Chapter 67
Since returning from the "Four Gods Temple", Gong Yuchen has been busy. One reason is to investigate Gong Yuxian's private soldiers, and the other is Qin Ying's affairs.
"Brother Gong Yu, you should take a rest first! Look at you, you have to check on Yi Luoyao and Gong Yuxian, and you are also busy with the wedding arrangements. Your body can't take it." Li Fei looked at his red eyes and shook her head.
"I think you should take a day off first, and leave everything here to me." Li Fei patted his shoulder and said.
Gong Yuchen shook his head and did not answer.
"You don't trust me?" Li Fei raised her eyebrows and looked at him with a hint of displeasure.
"How could I not trust you?" Gong Yuchen shook his head with a wry smile and spoke to him seriously.
"We really don't have much time left. Those people don't even intend to let Luo Yue and Xiao Yue'er go. I must personally expose their ugly faces." Gong Yuchen forced a smile.
Li Fei understood his desire to personally settle accounts with those people, but...
"Don't worry, I know what's going on. You have a lot to do. You haven't seen Xue'er in the past few days, right?"
"We are brothers, so why should we be polite?" Li Fei smiled embarrassedly.
"Since we don't have much time, we must do something that is sure to succeed and eliminate future troubles."
"Have you ever thought about what they would most likely do if we forced them to do it?"
Gong Yuchen thought about it for a moment.
"They've already joined forces, and Gong Yuxian has even mobilized private troops from the Western Yi. What method will they use to seize power more safely?"
"If they really did as you and I expected, and attacked you at the wedding banquet the day before your wedding with Luo Yue, how do you think they would use to get rid of you?" Li Fei asked again.
This time there was a long silence before Gong Yuchen spoke again.
"There are only two ways to get rid of us: one is to kill us, and the other is to poison us. But I think they will still use poison first, and then they will force us to abdicate."
"Oh? Why is that?" Li Fei raised her eyebrows.
"If you miss the first strike, there will be a follow-up, so as to avoid any future troubles."
"This is indeed a good strategy, but how will they deal with Your Majesty after forcing him to abdicate?"
"That depends on your Majesty's attitude. If you agree to abdicate, you may be placed under house arrest. If you disagree, given Yi Luoyao's style of doing things, your Majesty will probably be in great danger."
"That's exactly what you said."
"So we must first cut off Yi Luoyao and his men's retreat before we can have a chance of winning."
"Okay, I understand. I'll have my secret guards investigate Yi Luoyao's army again."
"Your Highness, Master Li, Imperial Physician Li said that Qin Ying has woken up." Lie Feng hurried inside to report to the two.
"Let's go and take a look."
For several days, Gong Yuchen had been elusive. Yi Luoyue hadn't seen him at all, and she had no idea what he was up to. After returning from the Four Gods Temple with Gong Yuchen, she and Xiaoyue had been staying quietly in the princess's residence, not bothering him. With four days left until the wedding banquet, she had no idea when he would come to see her.
It was another night. Gong Yuchen slowly walked to her bedside and gazed at her snow-white skin in the faint moonlight. His tall body sat beside her, his huge shadow covering her and enveloping her slender figure.
"Hmm..." Yi Luoyue felt someone beside her in her sleep, but the smell of that person was familiar to her.
"You're back?" She opened her eyes drowsily and put her arms around his waist.
"Qin Ying is awake, but she wants to see you."
"What? She woke up." Yi Luoyue sat up from the bed excitedly.
"See me? Why?"
"In fact, she came out of hiding this time just to find you. She hopes you can avenge her."
"Avenge her! She is the one who poisoned her, so how can she take revenge?" Yi Luoyue looked a little excited.
Gong Yuchen put his arm around her shoulders and patted her gently.
"Since she wants to see you before telling you, why don't you meet her first and find out what happened back then?"
"Okay, I'll go see her."
"She is in my house now. Get up, change your clothes, and follow me."
A quarter of an hour later, Gong Yuchen brought Yi Luoyue to a heavily guarded courtyard.
"She's in there."
Yi Luoyue walked into the room and saw a haggard and frail woman lying on the bed.
"Are you Qin Ying?"
"This maidservant is Qin Ying. I deserve death. Please, Princess, avenge this maidservant."
"Tell me what you know first." Yi Luoyue looked at Qin Ying with forced calmness.
"Your Highness, do you still remember the events of three years ago in the Li Palace when both the Empress Dowager and the Empress died?"
"How could I possibly forget? It's an eternal pain in my heart." Yi Luoyue said sadly.
"Then please let me tell you a story."
"Okay, tell me slowly, what exactly happened three years ago?"
"I was a third-class maidservant serving the Queen. My daily duties were serving tea and water. One day, my sister came to see me. She told me that an epidemic had broken out in their village, and that the village had been sealed off."
"The village was sealed off, so how did she get out?" Gong Yuchen asked.
"I asked her the same question at the time. She said that it was because she told the people in the village that I was a maid serving the Queen. So they released her but ordered her to come to me to prove that her words were true."
"Then how did she find you?" Gong Yuchen continued to ask. Without someone to introduce her, how could someone outside the palace meet the family members working in the palace?
