Daming: The system rejected my request for salted fish

Chapter 1354

"Yes, Your Highness, the Commander has already said so."

Zhu Biao nodded, then pointed at Wei Wu and Mao Xiang and said:

"Very good. Then, whatever the Duke of Zhenguo and Mao Xiang ask you next, just answer. Remember, you have to tell them every detail."

"Yes, His Royal Highness!"

The Imperial Guard responded respectfully, and Wei Wu's side did not hesitate and immediately spoke up.

"Just now, Commander Mao and I were discussing the case, and we came up with a possibility, which is..."

Wei Wu reiterated the possibilities he had just discussed with Mao Xiang, and only after confirming that the other party understood did he continue to ask:

"You were the one who went to inspect the ink back then, so I'd like to hear what you have to say."

After listening to Wei Wu's words, the Imperial Guard lowered his head and pondered for a moment before shaking his head.

"Reporting to the Duke of Zhenguo, in my humble opinion, the oil barrel probably did not use the method you mentioned."

"Oh? Why?"

Wei Wu frowned slightly at the Embroidered Uniform Guard's answer, but then he heard the Embroidered Uniform Guard explain the reason.

“Lord Zhenguo, actually when I was inspecting the oil drum, I did more than just tilt the drum to check the ink inside.”

"Actually, I have also suspected that a thief might have placed foreign objects in the ink to make the ink level appear unchanged."

"So I specifically sought out a long needle to test if there was anything in the ink, but I was stopped by those craftsmen."

"They said the ink was extremely precious and absolutely could not be wasted, but the more they tried to stop me, the more suspicious I became, and I still gave it a try."

"However, when I inserted the long needle into the oil drum, I did not touch anything foreign, so there should be nothing there."

The Imperial Guard spoke with great certainty, which showed that he had indeed conducted a thorough inspection.

Even so, Wei Wu did not give up on this direction, because it was the only reasonable approach.

So after the Embroidered Uniform Guard finished speaking, Wei Wu immediately asked a follow-up question.

"If the ink contains small iron beads, as long as they are not very large, even if a long needle is used to pierce them, it should not be noticeable!"

Upon hearing Wei Wu's words, the Imperial Guard hesitated for a moment, as if he had something to say but dared not speak.

Wei Wu roughly guessed what the other party was thinking, so he spoke directly:

"Don't worry about anything. I called you here to get things straight, so just say whatever comes to mind."

Just as Wei Wu finished speaking, Mao Xiang chimed in from the side.

"Just say what you have to say. What's there to hesitate about? Speak up!"

Seeing that Mao Xiang's tone was somewhat displeased, the Imperial Guard dared not hesitate any longer and immediately spoke:

“Lord Zhenguo, actually, when I inspected the oil drums, it wasn’t simply a matter of sticking a long needle in and calling it a day.”

"Instead, I stirred the ink several times with a long needle, but I didn't feel any contact with the foreign object through the needle."

Upon hearing this, Wei Wu finally understood why the Imperial Guard dared not speak; the reason lay here.

However, after hearing the other party's explanation, Wei Wu was also somewhat dumbfounded. If that was the case, then his speculation was completely invalid.

But apart from this method, he really couldn't think of any other way to steal ink without reducing its quantity.

After the Embroidered Uniform Guard finished speaking, Wei Wu lowered his head again, his brows furrowed as he fell into deep thought.

Having already experienced it once, Zhu Biao and Mao Xiang reacted calmly this time, showing no intention of interrupting Wei Wu.

Meanwhile, Wei Wu, after falling into deep thought, began to ponder what other areas he might have overlooked.

"Putting something in the oil drum to make the ink appear more abundant should be a sound idea."

"How can we explain that the Imperial Guard used a long needle to stir the ink but didn't feel any foreign object?"

"Could the metal drum have been tampered with? What if they put a disc at the bottom with a diameter similar to the oil drum...?"

Wei Wu had just considered this possibility when he realized it, but the next second he dismissed the idea.

"No, that's not right. This Imperial Guard looked at the oil drum at an angle. If there was anything inside, he would definitely have been able to spot it."

"Moreover, if something is placed at the bottom of the oil drum, the needle should be able to clearly detect that the length at which it touches the bottom is incorrect after it is inserted."

"Those people couldn't have used such simple methods, otherwise they would have been caught red-handed long ago!"

Wei Wu pondered for a moment, but couldn't find a clue. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

Huh~!

Then, in front of Zhu Biao and the other two, he raised his hands and patted his cheeks.

"Stay calm, you'll definitely figure out the key to the problem. Just stay calm!"

He muttered something to himself, then lowered his head again to continue pondering.

"We still need to go back to the original question: the other party must have tampered with the color-changing ink; that's the only possibility."

"Let's change our perspective. Since the long needle didn't touch any foreign objects in the color-changing ink, is there any possibility?"

“The foreign object did exist, but it didn’t make any contact with the long needle, so the Imperial Guard didn’t notice anything amiss.”

Wei Wu thought about it more and more and felt that this was possible, so he simply continued to speculate along this line of thought.

"If a long needle cannot produce a tactile sensation, it means that it is not a solid, or rather, not a hard solid, such as cotton or linen."

"Even if this thing comes into contact with a long needle, there will be no obvious tactile sensation because its texture is soft."

Thinking of this, Wei Wu looked up at the Imperial Guard again and asked:

"I'd like to know, when you used a long needle to inspect the oil drum, did you just pierce it, stir it, and then pull it out directly?"

Wei Wu's idea was simple: since the Embroidered Uniform Guards used long needles to pierce the oil drums, the normal procedure was to simply pull them out.

If the oil drum really contained this kind of substance as he suspected, then the Imperial Guards wouldn't have noticed anything when they pulled out the long needle.

According to human habits, and under normal circumstances, humans control long, narrow objects by moving them straight in and out.

Unless the Imperial Guard used a picking method, it would be impossible to pick such items out of the ink.

Upon hearing Wei Wu's question, the Embroidered Uniform Guard did not hesitate and immediately responded.

"Reporting to the Duke of Zhenguo, the first time I examined the needle directly, I did not find any problems."

"Then I wondered if there might be something like cotton cloth in the oil drum, so I poked around inside with a long needle a few times."

"The result was the same; there was nothing in the oil drum except ink."

A simple sentence, yet it overturned the breakthrough that Wei Wu had finally found!