Chapter 5 Chapter Five

The palace attendant next to Concubine Li took me to the side of the Shensi Hall, where I saw a young man in a fine attire who was hunching over and holding a round fan in the palace, vigorously fanning a small stove. Standing up, with a smoky face, staring at us vigilantly, I was taken aback, the palace servant saluted, and slowly explained the decision of Concubine Li and the emperor. "Oh! It's Hibiscus!" The prince looked at me with a dark face for a while, finally recognized me, and smiled at me: "You are very well dressed today, I didn't recognize you for a while. .”

I was thinking stupidly, as if a black man was laughing with his mouth open in the dark!Those teeth are quite white! The palace man on the side tried his best to hold back his laughter and told the whole story. "Empress Li is still thoughtful." The prince sat back again, continued to fan slowly, and hummed: "Why hasn't this medicine been prescribed yet? It must be that these slaves haven't added good charcoal. The heat is not enough." I sat down, thinking that he was also very tired, so I stretched out my hand and said: "I heard from the concubine Li that the prince has been working hard for the emperor for the past few days, why don't you let me take a ride for the prince, so that the prince can take a rest .”

I took his round fan and took a look. It was a rather exquisite hanging silk beauty round fan. The beauty in the painting was a little rich, with a pleasant smile, and looked familiar. But I didn't bother to take a closer look at that time. Fanned one, the wind was really low, no wonder the firepower was not enough, saw a book of poems on the side, and said politely: "Mujin, please sit here first, the prince, can you lend me this book of poems." The prince may have thought that I was a good student at first, and wanted to borrow it to read, but he smiled and nodded and handed it over with both hands. .

I really couldn't see his black face, so I smiled and handed over Supa. He looked at me inexplicably, and I pointed to the face. Then he understood. He embarrassedly took it and moved it aside, stretching his waist, After wiping my face, I sat on the sidelines and watched me tinker. I ran to the upper air vent, rolled up the book, and blew it on the stove. Unexpectedly, the fire suddenly became a little bigger, and the prince jumped up in fright. I hurriedly apologized, and finally comforted the prince to sit down, so I took the book instead of the round fan and fanned it vigorously for a while.

I peeked at the prince, and the prince was also looking at me with a frown. I thought to myself, maybe it was my rude appearance that offended the prince. He lowered his eyes and said in a low voice: "Mujin is used to mountains and fields, just now he bumped into the prince, the prince must not blame him." The prince frowned, and was about to speak with a forced smile, when suddenly I noticed a black object lightly falling onto the prince's purple gold crown, I took a closer look, it was a scorpion with flowers in the black, I became nervous , stood up slowly, rolled up the book in his hand, and walked towards the prince: "His Royal Highness..."

Unexpectedly, the prince interrupted me displeasedly: "Mu Jin, this collection of poems is my favorite." I was stunned for a second, the poisonous scorpion quietly crawled towards the prince's side face, and quietly pointed the sting needle at the prince's temple, my cold sweat flowed down, but the prince didn't notice the poisonous scorpion, just reached out Asking me which collection of poems I wanted, he said: "I think Yuanli is not gentle enough, why do you still spoil the gentleness like this, it's just wild..." He was still talking about my lack of womanhood, brutality and gentleness. I swallowed, flattened the book, handed it to him slowly, pulled out a hairpin with one hand, and whispered: "Prince, don't move!" .”

Just when the prince was stunned for half a second, I shot out the hairpin, the silver light passed through the poisonous flower scorpion, and nailed it to the opposite pillar with a bang. On the ground, his face turned pale and his forehead was sweating. His hands were trembling, and he saw a black shadow flying quickly from the roof, and it was too late for me to run out of the hall to chase after him. I was about to call out to the guards, but the crown prince grabbed the corner of my robe and shouted in a low voice: "Madam, please don't disturb others, the father's condition has just improved, so as not to worry too much and make the illness more serious."