"It was Empress Shu Fei! It was Empress Shu Fei who sent someone to look for me." Qin Ying took a few deep breaths.
"Shu Fei!! Why is she looking for you?"
Qin Ying's eyes were full of fear and her voice trembled.
"The nanny beside Empress Shufei said that I had come into contact with my sister and was probably infected with the disease, but they have medicine that can cure me and my sister. If you want to get the medicine, you must do something for them."
"What's up?"
"Let me accompany the Queen to the palace. Don't worry about anything else. Just follow their instructions and wash the Queen's clothes."
"I simply agreed to do the laundry because I thought it wouldn't be a problem. They did give me medicine, and I didn't have any illness. But my sister was still in their care, so I had no choice but to follow their instructions.
"Then how do you know it was definitely Shu Fei who did it?"
"Because, later, when the Empress was about to leave the palace, I thought of going to the Imperial Hospital to ask for medicine. That night, I passed by the Imperial Hospital's pharmacy and heard the nanny beside Shu Fei and Doctor Wen talking inside. The nanny said: The Empress is pregnant with the dragon seed. If she gives birth to a prince, Shu Fei will never have another chance. Doctor Wen must find a way to make the Empress and the Empress Dowager seriously ill. It would be best if the princess also gets sick, but without leaving any traces. Doctor Wen said: Tell her to tell Shu Fei to rest assured. He said that he had prepared a special powder for the virtuous prince. As long as it gets on people's clothes, they will be infected with a poison that can be spread through contact. At that time, I didn't dare to listen more and quickly left."
Upon hearing this, Yi Luoyue's legs gave way, and she nearly fell to the ground. Fortunately, Gong Yuchen quickly caught her. It turned out that it was the virtuous prince who had concocted the poison, while it was Consort Shu who had poisoned his mother and the Empress Dowager.
Your Highness, three years ago, when the Empress was two months pregnant, she did not inform Your Majesty because the fetus was unstable. Therefore, only Concubine Shu, Imperial Physician Wen, and several personal maids knew about this. Concubine Shu, always jealous of the Empress and wanting to replace her, conspired with Imperial Physician Wen, her own family member, to murder her.
"You said that Shu Fei knew that my mother was pregnant and wanted to kill her?" Yi Luoyue clenched her fists, her voice trembling slightly. She pretended to be calm, but her heart was in turmoil. She had always felt that there was something wrong with the deaths of her mother and the Empress Dowager, and now it was confirmed.
"How did they plot specifically? Tell me in detail."
Qin Ying took a deep breath and continued slowly.
"They told me to draw water from a designated well and wash the Empress's clothes. I didn't dare disobey, so I did as I was told. But I continued washing clothes, and everything seemed normal, so I didn't think much of it. Until one day, when I was drawing water, I accidentally hooked something, and then I realized what had happened."
"What is it?"
"It was my sister's purse that was hooked on the bucket hook. Then, following the clues, I found her suicide note and learned that my sister had been thrown into the well and became the source of the poison."
"Where is the suicide note now? What exactly is inside it?"
"The suicide note and evidence are with my aunt. Lady Li Fei has gone to get them."
"aunt?"
"The aunt she's talking about is the mother of the maid who hanged herself in the palace a while ago."
“It turned out to be her.”
"In her suicide note, my sister said that before the village was sealed off, a doctor had come to treat people, but the disease wasn't effective, and the entire village was infected with an epidemic. Furthermore, those people killed everyone in the village. They threatened her that if she didn't do as they said, not only would she die, but I would too."
Gong Yuchen's eyes were sharp and his mind was constantly thinking.
The doctor carrying the medicine box... was most likely Doctor Wen! He went to that village to test the poison, to see how effective this fake epidemic was! He first poisoned the village, causing the villagers to become infected simultaneously, then had them murdered to silence them, creating a false alarm to prevent the spread of the epidemic and misleading people into believing it was a real epidemic. He probably didn't kill Qin Ying's sister because he knew her identity and thought she could be exploited, so he let her sister go.
The reason why Qin Ying was fine when washing clothes was probably because the antidote she had taken before.
Shu Fei deliberately arranged for Qin Ying to wash clothes with designated well water, indicating that the real poison was the well water! In fact, she wanted the disease to spread faster through the well water and clothes.
"Then the epidemic broke out. Was it also their fault?" Yi Luoyue's eyes were full of anger.
Qin Ying burst into tears of regret.
"Yes... After the epidemic broke out, the Empress and the Empress Dowager became increasingly ill, and finally... I saw how miserable they were, and I was terrified. I wanted to tell others about this, but I realized they were going to kill me to silence me, so I had no choice but to flee.
"You've been hiding for so many years, why do you suddenly appear?"
"First, the virtuous king has been searching for me, and second, they forced my cousin to death. I knew that if I didn't do something, my aunt and cousin would be in trouble too. So I decided to take a gamble and return to Yidu with the caravan, just to find the princess and tell her what happened back then."
"You'd better tell the truth, understand? As long as you tell the truth, I will protect your aunt and two cousins." Gong Yuchen glanced at her.
"Every word I said is true, not a single word is false."
"Okay, you can rest now. I'll need you to testify before His Majesty. Are you willing?"
"Yes, I am willing."
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