"You...you've gone too far!" Consort Li gritted her teeth. Since marrying Yinzhen, she had never suffered such humiliation. She trembled with anger.
Cheng Bi finally intervened, and the two stopped arguing.
Since the Empress Dowager intervened, the two naturally dared not say anything more.
"Tell me what happened!" Cheng Bi pointed to the blood not far away and muttered softly, "When did things outside the palace have to be dragged into the palace?"
As expected of a champion of palace intrigue, she clearly saw what had happened, but pretended not to know.
Aunt Xiao was a simple-minded person and naturally couldn't see through things. If she had been more shrewd, she wouldn't have been tricked into coming to the palace by Nian Yuyao.
"Oh dear, Your Majesty the Empress Dowager, you must do justice for me!" Aunt Xiao cried, tears streaming down her face, but anyone with eyes could see that her tears were forced out.
Cheng Bi frowned. "Just speak frankly."
"There's something wrong with this water. They added white saffron. Just one drop in, and even the blood of a cat and a dog will mix!" Aunt Xiao cried out in despair.
"Absurd! You've gone to extremes to slander me!" Consort Li retorted defiantly as she stealthily approached the bowl of water, attempting to knock it over.
Nian Yuyao saw through her intention at a glance and snatched the bowl of water away before she could reach it, handing it to the imperial physician beside him.
The imperial physician carefully picked up the bowl, smelled it, and then placed it on the table.
"Your Majesty and Empress Dowager, this water has a sour taste, it is indeed because white sand was added," the imperial physician said, bowing with his hands clasped.
"This... is impossible!" she shouted. "The water I prepared is absolutely fine. You must have made a mistake."
Now she just wants to play dumb and see if she can escape this calamity.
"What are you pretending for? It's not like this is the first time you've done something like this." Aunt Xiao glanced at her contemptuously. She was the best at kicking someone when they were down.
It turns out that Aunt Xiao had another child before Consort Li entered the Prince's Mansion. Because Consort Li's mother could not give birth to a son, Consort Li's father wanted to adopt this son to Consort Li's mother so that he could inherit the family business in the future.
This child was not born to Li's mother. Li's mother harbored an inexplicable hatred for him, but she was a hypocrite. She pretended to like him even though she didn't like him, and presented herself as a tolerant and magnanimous stepmother in front of others.
At that time, Consort Li was thirteen years old. Seeing her mother in such pain, she gave her an idea: to find someone to slander Aunt Xiao, saying that the child was not born to Consort Li's father.
Faced with all the evidence, Li's father was immediately deceived. In his anger, he killed the lover and the child on the spot. He wanted to beat Xiao Yiniang to death as well, but he really liked her and couldn't bear to do it. However, he was also furious that he had been cuckolded, so he made her do the dirtiest and most tiring work in the mansion.
Aunt Xiao was wronged and wanted to leave, but seeing the person who had wronged her living a carefree life, she was unwilling to die. So she could only work while waiting for an opportunity to take revenge.
But the mother and daughter were too cunning. For three years, Aunt Xiao did not discover anything. Finally, on the day before Consort Li was to get married, she overheard the mother and daughter's plot.
"What conspiracy?" Yinzhen asked.
"After entering the palace, if you don't win the Emperor's heart, then transfer your hopes to your child. If you want your child to rise above others, kill the other children so that your own child will be the sole heir. If you can't kill them, then, like you slandered Consort Xiao, make sure her child dies without a burial place." Consort Xiao said, mimicking the tone of Li's mother from that day.
Because of this discovery, Aunt Xiao fought to clear her name, regained Li's father's favor, and occasionally clashed with Li's mother.
Nian Yuyao also sent someone to discover this, and then summoned Aunt Xiao to the palace. She firmly believed that Aunt Xiao hated the mother and son to the bone and would definitely help her.
"No, you're slandering me!" Consort Li still refused to admit it.
"Slander?" Yi Rou sneered. "If I'm not mistaken, you were just trying to smear Consort Nian for having an affair with Li Wei!"
"I…"
Seeing that Consort Li was still trying to argue, she grabbed her wrist tightly, her eyes bloodshot, and said, "How do you explain the powder on your fingernails? Should we have the imperial physician prove that it's Bai Fan?"
Now, Consort Li was completely unable to defend herself. Her eyes were filled with regret, but she didn't regret her vicious actions. Instead, she regretted not paying attention to the powder in her hand and letting someone notice.
"What's going on? I never make these kinds of silly mistakes." She muttered to herself, only then realizing that she had been acting differently lately, always forgetting things and unable to control her emotions.
Little did they know that all of this was caused by Nian Yuyao. She had instructed Caidie from the imperial kitchen to add alum to Consort Li's food every day to make her stupid and dull. If she hadn't done this, she might have found a way to escape danger again today.
"What else do you have to say?" Yinzhen said coldly, his fists already clenched.
"I was confused for a moment, but this is all I did. The deaths of the other princes in the palace really have nothing to do with me!" Consort Li knelt down and kowtowed. "Your Majesty, Your Majesty the Empress, Your Majesty the Empress Dowager, please spare my life and forgive me this time! I will never dare to do it again."
“Heh…” Nian Yuyao knew that Consort Li would say that. She slowly walked behind Consort Li and said in a sinister and eerie voice, “Consort Li must have been feeling sore back and waist lately, right?”
Upon hearing this, Consort Li turned her head sharply, puzzled as to why Nian Yuyao would utter such a statement out of the blue.
Nian Yuyao's lips curled up as she continued, "Look, my Fu Hui is wrapped around your waist, the princess and Fu Yi are pulling your legs, and the Empress's eldest and second princes are sitting on your shoulders."
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