"Exactly!" Jiang Songyi almost clapped her hands. "Seven days of smelling fragrance to fake pregnancy, three days of taking honey to cause menstruation—what a brilliant scheme!" She turned around and saw her aunt's bewildered face, stamping her feet anxiously. "Aunt, hurry up and say tribute honey!"
Jiang Shu suddenly realized, "The Empress Dowager gave Old Madam Cui a jar of the tribute honey from the Western Regions the other day, right?"
Cui suddenly collapsed to the ground, a glass bottle tumbling out of her sleeve, and golden honey slurry splashed onto the blue bricks. The bloodstains on the hem of Chen Ruyi's skirt were stained with honey, gradually fading to cinnabar red—clearly dye!
The whole garden was in uproar. Madam Zhang slammed her cane down on Madam Cui's back. "What a vicious woman! She even dared to use the Empress Dowager's gift to cause trouble!"
Deng Xu suddenly drew his sword and ripped open his Vermillion Bird coat. The Cui family crest was embroidered on the collar. Chen Ruyi clapped his hands and sneered, "The Cui family has been a thorn in my side for ten years."
Jiang Shu took the opportunity to kick the traveling doctor over and shook out the Cui family banknotes from his arms. Princess Linchuan looked at the evidence on the ground and poked Mrs. Cui's nose with her red nails: "I will go to the palace to ask for permission. I want to see how Minister Cui disciplines his family!"
Jiang Songyi fished out the last handful of melon seeds: "Excellent! This is even more exciting than Mr. Zizhu's storybook!" Suddenly, she saw Chen Ruyi wink at her and quickly hid the melon seeds behind her back. She had been so engrossed in the show that she had eaten all the melon seeds provided as a treat for the guests.
As the sun set, three small sedan chairs in blue cloth were carried out from the corner gate of the Princess's residence. Old Madam Cui, along with three generations of her family, were escorted to the Dali Temple, their faces covered in dust and dirt. Chen Ruyi helped Deng Xu board the carriage. As they were about to part, she suddenly turned back and said, "Miss Jiang." She tossed a gift bag and said, "Mr. Zizhu's new work, 'The Phoenix Returns to the Nest,' will be on sale in the study tomorrow."
Jiang Shu took the brocade bag, and inside was the manuscript of a storybook. Jiang Songyi came over to glance at the title page and almost laughed out loud - the author's signature was Chen Ruyi's private seal!
Zhuque clutched the sachet tassel tightly: "How can such a dirty thing of mine be worthy of Madam Jiang's eyes?" She rushed forward to grab it, but was stopped by Chen Ruyi's arm. The momentary panic when Cui mother and daughter looked at each other was reflected in Chen Ruyi's eyes.
Jiang Shu pinched her nose pretentiously and said, "This smell gives me a headache." She winked at Chen Ruyi, and her exaggerated behavior almost made Chen Ruyi lose her composure.
Chen Ruyi snatched the sachet and brought it to her nose. The scent of cheap powder mixed with the aroma of medicine made her temples throb. She had smelled this scent on Suzaku quite often recently, and had assumed the little girl had bought some cheap, inferior rouge, so she had given her two taels of silver as a reward for exchanging it for something better. Now, thinking about it, she had been completely blind.
"Please examine this." Chen Ruyi threw the sachet to the doctors, and the golden thread drew a cold light in the air.
Cui dug her nails into her palms. To avoid suspicion, she didn't even dare touch Chen Ruyi's tea, instead targeting her personal maid. To bribe Zhuque, she promised her a concubine's status and even promised to raise her as a concubine in the future. If this were to be exposed.
Jiang Songyi stared at the falling sachet tassel and thought to herself, "Jiang Shu has a sharp nose! I'm just trying to find the source of this strange smell." She caught Jiang Shu stealing glances at her from the corner of her eye, and she quickly lowered her eyelashes, looking like a quail.
Madam Cui banged her cane against the ground. "What's the point of using a maid to take the blame? I've already invited seven elders from the Deng family, and we'll open the ancestral hall soon." She glared at Chen Ruyi sinisterly. "Family rules are much more severe than the official's beating stick."
Chen Ruyi slowly smoothed the wrinkles on her sleeves. "The elders are so fast! Could they be waiting outside the mansion?" She suddenly ripped open Zhuque's clothes, revealing the red mark on her neck. "If this toad's blood is still there, Miss Zhuque will be promised the position of concubine."
"You!" Cui suddenly stood up, and the teacup fell over and soaked the peony-patterned carpet.
