Chapter 89 "The imperial physician has examined her."...
When Xiao Dao returned to her palace after seeing Song Jie, she happened to run into Princess Yongle visiting Yu Shu.
Before he even went inside, he heard Yu Shu laughing and asking, "Jing Hong, are you going back with your mother? Or are you staying in the palace to ice skate?"
"Jinghong, come to your mother's." Princess Yongle kept calling to Jinghong: "Mother will take you home. You can go ice skating at home too. Come to your mother's."
The little baby was sitting in Yu Shu's lap, holding a jingling ball in its hand, and looked at Princess Yongle, who showed no sign of leaving.
Princess Yongle got anxious, got up, and went to take Jinghong away.
Jinghong suddenly struggled and angrily hit Princess Yongle with his little hand: "I won't leave, I don't want to go back to school, I want to ride an elephant, I won't leave, you bad mother."
It was at this moment that Xiao Dao entered the bedchamber. Jing Hong struggled to jump down from Princess Yongle's arms and ran to his legs, shouting, "Uncle, carry me and let me ride the elephant!"
“Okay, we’ll go elephant riding with your aunt in a bit.” Xiao Dao picked up Jing Hong with one hand and held him in his arms, smiling as he walked towards Yu Shu.
Princess Yongle lost her temper and, looking at Jinghong with tears in her eyes, angrily said, "He is my son! When is the Empress going to return my son to me?"
Xie Yushu just smiled and looked at Xiaodao, then said to Yongle, "Jinghong and His Majesty get along so well, the princess should be happy."
"Besides, it's Jinghong who doesn't want to go with you." Xie Yushu smiled and pulled Xiaodao's outstretched hand, letting him sit beside her with the child in his arms.
Princess Yongle was about to throw another tantrum when Xiaodao stopped smiling and looked at her coldly: "What are you making a scene about? You saw that the Empress did not mistreat Jinghong. What's wrong with keeping him in the palace for a few days? If you continue to cause trouble like this every day, you won't need to come to the palace to see Jinghong in the future."
She failed to anger Princess Yongle to the point of losing her temper, because Jinghong was her son! In the eyes of the Emperor and Empress, she became someone who was being unreasonable and argumentative!
She left the palace again with tears in her eyes, and in the carriage she made up her mind to take action immediately. If things continued like this, Jinghong would definitely be corrupted by that poisonous empress! In just a few days, Jinghong had already become estranged from his mother!
Inside the palace, however, everyone was enjoying themselves immensely.
Xiao Dao had breakfast with Xie Yushu and Jing Hong, and then they went to Yujing Garden to ride elephants together.
This garden is home to many rare and exotic animals, including two elephants used in royal processions that cannot be seen elsewhere.
Jinghong was carried inside by palace servants to feed the elephants.
Xie Yushu and Xiaodao stood side by side outside watching him. The child, seeing such a novel thing, was naturally overjoyed and excitedly shouted, "Uncle and Aunt, look at me!"
Xiao Dao replied dismissively, "I saw it." He reached out and took Yu Shu's hand, cupping it in his palm and asking, "Are you cold?"
Xie Yushu, with so much life force, naturally wasn't cold. She only felt that Xiao Dao's hand was colder, so she grabbed it and warmed it for him: "What does Song Jie want with you?"
Xiao Dao looked at her, wanting to ask where she was last night, but then felt it was unnecessary.
What else could he do besides making her angry? He couldn't stop her from seeing Song Jie, nor could he kill Song Jie now.
He wanted to tell her that he had been poisoned.
However, Yu Shu was unaware that Song Jie had given him those cinnabar pills to hasten Xiao Xu's death.
Just now in the Daqing Hall, he told Song Jie about his vomiting blood.
Song Jie looked at him and suddenly sighed, saying, "Yu Shu will feel guilty."
He didn't want Yu Shu to feel guilty. Everything he did back then was voluntary; he wanted to kill Xiao Xu, and it had nothing to do with Yu Shu.
How can I tell Yushu in a way that won't make her feel guilty?
