After a round of whispered conversations, the initially doubtful old guards seed to have gained more trust in Lin Kun’s previous explanation at this mont.
"This skull was retrieved from the tomb of the ’Divine Doctor,’ who was lavishly buried years ago, after painstaking efforts. Now, through my reconstruction, you can roughly see what this person looked like when alive," Zhu Yu pointed to the head on the low table and said, "The deceased cannot lie; only the living can use lies to deceive people.
Now that the appearance of the deceased has been restored to this extent, it seems it’s not hard to guess who actually died back then."
The group of guards shifted their gaze from that head to Prince Lan, who was slumped in a chair and unable to move. Their eyes brimd with doubt and fury, continuously growing stronger.
"You fools..." Prince Lan’s eyes showed a hint of panic, but having been seated in his position for so long, he managed to maintain a semblance of composure on the surface. He even deliberately used an angry tone to say to the crowd, "It’s just a clay sculpture! It’s whatever he makes it to be. Can you really believe such a thing?!
If so, then those craftsn in the village who make statues from straw effigies, can they create the appearance of the Mountain God because the straw effigies are indeed Mountain God?!"
I must admit, reaching this point and taking into account the influence of a guilty conscience, this impostor’s ability to make such a statent was enough to make Zhu Yu regard him with a newfound respect, acknowledging that this guy indeed had so brains.
If they had no backup plan, this doubt might indeed have significantly undermined the effect built up earlier.
However, it was rather fortunate that they desired this impostor’s skepticism to achieve the effect of "curbing" before giving them a boost.
In response to the impostor Prince Lan’s skepticism, Lu Qing calmly turned around and nodded to a few people behind him.
A young man with an unfamiliar appearance stepped out from among several tall n, followed by Lin Kun, who had already removed his disguise.
Even if the impostor Prince Lan’s skepticism about the clay sculpture caused the guards so doubt earlier, seeing Lin Kun standing here without any disguise at all instantly dispelled those doubts.
Lin Kun was once the loyal Guard Commander beside Prince Lan, who followed and protected him from the beginning till the end.
Even after not seeing him for over a decade, how could the one seated, if he was indeed Prince Lan himself, fail to recognize his old subordinate who had followed and guarded him for so many years?
Unless he indeed had no significant impression of Lin Kun’s appearance, making it even more difficult for recognition after so many years.
As it happened, after the Divine Doctor beca a confidant of Prince Lan back then, for so reason, Prince Lan no longer allowed the original guards to stay close for protection. This continued until the Divine Doctor’s sudden death and hurried burial when Prince Lan’s temperant drastically changed, refusing any old guards to co near.
Therefore, if that Prince Lan was an impostor, all of this made sense—he feared the old guards might notice sothing odd, so he didn’t want them near, and thus was unfamiliar with their appearances.
Including the later recruitnt of new guards into the Prince Mansion, excluding the old ones while allowing newcors to serve in the inner mansion, made sense of things that previously seed unclear.
However, Lin Kun was not the climax of the show.
Watched by the old guards, the young man unhurriedly raised his hand, touching the edge of the disguise on the side of his face, and cautiously peeled off the mask, revealing his true appearance underneath.
The old guards were instantly shocked, and surprise was written all over their faces.
The face beneath the mask looked exactly like the Princely Heir from back then, as if carved from the sa mold!
Lin Kun took a step forward, standing behind Chang Yu, and loudly addressed the guards around him: "Brothers, back then I worried that the Crown Princess Consort and the Young Master would be hard by that scoundrel, so I defied his orders, secretly left the mansion, and followed them from a distance, only to encounter the assassins that scoundrel had arranged in advance.
Unfortunately, we were too few in numbers back then and couldn’t save the Crown Princess Consort, but luckily we preserved the Young Master from the bandits and hid him away, raising him to adulthood.
This ti, we went to such lengths to expose the impostor’s disguise and lies, and to bring the Young Master back to reclaim his rightful place!"
Chang Yu’s face alone was quite convincing, and along with Zhu Yu’s earlier restoration of the skull’s appearance, the guards, originally with slight doubts, fully believed.
All eyes were once again on the slumped "Prince Lan" in the chair.
"But... if his face wasn’t altered by disguise... why..." a guard standing close to Zhu Yu furrowed his eyebrows, seemingly still full of doubt.
After all, when Zhu Yu asked soone to remove the impostor’s disguise earlier, nothing was found.
That was probably the only lingering question in the hearts of all present.
Lu Qing smiled as he listened, all of it unfolding as he expected. Once the guard finished speaking, he signaled to Lin Kun and Hong Liu’er: "Tell them to bring so fire bowls over."
Without any hesitation, Hong Liu’er and Lin Kun imdiately followed the order, instructing soone nearby to fetch fire bowls.
The two, one being a forr Guard Commander and the other having served in the Prince Mansion for a long ti, had their commands fully cooperated with, and soon a few people turned and left to fetch the fire bowls from the kitchen.
"The climate of Lan Country is hardly warm right now." Lu Qing unhurriedly explained to those still confused once the others left, "Others are dressed warmly, even indoors, and probably need a fire bowl to ward off the cold and dampness in the room.
But look around here.
These so-called guests in the courtyard are rely dicine n used for drug testing, already saturated by the strange poison from the fake Prince Lan. Like walking corpses, they’ve lost sensitivity, becoming numb. Drinking and making rry in the courtyard without feeling cold seems just feasible.
But what about him?"
He pointed to the fake Prince Lan, glaring fiercely while slumped in the chair: "Wearing thin clothes, sitting inside, yet unwilling to use any fire bowl or other ans to fend off the cold—don’t you find that strangely odd?"
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