Chapter 128 Poisoning
After being released from the Cold Palace, Shui Xian's glorious days lasted only a few months before she was confined back to the Lihe Palace to await the conclusion of the investigation.
The beginning of the year is after Lunar New Year's Eve.
Yesterday, Consort Jin was unapproachable, but today she is a prisoner.
The palace servants in Lihe Palace were all careful and cautious, but their occasional unintentional glimpses of worry still revealed their thoughts and concerns.
Consort Jin, who has no family background, is perhaps not even as good as Consort Ruan, who just died in the Cold Palace.
Those who climb high fall hard; this has always been the case.
Narcissus didn't sleep well last night. Whenever she closed her eyes, all she could see were the events that had happened in Kunning Palace.
Why did Yinzhu collect the dregs of medicine? Did Emperor Zhaoheng truly believe she was similar to the late Imperial Concubine? Was the Empress Dowager's appearance too coincidental...?
The jumbled mess piled up in her mind, tormenting her day and night.
As dawn broke, Lihe Palace was unusually quiet. Yesterday, it was bustling with visitors, but now, Lihe Palace, which was on par with the Empress's Palace, was shrouded in a deep silence.
In the midst of this silence, a faint commotion came from outside the palace gates, breaking the tranquility of the early morning.
Inside the Reiwa Palace, the sound of someone getting up came from the bedside.
Narcissus rubbed her throbbing temples, sat up, and asked the maid standing guard outside, "What's all the commotion outside?"
Upon hearing the sound, the young palace maid serving outside quickly stepped forward, bowed, and whispered:
"Your Majesty, it is...it is Sister Tinglu, who has been brought back by the Imperial Household Department."
Upon hearing this, Narcissus paused slightly in her dressing.
Last night, she sent Tinglu to Kunning Palace to gather information. Afterwards, she went to Kunning Palace intending to find Tinglu, but was accused of poisoning her.
In the chaos, she never saw Tinglu again. After being imprisoned in Lihe Palace, she was unable to send anyone out to search for her.
She had been feeling uneasy, and upon hearing Tinglu's name, Shuixian quickened her pace in dressing.
With the help of her maid, Narcissus changed her clothes as quickly as possible, and after dressing neatly, she walked briskly towards the courtyard of the Lihe Palace outside the hall.
The daffodils lost their popularity yesterday, so the people at the flower shop naturally didn't send any flowers here. The delicate flowers, left unreplaced, withered overnight in the cold wind.
The biting wind blew in, but Narcissus didn't raise her hand to pull her clothes together.
Her gaze was completely drawn to the blood-stained figure lying on a stretcher in the courtyard.
Two eunuchs from the Imperial Household Department carried a simple stretcher. Tinglu lay on the stretcher, still wearing the new dress she had worn to the New Year's Eve banquet the day before.
However, at this moment, the back of the brand-new palace maid's dress was stained red with blood, which looked even more glaring in the winter.
The steward standing at the front was none other than Eunuch Qian, the one whom Shui Xian had previously pointed out as having made mistakes in the accounts and had severely humiliated.
When he saw Narcissus come out, his face showed undisguised schadenfreude.
"Oh, Consort Jin has risen?"
Eunuch Qian spoke in a sarcastic tone, his shrill voice piercing the ears.
"I am acting on orders from the Censorate to bring this girl back to you."
Seeing Tinglu's utterly disheveled state, and even her forced pain, Shuixian felt a surge of anger.
Suppressing her anger, she asked coldly, "Eunuch Qian, what is the meaning of this?"
"Tinglu is my maid. Even if she has made a mistake, shouldn't she have informed me beforehand if she was to be punished?"
Upon hearing this, Eunuch Qian scoffed and glanced at Narcissus: "Inform you? Oh, my dear Consort, I can't be sure."
"After all, wasn't Miss Yinzhu, who was just sent to the Censorate last night, once your maid? And what happened? She dared to poison the princess!"
Seeing the palace servants gathering from all sides, and knowing the opportunistic nature of the palace, Eunuch Qian said without hesitation:
"Your Majesty, you don't even know why Yinzhu poisoned the princess, and you probably don't know either why this girl Tinglu wasn't staying by your side in the middle of the night, but instead went to the outside of Kunning Palace to sneak around and inquire, right?"
"If this girl were mistaken for a spy, it would be a capital offense! The Imperial Prison couldn't find anything out last night. The Emperor's mercy in sending this girl back to you is already an immense favor!"
Sure enough, upon hearing how Eunuch Qian treated Narcissus, some of the palace servants at Lihe Palace displayed complex expressions.
Those who were assigned to serve in the Lihe Palace had gone to great lengths, even using money to pull strings, to be assigned to the palace of a favored concubine.
They've only been on the job for a month or so, and now Consort Jin has fallen from power. Wouldn't that ruin their future?
Hearing Qian Gonggong's mockery, Shuixian was displeased, but she knew that it would be useless to lash out at this moment, and would only give others ammunition to criticize her.
Under Eunuch Qian's smug gaze, Narcissus deliberately ignored his mockery and pressed on with her question:
"Now that she's been brought back, and she's injured, where is the imperial physician? Why hasn't he been summoned?"
Grandpa Qian covered his mouth and let out an unpleasant laugh.
"Your Highness, it seems you have a bad memory. You are currently under house arrest!"
"According to palace rules, concubines under house arrest are only allowed to have the imperial physician examine them once every two weeks to check their pulse, let alone..."