I suddenly had an idea, if I hadn't been left today and met the prince, wouldn't 90% of the prince have fallen tonight, and the East Court will undergo great changes again, did Dezong have expected that there would be an assassin? ?Once the crown prince died and Dezong was gone, the Wang family behind the crown princess was mainly attached to the crown prince, so it was impossible to do such a murderous thing. Theoretically, the Yuan family should benefit the most. After the Xuanyuan family is cut off, it can be said that they will inherit the throne in accordance with the destiny. But now at the most critical moment of the dispute with Dou Zhou, Yuan Qingjiang should not act rashly like this. I'm afraid only Changfang Yuan Feiqing and Jinxiu are the most likely to attack, and insects are small and easy to hide, and there are only me and the prince here, I am afraid that I will be the number one suspect, and I will not be able to get rid of it. Involving Fei Bai and the Yuan family behind me, thinking of this, the back of my clothes was drenched in cold sweat, and I felt that the deep palace was indeed extremely dangerous.

I helped the prince up and sat down, and then checked the surroundings again. Sure enough, there were no pests. I ran to the poisonous scorpion and carefully pulled out the hairpin through the silk to prevent the venom from the hairpin from splashing on my hands. It happened to be the silver hairpin inlaid with pearls that Xiaoyu gave me before leaving. It was actually a tribute from Songping (another name for Hanoi in ancient times). Zhao, Duan Yuerong was in a good mood, so he secretly took a vacation for himself and ran to Guazhou. At that time, he and Xiaoyu were in high spirits combing a complicated hanging cloud ring flower bun, and he was about to try wearing this silver stick. Hairpin, I was looking at the account, and my head was itchy for a while, and I couldn’t find the old man to be happy, so I grabbed the hairpin and scratched it, and he loosened his black hair, and his face was unhappy like a resentful woman, complaining that I disturbed " "She" as a woman's creativity when dressing up, disliked me for not respecting "her" enough, not being considerate enough for "her", so she said no, I smiled and accepted it, thinking that if you don't want it, don't want it, I just brought it To test the poison, I didn't expect Xiaoyu to pack it with me when I came here. Now that hairpin is completely black, the poison of this flower scorpion is really powerful.

I really didn't expect that Duan Yuerong opened his eyes and saved my life by remote control. I took out a box of celadon rouge box in the sachet, poured out the new powder inside, and put the scorpion in it as a proof. At this time, a middle-aged eunuch came in with a bunch of snacks. The one who passed by, only heard him say: "Changshun was just released by the imperial kitchen, is everything safe, master?" The prince whispered a few words in his ear, and immediately Chang Shun went down with a pale face. After a while, there were more shadows of guards around us, so that night, we were in panic and uneasiness with the prince in the Penglai Hall. Spent.

