Chapter 437 A Trap Within a Trap

Zhu Yiyi immediately stopped crying. She waited on the side, not believing that even if Zhu Zhenzhen regained consciousness, she could say something coherent.

"Zhu Zhenzhen, who drugged you? Tell me!" Jiang Fenghua stared into her eyes, trying to calm her down. She pinched her arm with her fingers. "Wake up. Someone wants to harm you. Zhu Zhenzhen, are you really willing to be harmed?" Zhu Zhenzhen had already begged her. She didn't believe that Zhu Zhenzhen would willingly be harmed.

At this moment, Zhu Zhenzhen realized that the person in front of her was the Empress. Tears streamed down her face. "Your Majesty... Waaah." When she came to her senses, she saw the Empress engaging in illicit relations with a man. She felt as if the whole world had gone dark, and she knew she was doomed.

Zhu Zhenzhen kept crying, "Waaah... Your Majesty, His Majesty will never love me again, what should I do? Please help me."

"What exactly happened? You were sleeping peacefully in your room, why did you go to the kitchen?" Jiang Fenghua knew this was the key.

Zhu Zhenzhen stared in Xie Shang's direction, terrified. She then looked at Zhu Yiyi and pointed at her, saying, "It's her! I saw a white figure appear outside my door. My name is Meixiang. She was asleep, so I... I chased after her."

Zhu Yiyi looked completely innocent and was stunned. "Zhenzhen, look carefully. I'm your sister. How could I harm you? How could you have seen me outside your room? I was sleeping in the room with Zhang Xiaozhu the whole time."

"Besides calling for Meixiang, who else did you call for?" Jiang Fenghua asked her.

Zhu Zhenzhen shook her head. "I saw her flash by. I was scared, afraid that she was going to hurt me. But she seemed to be acting suspiciously, so I followed her out of curiosity."

Jiang Fenghua asked, "How are you sure it's Zhu Yiyi?"

"She was wearing a white dress. Only Zhu Yiyi was wearing a white dress. She must be trying to harm me." That was what she thought at the time. If she killed Zhu Yiyi, Zhu Yiyi could enter the palace.

Upon hearing this, Jiang Fenghua knew it was all over. Zhu Zhenzhen was incredibly stupid. She knew Zhu Yiyi was trying to harm her, yet she still followed her. And Zhu Yiyi even had witnesses to prove it wasn't her.

"So you didn't even see who was standing outside your door." Zhu Yiyi cried. "Zhenzhen, you're my sister. How could I hurt you? I like wearing white dresses, but how can you say that just because I wore a white dress, it means I wanted to hurt you!"

She said to Jiang Fenghua, "Your Majesty, please investigate thoroughly. I have been with Consort Zhang the whole time, so how could I have appeared outside her door in the middle of the night? Consort Zhang and I only found out that Zhenzhen was in trouble when we heard shouting outside."

Zhang Jingjing nodded, "Your Majesty, I was indeed with Miss Yiyi at the time, as I just mentioned."

Zhu Zhenzhen was completely confused. "I was just thirsty, so I got up in the middle of the night to drink a glass of water, and then I saw a white figure outside the room. It must have been Zhu Yiyi."

Out of curiosity, I followed her out. The inn was quiet at that time, and everyone was asleep. I followed her downstairs, but she disappeared after I turned a corner. Then I heard a noise in the kitchen, so I pushed open the door.

I remember now. I suddenly felt thirsty. Our dinner must have been tampered with. The water I drank must have been poisoned. I was drugged. I don't remember anything after that.

When she came to her senses, she screamed in fright.

Jiang Fenghua then checked the cups and kettle. It had been so long; even if Zhu Yiyi had put drugs in the kettle, she would have cleaned it up long ago. There was still water in it, so even if they checked it, they probably wouldn't be able to find anything.

She said that someone had tampered with their dinner, so why were Zhang Jingjing and Zhu Yiyi unharmed?

Jiang Fenghua thought to herself: She turned a corner and disappeared. Zhu Yiyi is in Zhang Jingjing's room. Could there be other women in the inn? If she says that, wouldn't that just exonerate Zhu Yiyi?

