Chapter 110 A Huge Swarm of Rats

Remembering Xie Yunsheng's comment that she noticed Cuilan, disguised as a doctor, had no medicinal smell at all, Caiyun frowned, raised her sleeve, and sniffed.

A faint pear scent lingered, likely from her frequent visits to the Empress's palace.

After much thought, Caiyun felt uneasy. For some reason, she poured out the unburnt pear-shaped incense from the incense burner and replaced it with a type of incense most commonly used by the concubines in the harem.

Then, they opened all the windows to let the cold wind in.

The cold wind blowing on her face made Caiyun a little more awake.

The wind was howling, quite loud, so Caiyun didn't hear the faint sound coming from behind her.

Fortunately, Caiyun managed to get all the palace servants to leave, which allowed Xiao Hei to sneak in quietly.

Little Black ran very fast and slipped under the bed while Caiyun was facing the window.

After hiding under the bed, Xiao Hei even pulled the bed curtain hanging to the side to cover himself.

"Well, luckily I'm small, otherwise how could I have completed these tasks so perfectly?" Little Black was a little narcissistic for a while, then started yawning again. "I'm a nocturnal animal, and they made me work overtime so early in the morning. I'll have to ask the princess to make me pay for it with a lot of meat later."

After whispering to each other, Caiyun left from the window, and Xiaohei immediately became serious.

Caiyun walked to the dressing mirror, took out a small wooden box from under the pear wood table, and fiddled with it for a while.

From Xiao Hei's perspective, he could only see Caiyun's hands moving, but he couldn't see how they were moving.

Xiao Hei glanced around, then ran to the table not far away, but accidentally bumped into a chair leg on the way.

Xiao Hei was startled and quickly covered himself with the tablecloth.

Upon hearing the noise, Caiyun immediately shielded the small wooden box behind her and looked back.

But apart from the potted plants swaying in the wind on the table, there was nothing else.

Caiyun went to check the door again, and only after confirming that no one was there did she close the door and take out the contents of the small wooden box.

It was a yellowed piece of paper and a letter.

Caiyun glanced at the two items, then lit a corner of one with a candle and threw it into the extinguished stove.

Just as they were about to watch the paper burn out, a commotion suddenly erupted from the front hall, accompanied by many panicked and shrill cries, and eunuchs frantically shouting things like, "There are rats!" "Catch them quickly!"

Caiyun didn't even bother to check if the paper had burned out, and quickly ran out.

The window wasn't closed yet, and the wind blew into the room, causing the paper on the stove to fall to the ground.

Xiao Hei rushed over, only to find that a corner of the letter and paper had already been burned.

"Oh my god, water, water!"

Xiao Hei climbed onto the table and laboriously pushed the teapot to the ground. The teapot shattered with a crack, and the spilled water dampened the flames.

Xiao Hei jumped in, lifted the paper into the water, and stomped on it several times before the fire was extinguished.

"Oh my god, oh my god, it's burning me! It's burning me!"

Fortunately, it was saved in time. Only a third of it was burned, and the rest was just soaked with water and a little damp. This thing looks like it's from several years ago; the paper is yellowed, but the ink hasn't smudged much, so it's still legible.

However, Xiao Hei couldn't read, but he knew this must be something very important.

After all, Empress Zheng personally ordered Caiyun to burn it.

Xiao Hei dragged the paper away from the puddle: "Luckily, the brothers were great, otherwise we definitely wouldn't have been able to save them."

The teapot was broken, leaving marks, and there was no way to clean it up, so Xiao Hei didn't care.

In the front hall, the concubines were having a good time drinking tea and chatting when one of them spotted a dark shadow flashing under a stool and cried out in surprise. Only then did everyone realize that there was a rat in the hall.

Consort Rong hugged him tightly, and the eunuchs in the hall quickly went to get a broom to kill the rat.

Empress Zheng straightened her back, her brows furrowed so deeply they could trap a mosquito: "Where did these rats come from? The palace is swept and cleaned every day, how could rats appear?"

A palace maid replied to her, "Perhaps it's because the weather has been getting colder lately, and the rats are looking for food to survive the winter, so they've become bold enough to come out and forage during the day."

One mouse wouldn't have been a big deal, and the two eunuchs quickly caught it.

The concubines had just breathed a sigh of relief when suddenly screams erupted from outside the palace.

"Ah, a mouse!"

"Oh my god, so many rats! Where did they all come from?!"

"Quickly, chase the mice out of the small kitchen! Don't let them spoil the food!"

The concubines looked puzzled, wondering what had happened.

What happened?

But soon they found out what was being shouted outside.

A large group of black and gray rats suddenly swarmed in, their pink tails swishing behind them. At first glance, they were a dark mass, particularly conspicuous in the morning sunlight.

"ah!"

The concubines screamed one after another, their faces pale with fright at the sight.

Unfortunately, the eunuchs, carrying tools, followed the rats in, trying to catch them. Perhaps this angered the rats, because they rushed into the hall and began to scatter in all directions.

Wherever they can't reach something, that's where the mice run.

Several of them scurried under the concubines' seats, startling them so much that they stood at attention, their embroidered shoes bouncing and scrambling as they cried out to escape the mice.

Some of the more timid ones burst into tears and hid in the arms of their maids.

There were too many rats, at least a hundred, and soon rats could be found in every corner of the hall.

There were only about twenty eunuchs in Kunning Palace. Even five per person wouldn't be enough to catch, let alone with so many other people inside. The eunuchs didn't know where to start.

Besides, who has ever seen so many rats at once?

The sheer number of people was terrifying; even the eunuchs dared not move for a moment.

In an instant, all the porcelain ornaments in Kunning Palace were knocked to the ground by the leaping and jumping rats, and shattered with a "crack".

The cracking sounds continued one after another, and the concubines were so frightened that tears welled up in their eyes. They covered their heads and tried to run away.

Empress Zheng was so angry at the chaotic scene that she felt like her head was about to burst into flames. Her nail-protected fingers trembled as she pointed at the rats, but she found that there were too many of them and she couldn't decide which one to point at.

Caiyun rushed over from the inner palace and was so surprised by what she saw that she couldn't close her jaw.

"This, this, Your Majesty, what's going on?"

Empress Zheng had no way of answering. She was perfectly fine here, how could she possibly know what was going on with these rats?

Fortunately, Caiyun quickly calmed down and ordered someone to go to the Imperial Household Department to call people to catch the rats. She also directed the eunuchs of Kunning Palace to escort the concubines out first.

Under the protection of Lüping and Zijuan, Consort Rong and Shengsheng were trying to escape from the chaos. Lüping and Zijuan shielded Consort Rong and Shengsheng tightly inside, prepared for them to be touched by rats. However, they found that the rats automatically avoided them, as if they had been sprinkled with some kind of poison that would kill the rats if they touched them. They didn't touch them at all.