The next day, when the crown prince and I handed the medicine that we had prepared at the cost of our lives to Qingsi hall, there were many guards in the palace, especially around Qingsi hall. A heroic and strong young man, with the mustache of a handsome noble man nowadays, looked at me with a slightly cold expression. Wang Yuanli was smiling like a flower, but when he saw me following behind the prince, his delicate face immediately collapsed. The prince gave us a brief introduction. It turned out that the young man was the concubine's brother, General Wang Juting, the commander of the right army of the imperial guards. We greeted each other and rushed into the hall with me. Dezong seemed to be in better spirits. He asked the crown prince and princess to take the medicine together. After listening to Concubine Li chatting with us for a while, he looked at Wang Juting and said with a light smile, "It's been very noisy outside recently. ,What's wrong." That Wang Juting knelt down and said: "Last night, someone assassinated the crown prince. Fearing that some thieves would claim that the emperor was seriously ill, they wanted to rebel against him, so they sent more imperial guards. Please forgive the crime." Both the prince and I changed our countenance, thinking how did Wang Juting know, could it be the concubine's eyeliner at the prince again, this is too coincidental.Dezong's expression remained unchanged, he just listened quietly to the crown prince's ins and outs, and then nodded: "Zhou Ting is thoughtful, and it won't be too late to investigate when my health is better, now I just need to alert the family members of the harem. " The prince listened for a while with a cold face, but didn't ask me to show the flower scorpion. After a while, Concubine Li frowned and asked us to kneel down. I didn't sleep well yesterday, so I went back to my room and fell asleep under the gentle care After a while, at night, I was about to go out to accompany the prince to make medicine, but I saw two court ladies coming. I recognized one of them as Chu Yu, who was the emperor's close court lady, and the other was very similar to me in figure and appearance. Split image, but never seen. Chu Yu asked me to change into the clothes of the court lady who looked similar to me, and said that the concubine Li wanted to see me, so I changed my clothes and made up into a very ordinary royal court lady. Then I came to the back door of Qingsi Hall. I was still wondering why the concubine Li wanted to meet me in Qingsi Hall, but I didn’t expect to see Dezong wearing a satin robe with auspicious cloud pattern, sitting on the bed and smiling. Look at me. I dared to kneel down, and Dezong told me to flatten my body: "Don't be afraid, Mujin, I want to ask about Xu'er's assassination last night." The Xuanyuan family is really powerful, I guess Wang Juting didn't say anything, people already knew everything about yesterday, and I didn't ask how Dezong knew, so I took out the flower scorpion in my cuff, and roughly explained yesterday . Dezong thought for a while, then got up slowly, revealing the bedside table behind him engraved with Erlong Xizhu, he put his hand on the mahogany board of the bedside table lightly, the dragon on the left opened its mouth, and a big black rat clicked It ran out yo-yo, which was ten centimeters long, raised its front paws, and stared at me with small black eyes. "Madam is not an ordinary weak girl, so she should not be afraid of mice." Dezong smiled and touched the body of the big black rat: "This is Qingcheng, the Qingcheng with the beauty of the country, I have raised it since I was a child." It's really interesting that a big black mouse that everyone sees as evil has a name of a beautiful woman. I smiled and shook my head: "Mujin often ate rats on the way to escape in the early years, please rest assured, Your Majesty." Unexpectedly, the big black rat seemed to understand my words, looked at me slightly trembling in horror, squeaked, and ran back to Dezong. Dezong laughed and said, "Don't be afraid of Qingcheng, this is Mrs. Huaxi, and she can be regarded as your old friend." Hey? !It doesn't exist in my circle of friends!Dezong continued: "Have you forgotten, her mother once gave you Buddha oil!" After listening to Dezong's words, the black rat ran to me and sniffed for a long time, then nodded to me, then returned to Dezong's side and looked at me. "Qingcheng come to smell the fragrance of this flower scorpion?" Dezong said to the black mouse seriously, gently, as if he was a very good friend, and suddenly remembered the important thing: "Stay away, be careful of poison." Then he smiled at me and said, "Hibiscus knows that everyone has a unique smell. Even if it has been a long time and the distance is far away, people may be able to distinguish it, but mice can still smell it. This is because he is better than us. place." I suddenly realized: "Your Majesty suspects that the people in this palace did it. Your Majesty can let Qingcheng recognize the owner of the flower scorpion?" "You don't need Qingcheng, you just need to tell the man what incense to use, and I can deduce the murderer one or two. Don't forget, I have dealt with incense for decades, let me