Yu An with his old eyes looked at Su Rong, his face showing a clear struggle.
Su Rong sat there patiently, waiting for him.
After a while, Yu An held his stomach and asked, "Lady Su Qi, I’ve heard that your medical skills are excellent. Do you have any remedies for stomach issues? This old servant has chronic stomach problems."
Su Rong nodded and pulled out a jade bottle, handing it to him, "This is medicine for stomach ache. Eating this will surely give you notable improvement."
Without examining his pulse, Su Rong knew that Yu An’s appetite was weak, from his pampered lifestyle, where he could not even tolerate the slightest amount of cold or hard food. This was a common stomach ailment, nothing serious, and easy to treat.
Yu An quickly reached for the bottle, opened the cork, poured out a pill, and swallowed it. Afterwards, he carefully put the bottle away and said to Su Rong, "Give this old servant some time to think. I’m old and need some time to ponder over this big case. As for evidence, I don’t have any. But as for other things, you’re right. I do have them."
"Okay." Su Rong nodded in agreement.
Yu An held his stomach as it hurt so much that it made him pant heavily as he spoke. After swallowing the pill and after approximately the time it takes to brew a pot of tea, his eyes brightened and he let go of his stomach and said to Su Rong, "Lady Su Qi, your medical skills are truly extraordinary."
Su Rong thought to herself that her medical skills were not extraordinary, but because she had prepared thoroughly before she left Jiangning County, carrying piles of all kinds of medicine with her. The top-quality medicine used to treat an ordinary stomach ache was indeed overkill, so naturally, its effectiveness was fast.
With Yu An’s stomach pain gone, he was in a better mood. The more he looked at Su Rong, the more he felt he had met a benefactor. He cautiously asked, "Lady Su Qi, is this white fox fur cloak you are wearing a gift from the Crown Prince?"
Su Rong nodded, "Mm."
Yu An further probed, "Your relationship with the Crown Prince is..."
"A partnership." Su Rong said, "One uses difference speeches for different people. In front of Lipin, she would talk about being cousins, about the grace of saving her life. But in front of Yu An, she had to talk about interests."
"You are a Nanchu Princess, the Crown Prince is the Daliang Crown Prince. You are currently engaged to Second Young Master Ye. So your partnership with the Crown Prince is... The Crown Prince backs you up, and you help the Crown Prince?" Yu An said understandingly.
"Exactly, I am helping the Crown Prince secure his position." Su Rong said, "Does Eunuch Yu think it’s a good fit? That it’s a profitable deal?"
"Of course." Yu An nodded, his face once again beaming with hope, "Lady Su Qi, this old servant doesn’t want to die, nor do I want to disgrace myself in my old age. Can you... can you really reach out to bring me back to the Emperor’s side?"
Su Rong said: "So long as Eunuch Yu redeems his crime through meritorious service and can prove that he is not involved in this case but only implicated. First, we can get rid of the charges. Then, I can give Eunuch Yu a helping hand. Additionally, the Emperor may have a great deal of difficulty adjusting to life without you in the short run. In such a short span of time, no one else could time take your place, so it would not be too difficult for you to be at his side again."
"Why would you want to help this old servant?" Yu An never believed in do-gooders who had no personal interest at stake.
Su Rong said, "I’m willing to help Eunuch Yu because I do see utility value in you. As I just said, having been serving the Emperor since childhood and having spent so many years in the palace, how could you not have a thing or two in hand? Whether it’s the court officials, the concubines in the Imperial Harem, or the servants, whatever they’ve done overtly and covertly."
Su Rong was straight to the point, "You understand what I’m saying, right? Even if it doesn’t involve the case’s evidence, it’s also useful. It is a lever you can use against these people. Holding on to it by yourself and getting to this point of great danger, there are many who wish you were dead, and it actually doesn’t do much good for you. You might as well give it to me, I can make the most of it. Of course, collaborating with me is equivalent to siding with the Crown Prince. The Crown Prince’s benevolence is well-known to all. He would definitely not treat his people unfairly."
When one falls from a high place to a lowly position, facing a critical juncture, the most desired thing is to return to the high place.
Su Rong was exploiting this mentality of Yu An’s. Otherwise, she would have simply interrogated him straight to the point, rather than wasting so much time talking to him. Yu An had been living for so many years, and everyone else who pleased him merely added flowers to a brocade. But right now, she was the one extending helping hand in extreme need.
In Su Rong’s eyes, as the head of the palace eunuchs, he was indispensable to the Emperor, and he would undoubtedly be of greater help to the Crown Prince if he is alive than if he was dead for his crimes.
Sure enough, Yu An whispered, "This old servant has a property a hundred miles outside the capital. There’s a small mechanism built into the well of that property with bricks, where I’ve stowed away all my possessions over the years."
His "possessions" are naturally not gold or silver, but the so-called leverage points that Su Rong wanted.
Su Rong was very satisfied. "Eunuch Yu is very kind."
Yu An thought to himself that he wasn’t kind, but the kind one was the Lady Su Qi sitting in front of him. Even though she was a young girl, she was such a formidable figure. Even if he racked his brain, he would never have thought that she would be investigating this case, and even possess the Emperor’s personal token "As if The Emperor Himself Were Here".
What was the Emperor thinking?
He was confused now.
Su Rong looked at Yu An, "Does Eunuch Yu have anything else to say?"
"These few days, this old servant has been pondering over who would have instructed the maid to frame me. This old servant has been thinking about this case, researching all the related people, but I couldn’t find anyone who was most suspicious." Yu An said, "However, there are a few things that don’t seem right. This old servant can feel it. So, I can share these few odd things with Lady Su Qi."
Su Rong had been waiting for this, she nodded, "Good, go ahead."
Yu An shared several things involving concubines, eunuchs, and maids in the palace. One of these issues was related to the Imperial Concubine.
"The white fox fur cloak you are wearing," Yu An said. "The Imperial Concubine once asked the Crown Prince for it. To my knowledge, the Imperial Concubine does not actually like white fox fur, because she likes to wear bright-colored clothes. Although the white fox fur is beautiful, it isn’t bright. Wearing it does not make one look vibrant, so her purpose for asking the Crown Prince for it might not necessarily be for him to give it to her. After all, she knew that the Crown Prince was unlikely to do so. If the Crown Prince had to give it to someone, wouldn’t it be the Empress? If he did give it to the Imperial Concubine, wouldn’t the Empress feel displeased seeing her wearing something that she got from her own son every day?"
Su Rong was taken aback hearing another version of the story about the white fox fur, but nodded in agreement, "That makes sense."
The day she saw the Imperial Concubine, she was wearing a peach-pink dress, which was incredibly vibrant. It was common knowledge that the Imperial Concubine loved the color peach-pink.
Yu An lowered his voice, "What the Imperial Concubine wanted was actually fire fox fur. After this incident, in order to please the Imperial Concubine and regain face in front of the Crown Prince, the Emperor secretly had me look for fire fox fur from the court and the people. Eventually, we found out that the residence of the Pingxi General in Jibei had it. Later, Zhang Ping presented the fire fox fur to the Emperor, but he also took a considerable amount of silver from the royal treasury to his own."
Su Rong suddenly understood, gently slapped her palm and exclaimed, "So this is how it is."
The Imperial Concubine was selected from Nanping to enter the palace. However, because of the fire fox fur, even the Crown Prince was used, and eventually, it turned out that the Pingxi General’s Residence benefited from presenting the fire fox fur.
How incredibly cunning!
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