Chapter 751: The Mixed Poison from the Xu State
"Miss Yu, did you also saw it?" The Nanny in charge asked.
"Yes... I also saw it!" Miss Yu said in a panic.
Shao Wanru glanced at Miss Di and Miss Yu, both of whom seemed to be timid and only wanted to stay quiet for self-protection.
If their interests were not threatened, they would not risk offending anyone.
Therefore, both Miss Yu and Miss Di chose to stay quiet yesterday instead of offending Wang Yuxin. In fact, with so many people in Shao Caihuan's room yesterday, there would inevitably be some of them noticing something suspicious, because Wang Yuxin was definitely not cautious enough to carry out her plan without being noticed.
"Since you saw it, why did you keep quiet before?" The Nanny in charge rebuked Miss Yu harshly. She had asked before, but Miss Yu did not dare to say anything about it until now she heard that she would probably be driven out of the imperial palace.
"Nanny, I dare not risk offending anyone in the imperial palace!" Miss Yu said tearfully in panic and looked at the Nanny in charge pleadingly, suggesting that she was in a helpless situation where she was much inferior to Wang Yuxin in status, so she didn't dare to offend Wang Yuxin.
The Nanny in charge glared at Miss Yu, causing the latter to teeter in horror with her face turning pale.
"Miss Wang, do you have anything else to say now?" Ignoring Miss Yu whose face changed dramatically in fear, the Nanny in charge stared at Wang Yuxin coldly and asked.
"Nanny, how can you declare my guilty with their accounts? I didn't do it, so I won't plead guilty!" Wang Yuxin was panic-stricken, but she still refused to admit it with clenched teeth.
Without any evidence, she did not believe that a Nanny in charge could really deal with her. What was more, she had the backing of Prince Yue who had an affection for her. As long as she insisted that she didn't do it, she believed Prince Yue would definitely help her out.
A Nanny in charge was nothing but a servant in the imperial palace!
Thinking of this, Wang Yuxin returned to composed and looked at the Nanny in charge arrogantly. There were plenty of Nannies in-charge in her mansion. They looked very severe, but they had to submit themselves to her, their master. She didn't believe that the Nanny in charge could force her to admit it by torture!
Wang Yuxin thought that the Nannies in-charge in the imperial palace were much the same as the Nannies in charge of some affairs in her mansion.
"Slap her in the face!" The Nanny in charge glanced at Wang Yuxin's face coldly. Seeing the indignant expression on her face, she suddenly smiled and said coldly.
This kind of conceited woman could bring about her own destruction easily in the imperial palace. She thought that she really had someone's backing. If she did, the Nanny in charge would have been ordered to give extra care to her like the First Miss Shao and the Fifth Miss Shao of Duke Xing's Mansion.
The two Misses looked meek and gentle, while Miss Wang, who had an exaggerated opinion of her status, dare to set herself against her!
A palace maid came over, took a step forward, and was about to slap Miss Wang.
"How dare you! My father is the vice minister of the Ministry of Works!" Wang Yuxin, who did not expect that the Nanny in charge would dare to take action, took a step back and rebuked her loudly.
However, her words were not intimidating. The palace maid grabbed her by the collar mercilessly and slapped her fiercely, almost knocking her out of the room.
"How... dare you slap me!" Wang Yuxin said. She, who had always been overbearing at home, now was slapped by a servant. After being stunned for a moment, she was furious and reached out in an attempt to scratch the palace maid's face.
The palace maid took a quick step back and avoided Wang Yuxin's attack. After giving Wang Yuxin a cold look, she retreated to the back of the Nanny in charge and sneered at Wang Yuxin.
The palace maid thought the way the Nanny in charge did. Only smart people could survive in the imperial palace. A silly person like Wang Yuxin would live a miserable life in the imperial palace even if she was selected this time.
"Miss Wang, are you displeased with it?" The Nanny in charge looked at Wang Yuxin, who was making threatening gestures, and asked coldly.
"How dare you! My father is the vice minister of the Ministry of Works. He won't allow you to bully me like this!" With a burning pain in her face, Wang Yuxin was pissed off. Feeling humiliated and ashamed, she reached out to point at the Nanny in charge and shouted, "Who do you think you are? You are just a servant. How dare you treat me like this? My father will make you pay with your life!"
Looking at Wang Yuxin, who nearly went off her head and was talking nonsense, Shao Yanru decided to give up on her and looked away. She had intended to send the palace maid, who had expressed kindness for her before, to ask Wang Yuxin to be careful and tell her a way to deal with the situation. Unexpectedly, the palace maid, who had secretly passed on messages for her before, did not come.
So she had no choice but to come out of her room.
She had thought that if Wang Yuxin was smart enough, she could shift the blame onto the maid and claim that the maid was actually sent by someone else to set her up. Since this kind of thing happened all the time in the imperial palace, it was more likely to happen in the vice minister's mansion.
She just needed to say that the maid was sent by someone in the vice minister's mansion to set her up. However, Wang Yuxin was so stupid that she even set herself against the Nanny in charge who was much superior to any nanny in her mansion. Basically, a nanny in charge of the affairs of a palace had an official title. Even Vice Minister Wang couldn't set himself against the Nanny in charge!