He deliberately dragged out the tone, making his voice sound even shriller.
"The one who is injured now is just a maidservant by your side."
"According to what you taught me when you were assisting in managing the six palaces, everything in the palace must follow 'rules' and 'procedures,' right?"
His words were clearly an attempt to silence her by referencing the strict rules he had demanded of them when he was in power, a gesture that was utterly humiliating.
Seeing that Shui Xian's face grew increasingly cold, Eunuch Qian felt a sense of relief, as if the anger that had been building up inside him had finally been released.
He waved triumphantly to the eunuch he had brought: "Alright, the person has been delivered. If the Imperial Concubine has nothing else to do, I'll be leaving now!"
After saying that, he actually turned around and swaggered away.
They simply left the tattered stretcher and the barely alive Tinglu in the courtyard, without any intention of helping to carry it into the adjacent room.
Qian Gonggong's blatant humiliation made the already uneasy palace servants of Lihe Palace even more anxious.
They all looked at the narcissus with concern.
Narcissus was a little unsteady on her feet, but she knew that there were many people in the palace who were like Eunuch Qian, who fawned on the powerful and looked down on the weak. She didn't need to get angry with someone like Eunuch Qian.
Now, listening to the dew is the most important thing.
She immediately said to a relatively composed palace maid beside her, "Take some money and go to the Imperial Hospital right away to invite Physician Pei over!"
The palace maid obeyed and left, but not long after, she returned, her face pale, and said in a tearful voice:
"Your Majesty...no...the Imperial Household Department has sent people to guard outside our palace gates, saying...saying that without the Emperor's decree, no one from the Lihe Palace is allowed to enter or leave..."
Even this road is blocked!
A cold glint flashed in Shui Xian's eyes. Yesterday she was the Imperial Concubine in charge of the Phoenix Seal, and today she was merely confined to her quarters for investigation. How dare these people from the Imperial Household Department act like this?!
Those shrewd people in the Imperial Household Department actually dared to do things so ruthlessly.
If no one gives instructions, Narcissus will not believe it.
Now, the only thing that can influence the Imperial Household Department's actions is the Empress, who has regained the Phoenix Seal...
Narcissus lowered her eyes; now was not the time for contemplation. She decisively instructed the eunuchs and maids around her:
"Carefully carry Tinglu into the side hall next door...and go boil some hot water."
Seeing their mistress remain calm, the palace servants seemed to have found their pillar of support and hurriedly carried Tinglu carefully into the side room.
Narcissus followed her inside.
In her previous life, she struggled to survive in a brothel and had seen many injuries. She had also learned how to treat various wounds herself, so she was much calmer than ordinary palace concubines at this moment.
Shui Xian personally soaked a soft cloth in warm water and carefully cleaned the crisscrossing bloodstains on Ting Lu's back.
The wound was somewhat gruesome, with the skin and flesh turned outwards, but fortunately, it did not damage the bones or tendons.
Immediately afterwards, she ordered someone to bring out the best wound medicine that she always kept in the palace, which had been prepared by Pei Jichuan beforehand, and carefully applied it to Tinglu's wounds, then wrapped it with a clean, fine cloth.
Throughout the process, her movements were gentle, but it was still a flesh wound. When the medicine was applied, Tinglu, who was in a daze due to the pain, finally slowly woke up.
When she struggled to open her eyes and saw that it was Narcissus herself applying the medicine to her, a look of surprise flashed across her face, and then tears welled up in her eyes.
Ignoring her injuries, Tinglu struggled to get up: "Your Majesty... this servant is useless and has caused you trouble..."
Narcissus avoided her wound and pressed down on her shoulder, gently comforting her: "Don't move, lie down and recover. It's not your fault, it's me who dragged you into this."
She took out another clean, dry handkerchief and gently wiped away the cold sweat from Tinglu's forehead.
"What happened yesterday is not your fault. It was my oversight that put you in danger... Now, the most important thing is for you to focus on recovering."
Upon hearing this, Tinglu felt even more ashamed and choked up, saying, "Your Majesty... Last night, when they were interrogating me, I wanted to make up an excuse, saying that I was on your orders to deliver something to Her Majesty the Empress but got lost..."
"But, but at that moment, I saw Sister Yinzhu being escorted into the Censorate..."
She was captured by the people of Kunning Palace before she even entered the palace and taken to the Shenxing Division. She had no idea about Yinzhu's matter.
"I felt something was wrong, so I deliberately delayed for a while, wanting to ask Sister Yinzhu why she came in."
"I finally found an opportunity, and we brushed past each other for a fleeting moment. Before I could even ask Sister Yinzhu anything, she mouthed something to me..."
Shui Xian never expected that Yin Zhu and Ting Lu had met before in the Shenxing Division.
She quickly asked, "What lip movements?"
A hint of confusion flashed across Tinglu's face, and her eyes flickered as if she were trying hard to recall.
Immediately afterward, Tinglu said in a very uncertain low voice, "She didn't make a sound, so this servant has no way of confirming..."
"But this servant feels that Sister Yinzhu seems to be saying... that the Empress poisoned her?"
"The Empress poisoned her?"
As Narcissus repeated those four words, her mind, which had been in a daze all night, suddenly brightened.
Yes, she knows!
All the fragments that had been puzzling her were finally connected in her mind by this one sentence.
No wonder, no wonder the dregs of the medicine were with Yinzhu!
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