Mikago

With the acquiescence of many parties, Zhao Jing successfully arranged for several maids from the East Palace to take up positions in the Crane Feather Palace, and six or seven days passed in the blink of an eye.

These days, Lu You secretly ordered his confidantes to strictly screen Ye Yueshan's food and clothing and other things to ensure that there were no mistakes.The days passed peacefully.

I didn't realize it was the day before the Cold Food Festival.Due to the need to extinguish the fire after dusk, the Shangshi Bureau and the kitchens in the courtyards of the halls are stepping up to make all kinds of cold food, and the Crane Feather Hall is no exception.

And amidst the busyness, an inconspicuous person sneaked into the kitchen, covered it with his sleeve, dripped some suspicious liquid into the prepared meal, and then quickly turned and left.

He thought he was acting covertly, but he never expected that all these actions would fall into the eyes of everyone who had already been on guard.

According to Lu You's previous training, a shrewd little eunuch immediately followed behind the man; someone rushed to Lizao Hall to report the situation.When Lu You heard the news, he immediately sent someone to look for Tang Ruilang in Menxia Province.

Just as Tang Ruilang arrived at Lizao Hall, the little eunuch who happened to be in charge of following the poisoner also turned back.According to his report, after the poisoner left the Crane Feather Palace, he didn't go anywhere, leaving the palace all the way through the Yong'an Gate.

Could it be that someone was following him?

Tang Ruilang didn't care about this, and rushed to Anren Hall immediately.

Anren Hall is the residence of the queens of Daning.After Empress Dowager Xiao was abolished, this place became the residence of Empress Tang Manhua.Anren Hall is not far from Ganlu Hall, Zhao Jing's bedroom, but the emperor doesn't come here often.

Tang Ruilang went into Anren Hall in person and had a secret talk with Tang Manhua.Tang Manhua immediately ordered his subordinates to search carefully everywhere in the hall, presenting all the suspicious items of unknown origin.

Dozens of people searched up and down for more than an hour, even the gaps under the roof tiles were not overlooked, and indeed many discoveries were made.

The various items collected were screened one by one, and everyone finally locked on an inconspicuous porcelain bottle, wrapped in straw paper, and threw it in the gutter at the back of the side hall.

Open the porcelain bottle, there is a little brown juice in it, with a bitter smell.

The crowd did not act rashly, and asked someone to take the mouse trap in the ear room, stick a little juice on the food and feed it to the mice in the cage, and the two mice died instantly.

"It looks like it might be aconite juice." Tang Ruilang speculated.

Knowing the seriousness of the matter, Tang Manhua immediately ordered everyone present to keep silent, and kept the bottle of poison carefully, before asking Tang Ruilang what to do.

Tang Ruilang said: "Sister, now it is clear that someone wants to harm Concubine Shu and frame you. And this person is likely to be Zhao Jing... We can't expose his tricks in person. But forbearance will only make him gain an inch. From my point of view, it’s better to make some indirect remarks.”

After speaking, he told Tang Manhua the countermeasures he had discussed with Lu You.

At the same time, in the Crane Feather Hall.

The news of the discovery of the poison at the Anren Hall has been quickly reported, and the food mixed with the poisonous juice is also presented in front of the hall, and the poisoned rat corpse is lying quietly on the side.

Lu You looked at Ye Yueshan with his hands behind his back, with a solemn expression.

"This is what Zhao Kyung wants to do to you. If we hadn't discovered it early, you would be dead by now! In his eyes, you and the child in your belly are just tools, and Zhao Kyung is right Tools don’t have feelings, and it’s even more impossible for a tool to become the Queen of Daning... Do you understand now?!”

Ye Yueshan leaned on the beauty's couch, her eyes were absent-minded, looking at the rat corpse for a while, and looking out the window for a while.

After a long time, she finally spoke reluctantly, "Perhaps, these were designed by the Tang family to frame the emperor? Perhaps, the Tang family wanted to seize power and usurp the throne, so they deliberately confused your mind and made you their accomplice... "

"...I think you are the one who is bewitched!!"

Helpless to the extreme, Lu You finally couldn't help becoming angry.

He stepped forward and forced Ye Yueshan to look up at him.

"Wake up! How do you want me to prove it to you? How else can I prove it?! I beg you, sister, please open your eyes and take a look at the reality! It is... Zhao Jing may have saved You have one life, but now he wants you to use two lives to make up for it, do you really want him to get what he wants?"