tell you a secret," Dezong said proudly He chuckled lightly: "Actually, I keep my eyes closed in court, not because I'm too old to sleep, but because I can tell who is courting and who is talking just by using my nose." The big black rat smelled it for a long time, raised its head and squeaked at Dezong for a while, and Dezong's eyes lit up: "Qingcheng has found the master envoy." My heart beats like a drum, don't smell it as the original Qingjiang on the spot, then what should I do? Dezong pointed to a multi-layered large nanmu incense box on the table, and I hurried to get it. Changwang handed me a mask and asked me to cover my nose. I also covered my face under the protection of Changwang. He said lightly: "Don't think that incense is just an ordinary thing, but those who have a little understanding of the way of incense will know that mixing it together can become a kind of poison, which is more deadly than ingesting it in food or drinking water." The big black rat circled around the nanmu incense box, jumped to the top and reached the third floor with its small claws. Dezong was taken aback for a moment: "Are you sure, Qingcheng, these are benzoin." The big black rat stubbornly put its small paws to the third layer, and finally grabbed it eagerly, sliding across scratches.Dezong slowly opened the third layer, and there was a burst of strong aroma. There were a few pieces of spices lying in it. Dezong shook his hands and took it out, put it in his nose and smelled it.His eyes drifted away, and he fell backwards. Changwang and I quickly helped him up, I took the big nanmu incense box away, I wanted to call the imperial doctor, Changwang took out a small green bottle, opened the cap, put it in Dezong's nose and smelled it, Dezong woke up Come here and stare blankly at me, tears slowly streaming from your eyes. Dezong's eyes widened and he looked at me with extreme grief: "The bandit Dou ruined my family. Not only did I not wait to kill him myself, but my family started killing each other." "Is it God's will? After the tenth life, the country will really change hands? Xue reminds Doumu, Yuanchang ape tears? The birth of the twins, the Dragon Lord Jiutian" He looked at me a little desperately, and muttered to himself: "If You are me, what should you do?" I stood there in a daze, not knowing what Dezong was talking about, could it be that the one who assassinated the crown prince was the emperor's clan?Who is it?Xingqing Wang Xuanyuanzhang?Chongnan Wang Xuanyuanke? In that room, Dezong's tears flowed even more violently. He looked at me blankly, his eyes full of heartbreak, and then made a decision. He touched Qingcheng, and said word by word with tears in his eyes: "Two hundred and seven Seventeen." The black mouse nodded again, and ran back to the bedside table. When it came out, it was holding a kind of Ruyi-like gold vessel in its mouth. It was as long as a middle finger, thick at both ends, and short in the middle. The gold vessel had two sides. It is embossed with exquisite peony patterns, and two faces are engraved on each end of the other side, one seems to be sad, and the other is a strange smiling face. Dezong put this golden vessel in my hand: "Thank you Mujin for helping me discover the truth today. This is my gift of thanks. Maybe Mujin will use it one day." I was about to ask Dezong what is this?But Dezong interrupted me with a violent cough and coughed up a big mouthful of blood. Both Changwang and I were terrified. I was pulling Changwang to call the imperial doctor, but Dezong stopped Changwang, Changwang Covering his mouth and crying, he fell to the ground, his old eyes were extremely panicked. "Please rest assured, Your Majesty," I supported Dezong's trembling body: "The crown prince will surely be auspicious, please take care of the dragon's body, Your Majesty, and my wife will call Empress Li to come here immediately." "Stop," Dezong clasped my arm tightly with his skinny hands like chicken feet, and said tremblingly, "Concubine Li bows to the Buddha, I only gave her this kind of benzoin." I was stunned immediately, and at this time Dezong's breathing became extremely difficult, his lips became purple and black, and his veins burst out: "I don't understand, why did she want to kill Xuan'er?" Suddenly he seemed to understand something, and said tearfully, "Mr. Xiang, is that you?!" His eyeballs protruded straight out, his mouth couldn't be closed in time, his pupils suddenly dilated, and he fell heavily on my shoulder, and he couldn't breathe for a while. Before I came back to my senses, Changwang did not run over to give first aid to Dezong, but stepped back step by step, then left us abruptly, ran to the door and shouted loudly: "Come on, your majesty is dying!" , Princess Zhenjing assassinates His Majesty." The 135th volume of "Old Court Book", in May of the third year of Yuanqing, at the time of Geng Wuhai, the year of the sixth year, he died in the Qingsi Hall of the Xinggong Palace in Xijing at the age of 60. Emperor Xiao, whose temple name is Dezong, is benevolent and frugal, respectful, filial and loving the people. He lost his father in his early years, and often cherishes the sorrow of wind and wood. In the Qinling Mountains of Xijing.