NOVEL NEXT Chapter 23
Chapter 23: Ruirui Is Poisoned
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Li Mu went back to his boring days of doing check-ins.
Looking for genius, eh?
Forget about it.
That’s d*mn excruciating work.
Time wasted, and, in the end, nothing.
“Eunuch Li, Noble Lady Zhen is looking for you.”
Li Mu had just finished sweeping the front of the compound on that day when a blue-robed eunuch entered sneakily, looked all around, and whispered to Li Mu.
“Oh, okay? I’ll head out at once,” Li Mu said.
After so many years, he’d finally gotten from Xiaolizi to Eunuch Li.
Everything had begun with those emerald robes of his.
However, he was still very unused to being addressed in that manner.
“I’ll be taking my leave then, Eunuch Li. Noble Lady Zhen asked you not to alert the others if possible.”
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The blue-robed eunuch finished delivering his message and left the Shouning Palace without making another sound.
He even checked out his surroundings as he left.
Li Mu was puzzled.
What does Noble Lady Zhen want with me?
He’d met Noble Lady Zhen twice, and she seemed mild-mannered.
She was not the type to look for trouble.
She also hardly fought others over anything.
He put down his broom, straightened himself a bit, and left Shouning Palace secretly also.
Emerald-robed eunuchs had a far easier time going outside compared to green-robed ones, and it went without saying that their degree of freedom eclipsed that of blue-robed and grey-robed ones.
His heart tugged not long after going outside Shouning Palace.
“Ruirui is in trouble!”
He hurried right away.
The very reason that Ruirui had done her best to get him to emerald robe status was so that Li Mu would be allowed to come and play with her any time.
Li Mu had not been wearing those new robes for even a week.
And he had yet to go and look for the girl to play with her, and now she had gotten into trouble.
He headed inside the palace and bowed to the woman in the main hall, who seemed to have been waiting for him.
“At ease, Eunuch Li. Come and take a look at Ruirui. She was feeling dizzy just a while ago, and now…,” Noble Lady Zhen said anxiously.
He followed behind her and headed inside Ruirui’s bedchamber.
Ruirui’s lips were all purple, and she was foaming at the corners of her mouth. She was lying on the bed, and her breathing was weak.
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“She has been poisoned. What did she eat today?” Li Mu asked.
He picked up Ruirui’s hand and took her pulse. He even sent a sliver of true qi into her body as he read her pulse, to protect her internal organs.
“Just the usual. Some bit of fruits and cakes,” the court lady who was at her side answered.
“Where’s the food now?”
“It’s…wait, it was just here moments ago. Where did it go now?”
The court lady went and looked. She wasn’t able to find the cakes.
Even the leftover fruit was gone as well.
“Eunuch Li, can you do something about this?” Noble Lady Zhen asked anxiously.
She had been in the royal palace for many years and was practically a neighbor of the Shouning Palace.
The breadth of knowledge that Li Mu had exhibited every now and then had impressed her.
Whenever the eunuchs and court ladies got sick, it was Li Mu that they sought out.
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The Imperial Physicians’ Office hardly bothered with them after all.
After a while, even Noble Lady Zhen would look for Li Mu when she was ill.
It would usually only take two doses of medicine from him to cure her of just about anything.
“I can. Get the medicines according to the prescription I’m about to write.”
“Get a brush and paper!”
Li Mu turned around and scanned the eunuchs and court ladies around him, before walking up to the table and writing down a list of herbs.
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Other than the dosage, he even wrote the methods and order in which the medicines should be prepared.
Another emerald-robed eunuch behind him took the prescription and left.
Li Mu then signaled to Noble Lady Zhen.
She then dismissed all of the servants around her.
“What’s going on?”
“Princess Ruirui has been poisoned by someone,” Li Mu answered seriously.
Fights in the palace again…
I never thought anyone here would actually be sick enough to do something like this to a little girl.
There’s no way Ruirui would fight for the throne.
Noble Lady Zhen is not the type to fight for favors either.
“Whaaat?” She got up on her feet right away and shouted.
“My lady, please, tone it down. Princess Ruirui might have gotten herself into a lot of trouble here,” Li Mu reminded her.
“Those people have the nerve to do something against Ruirui, how could I…”
“My lady, I understand that you’re anxious and frustrated. But please rest assured, the princess will be fine,” he explained.
He then comforted the noble lady talking about other things.
There was no need to rush after all.
He had controlled the true qi in the princess and had it travel all over her body.
This was done to clear out the toxins in her body.
