Chapter 788 A Strong Smell of Medicine
Hearing the delicate girl’s words, Chu Liuxin really couldn’t refuse her. He could only watch Shao Wanru leave. In fact, he didn’t want to hear First Miss Shao’s words at all. He just wanted to hear Fifth Miss Shao’s words, but he had no choice but to hear.
Helplessly, he sat down again and said as if he had lost strength, “First Miss, if there’s anything, please tell me.”
If she had something to tell him, she should just say it. After that, he could go out for a walk.
Thinking of this, he felt a little better and smiled.
Shao Wanru lifted up the door curtain and walked out. Dressed in a lot of clothes, she felt comfortable when the cold air outside rushed over. She stood still in the corridor and then walked toward the small room beside the side hall. “In this case, let me add fuel to the fire lest that Shao Yanru come up with other tricks.”
A palace maid was boiling herbs inside. When she saw Shao Wanru coming over, she hurriedly put down the cattail leaf fan and bowed to Shao Wanru.
“Not done yet?” Shao Wanru pointed at the medicine pot on the stove and said.
“Soon, Fifth Miss. Wait a minute!” The palace maid nodded and said.
“The medicine brought here just now has been added?” Shao Wanru asked as she looked at the steaming medicine pot.
That the herbs were boiled did not mean that the medicine was ready. Instead, they had to be decocted second by second so that the liquids of the herbal residues were extracted. This process should be slow, or the medicine’s efficacy would not be so good.
“Yes, it has. Next, I’ll stew the herbs with a small fire,” the palace maid nodded and said. The painkiller was not a big deal. She just needed to add it to the medicine powder and boil them together.
“Ignore me. Just stew it carefully,” Shao Wanru nodded and said.
“Yes.” The palace maid did not dare to stay too far from it. She squatted attentively next to the stove, picked up the cattail leaf fan, and continued to fan the fire.
Shao Wanru walked into the room and saw some sheets of paper scattered on the table that was on the right. They were basically the paper used to hold the herbs before the decoction began.
The smell of medicine was quite strong. Those few paper bags that she had brought from the Imperial Institute of Medicine were also among them.
Shao Wanru sat down on the round stool at the table, supported her head with her hand, and flipped through the sheets of paper scattered on the table in boredom. Suddenly, she smelled something strange and narrowed her eyes.
She picked up a medium-sized paper bag from the messy paper and sniffed it, realizing that she had guessed it. Shao Yanru had been prepared a long time earlier.
Having found what she was looking for, she checked the time for decocting the medicine and found that it would be ready sometime later, so she stood up and walked out with Yujie.
In the past, she would occasionally come to see the decocted medicine for Shao Yanru, so the palace maid boiling the herbs did not care about it.
Out of the room, she walked out of the corridor slowly. When she saw Han Dan hurriedly coming over, she signaled to Yujie with her eyes. Yujie stepped forward and stopped her.
“Go and get a basin of water. Fifth Miss wants to wash her hands!” Yujie ordered.
Han Dan had to stop and went to another small room. She poured a basin of water and put it at the end of the corridor in front of the room door. Shao Wanru came over and washed her hands.
In fact, she didn’t have to wash her hands. She had just touched the bags gently for a short time, and her hands didn’t have a strong smell.
“Where have you been earlier, Han Dan? Why didn’t I see you serve First Miss here?” Yujie took the chance to ask Han Dan.
Han Dan didn’t dare to hide anything from Shao Wanru. She said, “Earlier, First Miss said that if Prince Xin came over, I should go to the general steward of the Phoenix Palace.”
Shao Wanru took the handkerchief from Yujie and dried her hands, asking, “What did she say?”
“First Miss asked me to invite the general steward to come over, saying that she wants to discuss something with him and then ask him to report it to the empress.”
It was hard for Shao Yanru to meet the empress directly. Even if she had something important to report, she had to tell the general steward of the Phoenix Palace first.
In fact, she could not meet with the general steward of the empress as immediately as she wished. Instead, she could only say that she wanted him to come over in a while.
“Did the general steward agree to come over in a while?” Shao Wanru asked calmly. Some things gradually formed a clue. Slowly combining it with a few things in her memory, she found that she could see the truth more clearly.
“The general steward said that he would come over shortly. The emperor is now in the empress’ place, so he can’t leave for the time being!” Han Dan said. “First Miss didn’t think that the general steward would immediately come. The general steward is the general keeper of the Phoenix Palace. He always has all kinds of things to deal with, and he also has to serve the empress. First Miss said that I didn’t have to mind it even if I heard such words.”
Han Dan stole a glance at Shao Wanru with mixed feelings. Actually, she thought that First Miss Shao was great because she had guessed the reaction of the general steward. But Fifth Miss Shao was even greater. Now she regretted being a double agent for the two ladies. She just wanted to have one mistress, but now she seemed to have two mistresses.
And the two mistresses seemed to be sharply opposed to each other.
Ignoring the hesitation in Han Dan’s eyes, Shao Wanru sharpened the look in her eyes. Shao Yanru’s calculation was so careful that she had even predicted the reaction of the empress.
As the confidant of the empress, the general steward certainly knew what the empress thought. Currently, the empress didn’t like Shao Yanru. Even if there was something, she would delay it on purpose, punishing Shao Yanru from an empress’s stance.
