It was already evening when Evelyn and Roger returned to Xiao Chen's ward. They happened to run into Catalina who was delivering food to Xiao Chen. Catalina, who was feeding Xiao Chen, was startled by their appearance, and a spoonful of rice almost went into Xiao Chen's nose.
Roger's face was serious but he didn't show much emotion, but Evelin was obviously very angry and her whole face was twisted.
Judging from the length of the interrogation, Xiao Chen knew that Jiang Yitian did not simply let them go, and must have asked a lot of questions. He stood up from the bed and asked, "Did they embarrass you?"
The usually reserved and taciturn dark elf ranger could no longer suppress his anger and sat next to Xiao Chen and said, "I'm very angry!"
She didn't say anything else. She glanced at Katarina and gave Xiao Chen a look.
"It's okay, Katarina. She already knows something about the situation. Tell me, what did he ask?" Xiao Chen asked.
Evelyn looked at him and said through gritted teeth, "He's not asking questions, he's creating problems! He didn't ask too many questions about me, but he asked a lot about you. Especially him." Evelyn pointed at Roger.
Roger sat down at the other end of the bed, his arms crossed in front of his chest, his eyes cast down to the ground: "It seems that my imperial bloodline will be a big problem this time. Although I told all the questions truthfully, Jiang Yitian doesn't want to let me go. He will verify my words with what you said, find the most suspicious points, and then magnify them... I have seen a lot of such methods, and it is not a new trick in the imperial aristocratic circle."
Xiao Chen moved himself up a little more and said to the two sincerely, "I'm sorry. I didn't expect this operation would bring you so much trouble."
"You're not right. How can the problem be with you? If we stay in the city and don't go out, he can still suspect that Roger secretly opened the door, which will make it even more difficult to explain. I learned an idiom before: It's easy to find a pretext to accuse someone of a crime. It describes this situation." Evelyn said
Xiao Chen nodded in agreement, "Well, it's obvious. This guy is either looking for a scapegoat, or he's trying to make things difficult for me, or both. But because Roger is my assistant most of the time, this matter is ultimately directed at me."
"They also asked me not to leave the city recently and not to participate in any operations." Evelyn slammed her fist on the edge of the bed and said angrily, "That's too much. This is the first time I realize that sometimes my own people are more annoying than my enemies."
"You ask the same of me." Roger folded his arms, leaning against the wall and said, "But the most important thing is that many of our guards were originally slaves from the empire. Now they have just suffered a defeat and people are uneasy. If they now doubt our loyalty, I think it will be a big blow to morale. Today they are from the empire, what about tomorrow? City-state? Elves? Dwarves? In the end, everyone will be disheartened."
Catalina said: "Yes, how could this be! Sister Kalanda was originally an imperial citizen, but now she thinks she can be a Chinese."
Xiao Chen patted her hands and said, "Don't worry too much about this. They won't be that stupid. Judging from the current situation, the empire is just a cover. These actions are only to deal with a few individuals. Most of the imperial people will not threaten the interests of these people and are harmless to them."
Roger said, "When Jiang Yitian questioned me today, he accidentally let out a piece of information in order to confront me. It seems that a lot of things about us were provided to them by Zhang Hong. From what he said, many of the speculations that were unfavorable to us also came from him."
"I heard about it here too. He said he didn't know anything about our actions and suspected we were carrying out secret operations." Evelin stood up and said indignantly, "Zhang Hong was clearly at the meeting several times. Why would he say such a thing?"
"It's hard to say." Xiao Chen pondered for a moment and said, "We can't just wait here, we have to do something. Katrina, I heard that Tang Feng is here too, go ask around and ask him to come over. Evelyn, go upstairs and find Huang Zheng, his injuries are almost healed, ask him to come down and meet me. We need to discuss this matter carefully."
———————
Tang Feng arrived earlier than Huang Zheng. When Catalina just walked out of the temporary hospital gate, she ran into him who came to visit Xiao Chen.
After everyone arrived, Xiao Chen pointed to the surrounding walls and drew a circle, then said to Huang Zheng, "Old Huang, soundproof it."
Huang Zheng cast a soundproof barrier and asked in surprise, "You are injured to this extent?"
Xiao Chen said: "The self-destruct magic performed by the great magician was too powerful. It will probably take me several days to recover. But the key now is the investigation team's matter."
"Then I'll need Director Tang's guidance. What did the committee say when you came out?" Huang Zheng asked.
Tang Feng looked quite serious. He said, "The main focus of the committee is definitely to find out the facts and not let possible loopholes cause greater losses. However, there are definitely people who want to take advantage of the situation and make use of the issue.
If Peng Ziyi's work focus had not been on gathering imperial intelligence, he should have been the one to investigate.
Now that these two people are here, I don't know what Bai Yicheng's attitude is, but Jiang Yitian and Chang Lin are very close, so you should be careful. However, I can more or less keep an eye on him here.
In the afternoon, he gave me a task to collect information from the retreating soldiers. I spent the whole afternoon in the barracks and got a bunch of messy information. And he himself really came to interrogate you. "
Xiao Chen said: "Let's check the information we have."
So everyone told the relevant information they knew, including their own views on the Kuroki Pass incident. Combining the information at hand, the dark fog surrounding this incident seemed to be clearer.
Xiao Chen said: "I think the most effective way to get rid of that guy is to find out the traitor."
"Do you think my suspicion of Zhang Hong is justified? After my last communication with Wang Jiyuan, I collected some fragmentary evidence, which are generally consistent with my guess. However, I am injured now, and I haven't had time to do further verification." Huang Zheng asked.
Xiao Chen said nothing. He thought for a long time before saying, "I didn't find any obvious flaws in Zhang Hong's other areas. It's just that he is so anxious to drag us into the water. There is a possibility that he is using some people's intentions to deal with me and make me his shield. Overall, he is still a timid guy. Even if he has a conflict with me, he usually doesn't dare to use such a direct method, and there is no need for him to use such a direct method, which makes his motives suspicious.
I think we have no better direction at the moment. In this case, we might as well use this as a breakthrough point.”
Tang Feng said: "Then I will go and talk to him tomorrow morning in the name of the investigation team. Let's see what we can gain from it. If you can avoid getting involved in this matter, don't get involved, especially Huang Zheng. The fire has not yet burned you, so don't get involved yet."
Xiao Chen said: "You can also verify the evidence Huang Zheng mentioned. Maybe it will be more useful than directly interrogating Zhang Hong." (To be continued)