Some toxins had gotten into her bloodstream, however, and it was difficult to clear them all out.
“This thing is ferocious.”
About an hour later, all the ingredients that Li Mu had ordered arrived.
The eunuchs and court ladies began to cook the medicine according to Li Mu’s instructions.
The medicine was finished, and he took a whiff, before putting it aside.
“What’s wrong?” the noble lady asked.
“The medicine is poisoned also.”
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Li Mu narrowed his gaze and scanned the court ladies in the room. He then asked the noble lady, “The medicine is poisoned. Who was the one preparing this?”
Noble Lady Zhen couldn’t take it anymore and shouted at the court ladies right away.
“My lady, we didn’t poison the medicine!”
Three of the court ladies and eunuchs stepped up quickly.
“Who else if not the three of you?”
“We handed everything over to Xiaotao as soon as we were finished cooking it,” one of the eunuchs answered.
“Was it you, Xiaotao?”
The noble lady shot a furious glance at the court lady by her side.
That court lady looked to be in her 20s. She had supple, radiant skin: proof that she was hardly ever given any hard menial labor when she served by the noble lady’s side.
“My lady, I would never dare to do such a thing. Everyone was looking when I brought the medicine over.”
Xiaotao fell to her knees right away.
“If it’s not Xiaotao, then it must have been one of the three of you!”
The noble lady turned and looked at the three of them.
One could tell just how much trust she placed on Xiaotao right there and then.
“My lady, all three of us were there when we were cooking the medicine, keeping an eye on each other. None of us would have the opportunity to do anything else,” the eunuch explained anxiously.
This was a capital offense after all.
“If it was not the three of you, are you telling me that it was the work of the dispensary then?”
The noble lady eyed the three of them coldly.
“My lady, they were not the ones who poisoned the medicine,” Li Mu interjected, seeing how the noble lady was about to force a confession out of the three of them.
“Who could it be if not the three of them?”
“My lady, I think that we should report this matter to His Majesty. The culprit couldn’t possibly do such a thing against the princess without reasons. There’s definitely someone powerful behind this,” Li Mu reminded her.
“Well…won’t I look lame and stupid for allowing this to happen?”
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The expression on the faces of all the court ladies and eunuchs became ashen as soon as she said this.
If the emperor were to find out that the princess had been poisoned, everyone else in that palace, other than the noble lady, would be demoted to menial labor status. Worse still, they might be locked up in the dungeon in the Ceremony Directorate.
Whoosh~
Over a dozen court ladies and eunuchs fell to their knees.
Noble Lady Zhen felt rather reluctant seeing this.
All these eunuchs and court ladies had been living with her under one roof after all.
“Eunuch Li, if you know who is behind this, why not say it then?”
“All right, I’ll say the name, and it’s up to you to believe it or not, my lady,” Li Mu said, and he went up to the table and wrote something down, and handed it over to Noble Lady Zhen.
“Impossible.”
Noble Lady Zhen was so shocked that she was actually eyeing Li Mu with a suspicious look.
“My lady, I did say that it’d be up to you to believe what I’ve said. The prescription that I’ve given should be taken twice a day after meals. I’ll be taking my leave.”
Li Mu turned around and left without listening to what she had to say about it.
He knew just how ferocious such power struggles could be.
Yet, he never believed that there were virtually no lines that people wouldn’t cross to get what they wanted.
After he left, the eunuchs and court ladies serving Noble Lady Zhen began pointing fingers at each other.
“I couldn’t have possibly poisoned the princess. I watched her grow up. Furthermore, where could I get the poison even if I were to do such a thing?”
The three began defending themselves.
They were at the lowest rank among those working in that palace.
None of them had any chance of getting in touch with anyone else in the palace.
“Who do you think is the one responsible then?” the noble lady shot a look at Xiaotao as she spoke.
The name that Li Mu had written was Xiaotao.
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Noble Lady Zhen had had complete trust in her.
“My lady, could Eunuch Li be making things up? See, he was the one who said that the princess had been poisoned, and he was also the one who said that there was poison in the medicine. The imperial physicians are not around to verify if the princess had been poisoned, yet he was able to tell that the medicine was poisoned with just one look. Isn’t that be a little too surreal of him?”
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A court lady on her knees wept as she spoke in her defense, looking very helpless.
“Indeed! My lady, he’s but a eunuch of the Shouning Palace, and yet he runs his mouth off. I wonder if he’s trying to see us fight each other for the sake of his own amusement,” Xiaotao spoke up right away.
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