No matter whether there was anything or not, the general steward would never be on call. And he would even delay it for some time. But this period of time was enough for Shao Yanru. The medicine was now still being boiled over the fire, and it would take some time.
“Go to the general steward again.” After thinking for a moment, Shao Wanru said, “Tell him that Prince Xin is also here. Ask him to come earlier!”
“Prince Xin is really innocent. I can’t let him fall in the hands of Shao Yanru! Go in a little earlier and ruin Shao Yanru’s plot. Attack her when she is off guard!”
Han Dan looked at Shao Wanru in surprise. She meant to force the general steward with the status of Prince Xin. Could this work? The general steward of the Phoenix Palace was the confidant of the empress. Even when he met him, Prince Xin had to call him “general steward” respectfully. It was completely useless to deter the general steward with the prince’s status.
She knew it even as a little palace maid. It was impossible that Fifth Miss Shao didn’t know it!
“Go and say that. If he asks you what Prince Xin is doing, you should answer vaguely!” Shao Wanru said. If he came quickly, the plot could be ended, absolutely.
“Okay, I’m going right now!” Han Dan didn’t dare to say anything anymore. She replied and went there again.
When she arrived at the main hall of the Phoenix Palace, she saw the general steward standing at the roadside. Excitedly, she trotted over, ready to open her mouth when she saw a yellow brocade robe from the corner of her eye. Scared, she turned ashen and hurriedly dropped to her knees.
In the palace, only the emperor could wear a yellow robe.
She had trotted over. In fact, she had alerted the people present. The emperor came here with a simple retinue. Apart from the general steward of the Phoenix Palace, there were even no other servants around him.
Of course, the guards who secretly followed him would not show up in public.
Startled, the general steward of the Phoenix Palace rebuked sternly, “What is it you want to see me about, little maid? Do you know that if you disturb His Majesty, you will be sentenced to death?”
The emperor waved his hand and his chief eunuch went to fetch the file the emperor had left in the empress’ place.
“Your Majesty… I… I’m the maid of First Miss Shao of Duke Xing’s Mansion… I should be severely punished for having disturbed you!” Han Dan stammered. She had turned ashen in fear.
Although she wholeheartedly curried favor with Shao Yanru, hoping to get a chance to work her way up in the imperial palace, she had not realized the dream yet, nor had she ever really met the emperor.
The emperor naturally knew First Miss of Duke Xing’s Mansion. He frowned and asked seriously, “What are you here for?”
Although his two sons had claimed that the incident on that day was a misunderstanding and that it had nothing to do with First Miss of Duke Xing’s Mansion, how could the emperor, who had rich life experience, not perceive the fishy operations of it? But if he continued the investigation, he himself would lose face, so he simply gave it up.
But this didn’t mean that he had a good impression of Shao Yanru.
The woman had even provoked his two sons to fight each other. Even just from this point of view, the emperor was so dissatisfied with Shao Yanru. He thought that the woman would be unfaithful to her husband if she was married, so she could not marry a prince and be his princess. Fortunately, the final decision about the Consort Selection was not made yet. If she really married one of his sons but still kept a relationship with another, a more unimaginable scandal might happen then.
“Your Majesty, First Miss asked me to invite the general steward. She said… said that Prince Cheng is also there… she asked the general steward to go… go… go over. She has something to tell… tell him!” Han Dan finally finished her words in stammers. Now she was panicky and scared, so her words were incoherent.
But on the whole, she made it clear with her words.
The emperor’s face turned colder and colder. He was so angry that his eyes glistened with fierceness. Chu Liuyue and Chu Liuzhou had been involved earlier, and now Chu Liuxin was dragged in. The eldest daughter of Duke Xing’s Mansion was so unfaithful!
“Go! Take me there!” The emperor said. He had planned to go back to the imperial study, but he was not in the mood now. He turned around coldly. He wanted to see what this woman would do. If she really had any improper behavior, he would kill her!
Seeing the emperor turn around, the general steward of the Phoenix Palace was slightly stunned. He didn’t know why the emperor was interested in such things, but he reacted quite fast. He called out to Han Dan and then hurriedly caught up to lead the way.
Han Dan hurriedly got up and followed the two people in a shiver, heading to the side hall.
Inside the side hall, the infusion had been brought over and put on the table, just in front of Chu Liuxin. The infusion was so hot that it could not be drunk at the moment. The smell of it was pungent, and it was in front of him. He sniffed it and thought that it smelled bad. But this was medicine to heal injury, so he could not speak ill of it. More importantly, Shao Yanru’s words were interesting to him because they were all small matters about Shao Wanru.
She spoke of what had happened after Shao Wanru recognized her ancestors in the mansion and the inexplicable fire in her courtyard. She said that she had not been in the mansion at that time. If she had been there, she would have protected Shao Wanru from being bullied.
Chu Liuxin nodded repeatedly and felt the regret. If he had known that he would like Shao Wanru, he should have been to Duke Xing’s Mansion to protect her back then. He would have never let her suffer such a great grievance. Maybe it was because he wore too many clothes, he suddenly felt hot.
Looking at Chu Liuxin smelling the curling smoke from the bowl in front of him, Shao Yanru looked a little complacent. It would be done in a while…