Ye Yueshan couldn't escape from his shackles, so she had to turn her head away.Tears were brimming with tears, still rolling in her eye sockets, she looked very pitiful.

However, Lu You understood that pity is sometimes a kind of harm.

He finally took a deep breath and pressed Ye Yueshan's shoulder.

"You are my older sister, and I will do my best to protect you no matter what. If you are really killed by Zhao Kyung, I will risk my life and burn everything! So, if you still have even a little bit of brotherly affection for me, Just cherish your own life and don't let me put myself in danger for you..."

Ye Yueshan was forced to retreat irresolutely, after shaking several times, she finally shed tears.

"I understand."

She responded in a low voice, as if breathing her last breath.

------

In the evening of this day, the Cold Food Festival slowly kicked off.

Inside the palace city, the stove candles were extinguished one after another, and the whole palace city slowly fell into a gloomy blackness.

Emperor Jing Hui sat in the Zichen Palace, watching the palace people fetch the night pearls and put them one by one into the copper plate held by the bronze lamp slave.

He was waiting for someone who would hurry to deliver the bad news.For him, this bad news may be a bolt from the blue sky, or it may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The palace people had already put all the night pearls into the copper plate, and the whole hall was instantly filled with blue-white cold light.Zhao Kyung couldn't see his own shadow, it was twisting on the French screen behind him, like a ghost.

After an unknown amount of time, someone finally came in a hurry, but it was not the person he was waiting for, but the envoy of An Ren Dian.

The envoy came to report that just now a suspicious person had come to Anren Hall and wanted to poison the empress's cold food.At this moment, the person has escaped, but the poisoning equipment has been thrown down.

"Oh, there is such a thing?" Zhao Jing raised his eyebrows slightly, as if in shock, "Someone dared to murder the current queen in this Zichen Palace? We must investigate to the end!"

Because of Emperor Jing Hui's words, the cold food inner court banquet that had been prepared for a long time was suddenly cancelled.The inner guards and servants searched the inside and outside of Zichen Palace, but naturally found nothing.

At the end of the matter, it was naturally Zhao Jing who comforted the "frightened" queen Tang Manhua. At the same time, the matter of poisoning was played down in this way.

But Zhao Jing is not stupid, he understands that Tang Manhua has already sensed the existence of danger.And the Tang family, like a dangerous poisonous snake, has raised its head vigilantly.

As a snake catcher who is determined to win, all he has to do now is to temporarily stop his movements and create an illusion of silence to confuse his opponent.

However, although the progress in the palace has been suspended, there are still many opportunities "outside".

After all, his advisor, Jiang Qiguang, had already thought up a hundred schemes to crush all those who tried to prevent him from regaining his power.

----

On the first day of the Qingming Festival, King Duan Zhao Rongze, surrounded by his attendants and guards, took a new fire and headed to Tianwu Palace again in a carriage.

This is his second trip west.What is different from the previous time is that this time, he will live and practice martial arts in the Tianwu Palace for a long time, avoid the open and secret struggles above the court, and experience the more mysterious and wild world on the other side—Jianghu Wulin.

After the Qingming Festival, the city of Zhaojing ushered in a brilliant spring full of purples and reds.

Emperor Jinghui presided over the first imperial examination in the Yuanping period, and selected the top three in the imperial examination.It's another year by the Quehua Pool, fresh clothes and angry horses, lashing out at Fang Qiu.

Among the flowers and flowers all over the city, only the cases exposed by the censors from all over the country flew to the court like snowflakes, laying out a different kind of chill.

Starting from various provinces and states, these living puppets controlled by Jiang Qiguang are eroding the political and economic power of Daning at a strange speed from slow to fast.

And when these local forces have been devoured, one can imagine what awaits the courtiers of the capital.

Realizing this, Tang Ruilang has already begun to contact colleagues from all over the world to discuss countermeasures.And Lu You also strengthened the daily contact with the commanders of the Forbidden Army and Sixteen Guards, and continued to consolidate the precious resources that Qi Yunchu had left for him.

The stalemate between the courtiers and the emperor, although there are no traces on the surface, is deeply turbulent.And this kind of turmoil can only intensify, until one of them is completely suppressed, and it can't happen again.

And in this increasingly tense atmosphere, there was another unexpected major event that disrupted all the rhythm of the pace——

Xirong Guidi suddenly declared war on Daning.