Chapter 5: Longevity Pill

"I dare not. I have received great favor from Your Majesty and am willing to die for you."

"Break to pieces? Humph! That's not necessary.

The people who test for poison every day have no symptoms, but Your Majesty has been poisoned. Sun Dajian, please tell me where this poison came from.

"Your servant, your servant, I don't know..."

Seeing that he didn't know anything, Li Yueyao put down the teacup and said calmly:

"If you don't know, what's the use of you? Come, drag him out and chop him up..."

The Yulin Guards outside the door responded and came in.

Sun Fu knew that in this situation, Li Yueyao's words were more effective than the imperial edict.

Seeing that his head was about to be lost, he suddenly had an idea and looked up and said:

"Your Highness, I remember now, I remember now.

Your Majesty began taking the longevity pill made by the Imperial Master two months ago, and no one has ever tested the pill for poison."

Li Yueyao frowned after hearing this and waved to the Yulin Guards who came in. The Yulin Guards stopped when they saw this.

"Life-extending pill?"

Li Yueyao looked at Sun Fu who was kneeling on the ground and frowned, "Tell me in detail."

"Your Highness, a few months ago, His Majesty went to see the Imperial Master and saw him refining an elixir. He then discussed the art of making elixirs with him.

Later, His Majesty's old illness relapsed and took a long time to recover, and his physical and mental state became worse day by day.

Then he remembered the longevity elixir that the national teacher had mentioned, which could detoxify, cure diseases and prolong life.

So he summoned the imperial teacher to ask for details, and finally ordered the imperial teacher to refine the longevity elixir.

The Imperial Master followed the Emperor's orders and spent nine days refining six longevity pills for His Majesty.

Your Majesty got the elixir and took it. The effect was immediate and his spirits were visibly improved.

Your Majesty then followed the Imperial Master's advice and took one pill every two weeks."

Li Yueyao's face darkened when she heard this: "Those that have immediate effects after taking them are most likely strong drugs.

Is there any Longevity Pill left in the palace?"

"There is only one left." Sun Fu replied.

"Go and get the pill."

"Yes."

Sun Fu responded, stood up tremblingly and walked out.

Li Yueyao stood up and walked to the desk next to her, picked up a pen and wrote a prescription.

Just as she finished writing the prescription, Sun Fu came in with a golden nanmu box. Cuiwei took it, opened it gently, and placed it on the table in front of Li Yueyao.

Li Yueyao blew gently on the prescription in her hand and handed it to Sun Fu:

"Go and prepare this recipe into a medicinal bath. Oversee the preparation yourself. If you make a mistake again, you will be killed."

Sun Fu wiped the sweat from his forehead, took the prescription and said, "As you command."

"By the way, I want to see these two people. Go and call them over."

Cuiwei handed the list to Sun Fu, who looked at it and said, "Your Highness, please wait a moment. I will do it immediately."

After Sun Fu left, Li Yueyao looked at the bright red pill in front of her. She could feel without even looking that the cinnabar, lead and mercury content exceeded the standard.

Li Yueyao curled her lips and asked Cuiwei to bring her medicine box. She put on gloves, cut off a little of the pill, and put it into water to dissolve it.

After fiddling with it for a long time, Li Yueyao discovered a problem.

This pill is indeed a fierce medicine that consumes Qi and blood, and the cinnabar and mercury content in it is indeed excessive.

However, he did not find any trace of "lateness" in it, which made Li Yueyao fall into deep thought.

A quarter of an hour later, a nanny with gray hair and plain clothes appeared in the side hall of Taiji Palace.

"Your servant, Qin Zhi, a handyman in the laundry department, pays homage to the Grand Princess of Jinyang."

"Aunt Qin, please don't be polite."

"Thank you, Your Highness."

After bowing, Nanny Qin stood up, lowered her head and stood aside with her hands hanging down.

"Aunt Qin, raise your head."

Nanny Qin raised her head slightly, still looking at the ground without saying a word.

Li Yueyao took one look and flew into a rage, throwing the meal booklet in her hand onto the table with a bang.

"Who hurt you like this?"

I saw a hideous knife wound on the left side of Qin Ma's face from the corner of her eye to her mouth, making her face look extremely scary.

When Nanny Qin heard this, tears welled up in her eyes and she knelt down and said:

"Your Highness, it is my fault for not doing my job well. I should be punished."

"I'm asking you who you are? Who scratched your face like this?" Li Yueyao was furious.