Xiao Dao's mind was in a mess. He gripped Yu Shu's hand tightly and said to her, "Song Jie said someone wants to meet up with the Second Prince."
The important matter that Song Jie reported to him was about that letter.
Yu Shu hummed in agreement and said, "I know about this. I already sent more people to keep an eye on the Second Prince's residence last night."
She knew it after all.
Xiao Dao wasn't surprised, because Song Jie would always report everything to Yu Shu first, and then explain it to him afterwards.
He didn't mind that; Yu Shu was smarter than him and handled everything better.
He refrained from asking where she was last night, and absentmindedly asked, "Why not just kill the Second Prince?"
Yu Shu looked up at him and said, "Killing one second prince cannot eliminate the dissidents. Only by killing all those who should be killed can we prevent future troubles."
Xiao Dao met her gaze and was stunned for a moment. Did she mean to eliminate all of the Second Prince's henchmen?
He landed lightly, and when he saw Yu Shu's eyes, they were as usual, without any killing intent or anger, as if he had thought everything through long ago.
He's so stupid; he can't see through her every scheme.
"Your Majesty." Liang Shuhe, a secretary in the Imperial Secretariat, walked over from a distance, stopped a few steps away, and bowed, saying, "Zhang Ling, the commander of the Palace Guard, requests an audience."
Yu Shu turned around and said, "Have him wait for me at the Daqing Hall."
After Liang Shuhe left, Yu Shu turned back, straightened Xiao Dao's clothes, and said softly, "I have instructed the Imperial Guards of the Palace Guard to relax their vigilance during their patrols in Bianjing these days."
Xiao Dao lowered his head to look at her, thinking to himself: She is so busy with important matters of the court, while he is preoccupied with the red marks on her shoulder and her affair with Song Jie... How can someone with such a mind be worthy of her?
As he drifted off into thought, Yu Shu gently touched his face and smiled, saying, "Never mind, if you're not interested in these things, don't worry about them. Play with Jing Hong for a while, and then we'll have lunch together."
She was about to leave after she finished speaking.
Xiao Dao hugged her arms, lowered his head and kissed her before letting go: "Okay, lunch will be waiting for you."
But she hadn't finished her work by lunchtime. Some important memorials were left for her to review again because Xiao Dao couldn't make a decision on them.
While reviewing the memorials, she also met Zheng Yang, the son of Pei Heng and the old Grand Tutor Zheng Xian. After the new emperor ascended the throne, she heavily relied on the sons of the three major aristocratic families who had been marginalized in the previous dynasty, intending to cultivate her own power in the former dynasty.
Zheng Yangyuan was originally the magistrate of Zhe'an County, but she transferred him to the Ministry of Personnel.
Because her next plan was to allow women to participate in the imperial examinations, establish female officials, and grant women the title of king or hereditary nobles; in fact, she was paving the way for this step.
Only by taking this step can she become empress without any worries.
She knew this step would be extremely difficult, but she had the patience to gain public acceptance, and people's acceptance could be gradually expanded.
What she needed to do right now was to transfer Meng Jinyue to the Palace Guard to be in charge of guarding her palace.
With Liang Shuhe's precedent of serving as a secretary in the Imperial Secretariat, it wouldn't be so difficult for Jin Yue to become the deputy commander of the Imperial Guards.
She finished her work late at night and hurriedly returned to her palace, only to find that Xiao Dao was still awake and had even heated up a large table of dishes to wait for her to have dinner.
"Haven't you had dinner yet?" Xie Yushu asked in surprise; it was already past midnight.
"I said we'd eat together, so of course I'd wait for you." Xiao Dao smiled and went over to help her take off her heavy outer robe, then pulled her hand and sat down with her. "Granny Xizhi personally prepared a few dishes. It's too late, so I let her go to bed with Jinye and Yinya."
Xie Yushu couldn't help but feel a little guilty. She had actually eaten casually in the Daqing Palace, but not wanting to disappoint him, she ate some more with him.
Newlyweds, while eating, started kissing passionately.
