Just when the situation was critical, Cai Die suddenly ran in from outside the door, followed by an elderly imperial physician.
When the Empress was ill, Jiang Wan saw this person in the palace; he was the chief physician of the Imperial Medical Academy.
"This old minister has come on the orders of His Highness the Crown Prince."
Jiang Wan nodded gratefully to him: "Thank you for your trouble, sir. The woman in labor is in the inner room."
With the imperial physician in charge, everything went much more smoothly.
Half an hour later, a loud cry came from the inner room.
The midwife came out beaming and announced, "Aunt Ru has given birth! Mother and child are safe and sound. It's a little boy!"
Biluo clapped her hands together in delight: "That's wonderful!"
Jiang Wan breathed a sigh of relief and smiled.
She went to the bedside and looked at Aunt Ru. Aunt Ru had just given birth and was still very weak. She grabbed Jiang Wan as if she wanted to say something.
"Don't worry."
Jiang Wanhui took her hand and patted it gently.
"Get some rest. I will send someone to watch over the child and will not give the main courtyard any chance to take advantage of him again."
Aunt Ru then closed her eyes.
Jiang Wan tucked her in, then instructed Biluo to have Shen Ci personally lead people to guard the courtyard. After arranging everything, she got up and left.
As soon as they stepped outside, they saw two figures standing under the flower vines in the courtyard; it was Pei Xuan and Pei Tang.
Jiang Wan was slightly surprised.
When he saw the white cat lying on Pei Xuan's lap, he held his breath.
When she was not at home, she often left Qingqing in Aunt Ru's courtyard, and Aunt Ru liked it very much.
After Aunt Ru became pregnant, she found it inconvenient to go out and walked around, so she preferred to play with Qingqing in the yard. Seeing this, Jiang Wan left Qingqing there for a few days to keep her company and relieve her boredom.
She never expected that Pei Xuan would be here.
"Sister Jiang!"
Pei Tang ran over excitedly.
"What are you doing here, Qingqing? I haven't seen it in so long! How have you been feeding it? It's gotten so much fatter!"
Jiang Wan coughed lightly.
Pei Xuan was sitting on a stone bench, with the cat affectionately lying on his lap, its fluffy head rubbing against his palm, meowing a few times in a rather affectionate manner.
“Princess, you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Jiang Wan said with a smile. “This isn’t Qingqing; she’s just a concubine in the manor who keeps her around for fun.”
Qingqing looked up at her, her bright blue cat eyes sparkling: "Meow?"
She said, "Although it looks somewhat like Qingqing, it's not as pretty, and its fur isn't smooth. It's just a common country cat."
Qingqing: "Meow!"
Pei Tang frowned: "Really? It really does look like it!" She looked at Pei Xuan, "It even likes to act cute with its brother, just like Qingqing!"
"This is clearly Qingqing! Brother, don't you think so?"
Pei Xuan glanced at Jiang Wan and saw her standing seriously to the side with a hint of nervousness in her eyes. He twitched his lips and seemed to chuckle.
"Looking closely, it doesn't quite resemble it."
He picked up the cat and looked it over from all angles.
"Qingqing isn't that ugly."
The cat glared at the cat and meowed in dissatisfaction.
Jiang Wan secretly breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly told Cai Die to take the cat away. She then said to Pei Xuan, "Thank you, Your Highness, for bringing the imperial physician. Only then was Aunt Ru able to give birth safely."
"No need to be so polite." Pei Xuan waved his folding fan as he walked out of the courtyard, saying, "After all, you helped me solve a problem today."
Jiang Wan was puzzled.
Just as I was about to ask another question, Pei Xuan had already walked away.
"Madam," Biluo leaned forward and put a cloak on her, whispering, "Bi Yuan was indeed trying to escape the city, but our people stopped him. What do we do now?"
"You don't need to do anything."
Jiang Wan gave the instructions.
"If we reveal his whereabouts to Lu Hetang, someone will take action for us."
The fact that the elder lady survived after ingesting arsenic was already astonishing enough.
However, if anyone saw her now, they would find it even more unbelievable.
Three days later, in the Deer and Crane Hall.
The matriarch leaned against the bed, her face slightly pale, but she was already moving freely. She closed her eyes and slowly twirled the prayer beads in her hand.
As soon as the door opened, Granny Wu walked in.
"Madam, the man has been caught," said Granny Wu. "He was found in an inn. He seemed to be trying to escape from the capital, but for some reason he couldn't. He's now being held in the woodshed. Madam Gu and Young Master Lin are unaware of this."
The matriarch opened her eyes, and a surge of anger erupted from her cloudy eyeballs.
"This is all the fault of the Gu family! I never imagined that he was the one who poisoned them."
Granny Wu sighed as well.
The day the old lady was poisoned, before she lost consciousness, her first suspect was Xingzhiyuan.
After all, in the General's Mansion, only Jiang Wan and Lu Hetang had obvious conflicts.
Therefore, that night, Granny Wu tested Jiang Wan in every way, clearly already considering her the real culprit.
However, as events unfolded, the truth behind the poisoning was gradually revealed, and it turned out that Song Lin was the one who did it.
"When I was in prison, Ziyu warned me to be wary of Song Lin. I was determined to use him to fight against Song Yu, but I never expected that he would actually try to kill me!" the old lady said angrily.
"This is also something I don't understand."
Granny Wu was puzzled.
"Since you know that it was Young Master Lin who poisoned him, why did you protect him that day and even warn Doctor Li not to expose him?"
"Afterwards, you only made him reflect on his actions in private. Are you really going to let him off so easily?"
The matriarch gritted her teeth and sighed.
"Ziyu has spoiled them for many years. Back then, he was determined to marry Gu Shi and even dared to disobey my orders. How stubborn he was! Let him deal with these dirty matters when he returns to the manor! Otherwise, I might go too far and end up being blamed."
"Keep an eye on that person, and when Ziyu returns, hand him over to him."
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