Duoduo tilted her little head. “Then who is it?”
Xiao Yi looked at Duoduo. “Consort Shu.”
“Consort Shu?” Duoduo repeated Xiao Yi’s words.
Suddenly, Duoduo remembered what she had done.
She felt a bit guilty and lowered her head to look at the painting.
“Don’t you have anything to explain to me?” Xiao Yi asked, somewhat amused.
Duoduo scratched her palm.
“Uh, last time she bullied me, so I gave her a little poison.”
“But that poison only made her uncomfortable for a while. It wasn’t life-threatening.”
“There’s no need for her to be so petty as to want the entire prince’s mansion dead!”
By the end, Duoduo was speaking as if she were in the right.
Xiao Yi poked Duoduo’s forehead.
“The concubines in the rear palace have nothing to do all day but compete for the emperor’s favor.”
“For a consort, her appearance is her weapon.”
“You destroyed what Consort Shu relies on to survive. Of course, she’d retaliate wildly.”
Duoduo leaned her head back and covered her forehead, looking innocent.
“The poison I gave her only makes her whole body itch. It doesn’t ruin her face!”
Xiao Yi’s interest was piqued.
“Itch? Just an itch?”
Duoduo nodded vigorously. “Yes, just an itch. But it’s the kind of itch that ordinary people can’t endure.”
“The more she scratches, the itchier it gets. Even if she scratches until it bleeds, it won’t lessen.”
“But once the poison is cured, she’ll be fine.”
“Father, I’m not that malicious. I didn’t want to ruin her face!”
Duoduo defended herself indignantly.
Xiao Yi looked thoughtful.
The news he had received was that Consort Shu’s face had been ruined, and she was seeking remedies everywhere.
“Is it possible,” he said, “that your poison, when used on Consort Shu, might ruin her face?”
Duoduo quickly shook her head.
“Impossible! Unless someone else poisoned her on top of that!”
Things in the palace were complicated, with relationships tangled like a web—it was hard to say.
Still, Consort Shu dared to poison the Prince of Pingyang’s mansion. He couldn’t just let this slide easily!
Duoduo looked up.
“Father, if this person is dead, does that mean the trail is cut?”
Xiao Yi snapped back to attention. He looked at the person in the portrait and nodded.
“Now we have to wait and see if anyone else shows up.”
Duoduo sighed.
“If only I had found this person sooner!”
Xiao Yi patted Duoduo’s head.
“We haven’t come away empty-handed. At least we know which palace this person belongs to.”
“But if this really is Noble Consort Li’s person, how could he die so easily?” Duoduo raised a doubt.
A look of approval appeared in Xiao Yi’s eyes.
“Exactly. So his real master must be someone else!”
Duoduo tilted her head, following Xiao Yi’s line of thought.
Suddenly, she understood.
“He’s Consort Shu’s man?”
Xiao Yi nodded. “That makes sense.”
Duoduo clenched her little fists in anger. “If I had known it was her earlier, I’d have given her a dose of Yizhanghong!”
Xiao Yi was amused by Duoduo’s reaction.
“What poison is that? And besides, if you poison the emperor’s consort, can you escape blame?”
A sly glint flashed in Duoduo’s eyes.
“Master Zhang taught me poisons that are colorless and odorless. She’d never find out.”
“Yizhanghong makes the victim feel sharp pain all over at intervals. Each time is more painful than the last. Eventually, the person can’t stand it and kills themselves.”
“Because the interval is about the length of a zhang (a unit of distance), it’s called Yizhanghong.”
Xiao Yi’s eyes deepened.
“How many poisons has Master Zhang taught you to make?”
Duoduo sensed the change in Xiao Yi’s tone and tried to stay calm.
“The master taught me what he should. The rest I figured out myself.”
Xiao Yi paused for a moment.
He had forgotten—Duoduo was exceptionally gifted.
“Don’t think others won’t find out. Otherwise, Consort Shu wouldn’t have been so aggressive this time.”
Duoduo was unconvinced.
“But she had bad intentions from the start!”
Xiao Yi’s face darkened.
“You’re getting bold now? I say one thing, and you talk back ten times?”
Duoduo glanced secretly at Xiao Yi and lowered her head.
“I’m just discussing things with you, Father.”
“Everything you say, I keep in my heart.”
Xiao Yi found it kind of amusing.
“If you want to act, don’t leave any evidence behind.”
“Prince Xian is using the tactic of killing with a borrowed knife. Do you understand?”
Duoduo nodded.
“Father, I remember.”
Suddenly, Duoduo thought of something regarding Xiao Che. She hesitated for a moment, then spoke tentatively.
“Father, a few days ago, when I was on my way back from the rain prayer ceremony, I ran into the Eighth Prince.”
Xiao Yi rolled up the portrait on the table and put it aside. He found Duoduo’s words a bit odd.
“What was the Eighth doing there?”
Duoduo shook her head.
“I didn’t ask.”
“But when I met him, he was being chased by a group of people.”
Xiao Yi’s eyes narrowed. “Did those people see you?”
Duoduo thought for a moment. “Probably not.”
“It was a gloomy day. He ran over first, trying to take Lüdou hostage and seize our carriage.”
“I had the coachman tie him up, and we rode for a while before I realized it was him.”
“Oh, he also studies at the Imperial Academy.”
Duoduo glanced at Xiao Yi. “He sits next to me.”
Xiao Yi nodded, signaling her to continue.
“Then, right as we entered the city gate, he got off.”
“Later, we saw a group of people chasing him into a small alley.”
Duoduo looked at Xiao Yi after finishing.
“He hasn’t come to school for the past few days.”
“Father, is he dead?”
Duoduo thought about that golden character, which always said Xiao Che should have died long ago.
A strange look passed Xiao Yi’s eyes.
“Father hasn’t heard anything about it.”
Xiao Yi sank into thought, processing what Duoduo had said.
“Yunxiao!”
“Your Highness!” Yunxiao pushed open the door.
When he saw Duoduo sitting on Xiao Yi’s lap, there was a flicker of surprise on his face.
“Go look into the Eighth Prince. Find out what’s been happening with him lately!”
Yunxiao clasped his hands and quickly left.
Xiao Yi looked thoughtfully at Duoduo. “Are you very concerned about the Eighth Prince?”
Duoduo hurriedly shook her head.
“No!”
On second thought, she realized her behavior might be misunderstood, so she explained.
“I was just wondering who those people were—daring to kill an imperial prince!”
“How could they be so bold? Doesn’t Imperial Grandfather know anything about this?”
Xiao Yi looked at Duoduo. “Do you remember the Eighth Prince’s background?”
Duoduo tilted her head, thinking back.
“He’s the son of a palace maid that Imperial Grandfather favored when he was drunk.”
Xiao Yi nodded. “That maid was from Noble Consort Li’s palace.”
Duoduo blinked her eyes.
“Then his mother must be something, to have given birth to him!”
As the foremost woman in the rear palace, how could Noble Consort Li tolerate a maid climbing into the emperor’s dragon bed?
