Chapter 155 Buying Time

A blood test to verify parentage! Right in front of so many people, this directly left the woman speechless, while also proving Prince Ning’s innocence and sparing him from gossip.

Upon hearing Xia Jiujiang’s words, the faces of the man and woman turned pale with panic. Once a blood test was performed, it would all be over.

The woman feigned composure, though her voice already carried a trace of panic: "You clearly said this dog could prove whether my son is Prince Ning’s son, and now what kind of blood test are you trying to pull? Since you cannot prove it, let my son go to Prince Ning’s Estate. If there is to be a blood test, it should be between my son and Prince Ning. Why test with a complete stranger?"

Tian Xiaoyuan stepped forward, straightening her back, and said: "When Big Gray bit this man out from the crowd, it already proved he is not Prince Ning’s son. Otherwise, why wouldn't Big Gray bite anyone else, but instead rush out specifically to bite this man? You cannot even prove whether your son belongs to Prince Ning, yet you expect the Prince to bleed and test his blood with your son. Where do you get the nerve?"

The woman shouted: "You... You... You inexplicably dragged out a man and claimed he is my husband, slandering my innocence and wanting to test our blood on the spot. Who knows if you will tamper with the water?"

The woman’s expression suggested that this man was simply someone randomly found by Prince Jin’s Estate to prove Prince Ning’s Consort's innocence.

Xia Jiujiang cut off the woman's escape route: "It is very simple. There are so many people here, you can randomly point at anyone to fetch clean water. Surely you won't claim that person has been bribed by me as well."

"I..."

Xia Jiujiang said angrily: "Oh, why not? No wonder you kept talking about going to Prince Ning’s Estate; you simply figured these onlookers wouldn't follow you all the way there, so you were just stalling for time here."

The woman raised her head in hesitation. Flustered, she had no choice but to take the easy way out and randomly pointed at a young girl. The girl, finding it rather amusing, happened to have a water pouch and poured out some fresh water.

Xia Jiujiang glanced at Elder Meng, who stepped forward and drew the child's blood. The man turned ashen and tried to struggle, but the guards pressed down on him, and in the end, he could only submit as Elder Meng pricked his finger.

In the clear water, the two drops of blood merged into one. The woman’s face instantly turned the color of tallow.

The surrounding crowd erupted into an immediate uproar.

"What is this? This man really is the child's father."

"If that's the case, why keep shouting about him being Prince Ning’s son?"

"Is this bitch out of her mind?"

"Dragging someone else's child to cause trouble right outside Prince Jin’s Estate."

"Still trying to deny it? Since she committed the act of slandering Prince Ning right in front of Prince Jin’s Estate, she can just wait to reap the consequences."

Invectives and harsh words flew at the woman from all directions in the crowd.

The man flew into a rage from embarrassment: "I told you not to be greedy, but you just had to dream of rising to greatness in a single bound."

The woman, desperate and furious, snapped back: "It's your own fault for getting exposed! Why don't you talk about how stupid you were to get caught by a dog?"

The woman's words implied that had the man not been in the crowd, her plan would have succeeded.

Xia Jiujiang remarked casually: "It would have been the same whether he was around or not."

Unreconciled, the woman protested: "How could it be the same? It's not the same! We were *this* close."

Xia Jiujiang said: "When you first came to cause trouble, this Consort already believed Prince Ning's Consort. Since Prince Ning's Consort spoke the truth, you must be lying. For a woman to bring a child to cause a disturbance at Prince Jin's Estate, your real husband must have been lurking nearby to watch the situation."

The woman bit her lip: "You... how can you be so certain he was watching nearby?"

She was deeply resentful. The intelligence Xia Jiujiang displayed made it feel as though she had been led by the nose from the very beginning. The woman believed that had the man not slipped up, she certainly would have succeeded.

What wishful thinking, what sheer delusion.

Xia Jiujiang continued: "Even if he wasn't, Big Gray has a keen sense of smell and quite a few canine subordinates in the capital. With just a single command, finding a familiar scent in the capital would be effortless."

Xia Jiujiang had long known the opposition came prepared. Someone must have been lurking nearby to help lead the public opinion; otherwise, how could Prince Jin’s Estate guards have been manipulated into blocking the street so that people could only enter and not leave, only for Big Gray to subsequently ferret the man out?