The three doctors had already opened the sachets. Doctor Xu pinched the brown powder and sniffed it, Doctor Qin held it up to the candle for a closer look, and Doctor Yu actually dipped some directly into his mouth!
"You're crazy!" Doctor Xu snatched the powder from his hand. "Your grandfather once tried Crane's Beak Red."
"Two grams of bitter almonds, three grams of saffron." Doctor Yu smacked his lips as he recited the name of the medicine. "Drink it with tribute honey, and it will turn menstrual bleeding into hemorrhage." He wiped the medicine powder from his lips and said, "This recipe must have come from southern Xinjiang. It's rare in the Central Plains."
Upon hearing this, Xu and Qin suddenly grabbed Zhuque's arm. They placed two fingers on his wrist pulse for just three breaths before exclaiming in unison, "Slippery pulse!"
Zhuque collapsed to the ground. She had worn the sachet so often that she had even contracted a false pregnancy.
Princess Linchuan slammed the table and stood up, the nine-tailed phoenix hairpin on her temples trembling: "I use tribute honey to entertain guests every year, but it has become a raft for you to harm people!" The maid responded and held down Zhuque, and honey water flowed down the corners of her struggling mouth.
“Gudong——”
When Zhuque was thrown to the ground, dark red spread from under her skirt. Her previously cute face was as pale as paper, exactly like Chen Ruyi's previous miscarriage.
The women in the room were horrified. The wife of the Minister of Justice sniffed her own sachet, and the daughter of the Minister of Imperial Households hurriedly stepped back, bumping into the maid holding the honey cup behind her, causing her to stumble.
Doctor Yu dipped his hand into the blood on Zhuque's skirt and said, "The tribute honey stimulates the medicinal properties of the blood." The silver needle flashed a faint blue as it was inserted. "It is indeed mixed with cinnabar."
Madam Cui suddenly leaped up and lunged at the porch pillar, "I've failed in my parenting!" But she was dragged back by the guards' belt, her loose bellyband straps dangling beneath her crimson-purple blouse. Deng Xu seized the opportunity to pull the medicine bag from Cui's sleeve, and when he opened it, he found the same brown powder as the sachet.
"Western Region Illusionary Heart Grass." Doctor Yu rubbed the powder with his fingertips. "The best thing about this thing is that it can improve pulse conditions. Using too much will make you look like a dead person." He suddenly glanced at Chen Ruyi's slightly bulging sleeves. "Madam, when you took my pulse just now, were you pressing the Neiguan acupoint?"
Chen Ruyi slowly rolled up her sleeves, revealing three hideous old scars across her wrists. "It's the result of an illness I acquired early in life. When blood circulation is blocked, I need to press these points." She untied the layers of gauze, revealing a tourniquet around her wrist. "Otherwise, even this fake death pulse wouldn't be convincing."
Deng Xu stared at the scar, remembering that in the mourning hall twenty years ago, this woman had calmly stuffed the blood-stained dagger into his trembling palm.
Chen Ruyi slapped Zhuque's hair in a mess with her backhand. "You traitor!" The jeweled armor scratched the maid's face, leaving a bloody mark. "Drag her back and feed her to the dogs!"
Zhuque pounced on Cui's skirt and said, "Madam, save me." Before she could finish her words, Rong Mama blocked her mouth. The servant dragged her away like a chicken, leaving a bloodstain on the bluestone bricks.
At that moment, the Deng clan elders streamed into the garden. The goateed chief leaned on an agarwood crutch, followed by the sweat-soaked Minister of War. The old man, initially furious, was about to arrest someone, but when he saw Chen Ruyi's disheveled hair but upright back, he deflected the curse he was about to offer: "What...what's going on?"
"Uncle, you're here just in time!" Chen Ruyi pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, tears welling up in her eyes. "Cui colluded with my mother's family to frame me. Even Zhuque, the dog I've raised for ten years, turned against my master!" She suddenly lifted the blood-stained skirt. "Look, everyone, what kind of miscarriage is this?"
The "bloodstains" splattered on the blue bricks unexpectedly took on a honey-colored sheen. Doctor Xu spoke at the perfect moment: "This is tribute honey from the Western Regions mixed with cinnabar, which dissolves instantly in water."
The clan leader's beard twitched. A few elders behind him exchanged glances. The Chen family contributed to the clan school's annual tuition and even paid for the ancestral hall renovation out of their own pockets. They were much better off than the stingy Cui family.
"Cui!" the clan leader slammed his cane on the ground. "Do you know what the punishment is for framing your mother-in-law?"
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