Lin Qingtang looked at the palace maids present, and without choosing anyone else, he selected two of the kneeling maids and asked Bai Lu to feed them the medicine.
Although the two maids were reluctant, they did not dare to disobey the emperor's order since he was present, and could only obediently swallow the medicine that Bai Lu fed them.
Seeing that they had already taken the medicine, Mo Qiyuan asked the imperial physician to come forward and take their pulse.
After several imperial doctors carefully took turns to diagnose and treat the patients, they were all surprised to conclude that these two elderly women who had already reached menopause actually showed signs of pregnancy.
At this time, the guards who went to search the palace also came back, and the leading guard was holding a box of medicine in his hand.
He walked up to the emperor and opened the box, revealing the same medicine as the one in Lin Qingtang's hand.
Chu Mingrou had already fallen to the ground, with a look of despair on her face and not a single movement.
But the imperial concubine still wanted to quibble. With bloodshot eyes and a mad look, she ran to Lin Qingtang and confronted her:
"Even if this drug can cause a false pregnancy, it doesn't mean Rou'er's pregnancy is fake. She just had the drug, but it doesn't prove that she actually took it."
Lin Qingtang tilted her head and said, "My dear concubine, you really can't cry until you see the coffin. Bai Lu, go and bring the person up."
"Yes, my lady."
Bai Lu went down and soon brought up a thin little palace maid.
The little palace maid knelt on the ground, trembling.
"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, Your Majesty the Queen Mother, I am a maid in the palace of Chu Zhaoyi. I am responsible for cleaning the inner palace of Chu Zhaoyi on weekdays.
It's like this. A few days ago, when I was cleaning the palace, I saw Cuiwen, who was beside the young lady, taking a package out from the inner room. I saw that part of the package was exposed outside, and it looked like a menstrual pad used by women.
But because the young lady is pregnant, I thought she had seen her spot, so I didn't dare to say anything for fear of being punished by her.
But that afternoon, when I was cleaning the backyard, I saw some burnt items in the corner of the yard, and among them was an unburned menstrual pad. So I felt strange and began to pay attention to this place.
For the next few days, I saw Cuiwen here dealing with these used menstrual belts. The marks on the belts were not like the red marks I saw when my mother was pregnant at home. They should be the marks that only appear when a woman is menstruating.
The used menstrual belt fabric was only used by the concubines in the palace. Cuiwen was just a personal maid, and it was impossible for her to cross the line of rank and use something that was only used by the masters."
Mo Qiyuan listened quietly with an expressionless face.
"Well, go and bring Cuiwen to me."
The leader of the guards who had gone to search the palace earlier stepped forward immediately.
"Your Majesty, when I went to search Concubine Chu's palace just now, I saw this man trying to take the opportunity to sneak back to the palace to destroy the medicine. I have already sent people to arrest him."
After saying this, he glanced back and saw two guards coming up with a woman who looked like a palace maid.
Ye Jinyun recognized her; she was indeed Chu Mingrou's personal maid.
Just now after she came ashore, she was seen next to Chu Mingrou. She probably sneaked away after seeing Lin Qingtang take out the medicine and wanted to return to the palace to destroy the evidence.
After Cuiwen was brought up, she was forced to kneel on the ground, with her head lowered, not saying a word.
Mo Qiyuan glanced at her and said coldly, "You can tell me yourself, or go to the Ministry of Punishment."
Cuiwen trembled, and then she stammered:
"In reply to the emperor, the young lady did have her period a few days ago, and I secretly took it away to deal with it."
She did not directly say that Chu Mingrou had taken the medicine to fake a pregnancy, but the fact that she had her period alone proved that she was indeed not pregnant.
In order to prove that the medicine found in Chu Mingrou's palace was the same one she had found, Lin Qingtang had already fed the medicine to several other maids when the little palace maid reported it.
Now that the truth has almost been revealed, several imperial doctors were invited to take the pulses of those old women.
The imperial doctors were shocked again. These women really had pulse signs of pregnancy. They didn't expect that Chu Zhaoyi's pregnancy was actually caused by this medicine. But it seemed that their medical skills were not very good.
The imperial concubine stopped struggling this time. The moment Cuiwen was brought up, she knew that she and her sisters were finished, and the Chu family was finished.
Mo Qiyuan looked at her coldly, "Now that the evidence is irrefutable, does your Highness have anything else to say?"
The imperial concubine smiled miserably.
"Your Majesty already knows everything, what else do you want me to say? It's true, Rou'er is not pregnant at all, it's all an illusion caused by the medicine. But can I be blamed for this? Can Rou'er be blamed?
You can only blame yourself. If you weren't unable to conceive, why would we resort to this trick? It's really ironic that the emperor, a dignified and respected person, is infertile. It's really a laughing stock for the whole world, hahaha..."
At the end she started laughing like crazy.
Mo Qiyuan's face was so cold that it was almost frozen. He narrowed his eyes dangerously and stared at her, saying word by word:
"I will banish the two sisters of the Imperial Concubine to the cold palace!"
"Hmm."
The Queen Mother watched all this happening and felt as if the sky had suddenly fallen.
She never expected that the grandson she had been looking forward to day and night turned out to be just a scam. She couldn't stand it and fainted with her eyes rolled back.
The maids and nannies beside her hurriedly shouted: "Empress Dowager, Empress Dowager."
Fortunately, there was a doctor on the scene who immediately went up to treat her.
The imperial physician went up to check and fed the empress dowager some emergency pills. He then reported to the emperor that the empress dowager had fainted because she could not bear the shock. Her condition had stabilized after taking the emergency pills, but she needed to be sent back to Shoukang Palace for recuperation.
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