The man turned his head to look at the woman and said: "Are you happy now? You actually thought your son could become the Heir Apparent. I told you to mind your own station, but you wouldn't listen."

Hearing the man's words, Xia Jiujiang frowned inexplicably, feeling puzzled as she asked: "What makes you think your son could become the Heir Apparent?"

To tamper with the royal bloodline—they truly had the gall of beasts.

It turned out this woman was the daughter of a disgraced official. After her father was imprisoned, her former life of luxury vanished, and she spent every day yearning to return to a life above others. Such greed made her the easiest person to exploit.

The woman replied: "That person said that as long as I had the ability to deliver the child to Prince Ning's Estate, he had the ability to make the child Prince Ning's son."

Xia Jiujiang was startled. The other party was boasting quite a bit—was a matter like Prince Ning's son so easily impersonated? Even without causing a scene here, if the woman had entered Prince Ning's Estate with the child, she would still have had to go through the blood test. Could it be that the adversary had someone inside Prince Ning's Estate who could secretly tamper with it?

Xia Jiujiang glanced at Tian Xiaoyuan. Tian Xiaoyuan understood that someone within Prince Ning's Estate was compromised. It seemed Tian Xiaoyuan would have a very busy time ahead of her once she returned to Prince Ning's Estate.

Xia Jiujiang asked again: "Who was the person that bribed you?"

The woman shook her head: "I... I don't know... The person was extremely generous and possessed a palace token. He wore a mask, and the mask had the pattern of the Big Dipper..."

It was that fellow in the Big Dipper mask again! He had previously arranged for people to cause trouble in front of Jiang Mantang, and now he had found people to target Prince Ning's Consort. What on earth was that person's objective?

Realizing the gravity of the situation, the woman finally felt terror and wailed: "I was just temporarily blinded by greed, thinking that if my son became the Heir Apparent, there would surely be no shortage of benefits for me... I beg Prince Jin's Consort to spare my life..."

The man also wailed to the heavens: "Spare my life, Prince Jin's Consort! Please spare me for the sake of our three-year-old child. All of this was this vicious woman's bad idea! What will the child do without a father like me?"

Xia Jiujiang sneered: "Now you remember you're a father? Weren't you the one who claimed just moments ago that you weren't this child's father?"

This man was no good either. By agreeing to let the woman bring the child to cause trouble at Prince Jin's Estate, it showed that he too had been tempted, believing that once his son entered Prince Ning's Estate, he himself could avoid decades of toil. Now that the scheme had failed, he was trying to wash his hands clean of it entirely—truly shameless.

Xia Jiujiang instructed Elder Meng: "Elder Meng, report this to the authorities. Coming to cause trouble in front of Prince Jin's Estate and slandering Prince Ning is a heinous crime. Arrest them and send them to the magistrates."

Elder Meng arranged for a servant to report the incident to the authorities and ordered the guards of Prince Jin's Estate to keep a close watch on the troublemakers. The man and woman wailed incessantly, but Xia Jiujiang's gaze was exceptionally cold, filled with utmost contempt.

They didn't even bother to use their brains before acting. Why would the masked man want their child to become the Heir Apparent? Everything involved weighing pros and cons; even if the child truly became the Heir Apparent, he would merely be a pawn in the masked man's hand.

At that moment, Big Gray suddenly lifted its head, its sharp gaze locking onto the direction of Prince Jin's Estate's main gate, before it bolted into the estate with lightning speed.

Something must have happened inside Prince Jin's Estate to make Big Gray so alarmed.

Frowning, Xia Jiujiang considered a problem: the masked man must have known about her mastery of Gu arts in front of Jiang Mantang, and should have been well aware that she was not someone easy to deal with. By staging a disturbance right before the gates of Prince Jin's Estate, she had a hundred ways to force the woman to reveal the truth.

As this realization dawned upon her, Xia Jiujiang's scalp went completely numb. Could it be that she had miscalculated from the very beginning? The masked man wasn't targeting Prince Ning's Consort at all; he wanted to use the incident with Prince Ning's Consort simply to stall Xia Jiujiang!

Anxious, Xia Jiujiang shouted to Elder Meng: "Elder Meng, hurry back to Prince Jin's Estate! Big Gray has discovered something!"