Hearing his mother's painful screams from outside the door, Xu Hongkuo panicked and wanted to rush in.
Su Luo took out a fast-acting painkiller from her spatial storage and fed it to Old Madam Xu.
Her head was about to explode; she would eat whatever Su Luo gave her.
"Lord Xu, please don't be impulsive. You must not be disturbed during acupuncture."
Du Xiuyuan stopped Xu Hongkuo. Regardless of what had happened inside that caused the old lady's painful screams, he believed in Su Luo.
"Dr. Du, didn't you hear my mother's cries of pain? Move aside."
Xu Hongkuo looked anxious, and was even more nervous inside.
"Sir, if you rush in, the old lady will die if something goes wrong."
Wei Anjun also came over and pulled Xu Hongkuo back: "Master, you should listen to the doctor. Look, Auntie has lost her voice now, hasn't she?"
My mother is over seventy years old; her screams just now were terrifying.
But now, upon closer listening, it seems there really is no sound. Lady Su is Doctor Du's mentor; he was just too nervous.
At this moment, Su Luo opened the door from the inside and said with a gloomy expression, "All of you, come in and let's talk."
Xu Hongkuo and Wei Anjun rushed ahead, while Du Xiuyuan walked away and Su Luo came to stand in front of him. Acupuncture couldn't possibly end so quickly. What exactly happened?
"Madam Su, what's going on?"
Su Luo shook her head: "We've all oversimplified things. Let's go inside and talk about it."
Old Madam Xu leaned against the headboard, panting heavily. She had eaten something Su Luo had given her and was in less pain, but she was still having difficulty breathing.
"Mother, Mother, how are you?"
Seeing a pool of black blood on the ground and his mother's weak appearance, Xu Hongkuo turned to look at Su Luo.
"Aunt, are you alright? What happened?"
Tears of worry streamed down Wei Anjun's face as she sat on the edge of the bed, at a loss for what to do.
"Madam Su, what exactly happened? How did Mother become like this?"
With just a glance, he exuded an overwhelming sense of official authority. An ordinary person would surely be terrified by Xu Hongkuo's intimidating presence.
"Kuo'er, it has nothing to do with... Lady Su's matter. Someone is trying to harm me."
With difficulty, Madam Xu raised her hand, and Wei Anjun grasped her mother-in-law's hand tightly.
“Aunt, who dared to harm you? Tell the master, and he will punish her on the spot.”
"Lord Xu, Aunt Wei, the old lady suffers from frequent headaches. It's not a common ailment caused by wind and cold. The real reason is that the old lady has been poisoned."
How could I have been poisoned?
Wei Anjun stood up and stood in front of Su Luo. She served her aunt every day, and if her aunt were poisoned, everyone would suspect her immediately.
"Madam Su, my husband is a just man and has no enemies. Who would poison my aunt? Have you found out the truth?"
Su Luo showed the two the silver needles she used for acupuncture on Old Madam Xu.
"This poison is very strange. It presents the same pulse pattern as wind-evil symptoms, but in reality, it slowly enters the old lady's bloodstream."
"If I hadn't accelerated blood circulation during this acupuncture session, I wouldn't even have been able to detect it with the acupuncture needles."
Upon seeing this, Du Xiuyuan took out a new silver needle from his needle pouch and placed it into the black blood that the old lady had vomited. The black blood quickly condensed in the air.
When tested with a silver needle, the color changed slightly.
"Lord Xu, please look, acupuncture with silver needles has a detoxifying effect. The old lady's painful cries just now were the result of toxins rapidly spreading through her body."
Such a difficult-to-detect poison must have taken several years to slowly infuse; otherwise, it wouldn't have the same effect.
Du Xiuyuan's words enlightened Xu Hongkuo: the one who could poison the old lady must be someone close to her.
"Madam Su, my mother's headaches started four or five years ago, so wouldn't that mean..."
Xu Hongkuo felt a chill run down his spine. How could there be such a vicious person in his family who would harm an elderly woman?
"Someone come here!"
Xu Hongkuo's stern face was covered with frost.
"master!"
Two guards stood outside the door, their fists clasped in greeting.
"Have your men surround the entire Xu residence. No one inside is allowed to leave, and no one outside is allowed to enter without my order."
"yes!"
Wei Anjun was terrified. After helping the old lady lie down, she said in a panic, "Master, if this person dared to poison my aunt, what if I also did?"
Besides the old lady, the only other woman in the backyard connected to Xu Hongkuo was Wei Anjun. He had not remarried since his first wife passed away, and it was unknown whether Wei Anjun had also been poisoned.
"Dr. Du, Madam Su, please examine An Yun to see if she has this poison in her body."
Su Luo picked up a teacup and used a silver needle to prick Wei Anjun's finger, drawing a drop of blood.
"Lord Xu, this kind of poison usually causes blood to coagulate. If Aunt Wei doesn't have any physical ailments, she shouldn't be poisoned."
"Then, Madam Su, Doctor Du, can you cure my mother's poison?"
Su Luo said, "Leave it to us. Lord Xu should still pay more attention to the old lady's diet. Everything she eats and uses should be checked one by one."
Otherwise, if the old lady has more frequent attacks, it's uncertain whether she will be able to pull through.
Within half an hour, everyone in the Xu household was summoned to the courtyard to stand in line.
It was said that the old lady had been poisoned, and everyone was a suspect. The maids, servants, and household servants were all in a state of panic.
"What should I do? It wasn't me..."
"It wasn't me either."
"How could we dare?"
Amidst the constant whispering, Wei Anjun sat under the eaves, looking at the servants, and said sternly.
“I don’t know who is so bold as to harm the old lady. If you confess yourselves, the master might spare your lives.”
If the master finds out that he plotted to harm the family members of a high-ranking official, the only punishment would be death.
Facing a courtyard full of servants, Wei Anjun exuded the same aura as the legal wife, a stark contrast to her demeanor in front of Xu Hongkuo.
Seeing everyone bowing their heads in silence, trembling with fear that the matter was related to them, Wei Anjun stood up and roared.
"Don't think you can escape by not speaking. The master has already sent people to investigate where you are eating and sleeping. Once they find out who it is, I'll make her pay."
In Madam Xu's room, only an old nanny remained to serve her, and Xu Hongkuo sat by her bedside to show his filial piety.
"Mother, how are you feeling?"
The old lady looked at Su Luo beside her and called out, "Su Niangzi, what medicine did you just give me? My headache stopped after a while."
To prevent anyone from tampering with the medicine, Su Luo asked Du Xiuyuan to personally brew it.
"Madam, that was a painkiller I developed. It's very potent, so you only need to take it once. Don't take more."
Every medicine has its side effects. For elderly people like Madam Xu, whose metabolism is not good, taking too much painkiller can cause certain side effects.
“Mother, Madam Su will not harm you. We will listen to Madam Su and use herbs to slowly dissolve the fat in your blood. Your headaches will gradually get better.”
Su Luo leaned closer to the bedside and asked the old lady, "Old lady, do you have any particular dietary preferences?"
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