When Nanny Qin heard this, she burst into tears but said nothing.

Li Yueyao stood up, paced back and forth in frustration, and shouted angrily outside the hall:

"Come on, who's outside?"

Sun Fu had two apprentices, one named Li Qi and the other named Wu Le.

Li Qi was serving the emperor, and as for Li Yueyao, Sun Fu asked Wu Le to serve her carefully.

Wu Le heard the angry voice of Princess Jinyang outside, and his calves cramped.

His master had repeatedly warned him not to offend this ancestor, as he even dared to beat His Majesty when he was a child.

Now, among the people in the royal family who are older than her, they are not close to the emperor, and those who are close to the emperor are not older than her. She is a living ancestor.

Taking a deep breath, Wu Le pushed the door and entered the hall.

"Your Highness, the servant is here."

"Who scratched Aunt Qin's face?"

When Nanny Qin came in just now, Wu Le went over Nanny Qin's affairs in his mind.

After coming in, she respectfully replied when Li Yueyao asked, "Your Highness, Nanny Qin has been serving in front of the Emperor.

When the imperial concubine became pregnant, His Majesty assigned Nanny Qin to take care of the imperial concubine's pregnancy.

But later, for unknown reasons, the Imperial Concubine miscarried, and His Majesty demoted Nanny Qin to the laundry department."

Li Yueyao was still angry after hearing this: "I was asking who scratched her face?"

"I don't know about this. Madam had injured her face before she went to the laundry department." Wu Le answered very skillfully.

Li Yueyao's expression darkened after hearing this. "So that means it was the Imperial Concubine who did it?"

Wu Le didn't say anything, which was a disguised agreement.

Li Yueyao kicked the chair next to her down, then put her hands on her waist and said loudly:

“How courageous.

Aunt Qin was originally a tea-serving maid in my mother's palace. After my mother passed away, she went to serve my sister-in-law.

Having served two generations of queens, even if Aunt Qin made a mistake, she would just be punished.

Scratching someone's face like this, is this a slap in the face of my mother and the Empress Dowager?

The palace no longer has the surname Li. How about changing it to Shangguan?"

Li Yueyao was furious and slammed the table loudly, and everyone in the hall knelt down one by one.

The side hall was dead silent, with only the sounds of Li Yueyao's footsteps and kicking stools and tables.

The queen heard the loud noise in the side hall immediately. She turned her head to look at the emperor sleeping on the couch, then stood up and walked out.

After listening to the palace servant's report, he sneered and said, "Humph, it's better to let her take action against Shangguan. It will save me a big trouble."

Li Yueyao was angry for a long time and thought to herself: Damn it, I knew the palace was in chaos, but I didn’t know it would be this mess.

Where is the Queen? The harem is in such chaos, why doesn’t the Queen take action?

But on second thought, since Imperial Concubine Shangguan entered the palace, she was promoted from a mere beauty to an Imperial Concubine of the first rank in the harem in just five years.

During this period, the queen was always suppressed by the imperial concubine.

Li Yueyao thought about this and sneered.

When the emperor was still the crown prince and was choosing a crown princess, he felt that Xie Wanrou was not suitable.

She has a pretty face and seems quite smart, but she always regards herself as a noble lady of the Xie family. She is arrogant and looks down on the noble ladies in the capital.

Just for this reason, Li Yueyao and the emperor's sister-in-law looked down on Xie Wanrou.

His silly nephew insisted on personally choosing her as his principal wife.

It seems that over the years, my silly nephew has extremely poor taste in women.

The queen couldn't handle it, so she brought in a royal concubine. The two of them fought like black-eyed chickens, making the harem a mess.

If Xie Wanrou had half the skills of the emperor's sister-in-law and the queen mother, she would have beaten the imperial concubine to death long ago and would not have been allowed to stir up trouble in the harem.

Neither his tactics nor his scheming are good enough. No wonder the palace is in such chaos.

Li Yueyao thought of this, took a few deep breaths, calmed down and said, "Everyone, get up."

Then he said to Wu Le, "You should withdraw first and guard the side hall. If anyone dares to approach or try to gather information, arrest them immediately."

Wu Le took the order and turned to leave.

Li Yueyao stepped forward and helped Nanny Qin up: "I've wronged you over the years."

"I am not wronged. For Your Majesty, I am willing to do this."

Li Yueyao frowned as she listened. Isn't this the dispute between her and the imperial concubine?

Why would he be willing to do this for His Majesty? It sounds like there is another hidden agenda.