Changsheng: Peak at the Beginning

Chapter 148: Legend of Zhen Huan 20

However, the emperor never found out who was the mastermind behind the incident. But he had some idea, but it was not easy to continue the investigation. So after implicating many eunuchs, palace maids, people in the flower and plant room, and people in the purchasing department, he told Yi Xin that it was the concubines who did it, and the matter was concluded.

Then Concubine Hua was deprived of power and reprimanded for her poor management, while Yi Xin was left with only a large number of gold, silver, jewelry and ornaments.

Concubine Hua was unhappy, and Yi Xin was even more unhappy, so the Queen, who was far away in the palace, suffered.

The Queen went out early in the morning to attend to the Queen Mother in Shoukang Palace, but unexpectedly, just as she walked out of Jingren Palace, she tripped over the threshold in full view of everyone, breaking her arm on the spot, cracking her upper lip, and losing two front teeth.

Since then, Yi Xin's life has finally been completely stable.

Lady Guaerjia passed on what happened in the Old Summer Palace to Ma Qi through the Dong family. Ma Qi already had some scattered evidence of the Queen's persecution of Queen Chunyuan. He knew that the Queen must have been responsible for Yi Xin's incident, but as the Queen Mother was still alive, he refrained from attacking the Queen for the time being.

Not taking action against the Queen for the time being does not mean that nothing else can be done, so all the relatives of the Queen's family who were officials in the capital were ostracized and impeached. Within just half a month, almost no one from the Queen's family was holding a position in the capital.

The emperor knew that this was all done by Fucha, but he didn't understand why Fucha was so sure that the oleander in Yixin's palace was a trick of the queen. Instead, he felt that Fucha was unruly and had opinions about Yixin.

Since the death of Empress Chunyuan, the Empress Dowager was just her half-sister in the emperor's heart. She was no longer his concubine or successor. Even the position of Empress Dowager was only given to her for the sake of Empress Chunyuan and Ulanara's face.

As for the fact that the Queen soon lost her power in the palace, on the one hand, the Emperor needed to use this to show his importance to Concubine Hua and the Nian family; on the other hand, this power in the palace was something that Queen Chunyuan had never obtained, and the Emperor did not want Queen Chunyuan's concubine sister to get it easily.

Besides, the Queen has always been overly cautious in doing things, and the Queen Mother is always there to clean up the mess. Although the Emperor has always suspected that someone in the harem was causing trouble, he has never suspected the Queen. Therefore, even if he had some vague suspicions about the Queen this time, he did not want the harem to lose balance, so he only punished the palace people and put the blame on the Queen Mother.

However, the emperor had already made up his mind to use Yi Xin to check and balance Hua Fei, so after Hua Fei lost her palace power for more than half a month in August, the emperor returned the palace power to Hua Fei, and let Yi Xin have the title of assistant manager. In addition, he brought out Wanpin to share Hua Fei's power.

At first, Wanpin didn't want to get involved in palace power so quickly. After all, she knew that her favor in the harem was unmatched, so she had to make some choices in other areas.

But the emperor was right. Concubine Hui was now pregnant and was taking care of her baby, so she could not continue to share power with Concubine Hua. Yi Xin was about to give birth, but she was only given a title, and even after she gave birth to a prince, she could not even give her this title. Right now, the only one in the Old Summer Palace who had the ability to share power with Concubine Hua was Concubine Wan.

Wanpin happily took over half of the palace power, but Huafei could not use the same methods on her that she had used on Hui Guiren. Moreover, even if Hui Guiren was not feeling well and could not continue to work hard, she could still give Wanpin some simple pointers. Therefore, Huafei immediately arranged for people to be ready to expose Hui Guiren's fake pregnancy at any time.

On the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th, Yi Xin did not attend the family dinner because she might give birth at any time. She only sent some transparent sweet mooncakes with fruit fillings made of cassava flour to various places.

At night, the emperor and Wanpin came together. Hua Fei drank a glass of wine without being bothered. Fortunately, the emperor quickly pulled her aside and said a lot of praise to calm her restless heart, otherwise Wanpin would have been embarrassed.

Halfway through the family dinner, a young eunuch hurried to Su Peisheng to report that Concubine Hui and a palace maid named Fuling had secretly taken a bag of blood-stained private clothes and were preparing to burn them, but were caught by patrolling guards.

As soon as Su Peisheng heard it, he knew who was planning to frame Concubine Hui. He was just thinking about how to reply when he heard the emperor ask, "Su Peisheng, what happened?"

Su Peisheng quickly gave Wanpin a look, then lowered his head and returned to the emperor's side and replied directly: "The patrolling guards caught a maid in Hui Guiren's palace. The maid brought a bag of clothes and wanted to burn it..."

Hua Fei finally got the result she wanted. She quickly put down her wine glass and advised the emperor: "Your Majesty, Concubine Hui is still pregnant. Everything around her cannot be neglected."

The emperor had a hunch that something was wrong, but he was relieved to see that Concubine Hua did not cause any trouble, so he smiled and took Concubine Hua's hand, saying with emotion: "I have noticed that you always target Concubine Wan and Concubine Hui, but now it seems that you just love me too much."

Hua Fei was still looking at the Emperor shyly and affectionately, but Li Fei couldn't wait to see Hui Guiren's happy ending, so she immediately stood up and suggested, "Your Majesty, today is just some ordinary singing and dancing anyway, why don't we sisters go and find out what the maid wants to do to Hui Guiren, so that Hui Guiren can be more cautious."

Hua Fei should have directly agreed to Li Bin's proposal, but because the emperor was good at creating a good atmosphere, she couldn't bear to ruin the warmth in front of her, so she asked the emperor: "What do you think, Your Majesty?"

The emperor thought about it for a moment and felt that it would be better to go and interrogate the girl in person. After all, he didn't care much about the baby in Yi Xin's belly right now, but the baby in Concubine Hui's belly was quite important.

So a group of people went to Concubine Hui in a mighty manner, but Concubine Qi was more concerned about her son Hongshi, so she left halfway.

The emperor brought a group of women to Concubine Hui's residence. The maid named Fuling had been detained in the palace. Seeing that the emperor did not speak, Concubine Hua took on the responsibility of asking questions: "What is your name? What are you doing in Concubine Hui's palace?"

Fuling was so frightened that she was trembling all over, but after Hua Fei asked again and again, she still spoke with a trembling voice: "I am Fuling, doing the cleaning work in Hui Guiren's palace."

Of course, Concubine Hui would not take the initiative to pick a palace maid who cleans the house, but Caiyue, the first-class maid beside her, stepped forward to confirm that this Fuling was someone from their palace.

Someone else brought the package that Fuling was holding over. Concubine Hua took a quick look and found a few pairs of bloody pants. She turned around and asked, "Whose things are these? Why did you burn them in private?!"

Wanpin knew at a glance what Concubine Hua was planning, and even realized that everything that happened today might be a trap set by Concubine Hua. However, she couldn't think of how Concubine Hua wanted to frame Concubine Hui, so she couldn't even say a word to excuse Concubine Hui.

As expected, under the emperor's threat, Fuling trembled and said that the thing in the package she wanted to burn was Concubine Hui's bloody underwear, because Concubine Hui had something wrong with her stomach.

The emperor had roughly understood that all this was probably planned by Concubine Hua, so he solemnly asked people to invite a few more imperial doctors to re-diagnose Concubine Hui's pulse, and emphasized to call Liu Bin over.

However, four imperial physicians came to the Imperial Medical Bureau, but Liu Bin had disappeared. Su Peisheng said that he had arranged for people to go to Liu Bin's house to look for him, but it would take some time to get the results.