that the food had been poisoned."

Prince An’s Mansion housed over five hundred guards, maids and servants. They worked in two shifts: day and night. After eating dinner, those on the night shift would go to their respective posts. The ones who finished their day shift could return to their rooms to rest after eating.

Therefore, if the anesthetic took effect fifteen minutes after ingestion, it would perfectly coincide with the shift changes in the palace!

There was a rule in the mansion that the shift handover time cannot exceed fifteen minutes!

After hearing these words, Shangguan Xuanyi asked, "Who poisoned the food? Have you found out yet?"

It was unlikely that an outsider would know the shift changes in the mansion so well.

"We haven’t had time to investigate yet!" He woke up to the report that the Princess had been kidnapped and immediately rushed to inform Shangguan Ruixi!

"Then why haven’t you sent people to investigate!" Prince An was furious when he heard this!

"Does the mansion’s food taste that good? Did everyone eat and drink? Surely there are one or two who didn’t eat or drink, right!" Shangguan Ruixi said unbelievingly.

"Five guards and two old women and a maid didn’t eat, but they were all killed."

"Damn it!" Shangguan Ruixi cursed in anger.

"You should be grateful that they only drugged you and didn’t poison you to death. Let’s go, let’s see if there are any clues!" Shangguan Xuanyi stood up and said indifferently.

"Poisons that can kill people usually don’t take effect a quarter of an hour later, do they!" Shangguan Ruixi said.

"That’s right, I didn’t expect you to be capable of such insight."

This person! At this critical moment, he still has the mood to ridicule him! Shangguan Ruixi thought in frustration.

...

The servants in the mansion were knocked out for fifteen minutes. It took about a quarter of an hour for the managers to reach back and forth with the report, and half a quarter of an hour for them to get back to the mansion. That was ample time for the criminals to have gotten far away.

However, as long as they could find out which direction the criminals fled in, it was not impossible to chase them down! The key was to know their escape route.

Everyone wandered around the cell with lanterns. The locks were intact and there were no signs of a fight.

However, there were signs of a struggle and blood in the garden.

It must have been the awake guards who fought with the robbers.

Sharp-eyed Shangguan Xuanyi noticed something glinting in the bushes. Something was reflecting the lantern’s light.

He went over, bent down, and picked up a token from the bushes.

Seeing this, Shangguan Ruixi quickly came over and took a look at the token in Shangguan Xuanyi’s hand, "This is a token from Gong Zixuan’s subordinates, I’ve seen it once by chance. It seems that the people who kidnapped Wanru were indeed sent by Gong Zixuan!"

"I’ve already sent people to look in the direction of Nangong Country and issued an order to guard every checkpoint leading back to Nangong Country. We absolutely cannot let anyone take Wanru back to Nangong Country!" As soon as Prince An returned to the mansion, he sent people out to investigate. However, the time since the abduction was already too long, the robbers could easily change their direction numerous times and moreover, the sky was already dark, making the search for any signs of their escape even tougher.

Everyone knew that the chances of successfully rescuing Shangguan Wanru were slim, so neither Shangguan Xuanyi nor Shangguan Ruixi spoke.

Shangguan Xuanyi held the token tightly and felt that something was wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what was wrong right away.

"Prince! The study room has been ransacked! You need to come over quickly to see if anything is missing!" At this point, a servant from Prince An’s Mansion came running over.