She called Meixiang but couldn't wake her. Could it be that Meixiang was also drugged, or that Zhang Jingjing and her maid were both drugged?

Jiang Fenghua increasingly felt that it wasn't just the Zhu family who were pulling the strings behind the scenes; there might be other people involved whose goal was to get rid of her. But how exactly did they intend to do it?

Su Xuan is dead, so who else could it be? Could it really be Su Qingqing?

If it really is Su Qingqing, what else would she want besides killing her? She probably doesn't have the ability to seize the Xie family's power!

Jiang Fenghua felt that things were definitely not simple. If she wanted to catch the enemy, but the enemy was hiding very well, what should she do? Should she set a trap for herself?

Seeing Xie Shang's cold gaze fixed on her, she suddenly knew what to do.

At this moment, Jiang Jinyan said, "Since someone deliberately lured Zhu Xiaozhu downstairs, it's also possible that a man disguised himself as a woman to lure her downstairs. After all, besides the young mistress and her maids, the only other people in the building are soldiers. Investigate the soldiers and maids."

He also sensed something unusual: someone wanted to harm Ruan Ruan, and someone wanted to harm Zhu Zhenzhen, who was the daughter of Imperial Censor Zhu.

Xiao Yu said, "I have already sent people to investigate. Everyone can testify for themselves. The soldiers did not go upstairs, and the maids are all their personal maids. There are soldiers guarding the entrance to the inn. If anyone comes out, they will definitely be discovered."

Jiang Fenghua asked, "Who was the first to hear the scream?"

"It is your humble servant. My and the soldiers' bedrooms are on the first floor, while the ladies' bedrooms are on the second floor," Xiao Yu explained. "I just checked, and there is no one else inside except the soldiers."

"Is Lord Xiao's bedroom on the first floor a separate room?" Jiang Fenghua asked in a deep voice.

Xiao Yu said, "Originally, a separate room was arranged, but there weren't enough rooms downstairs, so I gave the room to the soldiers. I went to another room and squeezed in with everyone. It was too cold. Apart from the soldiers guarding the inn's door, I let the soldiers inside the inn go inside to sleep, thinking that everyone in the inn was one of our own. It was my oversight."

Jiang Fenghua carefully recalled the route she took upstairs and the layout of the inn's rooms. Zhu Zhenzhen's bedroom was right next to the stairwell. She said, "Wasn't the room that Lord Xiao was originally supposed to stay in below this room?"

Xiao Yu was stunned. "Yes."

Jiang Fenghua said, "So if someone wanted to lure Zhu downstairs, her first instinct would definitely be to go into Lord Xiao's room to find the person in white. If Lord Xiao was staying there at the time, Zhu would have caused trouble if she accidentally stumbled in."

Several people looked at Jiang Fenghua at the same time, and heard her say coldly, "The person behind this not only wanted to harm Zhu Liangdi, but also Lord Xiao. It's just that Lord Xiao had a good intention and let the soldiers into your room to rest. You then went into another room and squeezed in with the soldiers, which is how you escaped this calamity."

Xie Shang raised an eyebrow, as if he had also fallen into someone else's trap. He said in a deep voice, "These are just Ruan Ruan's deductions, and there is no actual evidence to prove them."

Just then, a rooster crowed outside the door; it was almost dawn.

Another vegetable farmer appeared outside the gate, but the guards stopped him and came in to report, "He's delivering vegetables to the inn."

The shop owner quickly replied, "Every day at this time, vegetable farmers help ordinary people deliver vegetables."

The owner's son said, "Didn't we send them over a while ago? The vegetables are still in the kitchen; you can go and see for yourselves."

Upon hearing this, everyone immediately understood that someone else had disguised themselves as a vegetable farmer to deliver vegetables to the inn, luring Zhu Zhenzhen to the kitchen, where she was drugged again, leading to the events that followed.

Jiang Fenghua then asked, "Why didn't anyone report that someone was delivering vegetables in the middle of the night?"

The soldier said, "I told you that it was the boss's son who said to let us in, and he left a little while later."

How many people?

“Two people, one vegetable basket,” the soldier said.