Moreover, Wang Yuxin obviously had done wrong this time.
Shao Wanru watched over Wang Yuxin, while keeping an eye on Shao Yanru. Compared with Shao Yanru, Wang Yuxin was nothing other than a pawn ahead that had outlived her usefulness at the moment.
...
Of course, even if what this pawn had done was exposed, Shao Yanru would only lose a person to make use of rather than getting involved in it.
This was what Shao Yanru thought when she tried to set up Shao Wanru. However, given that Shao Caihuan was accidentally implicated in it, she would not allow Shao Yanru to get out of it unscathed so easily.
The third branch had always been suppressed by the second branch, and the Misses of the third branch had always been suppressed by Shao Yanru. Shao Caihuan was not supposed to dare to set herself against Shao Yanru, but in the current situation, Shao Caihuan had no scruples...
"Keep Miss Wang in detention!" Unwilling to continue the conversation with such a stupid person, the Nanny in charge waved her hand and said.
"How dare you! I am the daughter of Vice Minister Wang!" Wang Yuxin said in rage.
The Nanny in charge didn't even bother to give her a look. This time, two eunuchs came over, grabbed Wang Yuxin's hands on each side of hers, and dragged her away. Since the Nanny in charge had basically found out the truth, she should hand over the case for further investigation, and Wang Yuxin would be interrogated by someone else.
"I got it!" the imperial physician suddenly struck the table, laughed loudly, and said. He finally remembered what this incense sheet was.
"Have you found any clue?" The Nanny in charge was about to leave, but now she looked at the imperial physician and asked with a frown.
"This incense sheet is not made in the Central Plains, but a kind of tribute paid by the Xu State a few years ago. At that time, these kinds of incense sheets were specially sent to the Imperial Institute of Medicine for examination. The envoy from the Xu State said that this kind of incense sheets could cause the human body to be covered with red spots, which could leave scars easily!"
The imperial physician said loudly, extremely excited that he discovered what the incense sheet was.
Shao Caihuan, who was in the inner room, had been listening to them. At this time, she almost fainted in shock and realized that she had been trapped.
She clenched a corner of the quilt and bit her lip, deciding that she would neither let go of Wang Yuxin nor Shao Yanru, who could not be innocent!
If she was disfigured, her life would be totally ruined. At the thought of this, she had no scruples!
"No, no, isn't this supposed to be a joss-stick? Why is it an incense sheet? Could it be that someone turned a joss-stick into an incense sheet? Or it contains something else?" the imperial physician, who had a new doubt after saying that, frowned again and said to himself.
Shao Wanru glanced at the imperial physician, who seemed to be lost in thought again, and asked, "Sir, may I ask if my third sister will have scars?"
"Uh... I'm afraid so. She has stayed in such a stuffy room for the whole night and has a lot of red spots, so it's difficult for her to recover completely!" The imperial physician, who was lost in thought, didn't want to be disturbed, so he waved his hand and said impatiently. At this time, his mind was occupied with the incense sheet.
The reason why he remembered it so clearly was that the Xu State sent a few imperial physicians to compete with the imperial physicians from the Imperial Institute of Medicine, and in the competition, an imperial physician from the Xu State used this kind of mixed poison to disfigure someone without being noticed.
At that time, it shocked all the imperial physicians and even reminded them if someone used the mixed poison to deal with the imperial concubines, it would cause chaos. After the competition, the joss-sticks left by the Xu State were sealed up. Unexpectedly, he saw it again after all these years.
The imperial physician was not present at that time and heard about the mixed poison later, so he failed to recognize it at once.
He, who didn't have the right to deal with the situation, had to report it to the head of the Imperial Institute of Medicine, who would report it to the Emperor.
Thinking of this, he stood up.
Seeing that the imperial physician was about to leave, Shao Wanru hurriedly asked, "Sir, may I ask why my third sister has this kind of red spot? At that time, besides my third sister, there were other people in her room. Why are the others all right? Is it because my third sister has stayed in this stuffy room for the whole night? Then why is her maid fine?"
"She got something that activated this kind of incense sheet, a mixed poison. I didn't expect that there would be such a kind of severe mixed poison in Vice Minister Wang's Manor!" The imperial physician shook his head and said. Since he had basically figured out what had happened to Shao Caihuan, it was useless for him to stay. They could fetch the ointment suiting Shao Caihuan's case from the Imperial Institute of Medicine, but it would probably produce little effect. He had told them at the beginning that if Shao Caihuan had too many red spots, they might leave scars.
But the imperial physician didn't know what exactly was going to happen. It was the first time he had seen this kind of red spot. The Third Miss Shao, whose face was covered with these horrifying red spots, would probably be disfigured!
...
After telling the little eunuch following him here to fetch the ointment, the imperial physician left in a hurry to report this matter. This was a serious problem. How could a Miss from the Vice Minister's Manor get the poison that had been locked up?
"Nanny, I know who trapped me. Nanny, please uphold justice!" With her face covered with a veil, Shao Caihuan struggled to walk out through the door of the inner room with the help of her maid, knelt in front of the Nanny in charge, and said, revealing a pair of red eyes filled with hatred.