Xiao Dao put in extra effort today, so much so that Xie Yushu was exhausted and almost fell asleep in the second half of the race.
She was in a daze, only feeling that Xiao Dao held her and cleaned her up before leaving on his own.
In the middle of the night, she vaguely heard Xiaodao coughing, so she woke up drowsily and called out to him.
He immediately responded, came in from outside the bed curtains, hugged her, and asked softly, "Why are you awake? Did I wake you?"
Xie Yushu was so sleepy she could barely keep her eyes open. She touched his face and asked in a hoarse voice, "Are you coughing? Are you feeling unwell?"
Xiao Dao grabbed her hand and pulled it into his arms, hugging her tightly as he said, "You probably caught a cold recently."
"I'll have the imperial physician examine her tomorrow." Xie Yushu leaned against him with her eyes closed, and then fell asleep.
Xiao Dao gently patted her back and said to himself, "I've already seen the imperial physician."
Today in the Daqing Hall, Song Jie had his trusted imperial physician examine him, but it was no use; they could only try to remove it.
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When Xie Yushu woke up the next day, she didn't have time to recall what had happened the night before. Song Jie was waiting outside the palace to report to her about what had happened in the Second Prince's residence.
Xie Yushu didn't use him in the morning either, but summoned him and Pei Heng.
Song Jie said that the Second Prince couldn't wait any longer. This morning he wanted to eat flatbread. The person in charge of purchasing and delivering the food went to the flatbread shop he specified and bought the flatbread. In the flatbread, they found another note.
There were still a few numbers written on it.
This time, Cangshu's people kept a close eye on things and discovered that the Second Prince did indeed go to the study after receiving the note, where he flipped through a copy of the "Cefu Yuangui" (a book on imperial documents).
Song Jie found the book and brought it to Xie Yushu.
Xie Yushu compared the numbers to the corresponding pages and found the words.
“Princess Yongle’s nickname is Panpan.” Song Jie said to Xie Yushu, “The Second Prince specifically requested that the flatbread be from Yuan’s Flatbread in the south of the city this time.”
He then drew the corresponding characters for the numbers the Second Prince had received that morning and showed them to Xie Yushu: "This time it's: 疾, 子, 火, 赵."
Xie Yushu looked at these words and thought about them carefully. "So the meaning of this letter is that the Second Prince should pretend to be sick, at midnight, there should be a fire... and someone surnamed Zhao will rescue him and take him out of the mansion?"
Pei Heng looked at her in surprise: "How did the Empress come up with all this?"
“If the messenger is Princess Yongle, then she has only one purpose: to rescue the Second Prince and rebel with him,” Xie Yushu said. “Looking at these words from this perspective, the meaning becomes very clear.”
"How can you be sure the messenger was Princess Yongle?" Pei Heng asked again, "Just based on the character 'Pan'?"
"I angered Princess Yongle yesterday, and that very night she and her husband met with those old officials again," Xie Yushu said. "Then, early the next morning, this second letter arrived. No one else has the courage or ability to gather the Second Prince's cronies."
Xiao Dao, who was standing to the side, suddenly realized that Yu Shu had deliberately used the child to provoke Princess Yongle yesterday.
She smiled and said to Pei Heng, "No need to rush. Let's see if the Second Prince suddenly falls ill tonight to find out if our guess is right."
She sat back in her seat and ordered, "If the Second Prince's residence catches fire tonight, withdraw half of the guards."
Song Jie smiled and agreed, as if what she said was exactly what he was thinking.
Looking at the two of them, Xiao Dao felt an indescribable bitterness in his heart. If only he had read many books and learned many strategies like Song Jie, and was also smarter.
Xie Yushu looked at Xiaodao, reached out and grasped his hand, noticing that his fingers were very cold, and asked, "Send the imperial physician to take a look at you."
Xiao Dao squeezed her hand back, smiled, and repeated what he had said last night: "I've already seen the imperial physician."
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The author says: When women are conquering the world, they inevitably neglect their men.
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