"Lady Yi, what exactly is in this dish?"
Prior to this, the Queen Mother and Wei Shuyi had reached an agreement that on the day of the gathering, no matter what, they would not eat the food she offered.
Not only that, he also found an opportunity to spit it out, then pretended to be in pain and blamed Wei Shuyi.
The purpose is to lure out the person behind the scenes.
"To answer the Empress Dowager, this dish is a delicacy from my hometown that Zhang Yingying of the Yanxi Palace found for me. Her mother specially wrote a recipe by hand, and I made it according to it. The only difference is that the original meat and fish were replaced with seasonal vegetables. The layer of crab meat you see is not actually..."
"Has Lady Yi never tasted it?!"
When asking this question, the Queen Mother's tone was already mixed with anger.
Concubine Xin was confused and quickly knelt down to plead, "Your Majesty, please calm down! I often ask Sister Yi for cooking advice in the small kitchen, and I've witnessed the process of improving this dish. Sister Yi often stays up late into the night, tasting it over and over again. There's no way she could have made a mistake!"
"Oh? So, it's me who's picking on you?" The Queen Mother sat upright, her gaze sweeping over the two of them before landing on the restless Zhang Da Ying. "Ms. Zhang, since you're the one who got the recipe, why don't you... come up and try it and see if it's your family's style?"
"Your Highness, I dare not!" Zhang agreed and immediately refused. "The crab and orange stew and other dishes are all presented to you, Your Highness, by the concubines of the various palaces. I dare not overstep my bounds!"
"What are you afraid of? I'm giving you food, so it's not presumptuous. Zijin, give it to her."
So, Aunt Zijin sent the tray to Zhang Daying's table again.
Thinking that this woman was an accomplice in the plot to murder the Queen Mother, she whispered, "Eat quickly! This is a reward from the Queen Mother. Not everyone has this blessing!"
“But, but…”
Zhang Da Ying hesitated and looked to the side. Sitting there was exactly Consort Wen, calmly sipping tea. She paid no attention to the drama, her expression unchanged, as if the sound had been blocked out.
Aunt Zijin took in the entire scene. "It seems that the young lady intends to disobey the order? The Queen Mother is kind enough to give you a reward, but since you don't want it, then you and your family will be punished together!"
In reality, refusing to eat food that was suspected of tasting bad wasn't a serious punishment. But Zhang Da Ying had never seen the world, and wasn't familiar with the palace's rules, so she was immediately terrified!
She made up her mind and picked up the chopsticks to try the food when she heard the sound of cups falling to the ground!
"Oh! I was so focused on looking at the delicious food on the table that I forgot about the teacup in front of me!" Concubine Wen stood up embarrassedly and apologized in the direction of the Queen Mother. "Please forgive my recklessness, Your Majesty."
"What is that?"
The Queen Mother did not respond immediately, but pointed at the white fish meat soaked in tea and asked.
Before Noble Lady Wen could reply, the Empress explained, "Mother, this is the nourishing fish soup that Noble Lady Jin prepared for you. Since there was some leftover, I decided to give it to Noble Lady Wen. She's pregnant and needs nourishment."
"I see...it's a shame to spill it like that." The Queen Mother nodded slightly and instructed Yin Zhu, "Go and have someone clean up that area, and then take a bowl from my share and send it to Concubine Wen."
"yes."
After this little episode, Zhang agreed and hesitated with his chopsticks in hand, then picked up a vegetable leaf with great reluctance, trying to get away with it.
Who would have thought that God would send her reinforcements again!
A black raccoon, smelling the scent of fish from somewhere, leaped down from the low wall, past the palace maids' feet, and headed straight for the tender fish!
"Go away! Where did this raccoon come from?" "Catch it quickly! Don't disturb the Queen Mother's peace!" "Who is so bold! Raising a raccoon without permission?!"
They frantically tried to drive it away, but it gradually lost its strength to resist. After chewing the fish, it slowly collapsed against the wall. Its long beards were now covered in snow-white foam.
Anyone could see at a glance that Li Nu was dead, having died of poisoning.
The palace maids panicked, their legs and feet became unsteady, and they crawled to the Queen Mother.
"My Queen! This is bad! That bowl of fish soup is poisonous. After the cat slave ate it, he..."
"So what?"
The timid palace maids did not dare to go forward to pick up the body, but the eunuchs of Shoukang Palace wrapped it in cotton cloth and brought it to the center of the courtyard.
"Your Majesty, when I touched the raccoon just now, my body was already stiff." He carefully covered the slightly ferocious face again, "You can see how strong its poison is!"
The concubines sitting nearby had already been huddled aside in fear at the sudden intrusion of the raccoon slave. Now that they discovered it had died of poisoning, they became even more panicked.
Especially Concubine Wen, she was frightened to the point of looking pale as death!
Zhang Da Ying escaped the disaster because Aunt Zi Jin was busy protecting the Queen Mother and left her behind and ran to the main seat, fearing that some suspicious person would come.
"Bring the Imperial Concubine's bowl of fish soup and the tea on Noble Lady Wen's table." The Queen Mother did not panic, but calmed the situation. "Let Jiang Yuanzheng come over and investigate carefully to find out where the poison was mixed in!"
"yes."
When they heard that someone had poisoned Shoukang Palace, the people from the Imperial Hospital naturally did not dare to be negligent and almost rode their horses straight to the palace.
Dean Jiang was testing the poison with a silver needle, which turned out to be a deep black. He sniffed it again, then ground up a few herbs and added them in. Instantly, a layer of gray foam formed!
"Empress Dowager, the tea is normal, but this fish soup is highly poisonous! It is colorless and tasteless, even if you use a silver needle to test it, it won't show any abnormality!"
"Empress Dowager! I did not do such a thing!" Upon hearing this, Concubine Jin knelt down to explain, "I have been in the palace for all these years and have never even stepped on an ant to death. How could I dare to commit such a disrespectful act against you! Someone must have framed me for this. Please understand!"
It was true that the Queen Mother disliked the Qu family girl, but she would not make rash conclusions based on such a trick.
She simply stood up with a gloomy face: "The Queen prepared this rally for me with good intentions, but it has become a stage for those with ulterior motives! Since you have decided to perform, I will naturally accompany you. Today's incident will be thoroughly investigated! Once I find the person behind the scenes..."
As she spoke, she looked back at Zhang's table and pointed at the crab-stuffed orange dish. "Bring it here and let Dean Jiang examine it. I just took a bite and I felt chest tightness and shortness of breath. The taste is also extremely strange!"
"Your Majesty, are you alright? Let me take your pulse."
"Let's test it first."
Wei Shuyi stood in front and watched, watching him tear the orange peel into pieces, examine them one by one, and scrape off a layer of the obvious green part -
"Empress Dowager, this dish is also poisonous, and the method of poisoning is even more ingenious."
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